Underappreciated Movies You Missed In 2017

If you're anything like us, you've got a neatly-organized laundry list of films to catch this year. From Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the Wonder Woman standalone film to reuniting with everyone's favorite galaxy-saving goofballs in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the flicks you won't want to miss are so committed to your memory, you sort of sound like Arya Stark mumbling them to yourself as you fall asleep. But with all that focus on big-ticket films, a ton of amazing picks have slipped under the radar, and we're here to show you the best of the bunch.

You may have missed this unique drama in theaters, but you'll surely recognize its supremely talented stars. Academy Award winner Casey Affleck joins forces with Oscar-nominated Rooney Mara as a husband and wife that have been separated by the most severe of circumstances: death. Affleck's C (yep, that's his full character name) was a struggling musician in the waking world, but in the great beyond, he's a white-sheeted ghost. Ambiguously shaped with two black holes for eyes, C is straight out of a child's crude illustrations. At least in aesthetics, that is.

C returns to his suburban home to console Mara's grief-stricken M, trapped in a spectral state with the love of his (after)life slipping away before him, and ventures on a path through his memories to unlock questions of the past and the enormous enigmas of existence.

Directed by Ain't Them Bodies Saints and Pete's Dragon helmer David Lowery, and featuring a beautifully crafted color palette, A Ghost Story bursts forth with elements of the phantasmagorical, creating an experience that lingers on the pangs of love and the hope hidden in grief.

From director Sean Foley and producer Ridley Scott, this British indie centers on make-believe actor Richard Thorncroft (Julian Barratt) who tasted fame as the titular detective in an '80s Bergerac-adjacent show called Mindhorn. The limelight went sour for Thorncroft after a sloppy incident involving a sofa saw him dissing a British isle and bashing his co-star (Steve Coogan); three decades later and minus one truth-seeking bionic eye, he's a shell of his former self.

That's not to say he isn't a hilariously self-involved perfectionist and admitted egomaniac. Still believing he's Britain's greatest treasure—and that Detective Mindhorn is real—Thorncroft takes on one last mission that might be his greatest: tracking down a Mindhorn-obsessed murderer (Russell Tovey) who will only fess up to the fictional character.

Goofy gags, high-profile cameos, and cheeky one-liners that'll have you covering your mouth in amused awe push Mindhorn into "instant gem" territory, and Netflix has your back: Mindhorn is currently available to stream, so get cracking and dig into this rowdy pic.

During its theatrical release, Chuck made like Ali and floated like a butterfly under the noses of mainstream audiences. But its powerful story and talented cast (featuring the likes of Naomi Watts, Jim Gaffigan, Michael Rapaport, and Ron Perlman) make for a film that undoubtedly stings like a bee.

Starring Mad Men and The Handmaid's Tale actress Elisabeth Moss and an totally unrecognizable Liev Schreiber, Chuck delivers blow after dramatic blow of humor, wit, and heart. The Philippe Falardeau-directed film tells the true story of heavyweight boxer Chuck Wepner, the pride of Bayonne, New Jersey and the inspiration for Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa. Wepner started his career modestly, selling liquor and fighting for cash to support his family until one fateful day in 1975 when, in a highly publicized event, he was cherry-picked from a sea of boxers to go glove-to-glove with one of the world's greatest athletes: the boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

Ducking underneath a few wide-release films, most notably The Fate of the Furious which opened the very same weekend, The Lost City of Z was largely lost on mainstream audiences. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be found. Based on David Grann's nonfiction book of the same name, this James Gray-penned and directed film recounts the real-life tale of British explorer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) as he ventures through the Amazon in the early 1900s in search of a hidden city and the incredible artifacts it may hold.

In the thick of the forest and the heightened stakes of his repeat expeditions, Fawcett maintains a determined (if not somewhat stubborn) demeanor in the hopes of finally discovering the Lost City of Z, despite local scientists deeming the possible society as "savage-filled" and socially underdeveloped. With his wife Nina (Sienna Miller), his son Jack (Tom Holland), and his aide-de-camp Corporal Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson) at his defense, Fawcett teams up with biologist James Murray (Angus Macfadyen) in 1925 for what they believe to be the trip to the Amazon that will change their lives forever—and it does, albeit not necessarily in the ways Fawcett envisioned.

