Movies 61 of the best movies you've never seen We bet at least some of these will be new even to dedicated movie fans...and you'll be glad you found them. By EW Staff Published on March 29, 2019 05:43PM EDT Trending Videos Close this video player John Boyega in 'Attack the Block,' 2012. Photo: Columbia Pictures Tired of the same old movie recommendations everywhere you go? Feel like you've more or less seen all the good stuff? We can assure you, there's still plenty of great cinema out there that didn't become major box office events or awards season favorites but are just as (if not more) valuable than the ones that did. From lesser-known works of beloved directors to hidden indie gems that deserved more respect upon initial release, we've got a little something for everyone on this list. Ahead, peep our list of 61 movies you may not have seen before, as recommended by EW staff. 01 of 61 24 Hour Party People (2002) Jon Shard You might think that a movie about obscure U.K. music label Factory Records that delves into the cost-effectiveness of using four-color printing on a 12-inch single sleeve would not be all that interesting or funny. And you would be utterly wrong. —Clark Collis 02 of 61 Adventureland (2009) Miramax Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg are two teens just trying to survive their summer jobs at a Pittsburgh amusement park circa 1987. Greg Mottola's charming lo-fi dramedy is like a John Hughes movie played in a minor key, with the perfect time-capsule soundtrack (The Replacements, The Cure, Hüsker Dü). —Leah Greenblatt 03 of 61 American Honey (2017) Holly Homer/A24 British filmmaker Andrea Arnold (2009's great Fish Tank) travels to the heartland in her rambling verité tale of youth in revolt, starring Riley Keough, Shia LaBeouf, and radiant then-newcomer Sasha Lane. The plot, nor any form of conventional storytelling, is hardly the point here. Still, it's almost impossible not to be seduced by her raunchy, rapturous teenage dream. —Leah Greenblatt 04 of 61 Attack the Block (2011) John Boyega in 'Attack the Block'. Columbia Pictures Some of the best alien-apocalypse thrillers don't need a monster budget. When supernatural creatures crash-land in a South London housing project, the residents — including future Star Wars stormtrooper John Boyega and Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker — fight back in Joe Cornish's lean, clever sendup of the genre. —Leah Greenblatt 05 of 61 Backbeat (1994) Mark Tillie A miraculously authentic rock & roll biopic about the early days of The Beatles told from the perspective of Stuart Sutcliffe, the charismatic ''fifth Beatle'' who died of a brain hemorrhage just before the band got famous. As Sutcliffe, Stephen Dorff shows you what a formidable actor he was in his raw-boned youth, and Ian Hart is also a revelation as John Lennon, whose punk rage may have led, inadvertently, to Sutcliffe's death. The musical scenes have an energy that just about singes the screen. —Owen Gleiberman 06 of 61 Bamboozled (2000) Getty Images Spike Lee's most misunderstood film is a scandalous satire about a self-loathing Black TV writer (Damon Wayans) who creates a modern variety/minstrel show. His message — and it's a visionary one — is that even in our relatively enlightened era, the racist images that have defined America are still very much alive, encoded in the DNA of our pop culture, with its fetishization of African-American ''otherness.'' In Bamboozled, an entire society paints itself in blackface to be ''cool,'' and that, Lee suggests, is a new form of slavery. —Owen Gleiberman 07 of 61 Beach Rats (2017) Neon Handsome, taciturn Frankie (Harris Dickinson) is a Brooklyn teenager with a secret: when he's not courting girls or snorting pills with his delinquent crew, he's cruising websites for sex with other men. Director Eliza Hittman's hazy, sun-dazed indie lands way outside the recent boom in feel-good gay-coming-of-age dramas, but its insights get under the skin. —Leah Greenblatt 08 of 61 Beyond the Lights (2015) Gugu Mbatha-Raw in 'Beyond the Lights'. Suzanne Tenner/Relativity Media Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars as a pop starlet on the stultifying brink of success in this low-key-great romantic drama from director Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball). Beneath its surface gloss, Lights has a lot of intelligent things to say about race and fame and the relentless negotiations a young woman — even one without a record deal — has to make in a world that