If there's one thing I've learned doing this it's that the best movies don't necessarily get the most attention. More often than not they get hardly any at all. Given Hollywood's fondness for blockbusters and sequels, many solid films only get a cursory theatrical release before being swallowed up and forgotten. It's sad, but that is why giving some rub to those movies you might have missed is, I think, one of the best services we provide here on a regular basis.
There simply is no way to see everything that's out there. Hundreds of movies come out each year and many slip between the cracks. 2015 was absolutely stacked with quality movies that fell under the radar, so many that I expanded the list to twenty and still had some left over. The toughest part is deciding what has truly been overlooked, so I tried to stick with films that didn't get a ton of buzz and certainly didn't make waves at the box office. But of course, it's all subjective depending on where you live and how deeply immersed in this stuff you are. I also decided to leave out anything that turned up on my Best of 2015 list because isn't my acknowledgement of their greatness ample recognition? Just kidding.
Anyway, here's my list of Best Overlooked Movies of 2015, and please be sure to follow all of our end of the year coverage here!
Director: Alex Ross Perry
Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Katherine Waterston, Patrick Fugit
Director: S. Craig Zahler
Cast: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox
Cast: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox
Eden
Director: Mia Hansen-Love
Cast: Felix de Givry, Pauline Etienne, Vincent Macaigne, Brady Corbet, Greta Gerwig
Hungry Hearts
Director: Saverio Costanzo
Cast: Adam Driver, Alba Rohrwacher
Heaven Knows What
Directors: Ben and Joshua Safdie
Cast: Arielle Holmes, Buddy Duress, Caleb Landry Jones
Welcome to Me
Director: Shira Piven
Cast: Kristen Wiig, Wes Bentley, Linda Cardellini, James Marsden, Thomas Mann, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Alan Tudyk, Tim Robbins
I'll See You In My Dreams
Director: Brett Haley
Cast: Blythe Danner, Sam Elliott, Malin Akerman, Martin Starr, June Squibb, Rhea Perlman, Mary Kay Place
Slow West
Director: John Maclean
Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn, Caren Pistorius
Mississippi Grind
Directors: Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Ben Mendelsohn, Sienna Miller, Analeigh Tipton
The Harvest
Director: John McNaughton
Cast: Samantha Morton, Michael Shannon, Natasha Calis, Charlie Tahan
The Final Girls
Director: Todd Strauss-Schulson
Cast: Taissa Farmiga, Malin Akerman, Alia Shawkat, Adam DeVine, Alexander Ludvig, Nina Dobrev
Turbo Kid
Directors: Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell
Cast: Munro Chambers, Laurence Leboeuf, Michael Ironside
Everly
Director: Joe Lynch
Cast: Salma Hayek
Samba
Directors: Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano
Cast: Omar Sy, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Tahar Rahim