Directed by Martin Zandvliet and sure to leave you misty-eyed and moved, Land of Mine is a film whose American release is one to be celebrated. After making big waves at the Toronto International Film Festival and in Danish theaters in 2015, the based-on-true-events flick has slowly trickled out to global audiences but remained under the everyday film fan's radar—a total shame considering how gripping it really is.

Land of Mine centers around Denmark post-German occupation in 1945. The invasion left not only cities and citizens forever altered, but also miles of coastline, where hundreds of thousands of landmines remained buried. The heart of the Zandvliet-backed film lies with Sgt. Carl Rasmussen (Roland Moller) and his band of German prisoners of war—some of whom look too young to even drive or buy a pack of cigarettes—tasked with clearing the explosives, a job that brings into question justice, morality, and vengeance in a single breath. This historical drama is anything but hackneyed or clichéd, earning itself a 2017 Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, a standing ovation at TIFF, and the title of best Danish film of 2015. If Land of Mine is missing from your watchlist, change that immediately—if not sooner.

To anyone who's said sequels rarely stack up, we counter with T2 Trainspotting, the 21-years-later follow-up to Danny Boyle's Trainspotting. Some elements of the original remain the same in the second installment: Daniel "Spud" Murphy (Ewen Bremner), Francis "Franco" Begbie (Robert Carlyle), and Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson (Jonny Lee Miller) are back again. The rowdy Scottish boys are still stuck in well-worn ruts. Heroin still grips Spud's life despite two decades passing.

Other aspects of the story, however, are quite different: Simon's slinging porn films. Begbie's serving time. Mark "Rent Boy" Renton (Ewan McGregor) seems to have a lacquered life free from flaws, with a wife, a family, and a home in Amsterdam. Time has matured a few people, a few things, but it's remained immune to far more, a kind of contrast sets T2 Trainspotting up for success. Fresh and fun, even more so if you're familiar with the esteemed original, the not-so-sequel proves that director Boyle is as inventive as ever.

The zombie genre has been crowded for decades, and in the post-Walking Dead era, it's only grown more popular. It's hard to come up with a new spin on those shambling undead tropes, in other words, but The Girl with All the Gifts manages to do it anyway. Adapted from M.R. Carey's novel, the story imagines a world in which much of the human population has been wiped out by a fungus-borne zombie plague, but second-generation victims retain their human characteristics even as they're consumed by a hunger for flesh. It poses a moral conundrum for a teacher (Gemma Arterton) tasked with educating the so-called "hungries"—compounded by the harsh utilitarian views of the doctor in command (Glenn Close). Like the best zombie horror, Gifts is underlined with thought-provoking questions and existential questions about modern society and human nature...and it's also a whooping thrill ride.

Directed by André Øvredal and starring Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch as Tommy and Austin Tilden, respectively, The Autopsy of Jane Doe brings in frights and freakish encounters from the get-go and doesn't let up until viewers are totally spooked.

The father-son twosome in the film have an unusual bond: they both work as coroners. While that alone is fairly strange, things get far more sinister when the Tildens are delivered the corpse of an unidentified woman, one that shows increasingly strange signs of trauma. As the pair perform the autopsy, the film's plot ricochets into madness while posing troubling questions: Who is this woman? What happened to her? And, perhaps most interesting, is she even dead?

Though the corpse's identity isn't known, there's one thing that is: The Autopsy of Jane Doe sizzles with uneasiness and oddities, with a peppering of jump scares and gory slashings, and bubbles over into a climax you won't see coming.

Horror filmmakers love anthologies and possessed children, and this Sundance Film Festival gem brings together both in a blood-boiling marriage.