expects her to be everything but herself. —Leah Greenblatt 09 of 61 Blood and Black Lace (1964) Everett Collection Mario Bava's chic, candy-colored body count thriller wasn't the first Giallo to add a dash of la dolce vita eroticism to Hitchcock. However, it certainly encapsulated all of the kinky motifs and themes of the Italian genre in one stylish package, as a fashion house becomes a killing ground for a masked, black-gloved killer. —Chris Nashawaty 10 of 61 Blue Valentine (2010) Davi Russo/The Weinstein Company A hard-drinking roofer (Ryan Gosling) and a conscientious nurse (Michelle Williams) learn the hard way that love is not always enough in this tender, almost painfully intimate romance from director Derek Cianfrance (The Light Between Oceans, The Place Beyond the Pines). —Leah Greenblatt 11 of 61 Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) Vitagraph Films In this wonderfully absurd horror-comedy, two older gents (Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis) in an assisted living facility take on a soul-sucking Egyptian mummy. The twist? Campbell's character believes he is Elvis Presley, while African American Davis is convinced he is JFK (''They dyed me this color!''). —Clark Collis 12 of 61 Charley Varrick (1973) Everett Collection Walter Matthau, action star? Yes, there was a time in the Nixon era when such a thing was possible. The hangdog star plays a wise-cracking bank robber who sticks up a Mafia-run New Mexico bank. Big mistake. If you have a soft spot for great '70s character actors, this is an embarrassment of riches: Joe Don Baker, Norman Fell, Andrew Robinson, and Sheree North really ring that bell. —Chris Nashawaty 13 of 61 Cold Comfort Farm (1995) Chris Capstick Are you a Downton Abbey devotee? Well, now more than ever, you need to see this adaptation of Stella Gibbons' deliciously warped comic 1932 novel, a sharp send-up of all things British and pastoral. A walloping bundle of Brit talent participates in this production: Look, there's Kate Beckinsale, Stephen Fry, Ian McKellen, and Ab Fab's Joanna Lumley! —Lisa Schwarzbaum 14 of 61 Dark City (1998) Everett Collection When this druggy, Kafka-esque head-trip came out, I would've bet anything that Australian director Alex Proyas (The Crow) would become the next Tim Burton — or, at the very least, the next Terry Gilliam. Rufus Sewell gets snarled in a nightmare scape pursued by a freaky cabal of pasty-faced men in black (led by Kiefer Sutherland). Possibly the best art-directed movie of the '90s; definitely the most art-directed movie of the '90s. —Chris Nashawaty 15 of 61 The Daytrippers (1996) Cinepix Film Properties/courtesy Everett Collection This quirky, marvelously populated comedy is about a woman (the sublime Hope Davis) who drives from Long Island to Manhattan to sleuth out whether her husband (the also outstanding Stanley Tucci) is cheating on her. By the way, the woman takes her entire extended family with her, in a station wagon. —Jeff Giles 16 of 61 The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) Sam Emerson/Sony Pictures Classics Can You Ever Forgive Me? director Marielle Heller dives headfirst into the not-so-free-love chaos of 1970s San Francisco in her gorgeously clear-eyed coming-of-age story, starring Bel Powley as a 15-year-old who falls for the much-older lover (Alexander Skarsgård) of her boozy bohemian mother (Kristen Wiig). —Leah Greenblatt 17 of 61 DIG! (2004) Everett Collection Even if you've seen your share of rock docs, nothing will prepare you for the unchecked golden-god ego of Anton Newcombe. Ondi Timoner's fantastic film traces the rivalry between the Dandy Warhols and Newcombe's band, the Brian Jonestown Massacre — a rivalry that existed almost exclusively in Newcombe's paranoid, drug-sozzled mind. —Chris Nashawaty 18 of 61 Dogtooth (2009) Everett Collection If you dug The Favourite, then you might want to consider it a gateway drug into the deliciously weird cinematic world of director Yorgos Lanthimos. This should be your next stop — a strange and seductive black comedy about a Greek father who controls his grown children like Skinner Box lab rats. Dogtooth makes a disturbingly hypnotic double feature with The Lobster. —Chris Nashawaty 19 of 61 Dope (2015) Everett Collection Filmmaker Rick Famuyiwa (Brown Sugar) tweaks coming-of-age cliché in this smart, high-style comedy starring Shameik Moore as a deeply uncool kid who gets caught up in a massive weed deal. The cast is stacked, too: LaKeith Stanfield, Zoë Kravitz, A$AP Rocky, and