Boy Movies #11

The top 20 boy movies of 2022, ranked

You’re reading the final issue of Boy Movies for 2022. We’ll return with more of whatever this is in 2023, which I’m confident will be an absolutely stratospheric year for this newsletter in terms of getting acquired by an eccentric billionaire. Today’s issue is lengthier than usual, but it’s been a few months in the making and I think it’s a fun one. If you agree and are interested in helping me along in my quest to become a worldwide sensation, consider subscribing and sharing with a friend.

Please welcome to the world stage… the Boy Movies Matrix

In a recent Boy Movies board meeting, we got on the topic of what a boy movies matrix would look like. (Not to be confused with The Matrix film series, which in many ways are for girls.) Could this subsection of film possibly be simplified into four easy descriptors? After some debate, we not only came to the conclusion that it can, but also that just about every boy movie exists somewhere within the following four quadrants: hunk, loser, special, or ordinary.

There are caveats — ordinary hunks and special losers exist, of course — but it was shockingly simple to find a place for all thirteen of the films I’ve written about in some capacity since this newsletter began. The definition of what makes a boy movie is always evolving, but the act of narrowing it down to something so uncomplicated and yet so descriptive spoke to me. As we reach the end of Q4 and look toward what 2023 will bring us in terms of boy movies (like, sorry, but what am I, a beautiful woman, supposed to do with Oppenheimer…), now seems like the right time to launch this. Without further ado: the Boy Movies Matrix, as designed by Boy Movies’ art director, Sarah Turbin:

I hope this proves to be a big conversation starter around your holiday dinner table.

Onward and upward

It’s been a strong year for boy movies. There were plenty I saw and didn’t get the chance to write about here, either because any relevance they held in culture fizzled out before the inception of this newsletter (Ambulance), or because I couldn’t find the right moment or reason to discuss them (Glass Onion). For the last issue of the year, I’m looking back on 2022 in boy movies — a yearbook of sorts — and, in the classic style of a critics’ list, ranking my personal top 20 in order, from girl movie cusp all the way to number one boy movie.

2022 in boy movies, ranked

20. Decision to Leave

I struggled with the decision to include (ha ha) Park Chan-wook’s romance, since my diseased brain spent the entirety of the film wondering whether it was a boy movie or a girl movie. In astrology terms, I’d classify Decision to Leave as boy movie rising, girl movie moon. It follows a genius cop (Park Hae-il) who never sleeps but is so good at his job, until he starts falling crazy in love with the mysterious wife (Tang Wei) of the dead man whose case he’s investigating. The male brain is so important to the structure of this film, but sweeping melodrama plus the concept of a normal guy becoming obsessed with an absolutely insane woman give it a slight girl movie edge. This tracks for me, as Park Chan-wook is a rare example of a crossover filmmaker, having directed both Oldboy (major boy movie — it literally has “boy” in the title) and The Handmaiden (the girlest of girl movies). 

19. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

If Knives Out was a non-binary movie, its sequel, Glass Onion, goes full boy movie, likely because of how much boys love its predecessor. (At my showing, I sat next to two bros who were gabbing about how excited they were to “hear Daniel Craig’s accent again.”) Craig and his little outfits are this movie’s girliest elements (although Benoit Blanc is the textbook definition of a special hunk); the rest over-indulges in pop culture references and leans into a somewhat muddled plot about billionaires being bad (mama, we know!!!). Boys are obsessed with director Rian Johnson’s “revitalization of the whodunnit,” but the film itself is nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is. The pure confidence of believing it is clever is the kicker here.¹

18. Nope

Keke Palmer plays a rascally, oh-so-cool lesbian in Jordan Peele’s sci-fi film, and boy movies don’t often recognize queer women with any depth or sincerity, but Nope is Jaws for our time, which earns it a place on this list. The story centers around two horse-wrangling siblings (Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya — does anyone know if he’s still involved with that cuckoo scammer lady? Is he okay?) who decide to try to capture the alien staking out their ranch on film in order to make some big bucks. Like The Fabelmans, it is in part a movie about making movies, and there are few things more boy than that.

17. The Menu

The Menu, Succession director Mark Mylod’s (I owe this man my life) first feature, is a specific kind of boy movie. It’s a sort of outdated satire of foodie culture about a group of mostly high-end guests who, while dining at a celebrity chef’s (Ralph Fiennes) ultra exclusive restaurant, discover he has something sinister planned for them. The Menu is about the powers of the male brain and the lengths men will go to for their art, and the screenplay is by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, two guys who used to write for The Onion, which is one of the most boy sites to have a byline at.

