Netflix had a lot on its plate in 2022, from losing a quarter of a million subscribers to launching Netflix Basic. It attempted to save the best for last, but that undoubtedly contributed to the initial lack of high-quality content during the first half of 2022, with the best of the streaming giant’s output heavily concentrated into the year's final months. Of course, this is partly due to Netflix deliberately coinciding the service’s releases with awards season.
Update May 11, 2023: This article has been updated with more 2022 Netflix movies and additional details about a few Academy Awards some of the films on this list received.
With how busy 2022 was, that means there were many Netflix films audiences didn't get to watch within the calendar year and now might have fallen behind or forgotten about. With so much being released now on both Netflix and its fellow streaming competitors and in the theatrical market, it might be hard to remember the best of 2022 for Netflix films. For anyone looking to catch up, or see what was some of the best the streaming service had to offer, here are the best Netflix Original films from 2022.
10 The Good Nurse
Jessica Chastain lines up alongside Eddie Redmayne in this enthralling, disturbingly detailed account of the true story of remorseless, sociopathic nurse Charlie Cullen. The Good Nurse documents the Platonic relationship between nurse, and single mother, Amy Loughren and fellow healthcare professional Cullen and the shocking revelations made by Amy that Charlie has been spiking IV bags with lethal doses of insulin, and other such medications, subsequently killing patients. A story that shocked the United States and caused untold damage to the reputation of the American healthcare system.
9 The Stranger
This low-key, low-budget Australian crime thriller was a surprisingly hard-hitting addition to the 2022 Netflix catalog. Starring Joel Edgerton in the central role of undercover cop Mark Frame, The Stranger details Frame’s infiltration of an organized crime outfit and a suspected murderer, Henry (Sean Harris). Stopping at nothing to procure the truth and evidence required for conviction, Mark puts himself and Henry in potential harm's way. The Stranger premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022 before it streamed on Netflix on October 19 of that year.
8 Bardo
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths is as though Alejandro G. Inarritu has thematically spewed the emotions of regret, guilt, longing, forgiveness, and loss onto a Darius Khondji-composed canvas that feature vast plains of emptiness and back-lit, artistically performed hallucinations of the Mexico he left behind. The film, based on Inarritu’s life, concerns journalist-turned-documentarian Silverio Gacho (Daniel Giménez), his battle with existentialism, and the profound effect leaving his homeland has had on his personal relationships. This admittedly self-indulgent passion project is a visual delight that confronts the issue of Mexican criminality, corruption, and a yearning for belonging.
7 Wendell & Wild
Netflix has made it abundantly apparent that they mean business as far as their animated content is concerned. With The Sea Beast and Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio being prime examples of their commitment to rival the industry’s big hitters, Wendell & Wild is another such title that took viewers by surprise and is one of the best films of 2022.
Premiering on Netflix in time for the Halloween flurry of movies, the stop-motion animated horror follows demonic brothers Wendell and Wild, who enlist the help of a 13-year-old girl in order to take down their nemesis. It marked the return of director Henry Selick, whose previous film, Coraline, was released back in 2009.
6 Hustle
The shining Adam Sandler of Uncut Gems, The Meyerowitz Stories, and Punch Drunk Love returns in Jeremiah Zagar’s Netflix-backed Hustle. In this zero-to-hero sports picture, Sandler plays NBA and Philadelphia 76ers scout Stanley Sugerman, who goes on the hunt to uncover the world’s next NBA superstar. While in Spain, Stanley is mesmerized by Point Guard Bo Cruz, who convinces him to fly to the States to partake in trials and the subsequent NBA Draft. Hustle was a big hit for Netflix and was one of the most underrated films of 2022.
5 White Noise
Noah Baumbach’s White Noise premiered on Netflix on December 30, 2022. Based on author Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel of the same name, it stars Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle. The dark satire follows the story of Jack Gladney, his wife Babette, and their four children from various relationships along the way.
A Professor of ‘Hitler Studies' at the local college, Jack is an esteemed name in town and a well-respected academic voice. Following a train crash at the edge of town, a cataclysmic toxic waste spillage means that the family and everyone else must evacuate. White Noise confronts the inevitability of death and the mechanisms our minds employ to divert our thinking away from those thoughts.
4 The Wonder
Florence Pugh steals the show in Sebastian Lelio’s science vs. religion flick, the quietly haunting The Wonder. Inspired by several true stories of miraculously “fasting” Victorian girls, The Wonder tells the haunting and sobering chronicle of an 11-year-old Irish girl, Anna O’Donnell (Kila Lord Cassidy), who has reportedly abstained from any food consumption for several months. Disbelieving nurse Lib Wright (Pugh) is brought over from England to partake in a “watch,” whereby she and a nun merely sit and observe this so-called miracle taking place.
3 Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Daniel Craig returns to investigative Knives Out duties, reprising the role of Detective Benoit Blanc, everyone’s favorite “Kentucky fried foghorn leghorn” crime solver in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. In the second edition of this punchy murder mystery, we are taken to tech-tycoon Miles Bron’s (Edward Norton) Greek island, where you guessed it, a murder is committed, and Blanc suspects “foul play.”
With another all-star acting ensemble and the financial might of Netflix now behind it, Glass Onion is a more grandiose and brasher affair than its predecessor. It is a film that, despite a slightly convoluted middle, once again nails the genre that’s given birth to so many classics and somehow manages to muster really contemporary originality. Netflix released the film in theaters for a limited run and proved so successful they may do an extended run for the third Knives Out film.
2 Pinocchio
Having premiered at the London Film Festival, Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio was the second major streaming Pinocchio movie after Robert Zemeckis Dinsey+'s version that remade Walt Disney's classic 1941 film. Yet while the Disney one was a disappointment, the Netflix version was a big hit when it premiered in December.
Following the tale of the wooden boy brought to life by a grieving father, the Mexican director Pinocchio promised a darker and more mature take on the material, and it certainly delivered. His Pinocchio received universally positive reviews and won The Academy Award for Best Animated Film.
1 All Quiet on the Western Front
There have been several screen adaptations of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front over the years, yet none illustrate the true cost of war quite like Edward Berger’s 2022 version. The remake captures World War I in all its hellish barbarity, as a group of four German soldiers, all under the age of conscription consent, join the German war effort in the hope of realizing some sort of patriotic ideal. Once the four reach the frontline, the grim, blood-scorched reality of battle truly sets in.
The film specifically follows the character of Paul Baumer (Felix Kammerer), who is employed as the movie’s token of tarnished innocence, an adolescent who should be enjoying his teenage years in the safety of peace, but instead, has it bludgeoned by the merciless, pointless act of inter-country conflict. At a time when Ukrainian troops are holding off Russian forces and bombs fall over Palestine, this a beautifully poignant composition of how mass violence still remains a parasitic stain on humanity. All Quiet on the Western Front was nominated for nine Oscars at the 95th Academy Awards and won four, including Best International Feature, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design.