Kiersey Clemons all make standout supporting turns. —Leah Greenblatt 20 of 61 Fish Tank (2009) Holly Horner A year before Michael Fassbender battled the X-Men, his onscreen magnetism was already on display in this drama, which cast him as the object of affection for both a mom (Kierston Wareing) and her daughter (Katie Jarvis) in a poor British suburb. But even Fassbender's charm won't distract you from Jarvis, who packs a lifetime of heartache into her movie debut. —Adam Markovitz 21 of 61 Fly Away Home (1996) Takashi Seida A girl (Anna Paquin) who just lost her mom learns to raise geese while her sweetly hapless dad (Jeff Daniels) learns to raise her. Fly Away Home is the rare family movie that's so lovely and genuine your kids will ask to watch it 10 times — and you'll ask to watch it 11. —Jeff Giles 22 of 61 The Gambler (1974) Everett Collection Forget the dreadful 2014 Mark Wahlberg remake (chances are, you already have). This is a real downward-spiral slice of sweaty New Hollywood death-wish antiheroism with James Caan as a college professor with a big-time betting problem. Caan is swaggering macho dynamite as a guy who knows that he can't win and doubles down anyway. The ending is haunting and note-perfect. It's a shame they don't make 'em like this anymore. —Chris Nashawaty 23 of 61 George Washington (2000) Everett Collection In his hauntingly poetic debut, writer-director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) tracks a group of working-class kids in rural North Carolina. Every gorgeous frame, every line of dialogue, feels fresh and revelatory. There's romance, tragedy, lost innocence, and hard wisdom in this small indie that leaves an epic impression. —Karen Valby 24 of 61 Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) Everett Collection That silver-haired Beat poet of a filmmaker, Jim Jarmusch, does a twist on the traditional hitman genre that allows for detours into mysticism, action, samurai philosophy, and an homage to Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï. Forest Whitaker defines Jarmuschian cool as the title hitman, a philosopher/killer with a katana. —Lisa Schwarzbaum 25 of 61 Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2010) Chances are you missed this Lasse Hallström weepie when it bypassed U.S. theaters and limped straight to DVD. That's a shame because it's terrific. Richard Gere plays a professor who adopts a lost Akita puppy who turns out to be the most loyal dog ever, especially after tragedy strikes. We won't say anything else except this: Have a box of tissues ready before you press play. —Chris Nashawaty 26 of 61 Happy Accidents (2000) Everett Collection Brad Anderson's sci-fi/rom-com mind-bender is proof that a film can simultaneously make your heart swell and your head hurt. Vincent D'Onofrio and Marisa Tomei fall in love even though he claims to be time-traveling back from the year 2470. Is he telling the truth? When a love story is this beautiful and weird, does it even matter? —Chris Nashawaty 27 of 61 Idiocracy (2006) Van Redin In Mike Judge's satiric vision of an intellectually-challenged future, Luke Wilson plays an average Joe who wakes up after a 500-year cryogenic slumber to find he's the world's smartest man. Twentieth Century Fox dumped this mash-up of Sleeper and Beavis and Butt-Head in a handful of theaters with zero fanfare, resulting in less than $500,000 in grosses. Now, that wasn't great. —Josh Rottenberg 28 of 61 I've Loved You So Long (2008) Thierry Valletoux French director Philippe Claudel's drama has an abhorrent subject: a mother's killing of her own child. But you'll be drawn in by the haunting power of the movie's slowly unraveling mystery and Kristin Scott Thomas' magnificent turn as a woman struggling to reintegrate into society after 15 years in prison. —Josh Rottenberg 29 of 61 Jane Eyre (2011) Laurie Sparham/Focus Features Before True Detective and No Time to Die, Cary Fukanaga offered up his own take on Charlotte Brontë's classic novel — a period-set but still bracingly fresh reimaging of one of literature's most enduring feminist heroes (a fierce, luminous Mia Wasikowska) and a pretty damn dashing Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender). —Leah Greenblatt 30 of 61 The Killing (1956) Everett Collection Before Stanley Kubrick became Stanley Kubrick, he brought his exacting eye to this Swiss watch-precise (and much-imitated) heist flick about a group of desperate, seedy crooks who plan a racetrack robbery as elaborate as a jigsaw puzzle. Sterling