Some movies dominate the cultural conversation the moment they’re released. Others quietly collect acclaim, rack upnear-perfect Rotten Tomatoes scores, and still, somehow, slip through the cracks.This list is for the movies that critics bestowed a glowing RT score upon, that festival audiences wept over, that cinephiles whisper about in reverent tones, but thatmany of us might’ve scrolled past without a second thought.
They’re not overlooked because they’re lacking; quite the opposite. These are movies that ask more of you: patience, attention, and emotional openness. They don’t beg to be seen but wait. Whether they’re slow-burn romances, lyrical documentaries, or sci-fi sleepers with vintage vibes, each of these underappreciated movies offers something new to discover.
10’Leave No Trace' (2018)
Directed by Debra Granik
“I think it might be easier on us if we try to adapt.” This story of a father and daughter living off the grid in the forests of Oregon isn’t loud or showy, butit lingers like morning mist.Ben Foster’s performance simmers with wounded dignity, whileThomasin McKenzie’s breakout turn catches you by surprise; alternately delicate, alert, and quietly aching. There are no villains here, just a world that doesn’t quite know what to do with people who don’t want to be found.
What makes this film so haunting is its restraint.Debra Granik(who also madeWinter’s Bone,Jennifer Lawrence’s star-making role) doesn’t give us the answers. We watch a daughter outgrow her father’s trauma, not in grand speeches but in glances, silences, and choices. The cinematography feels like nature itself is watching, breathing along with the characters. And when the inevitable parting comes, it doesn’t feel cruel; it feels true.
Leave No Trace
9’Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy' (2021)
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
“Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion.” In three deceptively simple vignettes,Drive My Car’sRyusuke Hamaguchibuilds entire emotional universes.Wheel of Fortune and Fantasyis a masterclass in how much longing, confusion, and revelation can unfold in just a single conversation. The camera lingers; the characters hesitate; there’s a grace to how each story edges toward connection, only to pivot, gently or cruelly, into something else.
This is a film aboutmissed chances and how they might be salvaged. Hamaguchi isn’t interested in melodrama;he’s interested inpeopleand how their fantasies and regrets twist around their choices. As a result, each segment feels like a short story, yet the collection adds up to something larger. It’snot flashy, but it’s deeply authentic, and when it ends, you might feel the odd need to sit in stillness for a while.
8’Portrait of a Lady on Fire' (2019)
Directed by Céline Sciamma
“In solitude, I felt the liberty you spoke of. But I also felt your absence.” A candlelit gaze. A painting that won’t stay still. A forbidden romance.Portrait of a Lady on Firetells the story of an affair between two women in 18th-century France, one an aristocrat (Adèle Haenel), the other a painter (Noémie Merlant). ThinkBlue is the Warmest ColormeetsJane Austen.
This is a verysubtle and realistic movie. There’s no swelling music, no shouted declarations, just stolen moments, the hush of sea wind, and the tension of hands thatalmosttouch. Here, directorCéline Sciammachannels influences likeMulholland Drive,Barry Lyndon, andJane Campion’sThe Piano, but turns them into something fully distinct. Shecomposes every shot like a painting, especially the final one,a devastating and operatic imagethat lingers on the mind. While it’ll be too slow for some,Portrait of a Lady on Firewill please more than arthouse aficionados.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
7’The Farewell' (2019)
Directed by Lulu Wang
“The lie is the truth.” That contradiction becomes the film’s heartbeat. Based on directorLulu Wang’s family story,The Farewellfollows a Chinese-American woman (Awkwafina) caught between two cultures, both of which love fiercely but show it differently. Her grandmother (Zhao Shu-zhen) is dying, and the family knows it, but she doesn’t. What unfolds isa comedy of manners where grief, guilt, and joy swirl in the same breath.
Awkwafina delivers a quiet, tender performance, refreshingly free of sarcasm or bravado (or rapping). On the directing front, Wang likewiseresists sentimentality, opting instead for messy humanity. She makes this small-scale story into something more than the sum of its parts. A wedding becomes a cover for a goodbye. A family meal becomes a battlefield of unspoken fears. In the end,The Farewellisa touching story of family dynamicsand cultural adjustments, shot through with veiled criticism of government repression in China.
The Farewell
6’Columbus' (2017)
Directed by Kogonada
“There might be a good king here and there, but the system is problematic.” Some movies feel like architecture: deliberate, precise, built to make you pause;Columbusis one. Set among the stark beauty of modernist buildings in a small Midwestern town, it’s a quiet film about two strangers—one stuck (Haley Lu Richardson), one passing through (John Cho)—who find meaning in each other’s company.
