It is awards season. Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globes have already handed out their statues and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science just announced its nominations and will present its golden Oscars in March. But while big Hollywood films like Sinners and One Battle After Another are racking up nominations and trophies, there are dozens of smaller films – some foreign, some indie, some that studios just didn’t feel like promoting – that deserve to be seen.

With new distribution strategies driven by streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon, some films no longer even get theatrical distribution and end up getting swallowed up in the streaming vortex. So here are some films that are worth putting on your watch list.

1. Tura!

Let’s kick off this list with some awesome documentaries. Tura! is a tribute to pop culture icon Tura Satana who lit up the screen like a Molotov cocktail as Varla in Russ Meyer’s 1965 film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. Director Cody Jarrett constructs the documentary like a mystery thriller as Tura’s life plays out with more twists and turns than her movies and with some jaw-dropping revelations.

Bottomline: Tura was even more of a badass in real life than in her movies. Check this out, then watch some of her films.

2. My Mom Jayne

This documentary chronicles the life of another pop culture icon. This time Hollywood sex symbol Jayne Mansfield. The doc is directed by Mansfield’s daughter, actress Mariska Hartigay. As with Tura!, My Mom Jayne is as riveting as any Hollywood drama. The film unravels a mystery as well as providing a more nuanced portrait of a woman Hollywood presented as a blonde bombshell to replicate Marilyn Monroe. Mansfield, we discover, was much more than that.

3. The Shadow Scholars

Small docs often get lost in the shuffle when they play at fests but fail to pick up a distributor. The Shadow Scholars is listed as a 2024 release even though it did not debut in the U.S. till 2025. It is a riveting documentary that examines Kenya’s hidden essay mills where tens of thousands of highly educated yet underemployed Kenyans write academic papers for wealthy Western students.

Patricia Kingori, PhD, is a British Kenyan sociologist, whose research tries to understand, explore and document different forms of ethics and power in health, medicine and science. One of her projects, Fakes, Fabrications and Falsehoods, asks who decides what is fake? The film carefully builds its story as it raises lots of questions about power, ethics, and fairness.

4. Mr. Nobody Vs. Putin

This film is getting some attention because it has now been nominated by the Academy for Best Documentary. This might push it out to cinemas in the run up to the Oscars. Pasha, a Russian teacher in a small town, becomes increasingly concerned about how his school is being transformed into a war recruitment center during the Ukraine invasion. Since his job involves videotaping school events, he decides to secretly document the propaganda and militarization at the school. He also chronicles what happens to his students who find themselves being sent off to war. It’s a film that reminds us that one person, one Mr. Nobody, can make a difference.

5. Mistress Dispeller

Mistress Dispeller was shortlisted for Best Documentary but failed to gain the spotlight of an Oscar nomination. Director Elizabeth Lo displays exquisite discretion and delicacy in navigating a documentary about a rising industry in China involving professionals hired by spouses to secretly infiltrate and break up extramarital affairs. Not sure how Lo pulled this off, but it is fascinating.

6. The Shrouds

And now for a few horror entries. The Shrouds, like The Shadow Scholars, is listed as a 2024 release but did not open in the U.S. until 2025. Any film from David Cronenberg is an event worthy of note, but this film just slipped into and out of theaters.

For Cronenberg, grief is not just an emotion, it is a physical thing. So, you could call this body horror only Cronenberg is not horrified by what he is showing. He gives us a man who has created technology to allow people to watch a loved one decompose in their grave. To Cronenberg, a body’s transformation in death is nothing to be scared of, it is a natural process. Vincent Cassel, looking a lot like Cronenberg, serves as the director’s alter ego as both men deal with the grief of losing a beloved wife. It is a physical pain for the loss of her physical body.

At 82, Cronenberg is still trying new things and pushing himself creatively. His films are always smart and feel meticulously crafted.

7. Dust Bunny

OK, how could a horror flick with a monster AND Mads Mikkelsen as a hitman sneak in and out of theaters so quickly? This imaginative horror fantasy deserved better. The story involves a little girl who thinks a monster under her bed devoured her family. She sees her neighbor (Mads) slay a “dragon,” so she tries to enlist his help in killing her monster.

Not quite on par with Mads in a Christmas sweater exacting revenge in Riders of Justice (also criminally underseen) but Dust Bunny is now streaming for you to catch up with.

8. The Surfer

Granted, Nicolas Cage makes films that sometimes deserve oblivion. But The Surfer is not one of those. As with Dust Bunny, it deserved a more legit theatrical release with promotional support. This is Cage Rage but with a little more grit and nasty tension. This film is less schlocky than things like Jiu Jitsu and The Carpenter’s Son, and Cage takes it more seriously. It smacks a little of old-school Ozploitation too and that’s a good thing.

9. Queens of the Dead

Seriously, a zombie film made by the daughter of George A. Romero deserved better than it got. It makes sense that Romero’s daughter Tina would make a zombie flick; the undead must be in her DNA. It’s not as savvy at social commentary or as visceral in its gore as her dad’s films, but it is a fun horror ride that makes good use of its setting at a drag club. I loved a kill scene played out in the photos coming out of a photo booth as well as a zombie attack on a drag queen where all the zombie gets is a mouthful of foam-padded ass.

