With the cost of living crisis, the almost continual cycle of governmental scandals, three prime ministers, and the shortest premiership in the nation’s and Parliament’s history, 2022 was by no means a quiet year on the current affairs front in the UK. Yet, for the British film industry, it was comparatively quiet when it came to film releases, although as the saying goes, “quality over quantity.”
Updated April 28th 2023: If you’re a fan of UK and Irish Films, you’ll be happy to know that this article has been updated by Kelly Swift with additional content.
This was the secret to its success in previous years, with UK films having enjoyed the fruits of their labor at the Academy Awards, with notable wins for films such as The Favourite, Darkest Hour, and The Theory of Everything in recent years. There have certainly been some seriously exceptional films released this year, albeit sporadically, so here are the best British films of 2022.
6 Boiling Point
You’d think years of watching Gordon Ramsay strut around on Kitchen Nightmares would satisfy our appetite for kitchen-based drama. Still, Philip Barantini’s fly-on-the-wall style drama Boiling Point, starring Stephen Graham as head-chef Andy in a career-defining performance, makes Ramsay’s expletive-filled outbursts look like child’s play.
In a one-shot-take, the film follows an evening at an upmarket Michelin-star restaurant in London. After an untimely visit from a food standard inspector, the evening starts off in a tumultuous manner. As the murmurings of discontent in Andy’s personal and work life grow louder and louder throughout the gripping film, the evening goes from bad to worse. Akin to the Safdie Brothers’ anxiety-inducing Uncut Gems and Good Time, Boiling Point builds up this unstoppable, relentless rhythm that throws issue after issue at the increasingly anxious Andy.
5 Belfast
Belfast was released in the UK three months after its U.S. release in 2022, which is ironic considering that it’s set in Northern Ireland; as such, it’s safely a 2022 film for its target audience. Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama is one of the highest-grossing British films of 2022, and in the UK, it became the highest-grossing black and white film in modern years.
Shot in a beautiful monochrome, which lends itself to the atmospheric ambiance of war-torn Belfast, the film tells the story of young Buddy (Jude Hill), whose innocence is tarnished by the ongoing war between then loyalists and the unionists in 1960s Northern Ireland. Living on a street where Catholics and Protestants live relatively harmoniously, the outbreak of the sectarian riots of August 1969 signifies the end of such peace and the delivery of a life-changing ultimatum.
4 The Wonder
A Fantastic Woman and Gloria Bell director Sebastián Lelio returned after his last directorial outing in 2018, with the eerie and unearthly Netflix original, The Wonder. The movie that pitches science versus religion and faith against fact received its worldwide premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September, prior to its wider release on Netflix in November. In Victorian Britain, the phenomenon of “the fasting girl” saw so-called “miracle children” fasting for reportedly months on end, going without the sustenance and nourishment of food.
The Wonder, the screen adaptation of author Emma Donoghue’s 2016 novel of the same name, tells the fictional tale of Anna, an 11-year-old Irish girl said to have fasted since her 11th birthday. Lib (Florence Pugh), a forthright and salt-of-the-earth English nurse is drafted in to conduct a “watch,” whereby a two-week-long observation of the girl takes place. In this veering-on-psychedelic drama, Lelio confronts the argument of humanism, objective truth, and science in an era still devoutly God-fearing, yet one where the empirical studies and questioning voices of Marx and Darwin became so hard to ignore.
3 Living
A remake of the 1954 Japanese film from Akira Kurosawa, Ikiru, Oliver Hermanus’ Living is a lesson in mortality and a picture that embodies the cliché of “carpe diem”. The British adaptation of the classic is unsurprising, a slight departure from the mise-en-scene of the original, but the moral, and structure remains unadjusted. Set against the backdrop of London, post-WW2, the film follows the tale of Mr. Williams (Bill Nighy) a stiff-upper-lipped, stern-faced civil servant, who lives a miserable existence.
After a routine check-up, Mr. Williams is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he must come to terms with his limited time left while concurrently searching for the meaning of his existence. Living is a saddening, poignant reminder of the temporality of life, and the ease with which it can pass us by. Bill Nighy is so unassumingly brilliant as Mr. Williams, his soft temperament and effortlessly sophisticated air brings the film so much gravitas and sobriety.
2 Aftersun
Aftersun from A24 is an evocative, nostalgia-provoking picture that takes us back to the era of the camcorder and the home-holiday-video. Recorded partly on a DV recorder, and partly in a 35 mm-esque grainy haze, director Charlotte Wells’ debut is seamlessly executed and follows the story of a father, Calum (Paul Mescal), and his daughter, Sophie (Francesca Corio), a Scottish duo who are on a low-key, budget holiday at a Turkish resort.
Calum is deeply contemplative, a divorcee who is clearly battling personal demons, yet remains steadfast in his laid back, unaffected approach with his daughter, Soph, who is portrayed so naturally by Corio, in an understated yet perceptive manner. The warmth of the Turkish sun and the cordial demeanor of its two life-givers in Mescal and Corio make Aftersun such an easy, pleasurable delight of a flick.
1 Joyride
Based in Dublin, documentary filmmaker Emer Reynolds made her fictional debut with the genre-defying film Joyride, which hit theaters on December 23rd of 2022. The film is a melodramatic road trip comedy that follows alcoholic, first time mother, Joy played by Olivia Colman) and her unlikely counterpart Mully, played by Charlie Reid.
After 13-year-old Mully’s mom passes away and his dad attempts to pocket the money raised in her honor, Mully decides to run away with the cash by stealing the first taxi that he sees. What he doesn’t factor into his genius plan, is that Joy is passed out in the backseat of said taxi with her newborn baby. The plot immediately thickens as Joy insists that they continue driving and offers not to press charges if Mully gets her to her destination. The film cleverly sets the unlikely duo up for a long journey, both physically and emotionally.
What makes this film one of the top Irish flicks of 2022 is how Reynolds let the story unfold. It’s evident that her history in documentary filmmaking helped her capture the beauty of the Irish countryside, as well as convey human relationships naturally in fictional films. The film feels poignant because viewers see two people who desperately need one another.
Mully and Joy were both in places where they needed each other’s specific companionship to move on from their painful pasts; Mully needed a maternal figure, while Joy needed a guide into motherhood. The bittersweet road trip has moments of irreverent humor and grief at the same time, making it representative of real life and a film to watch.