Kogonada, a video essayist turned director, constructs each shot with meditative grace. Butthe film’s intellect never overwhelms its heart. Much of its success is thanks to the warm performances. Haley Lu Richardson is luminous, fragile, searching, grounded. Those who only know fromThe White Lotusshould check this out. Opposite her, John Cho, in a rare dramatic lead, radiates sadness held in check. Together, they don’t fall in love, but they see each other, and that’s more radical than it sounds.A quiet gem of a film.
5’My Life as a Zucchini' (2016)
Directed by Claude Barras
“My name is Courgette!” Don’t let the stop-motion animation fool you;My Life as a Zucchiniis one of the most emotionally raw films about childhood ever made. After losing his mother, a young boy nicknamed Zucchini (voiced byErick Abbatein the English version) ends up in a group home filled with kids carrying invisible wounds. It’s a simple setup that becomes a gentle, heartbreaking, and utterly sincere comedy-drama.
Its visual style is simple, almost childlike, but that only sharpens the emotional impact. These aren’t cartoon children, they’re survivors, and in their friendships, crushes, and shy attempts at joy, we glimpse something profound. The young protagonists are resilient, despite everything, and, at just over an hour long, the movie packs more truth than most three-hour dramas. In the end,My Life as a Zucchiniis a rare thing: a film thatrespects kids enough to show the full weight of their griefand ability to grow beyond it.
My Life as a Zucchini
4’Time' (2020)
Directed by Garrett Bradley
“My prayer was that upon my release from prison, God would allow me to use my voice for the voiceless.” Time is not a documentary in the traditional sense. Rather, it’s a kind of love letter carved out of memory (and more than a little persistence). FilmmakerGarrett Bradleyassembles home video footage and present-day recordings to tell the story ofSibil Fox Richardson, a woman who spent two decades fighting for her husband’s release from prison.
What emerges isless about the legal system than about the toll it can take on family and on love.Shot in black and white, the film has a lyrical quality that, despite the title, feels almost timeless. Bradley weaves moments of joy, exhaustion, and hope into something that transcends genre.Timedoesn’t rage; it endures. There’s no neat resolution, but that’s not the point. The point is the waiting, the devotion, the refusal to let someone vanish.
3’The Vast of Night' (2019)
Directed by Andrew Patterson
“You are entering a realm between clandestine and forgotten…” In an era of big-budget sci-fi spectacle,The Vast of Nightreminds us how much you can do withatmosphere, dialogue, and a sense of wonder. Set in 1950s New Mexico, it follows a switchboard operator (Sierra McCormick) and a radio DJ (Jake Horowitz) who stumble across a strange frequency that may or may not be from another world. What begins as small-town chatter evolves into something eerie, electric, and utterly hypnotic.
Andrew Patterson, in his directorial debut, crafts a film thatfeels like a midnight broadcast from another dimension. The camera roves through gymnasiums, telephone wires, and empty streets with fluid grace. But it’s the sound design, particularly the hums, crackles, and silences, that really crawls under your skin. The final piece of the puzzle is the layered lead performances, which are way behind their years. It all adds up toa sci-fi tale told with the patience of a ghost story.
The Vast of Night
2’For Sama' (2019)
“What a life I’ve brought you into.” Filmed over five years in war-torn Aleppo,For Samais a firsthand account byWaad Al-Kateabof life, love, and motherhood amid relentless bombing. It’sone of the most intimate portrayals of warever captured on camera, not from the vantage point of soldiers or leaders, but from a mother with a newborn in her arms. The film’s biggest strength is its framing. Al-Kateab addresses her infant daughter directly, narrating the chaos around them with a mixture of terror, hope, and defiance.
The audience witnessesthe unimaginable through the lens of daily survival: jokes, weddings, breadlines, surgeries. It’sharrowing but never exploitative, and by the end, it’s clear that this is not just a story about Syria but a statement onwhat it means to choose life in the face of destruction. In light ofAssad’s departure to Russia and the rise of a new authority in the country,For Samais worth revisiting.
1’The Rider' (2017)
Directed by Chloé Zhao
“I believe God gives each of us a purpose.” With the Oscar-winningNomadland, directorChloé Zhaomelded fact and fiction for maximum emotional impact. She pulls off a similar trick withThe Rider, one of her earlier features. In it,Brady Jandreau, a real-life rodeo rider recovering from a near-fatal injury, plays a version of himself trying to find a way forward. His story is a meditation on what happens when the thing that gives your life meaning is taken away.
It’s moving, in part because all of us will have to wrestle with that kind of problem at some point, though, if we’re lucky, not at the same scale.Brady’s struggle to redefine himself without the rodeo ring is heartbreaking, not because he fails, but because he tries with such quiet dignity. Zhao shoots all this witha painter’s eye but a documentarian’s heart. The film is full of wide skies, weathered faces, and quiet despair, yet it’s never dour.
