69 Fun Facts About 2022 Movies

Who directed Top Gun: Maverick, the long-delayed 2022 sequel starring Tom Cruise?

Joseph Kosinski had already directed Cruise in Oblivion. The sequel was first due in July 2019, slipped a year so its flight sequences could be finished, then waited out the pandemic until May 2022.

Where does Top Gun: Maverick rank among Tom Cruise's films at the worldwide box office?

His highest-grossing film ever, by a distance: after a three-year wait for release it took about $1.5 billion worldwide, close to double his previous best, Mission: Impossible - Fallout.

Which artist recorded 'Hold My Hand', the Oscar-nominated song from Top Gun: Maverick?

Lady Gaga wrote and produced 'Hold My Hand' with BloodPop, then sang a stripped-back version at the Oscars, where it lost Best Original Song to RRR's 'Naatu Naatu'.

Which film did Avatar: The Way of Water pass to go third at the all-time box office?

Titanic had held third place until The Way of Water's $2.3 billion pushed it down, which for a time left James Cameron as the director of three of the four biggest films ever released.

Which actor played Kiri, the Sullys' adopted teenage daughter, in Avatar: The Way of Water?

Sigourney Weaver was in her late sixties when she performed the teenage Kiri through motion capture. Her scientist Grace Augustine died in the first film, and Kiri was born from Grace's dormant avatar.

In Everything Everywhere All at Once, what kind of business does Evelyn Wang run?

A laundromat in Simi Valley, California, is Evelyn's failing business. The lead was first written for Jackie Chan, until the directors swapped the couple's roles and made the wife the hero.

Which former Goonies and Temple of Doom child actor won an Oscar for playing Waymond Wang?

Ke Huy Quan had given up acting for about two decades, working as a stunt choreographer and assistant director, until the success of Crazy Rich Asians persuaded him to try again.

Jamie Lee Curtis won her first Oscar as Deirdre Beaubeirdre, who does which job?

IRS revenue agent Deirdre Beaubeirdre spends the film auditing the Wangs. Her hair and outfit copy an online photo one director took to be of a tax auditor, after Curtis begged to play that woman.

Which horror film did Everything Everywhere All at Once pass to become A24's biggest hit worldwide?

Hereditary had been A24's biggest hit since 2018. The film that passed it opened to barely half a million dollars, spent fourteen straight weekends in the American top ten and ended above $140 million worldwide.

Who played the Riddler, the serial-killer villain of The Batman (2022)?

Paul Dano plays the Riddler as a masked serial killer who taunts Gotham's police with ciphers and riddles, which is why the film's director likened him to the real Zodiac Killer.

Which actor was buried under prosthetics to play the Penguin in The Batman?

Colin Farrell spent two to four hours a day having Mike Marino's prosthetics and fat suit applied, and emerged unrecognisable. The work earned the film an Oscar nomination for makeup.

Which earlier superhero blockbuster ran even longer than The Batman's 176 minutes?

Avengers: Endgame runs 181 minutes. At 176, The Batman still lasts 12 minutes longer than The Dark Knight Rises, which makes a detective story, not a trilogy finale, the longest Batman film.

Which Oscar-winner plays Colonel Parker, the manager and narrator, in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis?

Tom Hanks played him in a fat suit and a false nose. The real 'Colonel' was born Andreas van Kuijk in the Netherlands, entered America illegally and passed himself off as American-born.

Which actor, previously known for The Carrie Diaries, played Elvis Presley in the 2022 biopic?

Austin Butler beat Harry Styles and Miles Teller to the part with a tape of himself at a piano singing 'Unchained Melody', recorded after a dream about his late mother.

In The Banshees of Inisherin, what does Colm threaten to do if Pádraic keeps talking?

Cut off one of his own fingers is no idle threat: Colm, a fiddler, ends up severing all five on his left hand and throwing them at Pádraic's door, and Pádraic's pet donkey Jenny dies after choking on one.

Which conflict's gunfire drifts over from the mainland in The Banshees of Inisherin, set in 1923?

The Irish Civil War had turned former comrades on each other, and the film mirrors it in two friends' feud; even the invented island's name, Inisherin, means 'island of Ireland'.

In Tár, Cate Blanchett plays Lydia Tár, a world-renowned figure in which profession?