Hayden, Elisha Cook Jr., and Marie Windsor are all doomed, hardboiled perfection. —Chris Nashawaty 31 of 61 Last Night (2011) JoJo Whilden Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington play a New York couple who, over the course of one night, face temptation — she with an old flame who might be her soul mate (Guillaume Canet), and he with a colleague (Eva Mendes). The story is mature, the direction by Massy Tadjedin is expert, and the acting is superb. Knightley's final scene just might leave you gutted. —Missy Schwartz 32 of 61 Layer Cake (2004) Daniel Smith The film that landed Daniel Craig the Bond role also proved that Guy Ritchie's producer Matthew Vaughn is a first-rate director in his own right. It might take a few viewings to sort out the plot, in which a London drug dealer (Craig) gets lost in a labyrinth of double-crosses. But it's worth the effort if only for the crackling opening monologue: ''Life is so f---ing good, I can taste it in my spit." —Dave Karger 33 of 61 Lilya 4-Ever (2003) Newmarket Films Lukas Moodysson's great, lyrical, and wrenching tale is about an abandoned teenage girl who falls through the cracks of her crumbling town in the former Soviet Union and into the hands of a Swedish sex trafficker. The movie takes us perilously close to the terror and tragedy of her experience. In doing so, it captures, with extraordinary intensity, why sex trafficking has become one of the defining crimes of our era. —Owen Gleiberman 34 of 61 The Magdalene Sisters (2002) Miramax Films Scottish actor/filmmaker Peter Mullan (War Horse) wrote and directed this portrait of a group of teenage girls cast out of their hometowns in Ireland and sent to a Catholic asylum after committing such ''crimes'' as being raped. With an impressive young cast that includes Anne-Marie Duff (Nowhere Boy), the amazing true story will shock, outrage, and eventually inspire you. —Dave Karger 35 of 61 Memories of a Murder (2003) CJ Entertainment/Neon Based on the true story of South Korea's first documented serial killer, this is more than a mere crime drama. It's also a nuanced investigation into Korean politics and a gripping (and sneakily humorous) examination of man's behavior when confronted with evil. Director Bong Joon-ho would go on to make the it-came-from-the-Han-River creature feature The Host, but this slow-simmering dead-end mystery is his real monster movie. —Keith Staskiewicz 36 of 61 Middle of Nowhere (2012) AFFRM A pre-Selma Ava DuVernay took home the Best Director award at Sundance for her quietly affecting character study of a nurse (Emayatzy Corinealdi) torn between her imprisoned husband (Omari Hardwick) and the possibility of new love with David Oyelowo's open-hearted bus driver, Brian. —Leah Greenblatt 37 of 61 Modern Romance (1981) Everett Collection Albert Brooks is at his most hilariously insecure as a Hollywood film editor who can't seem to live with his put-upon girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold) or without her. Loaded with as many squirm-inducing awkward moments as indelibly funny ones, Modern Romance is every bit the comedy classic that Brooks' Lost in America is, just less well known. Plus, Brooks' scene with his brother, Bob Einstein, in a sporting goods store is hall-of-fame stuff. —Chris Nashawaty 38 of 61 Moon (2009) Mark Tille An astronaut (Sam Rockwell) has been in space for three years when his health mysteriously starts to deteriorate around the same time as he meets a healthy version of himself (also Sam Rockwell) at his lunar station. Director Duncan Jones delivers a stellar film that harks back to sci-fi's golden age of the 1970s, and answers the question, What's better than one Sam Rockwell performance? —Sara Vilkomerson 39 of 61 A Most Violent Year (2014) Atsushi Nishijima What is not to love about Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, and Albert Brooks in a high-wire crime drama set in a lawless, perfectly evoked early-'80s New York? (Chastain's manicures alone!) Somehow, J.C. Chandor's mood piece missed a mainstream audience, but it deserves another shot. —Leah Greenblatt 40 of 61 Murderball (2005) Jack Rowand Despite glowing reviews and a big marketing push by MTV Films, this Oscar-nominated documentary about paraplegic rugby players never expanded beyond 97 theaters. That's too bad, as the story of the U.S. team's battle to win gold at the 2004 Paralympic Games is as exhilarating and crowd-pleasing as Rocky. Like the gladiatorial wheelchairs wielded by these aggressive