16. Halloween Ends

Back in October, I went long (some might say too long) on why Halloween Ends vacillates between categorization as a boy movie and a girl movie, but if I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a thousand times: Male rage is so very boy. Few males are filled with more rage than Michael Myers and his new star pupil, who is, just a reminder, literally some guy named Corey.

15. Dog

Did you see Channing Tatum’s directorial debut, Dog, in theaters? I did! Dog has a self-explanatory title, which I appreciate, because that means it knows what it is, and what it is is a movie about a man, played by Tatum, going on a road trip with a dog. Tatum is one of our generation’s great girl actors, but everything else about this film — the U.S. military playing a major role, its spotlighting of male mental health, the random kidnapping scene in the middle (so, for anyone who hasn’t seen Dog, there’s this random kidnapping scene in the middle) — leans boy movie. Tatum is a real one for the girls (The Lost City), one for the boys (Dog) kind of dude.

14. The Banshees of Inisherin

Don’t be fooled by famous actress Colin Farrell’s sad wet eyes and kicked puppy expression: Banshees is a boy movie. Frankly, I would rather die than watch Martin McDonagh even attempt to make a girl movie. He’s better off staying in his lane and churning out films in which Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play two ordinary losers and make their gory friend breakup everyone else’s problem.

13. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

It’s unconscionable that I haven’t discussed Nicolas Cage — Tom Cruise for people with mood disorders — in an issue of Boy Movies yet. Lest we forget that a mere few months ago, Cage played himself in a meta action buddy comedy about falling in love with Pedro Pascal attending a wealthy fan’s birthday party, only to, I think, get sucked into some sort of CIA plot? I don’t really remember, honestly. It doesn’t matter. The only thing keeping this from getting closer to the top 10 is the fact that the chemistry between Cage and Pascal almost makes it feel like a rom-com, which, as we know, is a genre for girls.

12. Barbarian

Justin Long might be a scream queen, but Barbarian is for boys. What begins as a straight-forward horror film ends up trying to do the social satire #MeToo commentary thing by morphing into a movie about making men grapple with their role in society… but also wanting to go sicko mode. Whatever! Justin Long naturally possesses what many think they have. He should win an Academy Award.

11. The Fabelmans

It’s so funny that Steven Spielberg’s childhood friends scurried their little butts right to Page Six to call him a liar for claiming he pulled in high school. Boy behavior to give your fictionalized teen self a fake hot girlfriend!

10. Armageddon Time

The Fabelmans and Armageddon Time are two sides of the same coin (both are loosely based on the childhoods of their directors, both feature a jilted wife from Brokeback Mountain doing Jewish mom drag²), but the thornier, less sentimental Armageddon Time takes the lead here because of the focus it puts on themes like America and the divide between fathers and sons.

9. Hustle

Is there anything more boy than an Adam Sandler basketball movie?

8. Beast

Yes, Idris Elba fighting a rabid lion is more boy than an Adam Sandler basketball movie.

7. Ambulance

Michael Bay putting FedEx on blast for destroying the coconut cake Tom Cruise sent him was 1. the biggest boy movies news of the year and 2. a reminder that Michael Bay’s hair looks like that. Bay directed Ambulance, an insane film about two brothers (Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen III) who rob a bank and then hijack an ambulance (consider it Speed for idiots). Making a girl movie is a concept that has never and will never occur to Michael Bay’s twisted mind — something I really like about him.

6. RRR

This gonzo three-hour work of historical fanfiction is filled with physics-defying stunts and CGI animal armies, daring to ask the question, “What if two real-life Indian revolutionaries were boy best friends?” In between participating in maximalist dance sequences and staring intensely into each other’s eyes, Raju (Ram Charan) and Bheem (N. T. Rama Rao Jr.) cannot stop declaring their unwavering adoration for each other. RRR is a movie about two guys who are absolutely jacked to the gods and keep going through hell for each other and, by extension, their country. Nothing, not even cases of mistaken identity or deadly snake bites or the loathsome British, can tear them apart. Look no further than an unbelievable sequence in which Bheem breaks Raju out of prison and hoists him up on his shoulders as they charge and shoot through fleets of their enemies for evidence of their macho devotion. RRR is a boy movie Garden of Eden.

5. The Northman

Despite the presence of both Nicole Kidman and Björk, The Northman is a boy movie. It’s a self-serious film about a special hunk avenging his dead dad. It has a bunch of action sequences in which people get beheaded. It even draws the bones of its story from Hamlet but takes out all of the girly stuff, like Hamlet’s boyfriend.