Orchestra conductor Lydia Tár is invented, but the music is real: it was recorded live on set, with Blanchett herself playing the piano and the Dresden Philharmonic standing in for her Berlin orchestra.

Who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing Charlie, a reclusive English teacher, in The Whale?

Brendan Fraser sobbed through a six-minute standing ovation at the film's Venice premiere, a comeback after years away from leading roles; his prosthetic suit weighed up to 300 pounds.

Which director made the 2022 drama The Whale?

Darren Aronofsky spent about ten years trying to film Samuel D. Hunter's play and blamed the wait on finding its 600-pound lead: "it took me 10 years to cast," he said.

In which language is the Oscar-winning 2022 version of All Quiet on the Western Front filmed?

German is the novel's own language, yet Hollywood filmed it first in English, and when that 1930 Best Picture winner reached Berlin, Nazis disrupted screenings with stink bombs and mice.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, the 2022 Best Animated Feature winner, moves the story to which setting?

Fascist Italy between the world wars gave del Toro a land where, he said, citizens behave like obedient puppets, so the wooden boy's virtue is to disobey: he even mocks Mussolini to his face in a song.

RRR, the 'Naatu Naatu' epic often mislabelled a Bollywood film, was actually made in which language?

Telugu, not Hindi: RRR comes from the southern industry nicknamed Tollywood, while Bollywood means Hindi films from Mumbai. India's own selectors passed it over as the country's Oscar entry, yet its song won anyway.

Marvel's comics make Namor king of Atlantis, but which underwater kingdom does he rule in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever?

Talokan replaced the comics' Atlantis, which DC's Aquaman had already brought to the screen; Ryan Coogler rebuilt Namor's people as descendants of the Maya who fled colonisers into the sea.

Which former Batman actor played the villain Gorr the God Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder?

Christian Bale built the scarred god-killer from unlikely inspirations: he cited a touch of Nosferatu and said the thing he stared at most was Aphex Twin's 'Come to Daddy' music video.

Which Oscar-winning actor plays Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder?

Russell Crowe was asked to reuse his British-accented Gladiator voice but argued for a different accent, so he shot every scene twice, and his choice made the final cut.

In Jordan Peele's Nope, what do the Haywood siblings nickname 'Jean Jacket', after a horse from their childhood?

The UFO above their ranch is really a territorial animal that attacks whatever looks straight at it, so horse wrangler OJ names it after a horse the family once owned and handles it like one.

In Nope's flashback to the fictional 1990s sitcom Gordy's Home, what was Gordy?

A chimpanzee playing Gordy snapped when balloons popped on set and mauled his co-stars, sparing only the child actor Jupe; the film uses the attack to warn that a predator can't be tamed for show.

Where is Miles Bron's island mansion in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery?

Greece was Rian Johnson's pick for a holiday whodunnit in the spirit of Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun, with every suspect marooned on a private island; a real villa at Porto Heli plays Bron's mansion.

Pixar's Turning Red is set in 2002 in which city?

Director Domee Shi grew up in Toronto, and Mei's obsession with the boy band 4*Town is a period detail. The film went straight to Disney+ in March 2022.

In Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, the bounty-hunting Wolf stalking Puss is revealed to be what?

Death itself, voiced by Wagner Moura, has come in person because Puss has burned through eight of his nine lives and never valued one of them, and he means to take the last.

What was the hashtag for the TikTok trend of teenage boys attending Minions: The Rise of Gru in suits?

#Gentleminions crowds cheered and shouted through screenings until some British cinemas refused entry to groups in formal wear, while Universal tweeted: "we see you and we love you."

Which famous director plays John Ford in the final scene of Spielberg's The Fabelmans?

David Lynch first said no, until his friend Laura Dern talked him round; he then asked for the costume two weeks early and wore the hat and eyepatch every day to live in them.

In The Menu, how does Margot escape Chef Slowik's deadly dinner?

She orders a cheeseburger to go, challenging the chef to cook something people simply enjoy; Slowik, played by Ralph Fiennes, finds joy in grilling it himself and lets her leave with the bag.

In Bullet Train, what is the codename of Brad Pitt's anxious, unlucky assassin?

Ladybug is only aboard as a last-minute stand-in for another hitman, the kind of bad luck he complains follows him everywhere: people die around him even when he isn't trying to kill them.