athletes, the film packs an unexpected wallop. —John Young 41 of 61 Mustang (2015) Cohen Media Group It's not hard to see why Deniz Gamze Ergüven's haunting coming-of-age drama was dubbed "the Turkish Virgin Suicides" on release. Like Sofia Coppola's dreamy, unsettling 1999 debut, it's another first film by a young female director that focuses in feverish close-up on the adolescent awakening of five restless, radiant sisters — and the ruin that follows when their family tries to contain it. —Leah Greenblatt 42 of 61 My Summer of Love (2004) Ryszard Lenczewski The intensity of teenage love, in this case between two girls on the Yorkshire moors, has rarely been captured more knowingly and sensually. And what a stunning debut for both actresses! Meet the amazing Natalie Press, with the freckled allure of a young Sissy Spacek, and the then-unknown Emily Blunt as the posh half of the duo. —Lisa Schwarzbaum 43 of 61 Next Stop, Wonderland (1998) Claire Folger Cupid's arrow takes a roundabout route before eventually hitting its target in Brad Anderson's exquisite samba-fueled rom-com. Hope Davis gives an adorably exasperated performance as a lonely-heart Boston nurse looking for Mr. Right after getting dumped. The setup is sitcom simple, but the film sidesteps obvious Sex and the City single-girl stereotypes for something more thoughtful and honest. —Chris Nashawaty 44 of 61 Nightmare Alley (1947) Everett Collection Tyrone Power goes midnight-dark as a soulless fair-ground con artist who rises to fame as part of a phony mentalist act and then falls lower than you can possibly imagine in Edmund Goulding's twisted morality drama. Guillermo Del Toro's remake is wonderful in its own right and even secured a few Oscar nominations, but nothing beats the original. —Chris Nashawaty 45 of 61 The Orphanage (2007) Picturehouse In this chilling but beautiful and heartfelt ghost story, a woman's plan to reopen the orphanage where she was raised goes horribly awry when her own child disappears. Exec-produced by Guillermo del Toro, the movie is in the same ballpark, and league, as his much-better-known Pan's Labyrinth. —Clark Collis 46 of 61 Pariah (2011) Focus Features Mudbound director Dee Rees turns out an exquisitely sensitive portrait of a Brooklyn teen (Adepero Oduye) coming to terms with her sexual identity, even as her family struggles to accept her truth. Critics went crazy, though the movie was too small to get much distribution at the time. Thankfully, it's gotten much easier to find thanks to a 2021 re-release by Criterion Collection. —Leah Greenblatt 47 of 61 Perfect Blue (1997) Rex Entertainment Don't make the mistake of thinking anime is just about giant robots and squid monsters. Echoing Vertigo and prefiguring the psychological identity games of Black Swan, this psychological thriller about a pop star with a murderous stalker dives into the murky depths of mental illness, fame, and obsession, where reality and fantasy intermingle. —Keith Staskiewicz 48 of 61 Prime (2005) Universal Pictures Meryl Streep is a Manhattan therapist whose patient (Uma Thurman) is dating a younger man (Bryan Greenberg). It turns out the younger man is also Meryl's son. Good rom-coms are hard to come by, and this one's a breezy pleasure with irresistible charms: the comic genius of Streep as a Jewish mother, the romance of New York, and the glowing presence of Thurman. —Jess Cagle 49 of 61 Primer (2004) New Line Cinema Bending its celluloid into a Möbius strip, this miraculously low-budget (only $7,000) sci-fi thinker — about a pair of friends who accidentally discover time travel — has a labyrinthine, paradox-studded plot that works like a treadmill for your brain. Luckily it's also fun, so you won't mind when you inevitably have to rewatch it. —Keith Staskiewicz 50 of 61 Rare Exports (2010) Kinology/Oscilloscope If you're a fan of movies about creepy life forms awakened from long burials, and if you like your Santa Claus stories with a dash of vinegar, then you need to add this freaky-fabulous Finnish tale to your annual holiday viewing. Here's a beautifully made, inventively ghoulish horror movie involving monsters, blocks of ice, and a worldwide market for Christmas myths. —Lisa Schwarzbaum 51 of 61 The Ref (1994) Touchstone/courtesy Everett Collection A cat burglar (Denis Leary) holds an unhappily married couple (Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey) captive in their suburban Connecticut home during the holidays. The scenario might not immediately sound like comedy gold, but