The Best Performance in a Movie in 2022

Whether they were fighting off alien Predators, finding new purpose through multiverse shenanigans, or battling the dangers of becoming a rock and roll god, many of the characters in our favorite movies of 2022 were played by hugely talented actors who took these roles and not so much acted them as they simply inhabited them.

From Amber Midthunder in Prey to Austin Butler's Elvis, Daniel Kaluuya in Nope or the double threat of Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once, this was quite a year for memorable acting.

Our winner for the Best Performance in a Movie in 2022 is...

Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Michelle Yeoh’s performance in this year’s surprise breakout Everything Everywhere All At Once is a true encapsulation of the movie’s complex yet revealing title. Yeoh, whose portrayals in the film include (but aren’t limited to) an opera singer, a teppanyaki chef, a movie star, a rock, an animated character, and someone with hotdogs for fingers, is the lynchpin of the legitimately bonkers yet profoundly moving story. At the center of it all is Yeoh’s portrayal of Evelyn Wang, a stubborn yet loving laundromat owner who is trying to hold her family together across time and space. Along the way, she zooms through timelines in an attempt to rescue her daughter and prevent the multiverse from collapsing into an “everything bagel” black hole. It’s a career-defining performance from an actor who already has numerous memorable and highly-acclaimed roles under her belt.

These are our nominees for the Best Performance in a Movie in 2022...

The Best Performance in a Movie in 2022

Amber Midthunder, Prey

Prey gambles a lot by setting its action in a time when the musket was the most advanced weaponry available to humans. If the Predator wiped out Dutch’s entire cohort of gut-toting musclemen, how could anyone have survived 300 years ago? The success of Prey’s premise relies entirely on buying that Naru, a young Comanche warrior, could take on the Predator, and Amber Midthunder’s steely, ferocious take on the character becomes essential to why the movie works. Naru’s secret weapon ends up being critical thinking. Whether it’s in a scuffle with the boys in her tribe or as she’s hiding from the Predator as he tears his way through the plains, Naru is always listening and noticing, always using a loss or setback as a learning opportunity. It’s a crucial aspect of a character that Midthunder’s performance highlights. At once dry-witted, determined, and capable, Midthunder’s Naru is an excellent addition to the canon of sci-fi heroes, and that axe-on-a-rope that she hurls around Scorpion-style will be the bane of convention security checks for years to come.

Austin Butler, Elvis

Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is a dizzying and at times even overwhelming chronicle of the rock icon. At the center of it all is a star-making, Oscar-worthy performance by Austin Butler, who nails Presley’s voice (he does a lot of his own singing in the ‘50s sequences and is quite good!) and mannerisms, even if his resemblance to Elvis varies at times. Butler is not going for mimicry here. There’s a light behind his eyes that reveals an intense immersion in Elvis the man; it’s almost cliche to say an actor is channeling the real person they’re playing, but Butler’s nuanced, human portrayal captures the lip-curling superficial elements one expects to see from Elvis while also revealing the passionate dreamer and ultimately broken soul inside him.

Daniel Kaluuya, Nope

Front and center in the outrageous story of a flying saucer terrorizing a horse ranch on the fringes of the film industry, is Daniel Kaluuya giving a performance that is the polar opposite. As Otis “OJ” Haywood, Jr. he frankly, just doesn’t talk that much. He’s pensive and understated and always thinking of a way to get out from under all his troubles and, in the case of his biggest trouble, quite literally. He carries a thrilling movie on the strength of his close ups and reactions. In the midst of much larger, or at least more specifically satirical performances, Daniel Kaluuya’s stoic demeanor demands attention when OJ actually does decide it’s time to speak. It’s a rare quality to have and one Kaluuya uses to great effect in Nope.

Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Everything Everywhere All at Once came out of nowhere. With it came the triumphant return of Ke Huy Quan, known by most fans as the beloved Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It wasn’t nostalgia that recaptured our hearts, though. Huy Quan’s performance, matched only by the incredible Michelle Yeoh, left us enrapt. Whether he was acting as peak Wife Guy? or playing his smooth alternate universe counterpart reminding us that “in another life I would have liked just doing laundry and taxes with you,” Waymond Wang goes up as one of the best characters of the year.