I’m in the very early stages of completing our annual mid-year critics poll. Again, more than 100 lists have been compiled. Participants were asked to submit their picks for the five best of 2022 thus far.
IndieWire used to conduct such a poll, and then they just stopped doing it. I stepped inand took over in 2016. The first few were in tandem with Sasha Stone’s Awards Daily and then in 2019 it was exclusively a World of Reel thing.
This is the 7th year for the poll. Results will be posted sometime next week. As far as my tastes go, the best films released in US theatres, between the months of January and June, have been (in no particular order):
Audrey Diwan’s “Happening,” Gaspar Noe’s “Vortex,” David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future,” Justin Kurzel’s “Nitram,” Richard Linklater’s “Apollo 10 1/2,” Michel Franco’s “Sundown,” Steven Soderbergh’s “Kimi,” Chloe Okuno’s “Watcher,” Daniel Roher’s “Navalny”
I’m now wondering what the community of readers here would choose as their best films of the mid-year. It’s time for you to chime in before the critics do.