It’s obvious by the end of every calendar year which movies got the most buzz over the last 12 months and which movies must be seen in the lead up to the awards season. This year, the majority of cinephiles out there know they need to check out the likes of “Nomadland,” “Minari,” and “Promising Young Woman” ahead of nomination announcements, among other titles. Films such as “Da 5 Bloods,” “The Invisible Man,” and “Borat 2” opened with a ton of publicity and garnered millions of eyeballs. But where is all the love for “Babyteeth,” “The Other Lamb,” and other low-profile indie films that just couldn’t fight to the top of the always-growing pile of content? That’s what the end of the year is for: catching up on the movies that fell through the cracks.
Fortunately, IndieWire has rounded up 20 well reviewed films released over the last 12 months that demand more attention heading into the new year. Blurbs have been pulled from various reviews.
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“A Sun”
Image Credit: Netflix Chung Mong-hong’s “A Sun” might have gone entirely unnoticed on Netflix had Variety not named the movie the best film of 2020 this month. That one designation resulted in many more U.S. critics seeking out the film and giving it universal critical acclaim. As IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote in his review: “A stylish but unexpectedly sober tale of crime and punishment that finds its 55-year-old director pivoting away from the more heightened tone of his three previous features (“Parking,” “Soul,” and “Godspeed”) for a riveting moral odyssey that mixes elements of broad comedy, ultra-violence, melodrama, and even a splash of animation into the slow-boiling stew of everyday human existence.”
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“Miss Juneteenth”
Image Credit: Sundance Channing Godfrey Peoples’ slice-of-life drama “Miss Juneteenth” benefits mightily from Nicole Beharie and Alexis Chikaeze’s winning performances. These two actresses wade through the film’s slow-moving plot to bring to life the film’s best and most beautiful bonds. They’re both outstanding here, and Peoples’ skill at casting and directing eye-opening stars is worthy of serious praise and attention. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“The True Adventures of Wolfboy”
Image Credit: Vertical Entertainment “The True Adventures of Wolfboy” feels like the movie Tim Burton would have made 30 years ago if he hadn’t directed “Edward Scissorhands” instead. Director Martin Krejcí’s first feature has the fairy-tale surrealism and penchant for oddball outsiders that distinguished Burton’s work, as well as a similar lighthearted quirkiness that balances the undercurrents of gothic dread. Above all, “Wolfboy” suggests “Scissorhands” for the way it grounds an outlandish figure in credible emotional stakes, making the case for a sincere coming-of-age drama along the way. Read IndieWire’s review.
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“And Then We Danced”
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Sweden’s Oscar contender for the 2020 Academy Awards opened in February from Music Box Films, and it remains one of the strongest queer movies released in the last several years. Levan Akin’s luminous tour de force centers on a competitive dancer whose coming-of-age is defined by his relationship with a rebellious new dance student. Akin’s script diverges from the traditional coming-of-age tale by keeping a laser focus on main character Merab’s internal journey. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“Come to Daddy”
Image Credit: ©Saban Int'l/Courtesy Everett Collection Ant Timpson’s directorial debut “Come to Daddy” is a sentimental story about death and rediscovery that explodes into violent mayhem. It begins by quoting Shakespeare and Beyoncé in the same frame, and it only gets loopier from there. Elijah Wood is the heart of the film, delivering one of his most endearing characters in recent memory: a wide-eyed, mustachioed hipster who obscures his insecurities with high fashion and fancy lies. Read IndieWire’s full review here.
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“Olympic Dreams”
Image Credit: ©IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection The chatty, wistful “Olympic Dreams” suggests Haskell Wexler’s “Medium Cool” by way of Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy, starring Nick Kroll and real-life Olympian Alexi Pappas in a romance that unfolds during the Winter Olympics. That the film was shot on location at the 2018 Olympics adds to its authenticity.
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“Relic”
Image Credit: ©IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection When it comes to matters of monstrous kin, modern horror movies tend to turn on the “bad seed” angle, viewing demonic or killer children through the eyes of their feckless parents. But rarely do we see the opposite — an elder parent’s devolution into madness through the eyes of their adult brood. Enter “Relic,” the feature debut from Japanese-Australian filmmaker Natalie Erika James co-written by Christian White, which shows an 85-year-old matriarch’s descent into otherworldly insanity from the points of view of her daughter, Kay (Emily Mortimer), and granddaughter, Sam (Bella Heathcote). Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“Ordinary Love”
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson are excellent in “Ordinary Love,” a quiet, emotionally resonant drama about the limits of sharing a life together. The two actors play an aging married couple forced to confront their mortality after the wife is diagnosed with cancer. “Ordinary Love” is a story about all of the ways that even the strongest of couples can be separated before death does them part; a story about how different kinds of pain can trace the limits and boundlessness of sharing your life with someone. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“The Other Lamb”
Image Credit: ©IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection Raffey Cassidy, young star of “Vox Lux” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” delivers another knockout turn in this disturbing slice of allegorical folk horror. Though hardly subtle in its metaphoric intent, this story of a rural cult of all women, segregated into “sisters” and “wives,” and led by a single powerful man makes for an unnervingly effective thriller dripping with atmosphere and foreshadowing. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“Premature”
Image Credit: ©IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection Rashaad Ernesto Green’s second feature “Premature” makes a familiar story fresh, thanks to a star turn from co-writer and leading lady Zora Howard. It’s a story that has been done before, and the way it unfolds isn’t original or unexpected, but Howard’s performance and poeticism gives it gravitas. And while Green’s refusal to tie it all up in a neat bow rankles at first, it eventually scans as a refection of a world beholden to questions that don’t have answers. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“Tigertail”
