20 Underrated and Overlooked Films from 2024

About Dry Grasses

Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Dependable brilliance can bring its own kind of fatigue for an arthouse superstar. Films will do well at the festivals, roll through the art cinemas for a week and then slink off to be revived in a Criterion box set in twenty years. This path has done massive disservice to About Dry Grasses, a film that speaks with singular, coruscating honesty to our historical moment. [Joe Creely]

The Apprentice

Dir. Ali Abbasi

Sebastian Stan delivers an uncanny performance as Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi’s forensic study of the relationship that made him who he is – that with lawyer Roy Cohn. Jeremy Strong’s turn as the chilling Cohn brings this film home, along with a cracking soundtrack. Also, it’s a biopic that looks good. Unheard of! [Emilie Roberts]

Between the Temples

Dir. Nathan Silver

Despite establishing himself on the festival circuit, Nathan Silver remains relatively unknown in the UK. That should have changed with this unconventional rom-com which sees a disillusioned cantor (Jason Schwartzman) fall for his old music teacher (Carol Kane). Sadly Silver’s quirky homage to Harold and Maude was released to little fanfare. [Patrick Gamble]

The Civil Dead

Dir. Clay Tatum

Clay Tatum and Whitmer Thomas’s supernatural buddy movie takes toxic friendships to the next level, as LA slacker Clay reluctantly reconnects with ex-pal Whit from beyond the grave. Tatum and Thomas’s deadpan ruminations on quarter-life crises are a low-budget delight, with an ending that leaves your jaw on the floor. [Heather Bradshaw]

Close Your Eyes

Dir. Victor Erice

One of those dramas that you can tell from the word go is going to have a wordless, transcendent ending, Victor Erice's first feature in 30 years blends mystery with reflections on the longevity of cinema. It's a patient, spellbinding build towards a crucial, impossible moment of recollection. [Rory Doherty]

A Different Man

Dir. Aaron Schimberg

Taking a more subdued but no less provocative approach to body transformation than The Substance, A Different Man follows an actor (played by an astonishingly good Sebastian Stan) who cannot get out of his own way after becoming conventionally handsome. Adam Pearson’s easy charisma and Renate Reinsve’s pitch-perfect portrayal of artistic self-absorption enhance the absurdity. [Carmen Paddock]

Drive-Away Dolls

Dir. Ethan Coen

Following Joel's gothic Macbeth, Ethan’s solo debut is a much more Coen-esque affair. A wild caper involving a severed head and a lot of dildos, Drive-Away Dolls is carried by winning performances from Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan, and directed with a panache lacking in too many comedies. It has an irrepressible spirit that’s hard to resist. [Philip Concannon]

The Fall Guy

Dir. David Leitch

Applying Jane Austen’s note from Emma – “silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way” – frothy action rom-com The Fall Guy, with its Bad Streamer Movie patina and plot, takes on substantial dimension when formidable actor Ryan Gosling injects his absurdist, knowing charm. [Lucy Fitzgerald]

The First Omen

Dir. Arkasha Stevenson

Arkasha Stevenson hijacks demonic classic The Omen to tell an eerily relevant story of bodily autonomy. All hail electrifying protagonist Nell Tiger Free, whose commitment makes this sequel exciting enough to appeal to new audiences and acolytes of Damien alike. Forget the finale – the full-frontal childbirth scene and a Possession homage will have you whisper "What the hell am I watching?" in the best possible way. [Stefania Sarrubba]

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

Dir. Kevin Costner

Costner's unashamedly old-fashioned western was never likely to set the box office alight, but it deserved better than a desultory release before Chapter 2 was yanked from the schedule. The film's classical style, involving storytelling and intriguing character dynamics leave us wanting more; hoping Costner will find a way to complete his enormously ambitious quartet. [Philip Concannon]

A few of the eponymous villains in Hundreds of Beavers.

Hundreds of Beavers

Dir. Mike Cheslik

A film does not need a big budget, realistic effects or even dialogue to be successful; it just needs pratfalls. Chronicling one unlucky applejack salesman’s journey to master trapper, Hundreds of Beavers is a raucous throwback to Buster Keaton’s best silent films – with its extras dressed in full-body animal costumes. [Carmen Paddock]

Juror #2

Dir. Clint Eastwood

UK audiences might have enjoyed Nicholas Hoult as a juror grappling with a dark secret, but in the US, Clint Eastwood’s courtroom thriller was inexplicably sidelined by Warner Bros, playing in fewer than 50 cinemas. Hopefully word of mouth will see the 94-year-old director’s latest receive the justice it deserves. [Patrick Gamble]

Megalopolis

Dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola’s confounding labour of love is verbose, pompous, problematic, inane, ugly and downright batshit. But it’s to be admired rather than ridiculed, because witnessing a generational artist reach for something and fail is an antidote to the ambitionless grey slop of most modern blockbuster filmmaking. [Tony Inglis]

Problemista

Dir. Julio Torres

Through visionary Julio Torres’s kaleidoscopic eyes, Problemista presents The American (fever) Dream. Channelling the colours and shapes of Chagall and the bureaucratic dead-ends of Mandabi, it adopts a surrealist imagination to confront cold material truths. The film torques the wackiness of cryogenics and Craigslist, and ennobles the chaos of an artist's actualisation. [Lucy Fitzgerald]

Sasquatch Sunset

Dir. Nathan Zellner, David Zellner

Feces and vomit and shrooms – oh my! The Zellner Brothers' absurdist ‘nature’ comedy shines a whole new light on the talents of Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough, with a Bigfoot biopic that lacks in plot what it makes up for in heart. A gloriously gross-out and existential romp. [Heather Bradshaw]

Small Things like These

Dir. Tim Mielants

Faces lit by candles, television screens, Christmas lights. Sounds heard in the muddled distance. Small Things like These, which delves into the abuses committed in the Magdalene Laundries, is a film of subtleties, of things lurking just below the surface of daily life. A haunting and disquieting look at Ireland’s not-so-distant past of the subjugation and oppression of women and girls. [Emilie Roberts]

Sometimes I Think About Dying

Dir. Rachel Lambert

Fran likes cottage cheese. That's her 'fun fact' for the office icebreaker, which she divulges with eyes averted. Daisy Ridley imbues a sense of intense loneliness into her character, who muses on being dead. She's torn between merging into the furniture or being seen, but in a life permeated with emptiness, the intricacies of human connection call. [Eleanor Capaldi]

Jeremy O. Harris and Ayo Edebiri in The Sweet East.

The Sweet East

Dir. Sean Price Williams

A choose-your-own-adventure in Wonderland if crafted by Harmony Korine, The Sweet East follows Lillian (Talia Ryder) as she navigates the wild west of the Eastern Seaboard, meeting offbeat characters along the way. What’s most fun and subversive are the film's playful nods to Lolita and Edgar Allen Poe, all the while hilariously challenging the trope of young, passive femininity. [Katie Driscoll]

Trap

Dir. M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan's post-comeback thrillers all have a more noticeably playful, heightened tone, but this deliberately ludicrous cat-and-mouse thriller set at a pop concert is his funniest and most delicious yet. Josh Hartnett is simply dazzling as a wholesome father and secret serial killer whose neatly ordered world collapses over two hours. [Rory Doherty]

A Traveller's Needs

Dir. Hong Sang-soo

Hong Sang-soo’s work is criminally under-distributed in the UK, which is particularly egregious as his most recent collaboration with Isabelle Huppert – as a foreigner teaching French in Korea – is a hilarious, light on its feet and well-observed tale of being constantly lost in translation, and a little lost in life too. [Tony Inglis]