The brainchild of a group of female directors, XX is comprised of four horror mini-films: "The Box," written and directed by Jovanka Vuckovic; "The Birthday Party," directed by Annie Clark (a.k.a. musician St. Vincent) and co-written by Clark and Roxanne Benjamin; "Don't Fall," written and directed by Benjamin; and "Her Only Living Son," written and directed by Karyn Kusama. The short stories weave through familial relations of mother and son, past animalistic behaviors and into mental illnesses, and deep beyond the grit and gore of camping trips gone wrong.

XX finds its strengths in its subtle silliness. While frightening in their own right, and intercut with haunting stop-motion cutscenes, the short films that make up the picture as a whole are slightly over the top, adding some camp to the scares.

When you come home for the holidays, are you ever truly alone? That's the question director Chris Peckover asks in his newest film Better Watch Out, a fresh entry into the home-invasion horror genre that starts off silly and transforms into something much more serious and slick than you'd expect. Virginia Madsen and Patrick Warburton topline as forever-fighting parents Deandra and Robert, who place their trust (and a sizable wad of cash) into the hands of Olivia DeJonge's Ashley, an on-the-fritz 17-year-old left to watch over Levi Miller's Luke, the 12-year-old son of Deandra and Robert, and his best friend Garrett, played by Ed Oxenbould, while the parents get their Christmas cheer on at a holiday party. But when the front door latches, things go south fast.

Better Watch Out has everything you could want in a Christmas slasher: gore and torture a la Scream, heart-racing thrills reminiscent of You're Next, Christmas-themed gags ripped straight from Home Alone, lots of eggnog, and a twist that will have you wishing you saw the switch coming sooner.

In Steven Soderbergh's high-octane heist comedy Logan Lucky, Channing Tatum suits down as Jimmy Logan, an average Joe rocking the blue-collar lifestyle but lamenting the loss of his once-promising football career to an injury, his ex-wife Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes) and daughter Sadie to a new man, and his job to "liability reasons." Jimmy concocts an elaborate plan to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina during the famous Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race, recruiting his one-armed brother Clyde (Star Wars standout Adam Driver), sister Mellie (It Comes at Night starlet Riley Keough), a demolition expert perfectly named Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), and Joe's doltish brothers Sam and Fish (Brian Gleeson and Jack Quaid) to break into the track and pull off the heist without a hitch. They'll just have to dodge a pretentious businessman (played by Seth MacFarlane) and a determined FBI agent (Hilary Swank) before they can get their hands on the cold, hard cash.

With scenes featuring an explosive made of gummy bears and a heartfelt rendition of "Take Me home, Country Roads," plus stellar performances from A-list actors, it's hard to believe Logan Lucky flew under anyone's radar. But that's all the more reason to see it as soon as possible.

Super Dark Times is a case where a film's title aptly describes its events. In this visceral thriller, teenagers Zach (Owen Phillips) and Josh (Charlie Tahan) are as thick as thieves, growing up comfortably in a foliage-filled Upstate New York suburb in the '90s. Their lives center around debates about comic book superheroes, bike rides to the corner store for junk food and fizzy drinks, Friday night hangout sessions, first romances, and the ever-present battle for high school popularity. But when an unexpected and truly unthinkable incident occurs, Zach and Josh's innocence is ripped from them—and the two from each other. As the pair navigate the murky waters of the tragedy and its aftermath, Super Dark Times rides the fine line between boyhood and manhood, good and evil, horror and valor, spilling out onto the silver screen in waves of slow-burning terror that will grip you by the throat.

We'd like to think that the elevator pitch for Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney's join effort Sylvio went a little something like, "It's a comedy that follows Sylvio Bernardi, of course, as he struggles to find himself while coping with newfound small-town fame. Oh yeah, and he's also a gorilla." Suffice it to say, Sylvio isn't your average comedy. Rather, it's an endearing indie that will surprise you with its authenticity. 