Which 2022 satire, in which a luxury cruise ends in shipwreck, won Ruben Östlund his second Palme d'Or?

Triangle of Sadness maroons its super-rich passengers on an island where money buys nothing, so the yacht's cleaner, the only one who can fish and make a fire, ends up on top of the hierarchy.

The Woman King dramatises the Agojie, an all-female regiment of which West African kingdom?

The Agojie were real, and European visitors nicknamed them the 'Dahomey Amazons'. Gina Prince-Bythewood set the film in the 1820s.

Prey, the 2022 Predator prequel, is set in 1719 and follows Naru, a young woman from which nation?

Comanche producer Jhane Myers had the cast re-record their lines for a complete dub in the Comanche language, saying she wanted to bring something back to her people.

Who voices Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 2?

Idris Elba played the echidna as a warrior out to bring honour to his ancestors, and the character went on to front a spin-off series of his own in 2024.

The Northman (2022) retells the legend that inspired which Shakespeare play?

Hamlet is the legend's hero Amleth with one letter moved: the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus wrote down the tale of a prince who fakes madness and avenges his father around 1200.

Damien Chazelle's Babylon follows Hollywood through which transition in the late 1920s?

From silent films to sound: the talkies sink both Brad Pitt's matinee idol and Margot Robbie's starlet, and the film closes on a homage to Singin' in the Rain, the 1952 musical about the same upheaval.

Harry Styles joined Don't Worry Darling in September 2020 as a replacement for which actor?

Shia LaBeouf's exit became a row of its own: director Olivia Wilde said she had fired him, while he released texts and emails to argue that he quit over a lack of rehearsal time.

Which filmmaker directed the first four Scream films, leaving 2022's Scream as the first made without him?

Wes Craven died in 2015, so the fifth film passed to the directing duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who made it with writer Kevin Williamson's blessing and dedicated it to Craven.

In Ti West's slasher X, Mia Goth plays both the young Maxine and which other character?

Pearl, the elderly farm owner, put Goth under heavy prosthetic make-up; she and Ti West then co-wrote a prequel about the character during Covid quarantine and shot it in secret on the same sets.

In which city is the double-booked Airbnb in the horror hit Barbarian?

Detroit's decaying Brightmoor district is the setting, but the street is a set: the crew turned an empty farm in Bulgaria into a run-down subdivision and filmed only wider neighbourhood shots in the real place.

Who plays Sully opposite Tom Holland's Nathan Drake in the 2022 film Uncharted?

Mark Wahlberg was originally attached to play Drake himself; the adaptation then spent more than a decade in development, so he ended up as the hero's mentor instead.

Which director made Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness?

Sam Raimi replaced Scott Derrickson, who left over creative differences, and the sequel leans into horror: Doctor Strange possesses a corpse, and Raimi's old Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell gets a cameo.

Besides dinosaurs, which engineered creatures drive the plot of Jurassic World Dominion?

Giant locusts are stripping every field except those sown with the biotech firm Biosyn's own seed, the clue that sends Laura Dern's Ellie Sattler to Sam Neill's Alan Grant and reunites the original cast.

Tim Allen voices Buzz Lightyear the toy, but which actor voices the 'real' Buzz in Pixar's 2022 film Lightyear?

Chris Evans took over because Lightyear is framed as the film that inspired the toy, so its hero is a different character from Tim Allen's; Allen grumbled that it had "no connection" to his Buzz.

Aftersun follows a father and his 11-year-old daughter on holiday in which country?

Turkey hosts the holiday, which Charlotte Wells drew from childhood memories of her own father; she cast newcomer Frankie Corio as Sophie and threads the girl's MiniDV footage of the trip through the film.

Which Ana de Armas film was the first Netflix original released with an adults-only NC-17 rating?

Blonde, adapted from Joyce Carol Oates's novel about Marilyn Monroe, ended awards season both ways: it was named Worst Picture at the Razzies while Ana de Armas was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar.

At the Oscars in March 2022, Will Smith slapped which presenter over a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith?

Chris Rock had joked about Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head, the result of alopecia; Smith won Best Actor within the hour and was later banned from Academy events for ten years.

Which film was the first Best Picture winner distributed by a streaming service?

