2022 was a pivotal year for action cinema. Top Gun: Maverick proved that unabashedly patriotic blockbusters could still shatter box office records, grossing over $1.4 billion worldwide. Strange World proved the opposite: Disney was willing to lose more than $200 million inserting progressive identity messaging into an animated adventure that audiences had no interest in watching.
VirtueVigil reviewed 18 action, superhero, adventure, and military titles from 2022. The rankings below go from most woke to most traditional using real VVWS data. Every entry links to the full review with the complete trope audit. The scores are not opinions. They are measurements.
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1
Strange World (2022)
WOKE -15 WOKEDisney's most expensive flop of 2022 made headlines for bombing harder than almost any animated film in studio history, losing the studio over $200 million. The film centers on a multigenerational family of adventurers whose teenage son is in a same-sex relationship, presented as completely unremarkable. That representation agenda overwhelmed everything else on screen, and audiences stayed home in massive numbers.
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2
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
WOKE LEAN -6 WOKEMade under the shadow of Chadwick Boseman's death, Wakanda Forever amplified every progressive signal present in the original. The film centers female leadership, leans hard into anti-colonial framing, and introduces Namor as a villain whose entire motivation is rooted in indigenous peoples' grievance against colonizers. Emotionally affecting in places, but ideologically dense throughout.
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3
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
WOKE LEAN -4 WOKETaika Waititi returned to the Thor franchise and delivered the MCU's loudest, most chaotic entry. The film transfers Thor's hammer to Jane Foster and systematically deconstructs Thor's masculinity for comic effect. Progressive framing runs throughout, including Asgard's explicitly queer-coded society and a villain whose motivation critiques religious institutions. Critics loved it. Audiences were more divided.
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4
Lightyear (2022)
WOKE LEAN -4 WOKEPixar's Toy Story spinoff built a same-sex kiss into the plot and marketed it as a family film. The relationship between Izzy Hawthorne's grandmother and her partner is presented as a central positive element. Pixar had originally cut the scene, then restored it in response to protests from Pixar employees. The ideological signaling was intentional, visible, and a significant reason the film underperformed.
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5
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
WOKE LEAN -3 WOKESam Raimi brought genuine horror sensibility to the MCU multiverse, and the film is one of the more visually interesting Marvel entries. But it also introduced America Chavez, a teenager from a dimension with two moms whose identity is treated as completely unremarkable. The woke margin is narrow, reflecting that the ideological content competes with genuine craft rather than dominating the film.
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6
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
MIXED +1 TRADThe A24 multiverse film that swept the Oscars is genuinely harder to score than its cultural reception suggests. At its core it is a film about a Chinese immigrant mother reconciling with her daughter through love and sacrifice. That filial piety framework is classically traditional. The same-sex relationship subplot and nihilism-as-philosophy elements push the other direction. The final score lands almost exactly at zero.
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7
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
MIXED +3 TRADJames Cameron spent $350 million on a film whose central message has not changed since 2009: industrial colonizers are bad, indigenous people connected to nature are good. The anti-colonial framing is consistent and unambiguous. What keeps Avatar out of woke territory is Jake Sully's treatment of family and fatherhood, his willingness to sacrifice everything for his children elevating the traditional score enough to land in MIXED.
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8
Black Adam (2022)
TRADITIONAL LEAN +5 TRADDwayne Johnson's long-gestating DC project delivered an antihero whose entire framework is built on vengeance in service of protecting a people from oppression. The film avoids the gender ideology and institutional critique that plague other DC entries. The Justice Society of America functions as a legitimate authority rather than a corrupt obstacle, which is a meaningful traditional signal in the post-2016 MCU landscape.
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9
Bullet Train (2022)
TRADITIONAL LEAN +5 TRADBrad Pitt's action-comedy is a wild, stylized ride with minimal ideological content. The film's ensemble of assassins is diverse in casting but the diversity is not weaponized as messaging. The humor is crude in places but never agenda-driven. A functional traditional lean earned largely by the absence of progressive content rather than the presence of strongly traditional values.
