46 Best Movies & Shows Released in 2022 On Microsoft (Page 3)

Told in a playful mockumentary format, Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game delivers precisely what the title promises and a bit more. Apart from imparting interesting information about pinball's complicated past (it was only declared legal in New York as recently as 1976), the film doubles as a touching family drama and a fun experiment on genre. As Robert Sharpe, the real-life games expert who helped decriminalize pinball, Mike Faist is winsome, compelling, and maybe the best thing about the film.

While Pinball could've leaned into its silliness more instead of just dipping its toes in avant-garde territory, the film is pleasant enough with plenty of fun and tender moments to enjoy. 

Genre: Comedy, Drama, History, Romance

Actor: Bryan Batt, Christopher Convery, Connor Ratliff, Crystal Reed, Damian Young, Dennis Boutsikaris, Donna Del Bueno, Eric William Morris, Hope Blackstock, Jake Regal, Kenneth Tigar, Michael Kostroff, Mike Doyle, Mike Faist, Rosa Arredondo, Supriya Ganesh, Toby Regbo, Zac Jaffee

Director: Austin Bragg, Meredith Bragg

The tired stereotype is that in horror films, it’s always the Black characters who are the first to die. The Blackening turns that on its head and gives us an interesting premise by asking, what if all the characters are Black? While it’s not the first film to do this (in fact, a lot of Black creatives are reclaiming horror and dominating the genre), it just might be the first to tackle the issue in a smart and funny way. This is a ridiculous parody filled with outsized performances and observational jokes, but it’s equally meta and socially aware as it literally (and thankfully) beats the stereotype to its final death. 

 

Genre: Comedy, Horror

Actor: Antoinette Robertson, Dewayne Perkins, Diedrich Bader, George Fisher, Grace Byers, James Preston Rogers, Jay Pharoah, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg, Sinqua Walls, X Mayo, Yvonne Orji

Director: Tim Story

Rating: R

Although this adaptation of the 1960s TV show feels like four episodes of material crammed into a feature runtime, Shin Ultraman really does squeeze as much as it can out of every scene, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. Not only are the action scenes as ridiculous as they should be—still imitating the clunkiness and the theatricality of classic Japanese tokusatsu—but even sequences of exposition are made to feel urgent and breathless by breakneck comedic editing and by placing the camera in the weirdest positions for the quickest shots. And somehow, Shin Ultraman still doesn't feel like it's making fun of its source material. It's an honest-to-goodness sci-fi superhero movie that's much more insightful about the nature of international crises than Hollywood tends to be.

Genre: Action, Science Fiction

Actor: Akari Hayami, Bin Furuya, Daiki Arioka, Hajime Yamazaki, Hideaki Anno, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Issey Takahashi, Keishi Nagatsuka, Kenjiro Tsuda, Koichi Yamadera, Kōji Yamamoto, Kyūsaku Shimada, Masami Nagasawa, Ryo Iwamatsu, Soko Wada, Takumi Saitoh, Tetsushi Tanaka, Toru Masuoka, Yutaka Takenouchi

Director: Shinji Higuchi

Rating: NR

After directing George Harrison: Living in the Material World and No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese brings to the fore yet another singular musician, this time New York Dolls frontman David Johansen (aka Buster Poindexter). More of a concert film than anything, this feature takes place during a live performance Johansen gives during his birthday; his raspy voice and poetic punk songs already tell a story in themselves, but Scorsese intercuts them with the occasional archival footage and interview, careful not to disrupt a glorious musical moment with cheesy throwback scenes. 

A Dolls or punk fan will be moved by the resulting film, a fittingly jagged but meaningful oeuvre of a tenacious artist. But if you're coming to this documentary without much prior knowledge about Johansen, his band, and the era from which he came, you might find it somewhat niche, but overall impressive, informative, and musically thrilling.

Genre: Documentary, Music

Actor: David Johansen, Debbie Harry, Hal Willner, Morrissey, Sylvain Sylvain

Director: David Tedeschi, Martin Scorsese

After the devastating Happy Old Year, we were excited to see the next of what Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit has to offer. Fast & Feel Love is a surprising one, purely because of how silly and unserious the entire film is. The satirical film follows a sport stacker whose passion to be the fastest blinds him to all the day-to-day tasks and life goals that have been pushed towards his girlfriend, and the film plays this basic conflict as dramatically as other action films would, with dynamic cinematography, an over-the-top soundtrack, and dramatic voice overs. The joke does get stretched a tad too long, but it humorously pokes fun at the infantile ways men in action films act, while still recognizing how this mindset is the way we cope in adulthood.

Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama, Romance

Actor: Anusara Korsamphan, Keetapat Pongruea, Napak Traicharoendetch, Nat Kitcharit, Urassaya Sperbund, Wipawee Patnasiri

Director: Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a parody of a parody, a multilayered confection of silliness that befits the musician it celebrates. It's the origin story of Weird Al Yankovic (Daniel Radcliffe) but with the surreal and satirical levels cranked up to a hundred. It's easy to get lost then, in the movie's freewheeling giddiness, but Radcliffe has a way of grounding the ultra-heightened comedy with his conviction and charm. The movie also doubles as a who's who in the 1980s music and comedy scene, and the unlikely pairings it brings together keep you entertained and nostalgic for a simpler, weirder time. 

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Music

Actor: 'Weird Al' Yankovic, Akiva Schaffer, Andrew Steven Hernandez, Anthony N., Anthony Nanakornpanom, Arturo Castro, Chad Guerrero, Conan O'Brien, Constantine Rousouli, Daniel Radcliffe, David Bloom, David Dastmalchian, Dean Sharpe, Demetri Martin, Diedrich Bader, Dot-Marie Jones, Emo Philips, Eric Appel, Evan Rachel Wood, Gordon Tarpley, Jack Black, Jack Lancaster, James Brown III, James Preston Rogers, Jimmy Walker Jr., Johnny Pemberton, Jonah Ray, Jonah Ray Rodrigues, Jorma Taccone, Josh Groban, Julianne Nicholson, Julie Chang, Keanush Tafreshi, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Michael McKean, Mike Escamilla, Nina West, Paloma Esparza Rabinov, Panuvat Anthony Nanakornpanom, Patton Oswalt, Paul F. Tompkins, Paul Riley Fox, Quinta Brunson, Rainn Wilson, Richard Aaron Anderson, Rocky Abou-Sakher, Scott Aukerman, Seth Green, Spencer Treat Clark, Thomas Lennon, Toby Huss, Tommy O'Brien, Trenyce, Will Forte, William Guirola

Director: Eric Appel

Rating: TV-14

Whodunnits are the cornerstone of murder mysteries, and their occasional resurgence is usually a reprieve from films with more complicated structures and twists. See How They Run gives the Agatha Christie mystery spoof a go, dissecting the cozy mystery conventions anew. With quirky British humor, solid acting, and good period-piece visuals, the familiarity and predictability culminate into an easy, well-paced watch. With no desire to reinvent the genre, the film seems to implore its audience to indulge in self-indulgence. Enjoy watching a piece of cinema for the sake of it.

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Adrien Brody, Angus Wright, Ania Marson, Charlie Cooper, David Oyelowo, Gregory Cox, Harris Dickinson, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Lucian Msamati, Maggie McCarthy, Paul Chahidi, Pearl Chanda, Philip Desmeules, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Reece Shearsmith, Ruth Wilson, Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, Shirley Henderson, Sian Clifford, Tim Key, Tolu Ogunmefun

Director: Tom George

Rating: PG-13

A fascinating kernel of certainty is padded out with giddy speculation in this documentary about a pair of unlikely art thieves. The facts are as such: 32 years after a $160 million painting by abstract artist Willem de Kooning was crudely cut from its frame in an Arizona gallery, a trio of small-town antique dealers discovered it in Jerry and Rita Alter’s estate sale. The Thief Collector is less interested in the painting itself  — in fact, it's openly dismissive about its artistic value — and more curious about how it fell into the hands of the mysterious couple, who frequently took exotic trips around the world despite their modest teacher incomes.

There are certainly intriguing questions raised by the Alters’ possession of the painting and compelling evidence that places them as the thieves, but this documentary can’t offer any convincing original theses of its own. It does try, by suggesting that the short stories Jerry wrote — about more thefts and gorier crimes — were thinly disguised autobiographical recollections, but it finds nothing to back these theories up except for a few loosely relevant anecdotes from relatives. With too many what-ifs to go on, it all makes for an intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying deep dive.

Genre: Crime, Documentary, Drama

Actor: Glenn Howerton, Sarah Minnich, Scott Takeda

Director: Allison Otto