CODA let Apple TV+ beat Netflix to a prize its rival had spent millions campaigning for: Apple bought the film for $25 million at Sundance, and it won all three Oscars it was nominated for.

Bruce Willis's family announced his 2022 retirement after a diagnosis of which condition?

Aphasia affects language expression and comprehension. In February 2023 the family said his diagnosis had progressed to frontotemporal dementia.

The women of Sarah Polley's Oscar-winning Women Talking belong to what kind of isolated community?

Miriam Toews's novel was inspired by real assaults in a Bolivian Mennonite colony. Frances McDormand produced the film and appears in a small role.

The Oscar-winning documentary Navalny follows the investigation into what event in his life?

His 2020 poisoning with a nerve agent is traced to a Russian security-service team, and on camera Navalny phones one of its chemists, posing as a security official's aide, and gets him to describe how the job was done.

Why did Sony re-release the flop Morbius in cinemas two months after it opened?

Internet memes mocking it went viral, led by the catchphrase "It's Morbin' time", so Sony put it back in about 1,000 cinemas, where it flopped again, taking about $300,000 that weekend.

Who replaced Johnny Depp as Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)?

Mads Mikkelsen stepped in after Warner Bros. asked Depp to resign when he lost his 2020 libel case in London; Depp had shot just one scene, so little had to be redone.

Dwayne Johnson was first cast as the villain of Shazam! before getting his own 2022 film as which DC antihero?

Black Adam was meant to share an origin film with his comic-book rival, but Johnson told the studio that would do the character a disservice, and the producers split the story into two films.

The Gray Man (2022), one of Netflix's costliest films, was directed by which brothers?

The Russos made it for Netflix as a franchise starter: days after its release the streamer announced both a sequel and a spin-off.

In The Lost City (2022), Sandra Bullock's kidnapped romance novelist escapes into the jungle with her what?

Cover model Alan, played by Channing Tatum, sets out to rescue her with a hired ex-Navy SEAL, Brad Pitt, who is shot mid-rescue, leaving the man who only poses as a hero to act like one.

The horror hit Smile (2022) was originally slated for which streaming service before going to cinemas?

Paramount+ was meant to be its only home, but test screenings went so well that the studio moved Parker Finn's $17 million debut into cinemas, where it took more than $200 million worldwide.

Which South Korean filmmaker won Best Director at Cannes 2022 for Decision to Leave?

Park Chan-wook's romantic thriller, about a detective who falls for the widow of a man whose death he is investigating, became South Korea's Oscar entry and made the shortlist, only to miss a nomination.

The Oscar-nominated 2022 film The Quiet Girl is performed mostly in which language?

Irish is the language of the film's Gaeltacht setting, and the production was backed by Cine4, a fund for features in Irish; it became the first Irish-language film nominated for the International Feature Oscar.

Which 2022 animated film follows the Clade family of explorers?

Strange World sends the Clades underground to save Pando, the miracle plant that powers their society, only for them to learn that their world is one giant living creature and the crop is what is killing it.

Bones and All (2022) pairs Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell as young lovers who share what secret?

They are cannibals, "eaters" in the film's own slang, who fall in love on a road trip across 1980s America; the title comes from a fellow eater who describes the thrill of consuming a victim bones and all.

Which pop star wrote and recorded "Carolina" for the soundtrack of Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)?

Taylor Swift wrote it alone in the middle of the night after loving Delia Owens's novel, then recorded it in one take using only instruments that existed before 1953, to match the story's era.

In Ticket to Paradise (2022), Clooney and Roberts try to sabotage their daughter's wedding where?

Bali is only the setting: the film was shot in Queensland, Australia, with the Whitsunday Islands among the stand-ins, and a Covid outbreak there halted the production for a time in January 2022.

Which slasher villain returned in the 2022 independent hit Terrifier 2?

Art the Clown's micro-budget sequel took millions at the box office on word of mouth, as reports spread of cinemagoers vomiting and fainting at its goriest scenes; its director said he never wanted anyone hurt.

Halloween Ends (2022) closed a trilogy whose first film was a direct sequel to which earlier Halloween film?

John Carpenter's 1978 original is the only earlier film the trilogy counts: David Gordon Green's 2018 Halloween ignored every sequel in between, and Carpenter came back to co-compose its score.