National Board Of Review Names ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Its Best Film Of 2022

When you think of a classic James Cameron action film, such as “Terminator,” “T2: Judgment Day,” “True Lies,” and definitely “Aliens,” you think about huge, violent action set pieces with lots and lots of guns. Today, Cameron is a different type of filmmaker, especially when it comes to gun violence, and he’s not sure if he could ever go back to the type of action he did previously.

In what has become an end-of-year tradition, Barack Obama revealed his favorite movies of 2022. The list is, as usual for Obama, weighted toward prestige films. One title that’s not on the list: Avatar: The Way of Water.

Avatar: The Way of Water‘s mega-publicized opening has brought movies back into the conversation, but movie-makers seem to have been lost in the mist. James Cameron’s persona is ablaze across the media but, by contrast, the very personal work of Sam Mendes, James Gray and even Steven Spielberg has done a fade-out in recent weeks.

The Black Film Critics Circle (BFCC) has voted The Woman King Best Film of 2022, Danielle Deadwyler Best Actress for Till and Brendan Fraser for The Whale. For Best Director Gina Prince-Bythewood for The Woman King The announcement was made today by Mike Sargent, co-president, BFCC. Votes were cast and tabulated in New York City at the organization’s annual meeting on December 17, 2022.

It has been apparent in talking to Oscar voters across many branches that the one title that keeps coming up at the top of their lists is Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front, which is the German entry for International Feature Film. That it has strength across the board though is borne out with the Oscar shortlists in 10 categories released Wednesday by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

More than a year ago, Matt Damon was at the Cannes Film Festival talking to an audience, and the actor shared an embarrassing story. He revealed that James Cameron called him up and offered him the lead in “Avatar,” and the filmmaker even offered him a lucrative deal worth 10% of the film’s profits if he would do it.

The wig gives it away, otherwise we’d be hard-pressed to immediately – or even slowly – recognize Paul Bettany’s fast-talking, extroverted and inquisitive artist character in Anthony McCarten’s The Collaboration as that historic icon of cryptic, mumbled monosyllables Andy Warhol.

When James Cameron delivered Avatar in 2009, none of us quite grasped that this was not a movie but a constellation of movies – one that will represent a multibillion-dollar investment in the coming years. One iteration is even booked for 2028.

With 14 nominations, five of them for actors, A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once racked up the highest total among films in contention for the 28th annual Critics Choice Awards for Film. Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans was next, also grabbing five noms for its cast out of 11 overall to score the including three for Spielberg as producer, director and co-writer of his autobiographical story.

James Cameron always swings for the fences — no singles, doubles, triples or even stealing home for him — and he’s hit a grand slam with the long-awaited Avatar: The Way of Water. This second installment in a five-film series of Avatar features from 20th Century Studios/Disney (with three more to open at two-year intervals through 2028) more than fulfills the promise of the original, which was released in 2009, before some of its fans were even born. The film is beautiful, obsessive and eventful, a depiction of a veritable Eden threatened by voraciously destructive forces both natural and man-made. No one who enthused over the original would think of missing this follow-up, which ups the ante for all that is to come, creatively and financially.

Over the course of 2022, a Nicole Kidman-narrated ad for AMC Theatres has evolved from a campy meme into something of a communal prayer offered at the secular chapel of the movie theater. The fragments she incants evocatively describe the power of cinema when wielded at its maximalist best: “we go somewhere we’ve never been before,” “dazzling images on a huge silver screen,” “sound I can feel.” The year ends for audiences with a movie that genuinely deserves to follow such a paean: James Cameron’s long-delayed, much-anticipated “Avatar: The Way of Water.” READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2022 The specious claims that the original “Avatar” had no cultural impact evaporate all but instantly when Cameron plunges viewers back into the realm of Pandora.

The NYFCC had their say, the National Board of Review surprised and, now, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association has anointed their Best Film for 2022. Or, should we rephrase that as “films”? For the first time since 1976, LAFCA chose two films for their top prize: Todd Field’s “TAR” and The Daniels’ “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” “Tar” also took Best Director, Best Screenplay and one of the Lead Performance honors.

Ruben Östlund’s latest satire, Triangle of Sadness, dominated the European Film Awards with four wins, including Best Film, the evening’s top prize.

Tom Cruise has become notorious for performing his own stunts, and Top Gun: Maverick is no exception. In fact, the entire cast underwent intense training in order to perform many of the wild aerial stunts that audiences saw on screen when they flocked to theaters in May to see Cruise reprise his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell more than three decades after the first film hit the big screen.

Deadline’s signature Contenders event hits downtown Los Angeles on Saturday for a hybrid in-person/virtual edition, partnering with the inaugural LA3C, the cultural festival developed by Deadline parent company PMC.

Actress, screenwriter and director Kristen Stewart has been named president of the International Jury at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival.“We’re excited about Kristen Stewart taking on this distinguished task. She’s one of the most talented and multi-faceted actors of her generation,” festival directors Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian said in a statement. “From Bella Swan to the Princess of Wales she has given life to everlasting characters.

No other film caused as big a sensation this year as “Top Gun: Maverick.” No other movie made as much money either, with Joseph Kosinski‘s film making $1.478 billion at the worldwide box office. Time will tell if James Cameron‘s “Avatar: The Way Of Water” overtakes “Maverick” on both fronts, but there’s one thing that film won’t do: it won’t be the National Board Of Review‘s Best Picture of 2022.

The National Board of Review today named the top-grossing film of 2022 as its Best Film of the year.

Iraqi filmmaker Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji picked up the Golden Yusr for Best Feature Film at the Red Sea Film Festival with his debut feature Hanging Gardens.

They thought “Titanic” was a disaster. “Avatar” was an expensive mess that would never make a profit.