2022 was supposed to be the year that movies came roaring back to life, and in some ways it almost was. On the business side of things, multiplexes were starved for content and arthouses suffered outside of New York and Los Angeles — where films like “Tár” and “The Banshees of Inisherin” exploded out of the gate, only to fade as they expanded across the country — while a late-career triumph from the most commercially successful filmmaker in American history offered a poignant reflection on the relationship between art and commerce as it underperformed at the box office.

And yet, “Top Gun: Maverick” proved that the masses could still be tempted by the promise of new (or refurbished) spectacle, while the astonishing success of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” confirmed that younger audiences are eager as ever to champion stuff that speaks their language.

But if it never quite felt as if the...