The pic really does follow the eponymous ape through his day-to-day happenings, which revolve around his unfulfilling 9-to-5 job at a debt collection agency. Sylvio's humdrum world is flipped inside out when he's shooed to the streets of Baltimore to find Alan Reynolds (Kentucker Audley), a television host who hosts The Afternoon Show With Alan Reynolds in his basement, and clear his outstanding debt. There, a guest thinks Sylvio is a performer, a mistake that ends in him smashing his props and becoming an overnight sensation. However, with reputation comes repercussions: Sylvio's step into the spotlight in his own segment, "What's the Ape Gonna Break?," causes the gentle-natured primate to reconsider everything he knows about himself–and what kind of influence the people in his life truly have on him.

Director Liam O'Donnell's Beyond Skyline is ambitious for a few reasons: it's the sequel to 2010's Skyline, a film that was a modest hit at the box office but was panned by critics; it blends together a whole host of genres (action-adventure, science-fiction, thriller, alien invasion, and monster movie); and it opened in theaters the same weekend as Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It's almost a guarantee that most moviegoers were completely unaware of it. However, given its "mindblowingly silly [and] seriously extravagant" feel, Beyond Skyline is totally worth a watch.

Frank Grillo toplines as Mark Corley, a rugged Los Angeles cop on leave from the force following his wife's death. Constant fighting with his adult son Trent, played by Jonny Weston, only exacerbates Mark's grief. But things really fall to pieces when aliens show up in the City of Angels, devastating the streets and plucking people straight from the ground and onto their creepy mothership. One of those unlucky victims happens to be–you guessed it–Trent. As Mark repeatedly tries to save his son, viewers will ask, "Is Mark's tenacity enough to bring Trent back home, or is his fate already sealed?"

In all, the film is little bit The Raid, a dash of Battle: Los Angeles, and a whole lot of fun. As The Verge's Tasha Robinson puts it, Beyond Skyline is "propulsive, and explosive, and manic, but above all... charmingly weird and absolutely memorable."

20th Century Women lives up to its title with an eclectic cast of characters that includes liberal leftist Dorothea (Annette Bening) who has a penchant for smoking like a chimney, spunky ginger-haired photographer Abbie (Greta Gerwig), and rebel without a cause Julie (a rough-around-the-edges Elle Fanning). This Mike Mills-written and directed dramedy is a coming-of-age film that disregards age altogether, bringing to light the idea that it's never too late to start over, start for the first time, or start believing you can begin in the first place. With an engaging slice-of-life premise and engaging honesty, the film ebbs and flows organically. Just be sure to have some tissues on hand, since we pretty much guarantee you'll get misty-eyed.

Often, the strongest bonds of love thread much further into humanity than mere romance, and that's what So Yong Kim's indie festival darling Lovesong brings to the table. Approaching a genre that's quite vulnerable to hackneyed takes and watered-down scripts that leave audiences dissatisfied, Lovesong weaves a warm account of two women on the cusp of self-discovery. Mindy (Jena Malone) and her best friend Sarah (breakout star Riley Keough) embark on an impromptu road trip, but amongst the streetlights and highways, they find one another and are confronted with emotions they can't deny.

Director So Yong Kim's past credits include incredibly introspective films such as In Between Days, For Ellen, and Treeless Mountain, and she brings the same kind of intricate and intimate details to this affecting drama. Lovesong is a treat for your heart as much as your eyes, with its gauzy pastel palette and elegant landscape, and will leave you breathless at even the smallest moments.

Next up on the list of films you've missed is possibly the one you'll be most intrigued by, and bummed you didn't know existed: Kedi, a documentary about the feral cats of Istanbul. Filmmaker Ceyda Torun takes to the streets to introduce viewers to the free-roaming felines that lead surprisingly unique lives and those who interact with them on a daily basis. Kedi features kittens with knacks for slipping into hidden alleyway crevices, cats that keep a keen eye on the docks for the incoming fish market shipments, and furry-faced friends perched upon doorsteps and behind shop counters.

It can be silly on the surface, but Kedi has a big heart, and though it's centered around animals, the film's narrative feels utterly human. Very much a part of the local culture and the community of Istanbul, the cats and kittens of Kedi remind us all that we're not born knowing hatred or judgment, illustrated through the remarkable (and subtly depicted) respect between man and animal.