Romero co-writes a funny script laced with bitchy drag queen humor but still takes a little time to develop her characters so we care about them. Not on par with her dad’s films but a worthy entry in the genre.

10. Debut, Or, Objects in a Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued

Onto some overlooked indie films starting with this tiny, micro budgeted film that looks like it was made on a home computer during the pandemic. It is wildly inventive as the occupant of a room starts to uncover details about the person who lived there previously. It is an obsessive tale of trying to place order on chaos, plus it’s a dreamy neo-noir mystery.

11. Reflection in a Dead Diamond

This film is just dripping with style, like fresh blood off a killer’s blade. It is an homage to sexy Eurospy films and Italian gialli of the 1970s. This film is just intoxicating fun for anyone who loves movies. Like a giallo, this film plays like a fever dream of sex, action, and audacious imagery. It is pretty much nothing but style but it’s not empty-headed.

The filmmakers have studied gialli as well as spy films from Bond to Danger: Diabolik to understand what makes them work and why we are so mesmerized by them. They understand the surreal dream logic and they knowingly play off it. There is even a killer who hypnotizes his victims into believing they are in a movie and cannot tell reality from fantasy, then they die when they see “The End” on the screen. That’s meta in a clever and fun way.

12. Twinless

I have no idea why this film did not get more attention or why James Sweeney’s smart, funny, tender script has not been sweeping up awards or at the very least nominations. On the surface it’s a gay rom com but then it takes some very unexpected turns to develop into something much deeper but without ever losing its wry sense of humor.

13. Nouvelle Vague

Richard Linklater’s valentine to the French New Wave is just delightful and beautifully shot in black and white. It may not have the rebellious energy of actual French New Wave films, but it’s filled with so much love for cinema that anyone who loves movies needs to see it. And the behind-the-scenes look at Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless is great.

14. Sorry Baby

Eva Victor’s feature film writing and directing debut is an exquisitely crafted and delicately intimate look at a woman dealing with trauma. The world continues around her like nothing has happened, but she is having a hard time moving forward. The film has humor as well as great compassion. And there is one absolutely lovely scene of unexpected human connection that will warm your soul and stay with you.

15. The Baltimorons

This has the most criminally overlooked female performance in Liz Larson. Sure, there are a lot of actresses who sank their teeth into more complex and nuanced roles but those types of parts always get attention. But Larson gives us a warm, humorous, vulnerable portrait of someone who is essentially just an ordinary person that you might run into on the street.

The film is kind of a Baltimore take on Before Sunrise. The man and woman who meet by chance and spend an entire night wandering streets, crashing parties and dropping in on a comedy club are far less hip, cool and glamorous than Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy were, but they are just as interesting and enjoyable to hang out with. And maybe just a little less self-absorbed.

16. My Father’s Shadow

And for the final round of films, here are some foreign titles that deserve love. This one is from Nigeria and features Sope Dirisu (of Gangs of London) as an estranged father who spends a day with his two young boys running errands in Lagos during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis. It is an intimate family drama played out against the tumultuous backdrop of political unrest. All the performances are perfection. The film renders a simple story with heartbreaking humanity as it observes the daily struggles this father faces as he is forced to take work that keeps him away from the family he loves.

17. Sisu: Road to Revenge

This sequel to Sisu is just more of the same but it raises the already over-the-top action yet another notch. Plus, we get a senior citizen action hero who kicks serious ass and never says a word. This is violent bloody fun, and it should have had a better run in cinemas so you could enjoy it with a crowd gasping in awe at the action on the screen.

18. Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisa)

This just got the boost of a Best International Feature Film Oscar nomination. It starts out feeling a bit uncomfortably exploitative as it uses a real emergency call from a 6-year-old girl is trapped in a car under IDF fire in Gaza. The Red Crescent volunteers who listen intently to her cries for help are all actors, but the little girl’s voice is real and she is in real terror and anguish. We share the volunteers’ desperation as they try to overcome multiple obstacles in an effort to get an ambulance to her.

As the film progresses, director Kaouther Ben Hania wins us over with her sincerity and deep compassion. We come to understand the frustration of the volunteers and the filmmaker and understand why using the real voice of Hind Rajab was a necessary choice to force audiences to connect with one real person suffering in Gaza. This is a heartbreaker.

19. Sirat (Spain)

This too garnered a Best International Feature Film Oscar nomination as well as one for Best Sound. That should give it enhanced visibility. It boasts an intense soundtrack and sound design, stunning desert locations, and a storyline that literally will take you off a cliff and devastate you. This is also getting attention thanks to John Waters putting it on his 10 best list. But even with that, the film is still flying under the radar because it does not fit neatly into any category and it is not overtly message driven. But the cast – led by a brilliant Sergi Lopez – works in perfect unison and takes us on a journey that is unexpectedly compelling.

20. The Plague

Sometimes it feels like there is nothing more terrifying than adolescence. The cruelty that can be found amongst children at schools or in camps or in sports, and then overlooked by adults, is often shocking. In this case, a socially awkward young boy tries to fit in at a water polo camp. But a ruthless bully with ever-changing rules and requirements torments him. Well-acted and with good use of the watery environment of the camp, this will ramp up anxiety for any viewer.

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