Written by Sally Ho, Angelique Castanes and Lindsey Bahr
With hundreds of new movies It’s released every year, and many of us rely on the expertise of film critics to help curate our viewing – an entirely collective yet deeply personal experience.
In honor of the supporting role the entertainment press can play in this beloved pastime, the Associated Press on Thursday revealed its opening of the AP’s 25 Best Movies. existing.
The AP ranking of the top 25 movies is a distinguished honor roll for films released in 2022, as determined by a truly representative panel of 26 of the nation’s smartest film experts working for Associated Press news outlets.
Here, we explain what it is and how it works:
History
The AP Top 25 Film Ranking is a new initiative that builds on a rich legacy. AP polls of the top 25 college football in the nonprofit World News Collaborative He has been the authority on sports since he began wiping out all the media in 1936.
The sports poll has since expanded, including men’s college basketball in 1949 and women’s college basketball in 1977. The AP’s Top 25 Movie Ranking now joins this age-old tradition.
Sports Polls is a weekly tally that tracks the evolving dynamics throughout each sport’s playing season. In contrast, the AP Top 25 Movie Ranking is one specific list that reflects the entire 2022 calendar year.
“I’ve been mimicking the AP College Football Poll since I was six years old and ranking my favorite movies every year,” said Sean Edwards, film critic for WDAF-TV in Kansas City. “I am pleased that the AP wanted such a diverse group of individuals from different parts of the country to share their views and perspectives.”
Voters
For the AP’s ranking of the Top 25 Movies, the AP scoured the nation’s best film writers, reporters, and critics, looking for a diverse group of journalists of all formats who cover movies as an important part of their role in their news outlets. To be eligible, their news outlets must be members or customers of the AP.
Among the 26 chosen to vote in the inaugural ranking were a mix of platforms and audiences – from National Public Radio, Univision, and IndieWire to The Chicago Tribune, radio station KPBS-FM in San Diego, and KSNV-TV in Las Vegas.
Voter demographics—54% white, 65% male—stand out as more inclusive compared to the industry as a whole: Research from the University of Southern California in 2018 It found that the film critics industry is 83% white and 78.7% male.
Members of the AP’s Top 25 Movies panel also ranged in age from 29 to 68, and are based across the country—from Detroit to Memphis, Tennessee, and Houston to Philadelphia—although there is significant representation in the film industry hubs of New York and Los Angeles.
methodology
Each voter submitted their own list of the 25 films that premiered to the public during the 2022 calendar year. The AP encouraged each panelist to exercise their own interpretation of “best films,” which did not need to conform to award expectations or even films’ eligibility for the Oscars.
The 26 listings that followed yielded a total of 176 different films. The individual rankings were then combined to produce the national ranking using a Burda statistic, in which a first-place vote was worth 25 points, a second-place vote was worth 24 points, and so on. Ties allowed at #16, with “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “The Whale” both earning 130 points in our AP cumulative weighting system.
Each committee member’s identity and full ballot paper are made public.
directione
In a movie landscape where only franchise films seem to be successful at the traditional box office, the top five films in the AP Top 25 Movies ranking were all originals. — and most have found strong audiences in theaters, despite the fact that moviegoing has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The heavily original films, stories centered on women, and the first theatrical releases had a definite edge.
The battle for the best film of the year was very close, separated in the standings by only 8 points. while “Banshees of Inisherin” She won the title with 392 points, the “everything everywhere at once” lead by Michelle Yeoh that got the most votes. The indie sci-fi hit — which is currently enjoying a Cinderella run during awards season — ranked second in the AP rankings with 384 points but was the first choice in six different ballots. Meanwhile, the Irish dark comedy was named the best film of the year by just two different ballots.
And while the final list of 25 films reflected the critical darlings of the year, the panelists’ votes took a definite turn toward accessibility in, shall we say, the bottom half. Movies at the end of the full list of 176 films ranged from “Lightyear” to and “Bob’s Burgers” to “Jackass Forever” and “Love, Lizzo”. There were 76 films that were each credited on just one ballot.
full list
1. “The Banshees of Inisherin,” 392 points
2. “Everything everywhere at once,” 384 points
3. “tar” 346 points
4. “No”, 304 points
5. “The Woman King” 267 points
6. “RRR,” 263 points
7. “Top Gun: Maverick” 252 points
8. Fablemans 238 points
9. “The Woman Speaks,” 222 points
10. “The Glass Onion: Knives That Dispel Mystery” 209 points
11. “Aftersun,” 201 points
12. “The Decision to Leave” 200 points
13. “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” 147 points
14. “Elvis” 145 points
15. “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” 141 points
16. “Avatar: The Way of Water,” 130 points
16. “The Whale” 130 points
18. “Babylon” 129 points
19. “She said” 125 points
20. “Marcel the Crust in Boots” 122 points
21. “The Triangle of Sorrow” 121 points
22. “until” 116 points
23. “EO,” 98 points
24. “Turns Red” 95 points
25. “Don’t Bear” 89 points
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For more information on the AP Top 25 Movies, including vote breakdown and individual polls, visit our hub at https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-movies.