2021’s Squid Game solidified into a full-blown social phenomenon in 2022, and Queue devoted May’s Issue 8 cover to the award-winning Korean series’ stars. Among the show’s 14 Emmy nominations and six wins were historic Outstanding Lead Actor and Directing wins for Lee Jung-jae and Hwang Dong-hyuk, respectively, the first Asian actor and director to ever win in their categories. 

As much as Squid Game brought us into its dystopian battle royale, Matt and Ross Duffer’s Stranger Things 4 took us even further outside our comfort zones to the grimy world of the Upside Down. For most of us, the only way back to reality was Kate Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up That Hill,” which topped the Billboard Streaming Songs chart after the show’s release, earning the icon a renewed fandom. The fan-favorite series earned four Emmys, including Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup and multiple sound and music awards, and brought the series to a whopping 51 nominations and 12 wins in its lifetime (so far).

Also very much on our minds in May were mothers: particularly the mother-daughter acting duo of MAID, Margaret Qualley and Andie MacDowell, who worked together for the first time on this limited series. Says Qualley, “I learn so much from everybody I work with, but to be able to learn from my mom at the thing that I love doing the most is pretty extraordinary.”

This summer brought the fun with blockbuster action from The Gray Man, which starred Ryan Gosling as well as Regé-Jean Page, Jessica Henwick, and Ana de Armas in a globe-trotting spy thriller watched by more than 43.5 million viewers worldwide. Gosling joined Krista Smith on Skip Intro to discuss The Gray Man but also his apparently fashion-related transition out of the Mickey Mouse Club: “[I realized] I’m not sure these M.C. Hammer pants are gonna look good for very much longer — maybe I need to pivot here. So I kind of focused more on acting after that.” Adam Sandler — the latest recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor — and NBA legend LeBron James collaborated to make a heartwarming drama called Hustle, which sits at a 93 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and which the internet deemed “one of the best basketball movies of all time.” 

August ushered in Queue’s Issue 9, highlighting the gifts of Ozark and Inventing Anna star Julia Garner, who a month later took home her third Best Supporting Actress Emmy for her fierce portrayal of Ozark’s sharp-tongued Ruth Langmore. In her interview with Queue, Garner spoke about how important the role was to her: “Ruth gave me a sense of confidence that I’ve never had, something that I’ve struggled with my whole life. There’s something really beautiful about putting yourself completely out there.” Issue 9 also featured an extensive animation section including an essay on the power of animation from critic Chris Nashawaty, and stories on Netflix’s groundbreaking animated series and films — Wendell & Wild, The Sea Beast, and Spirit Rangers among them. 

Comedian Mo Amer brought us another fast-talking, complicated character to love in Mo, the A24 series he writes and stars in, based on his experience immigrating to Houston as a Palestinian refugee. Since its August debut, the series has earned critical acclaim and charmed audiences around the world. 

Ana de Armas went from a winter to a summer this fall, with her uncanny transformation into tragic starlet Marilyn Monroe with the September release of Andrew Dominik’s thought-provoking film Blonde. Another conversation stoker that month was DAHMER - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Ryan Murphy’s macabre look at the infamous serial killer’s legacy, which also shined a light on Dahmer’s neighbor Glenda Cleveland, played by Niecy Nash. Cleveland had suspected and reported Dahmer for years but her concerns largely fell on deaf ears. “To continue on and on and on, in an effort to get someone to do something,” Nash says, “she deserved way more than a little cheesy plaque in the bottom of a social hall somewhere.”

In celebration of Mexican cinema on Netflix and just in time for the Morelia International Film Festival in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico, Queue put together a special Mexico issue that was released in October and spanned genres and audiences: from telenovelas and Belascoarán, to the project that director Guillermo del Toro had been trying to make for more than a decade: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.

Germany reclaimed one of its most widely read novels to truly impress upon audiences the toll of war: All Quiet on the Western Front’s stunning cinematography won plaudits from critics and antiwar enthusiasts alike with its realistic depictions of the battlefield and its traumas.

Channeling the realism of high school into a beloved teen drama, Heartbreak High won audiences over this September with its twist on the Australian 90s show by the same name. We also dialed the clock back further to the Austrian empire of the mid-nineteenth century with The Empress, a gorgeous royal drama about the tragic life of Empress Elisabeth, the longest-reigning Austrian empress. 

To celebrate our double digits, Queue’s Issue 10, released in November, featured two stunning covers: director Alejandro González Iñárritu discussing his forthcoming masterpiece BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths and actor Emma Corrin on their starring role in Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s sumptuous adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Issue 10 also highlighted the exciting roster of recent documentaries, including Jonah Hill’s vulnerable conversations with his therapist in Stutz; an intimate portrait of Robert Downey Jr. and Sr.’s father-son relationship in “Sr.”; and Descendant, Margaret Brown’s profile of a community descended from enslaved people brought to America long after slavery was illegal, and what happens when the ship that brought over their ancestors is finally located.

Starting in November, people across social media were doing some pretty strange dance moves thanks to Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday Addams in the new series Wednesday, executive produced and partially directed by Tim Burton. The Crown’s Season 5 splashed onto headlines as the series entered the 90s, the most volatile time for the British royal family but also the decade with the most fun fashion from the People’s Princess, Diana. 

Closing out the year, Queue’s Issue 11 features Greta Gerwig, the star of one of the most anticipated films of the season, Noah Baumbach’s White Noise. In her Skip Intro interview with Queue’s Krista Smith, Gerwig shared her love for her character: “I loved Babette. I had an instant picture of her in my mind. I knew exactly what I wanted her to look like — her hair, the glasses, the way she dressed, the way she was, everything.” White Noise will stream on Netflix starting December 30, 2022.

Another long-awaited December release is Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Rian Johnson’s follow-up to his 2019 murder-mystery Knives Out. Queue spoke with three of the film’s stars in separate interviews: Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, and Kate Hudson, as well as their fearless leader, Rian Johnson. While the film initially ran in limited theatrical release, it begins streaming on Netflix on December 23, 2022.