{"id":76061,"date":"2025-12-26T20:03:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T23:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/best-overlooked-films-of-2025\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T20:03:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T23:03:15","slug":"best-overlooked-films-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/en\/best-overlooked-films-of-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Overlooked Films of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tEvery year, the awards gods decree that a certain group of films are the most noteworthy. Many of the same titles end up appearing on every list of critics association awards, guild nominations and Oscar projections. This means that dozens of other titles wind up getting lost along the way, thanks to having an all-too-brief stint in theaters only to swim into the sea of streaming releases as one of a vast school of tasty catches.<\/p>\n
\n\tOverlooked can mean many things. Sometimes it means that critics weren\u2019t onboard, even if many viewers disagreed. Or maybe a movie had upwards of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, like Kristen Stewart\u2019s \u201cThe Chronology of Water,\u201d but got overshadowed during its initial limited release in a brutally tough theatrical market for indie films. Or maybe, like \u201cJingle Bell Heist,\u201d it\u2019s from a category like \u201choliday movies\u201d that doesn\u2019t get much respect. In addition, there are many horror and other genre films that are just as well-crafted as a lot of awards bait but can end up getting lost in the shuffle.<\/p>\n
\n\tHere are Variety<\/em>\u2018s picks for the 2025 releases that are worth reconsidering and seeking out.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0The Alto Knights<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tA Mob drama so reviled by the critics that I felt a touch embarrassed every time I talked about how much I liked it. But it\u2019s seriously good! What seemed to push everyone\u2019s buttons was Robert De Niro, having portrayed about 100 gangsters in his life, now deigning to play two of them\u2026at once. In this true-life war of the New York underworld, he embodies a pair of lifelong frenemies: Frank Costello, who is courtly and political, trying to live in the real world, and also Vito Genovese, the sociopathic firecracker who doesn\u2019t want to be controlled by anyone. The reviewers treated this as a joke, as if it were \u201cGoodFellas\u201d meets \u201cThe Patty Duke Show,\u201d but just watch what De Niro brings off; he creates a master class in the nuances of Mob psychology. The movie, directed with straight-ahead gusto by Barry Levinson, was written by \u201cGoodFellas\u2019\u201d Nicholas Pileggi, and it\u2019s one of the only films to dig behind the fa\u00e7ade of the gangsters you used to see in tabloid-newspaper photographs \u2014 the old men in glasses and fedoras who ruled the Italian American underworld in the \u201950s and \u201960s. \u201cThe Alto Knights\u201d was a big enough bomb to indicate that this kind of Mob movie has come to its end as a genre, but if you\u2019ve been a connoisseur of it, you owe it to yourself to see what amounts to an essential gangster chronicle.\u00a0\u2014 Owen Gleiberman<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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American Sweatshop<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Guido Marx\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tDaisy Morris (Lili Reinhart) has one of the unhealthiest jobs imaginable. Not inhaling asbestos all day or scraping toxic sludge from public spaces, but not all that different either. As a content moderator, she\u2019s part of a team that reviews violent and offensive videos online, which means spending soul-sucking hours watching the worst the internet has to offer (vile clips with names like \u201cbaby in a blender\u201d). There\u2019s only so much someone in her position can take. <\/p>\n
\n\tConfronting ideas of free speech our founding fathers couldn\u2019t possibly have imagined, Uta Briesewitz\u2019s under-the-radar SXSW discovery presents the female version of an angry Paul Schrader character. Think Robert De Niro in \u201cTaxi Driver\u201d or George C. Scott in \u201cHardcore\u201d: dudes who flip out when confronted by how dark the world can get. Here we have a seemingly level-headed woman who sees what looks like a snuff film, and rather than simply deleting it, she resolves to track down the sickos responsible. \u2014\u00a0Peter Debruge<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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The Ballad of Wallis Island<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: \u00a9Focus Features\/Courtesy Everet\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tHave you ever experienced a film that has what appears to be a cloying setup, and a seemingly deeply annoying major character precipitating all the action \u2026 that then turns out to be funny, moving and maybe even profoundly truthful, in spite of all those red flags? That is \u201cThe Ballad of Wallis Island,\u201d one of the very best contemporary films about music, although that\u2019s hardly all it\u2019s concerned with. Tim Key plays a social misfit so alienating, it makes sense that he has exiled himself to a Welsh island, the remote spot where he uses his riches to try to force a reunion between a famous male-female music duo \u2014 wonderfully played by Carey Mulligan and co-writer Tom Basden \u2014 who are more deeply estranged than Stevie and Lindsey. What it finally has to say about fandom, musical harmony and the frailty of mismatched relationships feels so real, you may learn never to trust first impressions again. \u2014 Chris Willman<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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Bob Trevino Likes It<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Roadside Attractions\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tTracie Laymon\u2019s debut feature won both the jury and audience awards at last year\u2019s SXSW Film Festival but only made it into theaters a year later, in March 2025. And it\u2019s easy to see why festival audiences all over the country were charmed by this warm-hearted tale based on the director\u2019s own story. Barbie Ferreira proves her star power as Lily, a young woman cut off by her toxic biological dad (French Stewart, playing against type), who finds an even better father figure in a man who shares his name, played by John Leguizamo. Both Lily and Bob are broken and damaged in different ways, and their healing journey together is funny, sly and sensitive. It\u2019s currently on Hulu; here\u2019s hoping more audiences discover it. \u2014 Jenelle Riley <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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Bring Them Down<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Credit: Patrick Redmond\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tOf all the crimes captured on screen this year, none is more upsetting than the senseless attack on an entire flock of sheep \u2014 a stealthy late-night operation that leaves the poor animals bleeding to death in the dark and their owner Michael with a head full of fury (he\u2019s played by Christopher Abbott, infinitely more intimidating than he was in \u201cWolf Man\u201d). What kind of monster could have cut off all his livestock\u2019s legs, and to what end? Michael interprets this sick act as the latest salvo in a long-running feud with his neighbor (Paul Ready), who married his ex and is now stealing his sheep. To complicate things, the prickly couple has a daft, loose-cannon son with a history of bad decisions (the latest inspired use of Barry Keoghan\u2019s feral energy).<\/p>\n
\n\tWriter-director Christopher Andrews\u2019 tough, terrifically acted gut punch confronts the cycle of pain in this rural Irish community, barely scraping by as it is. Poverty and ignorance butt up against cycles of anger and retribution \u2014 a common theme in Irish life and literature, afforded new angles in this doomed portrait of two rivals dragging one another down, when their best hope for survival ought to be teaming up and working together. \u2014 Peter Debruge<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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Caught Stealing<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy of Sony Pictures\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tAustin Butler plays Hank, a bartender who is left to look after his neighbor\u2019s cat. Except that his neighbor is a punk rocker who is in trouble with gangsters, and Hank gets caught in the middle. Butler gets you rooting for Hank, who is something of a screwup thanks to a traumatic past. Director Darren Aronofsky sets the action in 1990s New York City, staging every scene with authentic grit and delivering one of the best action sequences of the year: a car chase through Flushing Meadows! \u2014 Jazz Tangcay<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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The Chronology of Water<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Andrejs Strokins\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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