Welcome to the sixth annual FANBOYS FILM AWARDS!
Based on the layout of last year's change to this segment, this will be acting more as a personal list of just the movies that I've seen this year, rather than something that attempts to focus specifically on the superhero film genre as originally conceived.
I invite everyone to join in on the fun by leaving their own lists and thoughts in the comments below to tell us what you watched this year!
FILMS THAT CAME OUT IN 2022 THAT I WATCHED:
The Adam Project
Amsterdam
The Bad Guys
Barbarian
The Batman
Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons
Black Adam
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
The Black Phone
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Bullet Train
Catwoman: Hunted
Choose or Die
Clerks III
DC League of Super-Pets
Death on the Nile
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Don't Worry Darling
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Fresh
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Green Lantern: Beware My Power
Jackass Forever
Lamb
Lightyear
Men
The Menu
Morbius
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind
Nope
Pearl
Pinocchio
Prey
Prey for the Devil
Samaritan
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Spiderhead
Thor: Love and Thunder
Top Gun: Maverick
Umma
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Watcher
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
The Whale
FILMS THAT CAME OUT BEFORE 2022 THAT I WATCHED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 2022:
After Yang
Awakenings
Encanto
Interview with a Vampire
Nightmare Alley
No Man of God
Ouija: Origin of Evil
Peninsula
The Babadook
The Devil All the Time
The Guilty
The Innocents
The Karate Kid
The Karate Kid Part II
The Karate Kid Part III
The Man Who Knew Too Little
The Next Karate Kid
The Prince of Egypt
The Princess and the Frog
The Wasteland
Train to Busan
Vivarium
BEST / FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE YEAR
There are no S-tier movies from this year that I'd give a 9 or a 10 out of 10 rating to and instantly went on my list of "top favorite movies ever" or anything of that sort.
Probably my absolute top film from this year would be The Batman. That shouldn't be too surprising, considering that's my favorite character in the entire history of fiction for any type of media. But it was also just a rock solid movie.
Other A-tier type films (roughly an 8/10) from this year would be:
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- Bullet Train
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
- Everything Everywhere All At Once
- Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
B-tier (roughly a 7/10) would be:
- Interview with a Vampire
- The Karate Kid 1-3 (Note: Pure enjoyment. Not the "quality" of the movies.)
- The Menu
- Nope
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2
- Top Gun: Maverick
- Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
C-tier (roughly a 6/10) would be:
- The Bad Guys
- Clerks III
- DC League of Super-Pets
- Peninsula
- Prey
- Thor: Love and Thunder
- Train to Busan
- The Whale
D-tier (roughly a 5/10 and the cutoff of what I mostly enjoyed) would be:
- After Yang
- The Adam Project
- Amsterdam
- Awakenings
- Barbarian
- The Black Phone
- Death on the Nile
- The Devil All the Time
- Encanto
- Jackass Forever
- Lightyear
- The Princess and the Frog
- Vivarium
Beyond that point, all the other movies listed above on my watch list would be E-tier or lower, and there isn't much of a reason to rank them, as they were all disappointing if not horrible.
WORST / LEAST FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE YEAR
- I watched a lot of horror movies that I never would have seen just because my wife is super into them. The vast majority of those movies were on my worst of the year, easily, like Choose or Die.
- Pinocchio was particularly bad. I was surprised at how bad it is.
- Samaritan was one of the most disappointing. It had a decent premise, but was SO poorly executed that I hated nearly every minute of it.
- Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind and Catwoman: Hunted prove why these movies don't get theatrical releases. They're garbage. I didn't like Green Lantern: Beware My Power or Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons either.
- Speaking of bad comic book films, Black Adam was the drizzling shits. They had all that time to make that movie and THAT is the best they could come up with?
- Morbius gives Black Adam a run for its money, though. Absolutely terrible across the board.
- Men might be the movie that pissed me off the most, though. The ending of that film completely ruined it for me and just got me annoyed that I had sat through what seemed like something that could have been interesting or had potential, only to devolved into that drivel.
- The Next Karate Kid is such a downgrade from the previous three films and the Cobra Kai television series that it might as well not exist.
BEST ACTOR
WINNER = Austin Butler (Elvis) or Brendan Fraser (The Whale)
EXPLANATION = As much as I couldn't care less about Elvis whatsoever, and I only watched this movie because a family member really wanted to see it, this portrayal felt like the real deal. But then on December 29th, I saw The Whale, and Brendan Fraser is giving me pause to not pick Austin Butler necessarily. So screw it. It's a tie.
HONORABLE MENTIONS = Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), Daniel Radcliffe (Weird: The Al Yankovic Story), Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Kenneth Branagh (Death on the Nile), Ralph Fiennes (The Menu), Tom Cruise (Top Gun: Maverick), Tom Hanks (Elvis)
BEST ACTRESS
WINNER = Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
EXPLANATION = Multiple versions of the same character while doing all those stunts. Awesome.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
WINNER = Colin Farrell as Penguin in The Batman
EXPLANATION = When he was first announced, I couldn't picture him playing the part. Who would have known he'd dissolve himself so much into the part that I can't picture him playing it because it's so good that it doesn't seem like Colin Farrell?
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
WINNER = Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
EXPLANATION = She killed it.
BEST STORY
This is an alternative to Best Adapted/Original Screenplay where the execution of the overall product might not be the equivalent of Best Picture, but the idea was there.
WINNER = Everything Everywhere All At Once
EXPLANATION = I try not to count films from before this year, otherwise I'd potentially give this to Interview with a Vampire. EEAAO was not what I was expecting, but in a good way. It felt very fresh.
MOST FAITHFUL ADAPTATION
Which movie felt like it was the most honorable to the source material it was trying to represent?
WINNER = Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
EXPLANATION = The Batman made some changes that I wasn't as big of a fan of (like Bruce's hairstyle) while Wakanda Forever was the best possible story they could have told given the circumstances and fits perfectly in the tone of the MCU as a follow-up to the first film, whereas something like Thor: Love and Thunder was too jokey at the expense of its own movie.
BEST VISUALS
This covers special effects, cinematography, production design and even editing.
WINNER = Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
EXPLANATION = If not for the sheer variety of it.
BEST ACTION SET PIECES
This honors the stunt work as well as the choreography and idea of an action sequence.
WINNER = Bullet Train or Everything Everywhere All At Once (tie)
EXPLANATION = Two completely different style movies. Bullet Train is more of "some dude's favorite movie" action. EEAAO is more ambitious to do something different and unique.
BEST CHARACTER DESIGN
This combines makeup, costumes and the CGI build of characters.
WINNER = Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
EXPLANATION = Look at how many characters we got, and how many they did right. Quantity can take the edge in something like this.
BEST MUSIC
This category examines both the score and the soundtrack.
WINNER = Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
EXPLANATION = Ludwig Göransson wins for Con La Brisa alone. The Rihanna song is good, too, though.
TELL US YOUR LIST IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!
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