4. Bullet Train

Bullet Train³ is like a really long hyperrealistic cartoon designed in a lab for males between the ages of 15 and 40. It overflows with blood-soaked fight scenes, reductive explanations of human nature, and chatty, quippy assassins. A braindead person could guess that the guy who directed Deadpool 2 (David Leitch) directed it. I am braindead for my earnest enjoyment of the Deadpool movies 😕

3. The Batman

Brother, they played that Nirvana song basically 47 times.

2. Jackass Forever

Jackass Forever is about Steve-O getting his dick stung by bees. Jackass Forever is about dudes lying on top of each other to create a human ramp for their friends to ride their bikes over. Jackass Forever is about that scene where Johnny Knoxville gets wheeled into an ambulance after getting his shit rocked in a bull fight and all of his buddies yell, “Love you!” Not to be controversial, but I don’t believe gender parity has to apply to the Jackass movies, because Jackass Forever is about the unimpeachable joy of doing ridiculously stupid shit with your bros.

1. Top Gun: Maverick

I mean, come on. Duh! What else could take the No. 1 spot other than the movie that started it all? It was the year of Top Gun: Maverick, and therefore Top Gun: Maverick is the boy movie of the year, and also the movie of the year, period, if the National Board of Review is to be trusted. (Yes, the rumors are true, I’m the entire National Board of Review!!!!!) Remember the scene where Miles Teller says, “Talk to me, dad,” and then it cuts to Tom Cruise saying, “You got this, kid”? That shit is like crack cocaine to me. Obviously, 2022 was packed with boy movies, but none matched Maverick’s mighty combination of sensational action sequences, the bronze eight packs of several special hunks, and confrontations of deeply ingrained daddy issues. There will never be another boy movie like this one.

Lady Gaga @ladygaga

Thank you for coming to the show last night. I love you my friend @TomCruise

Honorable mentions: Everything Everywhere All at Once (sure, it’s about a mom and her gay daughter, but it’s also an episode of Rick and Morty), Crimes of the Future (honestly, this probably should have had prime placement in the ranking but if I made any attempt to watch it I would have thrown up and passed away… even the SheEO of Boy Movies has her limitations…), and The Whale (we must stop Darren Aronofsky).

For the record, my favorite girl movies of the year were: Elvis (life-changing, world-altering, Austin Butler we are GETTING you that Oscar), Aftersun (shattering; I’ll never rewatch it), TÁR (movie of the millennium), Catherine Called Birdy (“Do you love me?” “Desperately”), and Fire Island (horny masterwork).

Send me mail!!!

If there’s anything you’d be interested in seeing Boy Movies cover next year — specific films, actors, directors, questions, topics, whatever — please do send me any and all of your requests. I’d love to know what you all want more of, and if you don’t tell me what to write about I’m going to end up sending out a 5,000 word Jeremy Strong issue (this is a threat). You can reply directly to this email, hit up the comments section, or, I guess, DM me on Twitter, but who even wants to be there anymore? The last good thing I saw on Twitter was a Christopher Moltisanti fancam set to a Coldplay song, which I’m pretty sure was ripped from TikTok.

• John Waters on his 10 favorite movies of 2022. He refers to Timothée Chalamet as both a “butch twink” and a “soft-trade hetero cannibal.”

• One more shout out to Sarah for her hard work producing graphics for Boy Movies these past few months. This newsletter quite literally would not exist without her and every week my tiny brain is blown by the things she’s able to put together on such short notice. Shower her with praise and pay her millions of dollars to work on your projects; you’d be lucky to have such a talented, thoughtful, and detail-oriented designer in your corner.

• I can’t begin to express how honored and humbled I am by the love and support Boy Movies has received. 2022 was, at many points, an incredibly low year for me, but this newsletter has been a consistent bright spot. I hope it’s as fun for you to read as it for me to write. I would literally marry all of you if I could. Happy holidays!!!

1. I’ve been talking mad shit about this movie, but I was a sucker for the [redacted] and [redacted] cameos. Ultimately I am nothing more than a liar and an actress.

2. But only one made me wonder if Steven Spielberg is trying to come out as bisexual…

3. If any major Hollywood execs are reading this, my friend and business partner Alexis and I have an idea for a movie that will turn Ambulance and Bullet Train into a transportation-based biracial brothers trilogy. It’s called Ferry (as in Staten Island) and we would like Annette Bening to play the governor of New York. We are prepared to pitch at any moment.