The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

4. 2022 - Nope

Nope Daniel Kaluuya
Universal

Honourable Mentions: Aftersun, The Banshees of Inisherin, Kimi

We may only be halfway through the 2020s, but Jordan Peele's Nope already feels like it's the definitive movie of the decade. Divisive though it may be (and really, it's so unjust that it carries that reputation), Peele's film crash-landed and spilt its post-pandemic guts all over audiences, with a story all about the trauma of the moving image, the relentless bombardment of violent information in the digital age - which is processed largely at a remove through our own individual lenses - and the absurdity that is simply getting on with it.

Nope is both historical and thoroughly contemporary, a movie of our time for the time, and one in which Peele reiterated his talent for conjuring a genre vibe that is truly distinct. In this case, he orchestrates a suffusion of sci-fi, horror, and western, a multi-genre composition that speaks to Nope's approach to the evolution of film and the violence that is baked into its DNA.

It doesn't hurt either that Peele is able to draw from a stellar cast, with Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, and nineties staple Michael Wincott all delivering career-best work as the movie industry figures whose paths cross thanks to a menacing extraterrestrial influence.

 
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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.