Ted Demme's twisted and hysterical film — with stellar supporting turns by Christine Baranski and Glynis Johns — makes this one of the best anti-Christmas movies. —Sara Vilkomerson 52 of 61 Rescue Dawn (2006) Lena Herzog Actor Christian Bale and director Werner Herzog are both known for going to extremes for their work. Put the two together in this incredible-but-true survival story of a downed combat pilot who escaped a brutal Laotian prison camp during the Vietnam War, and the result is a kind of gonzo art-house Rambo movie, as harrowing as it is thrilling. —Josh Rottenberg 53 of 61 The Rules of Attraction (2002) Lynn Alston Upon its release, this cheeky adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' novel about a group of bored, privileged college kids (led by James Van Der Beek) was known as the movie where Dawson turned devilish. Featuring a cast of rising stars like Jessica Biel and Kate Bosworth, Attraction also boasts a standout performance by Ian Somerhalder as a (literal) bed-hopping bisexual student. —Dave Karger 54 of 61 Safe Men (1998) James Levine Two incompetent singers (Sam Rockwell and Steve Zahn) are mistaken for expert safecrackers in Providence. The supporting cast — including a disconsolate Mark Ruffalo and Paul Giamatti as a Jewish gangster — keep the madcap story spinning, but it's Zahn and Rockwell who make it hugely entertaining. —Marc Snetiker 55 of 61 Step (2017) Fox Searchlight Step won a special Sundance Jury award and high praise from Michelle Obama, but most people never got a chance to see director Amanda Lipitz's deep embed inside an all-girls dance team in Baltimore. That's a shame: it's challenging, inspiring, and as full of heart-clutching drama as any scripted underdog movie at the multiplex. —Leah Greenblatt 56 of 61 Surfwise (2007) Magnolia Pictures Nine siblings (two champion surfers, two members of '90s one-hit wonders the Flys, their swimsuit-designer/model sister, and four other brothers) grew up together in a 24-foot RV under the iron fist of a surfing-obsessed father. This unforgettable documentary about the wave-riding clan becomes an exploration of family bonds and the American dream. —Adam Markovitz 57 of 61 Together (2000) Everett Collection It's easy to turn people who live on communes into ponytail-wearing hippie caricatures (see: Wanderlust). But director Lukas Moodysson's bittersweet dramedy (featuring Michael Nyqvist, who'd play Mikael Blomkvist in the original Swedish adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) pulls off something more difficult and rewarding, finding the beautifully messy humanity in the screwed-up residents of a 1970s Stockholm commune. —Josh Rottenberg 58 of 61 Two Family House (2000) Lions Gate Films A wisecracking Staten Island native (Michael Rispoli) can't get the pregnant Irishwoman (Kelly Macdonald) squatting in his newly acquired apartment to vacate. However, when he provides her with new housing, her feelings start to change. Macdonald expertly conveys the transition from prickly to smitten, and Rispoli exudes an innocent dreamer's charm. —Grady Smith 59 of 61 Walking and Talking (1996) Miramax Writer-director Nicole Holofcener's debut film about a pair of twentysomething best friends (Catherine Keener and Anne Heche in their breakout roles) dealing with love, heartache, and the bumpy road to adulthood has everything you look for in romantic comedy and rarely find: whip-smart dialogue, bracing honesty, and spot-on performances. When people wax nostalgic about the '90s heyday of indie film, this is the sort of movie they're talking about. —Josh Rottenberg 60 of 61 Wendy and Lucy (2008) Oscilloscope A girl (Michelle Williams) with nothing to her name besides a no-good car and a faithful dog must travel from Oregon to Alaska to find work. Director Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy) says more about the precariousness of life on America's margins than any politician will ever pretend to understand. And in a career defined by her subtle, pained grace, Williams delivers her most heartrending work yet. —Karen Valby 61 of 61 Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006) Autonomous Films The ragged chemistry between Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) and Shannyn Sossamon (A Knight's Tale) keeps this backdoor romantic comedy breezy — no small feat, considering its title. The movie is just dark enough to woo the cynical half of any sweetheart couple searching for something between The Notebook and Blue Velvet. —Kyle Anderson