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10
The Gray Man (2022)
TRADITIONAL LEAN +6 TRADThe Russo Brothers' Netflix spy thriller starring Ryan Gosling as a rogue CIA asset is exactly what it advertises: a competent man against a corrupt institutional enemy. The hero's moral clarity, self-reliance, and protective instinct toward an innocent girl in danger are the film's traditional anchors. It does not preach. It just runs.
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11
Prey (2022)
TRADITIONAL LEAN +7 TRADThe Predator prequel set among 18th-century Comanche drew attention for its female protagonist hunting the alien warrior. Naru's arc is built on proving herself through actual skill and courage rather than ideological declaration, which is a meaningful distinction. The film respects the Comanche setting without turning it into a political lecture. One of the better Predator films and a cleaner watch than its casting suggested.
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12
Uncharted (2022)
TRADITIONAL +11 TRADThe video game adaptation starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg is a throwback adventure film in the Indiana Jones mold: treasure hunting, masculine camaraderie, exotic locations, and no political agenda. Critics dismissed it as thin; audiences showed up anyway. From a values perspective it is uncomplicated and clean. Brotherhood, loyalty, and competence are the film's emotional core.
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13
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
TRADITIONAL +14 TRADOne of the best-reviewed animated films in years. The Last Wish is about a reckless hero confronting his mortality and learning the value of the life he has rather than the glory he wants. Themes of courage, chosen family, and accepting limits are executed with real emotional weight. No ideology injected anywhere. A rare animated film parents can take children to without ideological concern.
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14
The Batman (2022)
TRADITIONAL +14 TRADMatt Reeves's noir take on Batman is the darkest and most serious entry in the DC film catalog. Bruce Wayne's motivation is rooted in justice as a personal moral obligation rather than as a systemic critique. The film depicts Gotham's corruption as a problem of individuals making bad choices, not an indictment of institutions themselves. The Batman's refusal to kill even under extreme provocation is classically traditional.
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15
Violent Night (2022)
TRADITIONAL +18 TRADSanta Claus as a Viking warrior defending a family from mercenaries on Christmas Eve. The premise is absurd but the values underneath are not: family loyalty, Christmas as something worth protecting, and a father figure willing to die rather than abandon children in danger. The film is extremely violent and emphatically not for families, but its moral architecture is more traditional than most prestige films of 2022.
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16
The Northman (2022)
STRONGLY TRADITIONAL +20 TRADRobert Eggers's Viking revenge epic is relentlessly brutal and mythologically dense. Amleth's entire existence is organized around a vow of vengeance made to his murdered father. Honor, duty, blood obligation, and masculine sacrifice are not background elements here. They are the entire film. The Northman does not critique these values. It inhabits them with total commitment. One of the most unambiguously traditional major studio films of 2022.
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17
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
STRONGLY TRADITIONAL +20 TRADThe highest-grossing film of 2022 in North America succeeded because it is an explicit celebration of military excellence, masculine competence, and American exceptionalism without apology or irony. Tom Cruise as Maverick is the film's thesis: the best pilot in the world accepting the most dangerous mission because he refuses to let others die for it. Patriotism, sacrifice, and the value of mastery are bedrock here.
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18
The Terminal List (2022)
STRONGLY TRADITIONAL +24 TRADChris Pratt's Amazon Prime military thriller earned VirtueVigil's highest score among all 2022 action titles. The Terminal List is built entirely on military brotherhood, family protection, and a veteran's refusal to let a corrupt system bury the truth about his men's deaths. Every traditional signal is deployed at maximum intensity. The conservative audience response was enormous, making it one of Amazon's most-watched originals despite critical indifference.
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The 2022 Action Verdict
2022 told the story of action cinema at a crossroads. Top Gun: Maverick and The Terminal List proved that audiences will show up in massive numbers for films that treat American values with respect. Strange World proved that Disney is willing to lose hundreds of millions of dollars rather than make a family film without progressive identity content. The Batman and The Northman showed that dark, serious storytelling and traditional values are not mutually exclusive. Thor: Love and Thunder and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever demonstrated what happens when superhero films prioritize ideology over story.
Browse all reviewed 2022 films at Every 2022 Movie Ranked by Woke Score, or explore the full database at VirtueVigil.com. For the companion action rankings, see Every 2023 Action Movie Ranked and Every 2024 Action Movie Ranked.