Image Credit: ©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection A slow-burn immigrant drama with visual polish to spare, Alan Yang’s “Tigertail” molds the leisurely plot into a lush, moving portrait of American dreams undercut by harsh reality checks. Yang infuses his earnest, semi-fictionalized story (inspired by his own father’s experiences) with the evocative narrative traditions of modern Asian cinema, from Wong Kar Wai to Edward Yang, resulting in a rich and intimate atmosphere at every turn. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“The True History of the Kelly Gang”
Image Credit: ©IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection When Australian robber Ned Kelly was executed in 1880 at the age of 25, his last words were reported as “Such is life.” Director Justin Kurzel’s sizzling, violent epic “True History of the Kelly Gang” questions that myth, suggesting that the legendary Australian criminal would never shrug off his fate, since he was a fighter right through to the bitter end. The movie is a nasty crime drama with plenty of grimy characters to keep the stakes compelling throughout. Imagine “Bonnie and Clyde” in the Australian outback — a disturbing glimpse of criminality that provides a subversive taste of its appeal. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“Selah and the Spades”
Image Credit: ©Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection Tayarisha Poe’s confident feature debut “Selah and the Spades” plays like a mashup of “Heathers,” “Rushmore,” and “The Godfather,” meaning it’s a more than welcome entry into the high school canon. Set at the lush Haldwall School, Poe takes high school tribalism to a new level, crafting a boarding school hierarchy in which five factions rule the campus and provide its citizens with plenty of necessary vices. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“Babyteeth”
Image Credit: ©IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection Ben Mendelsohn, Eliza Scanlen, and “Babadook” star Essie Davis bring heartbreaking truth and realness to “Babyteeth,” a film with shades of Jane Campion. Shannon Murphy’s primal and surefooted debut is a cancer drama that never falls into either mawkishness or sadism. It keeps you on your toes from the moment it starts, brings together a winsome but wounded group of people who are all struggling to slay the “tiny gods” in their heads, and then forces them through an ordeal that might just break their hearts. And yours. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“I Used to Go Here”
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Filmmaker Kris Rey has long trafficked in stories about compelling women who temper awkward moments by bonding with inappropriate new pals. In her most widely seen feature to date, 2015 Sundance entry “Unexpected,” she matched up a pregnant high school teacher with an expecting student with illuminating results. That concept takes on more amusing results with “I Used to Go Here,” Rey’s best film, which still smacks of her usual obsessions. However, armed with her funniest material to date and a winning performance from Gillian Jacobs, the filmmaker finds new dimensions for both her work and the millennial ennui that has always inspired it. Read IndieWire’s full review here.
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“Spree”
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Director Eugene Kotlyarenko’s “Spree,” co-written with Gene McHugh, centers on “Stranger Things” star Joe Keery as a Gen-Z wannabe influencer whose thirst for internet fame turns him into a serial killer who live-streams his murders while posing as a friendly-faced rideshare driver. “Spree” is a found-footage horror movie for the “Joker” age, mean-spirited and heartless. What’s the point, you might ask? The point is that there isn’t one. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“Tesla”
Image Credit: ©IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection Working from a script that he first wrote in 1983 (and has obviously updated since), “Hamlet” director Michael Almereyda reunites with his favorite leading man Ethan Hawke for a scientist biopic so anachronistic and unmoored that it makes his “Experimenter” seem like a Ken Burns documentary by comparison. “Tesla” adheres to the same kind of emotional logic as that 2015 effort, likewise retrofitting a playful structure over the life of a decidedly unplayful man. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“To The Stars”
Image Credit: ©Samuel Goldwyn Films/Courtesy Everett Collection A-line skirts, jukebox tunes, and diner milkshakes. The 1960s, especially the 1960s Oklahoma of the film “To the Stars,” were simpler times. But beneath the face powder lay unrest, and a hunger for an alternative. In the Dust Bowl midwest of Martha Stephens’ gentle and lovely film, life beyond the edges of the prairie is some made-up dream thing. Thoreau’s “lives of quiet desperation” come to mind. But so do John Hughes, and Peter Bogdanovich’s Larry McMurtry adaptation “The Last Picture Show.” Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“Proxima”
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection A year after it debuted on the festival circuit, Alice Winocour’s cerebral space drama “Proxima” was beaten into wide(ish) release by Netflix’s significantly less brain-powered “Away,” which arrived on the streamer this past September, where it was greeted with iffy reviews and a surprisingly prompt cancellation from Netflix. While the central conceit of “Proxima” and “Away” is similar — a female astronaut struggles to balance her profession and her family — Winocour’s intimate, considered treatment of the material is far more satisfying, less a space-y soap than a nuanced character study, bolstered by a wonderful turn from star Eva Green. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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“Radioactive”
Image Credit: ©Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection Rosamund Pike has a penchant for playing determined women navigating oppressive male-dominated environments, from the femme fatale of “Gone Girl” to war photographer Marie Colvin in last year’s “A Private War.” In the latest example, “Radioactive,” Pike delivers a powerful embodiment of another tragic hero named Marie. As pioneering physicist and chemist Marie Curie, Pike delivers a dazzling performance rich with the struggles of a life defined by perilous discoveries and great personal loss. Read IndieWire’s full review.
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