[Editor’s note: James DiGiovanna, an award-winning film critic for the Tucson Weekly for much of the 2000s, has put together a list of the 21st century’s greatest films that haven’t received the attention they deserve. He selected so many recommendations, we’ve divided the list into several articles. This is part two, spanning the years 2014 through 2019.]
Part 2: Best Under-Seen Movies of 2014-2019
Parasite (2019)
Poverty is not only no fun, it’s a serious mind-fuck. In Parasite there’s an impoverished family who doesn’t understand the extent to which their poverty is a necessary part of the economic system. Instead, they think they’re failures, but, as good capitalists, they understand that getting rich involves grinding and scamming, so they scam and grind their way into the good graces of a wealthy family who, on their own principles, deserve to be scammed, because, like most wealthy people, they believe everyone gets what they deserve.
This is one of the most thoughtfully, entertainingly plotted examinations of class ideology that’s ever been allowed in a mainstream movie theater. I think it snuck past the meme police because it also has an intricately woven plot that continually and subtly hides the way it shows the horrors of a world that teaches us that everything we do, including who we marry, befriend, ignore, and con, should be driven by an interest in increasing our wealth. Huge bonus points for a flood sequence shot to make you feel like you’re drowning in your own delusions.
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
One of my favorite things is science fiction films that don’t tell you they’re science fiction films. Then you’re watching and what the fuck? Horse-human hybrids? All while never wavering in a startlingly aesthetically aware film about black voices, white voices, slavery and the annoyance of spam calling.
Aniara (2018)
I think there are gloomier movies that this, but nobody survived watching them. Even the cast and crew threw themselves off very, very tall cliffs after completing those films. But Aniara probably won’t kill you. It’s a movie based on a poem, which I think is a red light, but it’s a really sad poem, so that makes it more unbearable. It’s just so beautifully shot and originally constructed and the actors seem like actual human beings and not highly polished wax figurines who’ve attained just enough sentience to try to always push their faces into the best lighting.
Nobody in Aniara cares if you don’t think they’re pretty. They’re on a doomed flight to nowhere that somehow manages to get increasingly more hopeless. Cultures develop, people fall in love, there are orgies, and still everyone knows at every moment that their lives have been robbed of all hope and meaning.
This film is Swedish but even Ingmar Bergman thought it was too downbeat. Really, you have to watch this, it’s genius filmmaking that eschews all of the manipulation and Hollywood standards of fake conflict and the emphasis on photogenics over acting skill. It’s the best. If it literally kills you please don’t sue me.
Shirkers (2018)
In 1992 teenage Sandi Tan was making what would have been Singapore’s first road movie. Then her cinematographer, who went on to work with prominent American KKK politician David Duke, stole the footage and disappeared. Unable to contact him, Tan went on to make shorts and write a novel, but decades later his widow contacted her with the missing footage. She then tries to piece together what happened.
This is a documentary but it’s so bizarre it could be a work of fiction, except it’s too bizarre for that so it’s probably really a documentary. It’s sad but also glorious and uplifting in spite of what some horrible people did, kind of like America if America was also glorious and uplifting.
Get Out (2017)
You saw this one, right? Everyone saw this one. I mean it won best screenplay at the Oscars. But so did Ghost and Witness and Platoon. The Platoon, ferchrissakes! But that doesn’t mean the award is meaningless. Eli Manning won two Super Bowls but they don’t call it “The Mediocre Bowl.” Whatever. Nevermind.
I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017)
Melanie Lynskey is a really underrated actress. I’ve never seen her be bad in anything, even Two and Half Men. Imagine what it takes to give a decent performance while staring at Charlie Sheen’s brain melting out of his nose. But in I Don’t Feel… she’s given good stuff to work with and she really shines.
I like the smallness of this film: there’s crime and drama but it all occurs in the way it occurs in poor communities across the country: with little police involvement and a lot of uncomfortable situations that could, but at least sometimes don’t, descend into violence. Also, Elijah Wood! It’s like Lynskey has her own special hobbit friend.
The Endless (2017)
Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead have acquired a strong reputation in the cult/low-budget horror scene yet have somehow not completely sold out. The Endless is, for my taste, the best Lovecraft film ever made. It’s the only one that captures the distance and mystery of the Lovecraftian horrors and shows that the real terror is not the monster, but some fundamental feature of the universe. Here, it’s time. If Richard Nixon and Albert Einstein got addicted to heroin and made a movie with the reanimated corpse of William Faulkner it would be roughly like this, only not as well-edited.
Dave Made a Maze (2017)
There’s a lot to be said for short, independent films about a guy who gets lost in the cardboard fort he makes in his living room. Since this is the only example of that genre, it would all have to be said about Dave Made a Maze. It’s basically a comedy with a deeply depressive but ultimately uplifting feel, and if you’ve never seen a cardboard Minotaur you really haven’t had enough children and cardboard.
The Girl with All The Gifts (2016)
Weirdly, 2016 saw two works featuring cordyceps zombies. There was this movie, and The Last of Us video game. Both stories play on the possibility of the famous zombie mushroom switching from its usual insect targets to humans, who then proceed to attempt to chew all the other humans, as is the way with the zombified.
The Girl with All the Gifts is among the best zombie movies ever made, and Glenn Close’s performance is the most apt she’s ever given, which is saying a lot since whole movies were written around the premise that Glenn Close would be in them.
The real star, though, is Sennia Nanua, an adorable little zombie girl who just wants to be allowed to live and occasionally eat your face. Gemma Arterton also nails it as a zombie-sympathizer who takes seriously the question of whether humans or zombies are better people. Considering the current political climate, this is a tough question. Bonus points if you figure out what the title is a reference to!
Colossal (2016)
Alcoholism is a favorite film topic, and maybe The Lost Weekend is the classic movie about the ethanol-induced horror, but Colossal does it one better by being the only film to combine boozing with Kaiju. What if everything you did was mirrored by a giant monster that literally destroyed the lives of everyone who came near it? It’s an apt metaphor that doesn’t seem preachy in spite of its aptness. And Jason Sudeikis is great in this (something I never thought I’d say), because, like a lot of comedians, he’s actually much more suited to the narcissistic villain role. Terrifying stuff with an unusually subtle performance by Anne Hathaway.
Obvious Child (2014)
This is the best abortion film of the last 24 years. The competition isn’t exactly fierce, but if you want to see a perfectly executed performance watch Jenny Slate here. The film lacks any sense of forced drama and instead, with naturalistic rigor, watches as a young comedian (Slate) gets pregnant from a one-night stand and makes decisions about her future.
I hate to praise an A24 film because they all feel like they’re made to be praised, but the understated presentation here is devastating in a way that a film with a higher budget and bigger stars could never pull off. Highly recommended to remind us Americans of what it was like when women were given the same autonomy over their bodies that other humans are.
Frank (2014)
This film is very loosely based on the life of Christopher Sievey, who performed music as “Frank Sidebottom” while wearing a globular mask that looked like a rejected 1950s auto parts chain mascot. Mostly, it’s a tour-de-force performance by Michael Fassbender, which his doubly impressive since you can’t see his face for 3/4s of the movie. Also Domhnall Gleeson, who is in every movie made in the last 20 years, nails it as a talentless songwriter who accidentally joins a group of experimental musicians and tries to convince them to sing his song “Lady With a Red Purse, Lady With a Blue Purse.”
