Got the Blockbuster Blues? Here Are 10 Smaller Movies You Can See Now
This summer has produced its fair share of hits, with Captain America: Civil War ($403.9 million) and Finding Dory ($321.6 million as of this writing, and counting) so far leading the box-office charge. Yet many other would-be hits — Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, Alice Through the Looking Glass, X-Men: Apocalypse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out of the Shadows, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Now You See Me 2, Warcraft, and last weekend’s Independence Day: Resurgence — have been met with indifference, if not outright displeasure. (Go here to read our complete box-office report.) With so many big-budget efforts failing to excite, we thought it was time to steer moviegoers toward some lesser-known films, both in limited theatrical release and on VOD, that will, if nothing else, elicit passionate, polarizing responses. They’re the films apt to inspire heated debate — and stick with you long after your jumbo popcorn and soda are finished.
The Neon Demon (in limited theatrical release now)
Danish provocateur Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive, Only God Forgives) returns with perhaps his most brazenly art-installation-by-way-of-Stanley-Kubrick film yet — a methodical fashion-industry satire about an aspiring young model (Elle Fanning) who learns that her competitors, when not trying to be like her, have a depraved hunger to be her.
Watch The Neon Demon trailer:
Equals (in limited theatrical release now)
In a future society where human emotion has been successfully eradicated, two individuals (Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart) find themselves developing feelings — both about themselves, and for each other — thanks to a new virus. This chilly dystopian romance (which premiered at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival) has been available on DirecTV, and sneaks into theaters this weekend.
Watch the Equals trailer:
Clown (in limited theatrical release now)
On the basis of last year’s Kevin Bacon-headlined indie thriller Cop Car, director Jon Watts was tapped by Marvel to helm the forthcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming. His debut, however, only recently arrived in theaters: a dark, twisted, gory horror movie about a man who dons a clown costume for his son’s birthday party, only to discover that he can’t take it off — and that it’s transforming him into a child-chomping demon.
That’s one creepy clown. Cue the nightmares. (Photo: Dimension Films)
Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (in limited theatrical release now)
In 1982, three Mississippi kids decided to create a shot-for-shot remake of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark — a project that would take them over three decades to complete. Their amazing story of fan devotion, which eventually attracted the attention of notable celebs and Spielberg himself, is now detailed in this entertaining documentary from Drafthouse Films.
Team Raiders! (Photo: Drafthouse Films)
Hush (exclusively on Netflix now)
Writer-director Mike Flanagan (Absentia, Oculus, the forthcoming Before I Wake, Ouija: Origin of Evil, and a new Halloween installment) is one of horror cinema’s most promising new talents, and that’s ably confirmed by this Netflix-exclusive thriller starring his wife Kate Siegel as a deaf-mute woman menaced by a killer at her remote rural home — a cat-and-mouse scenario that Flanagan executes with terrifyingly pinpoint precision.
Watch the Hush trailer:
Love and Friendship (in limited theatrical release now)
Few Jane Austen adaptations have been as faithful to the author’s spirit as this drama from director Whit Stillman (Metropolitan, The Last Days of Disco), which reunites him with stars Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny for a tale — based on Austen’s novel Lady Susan — of one widow’s complicated, conniving comedy-of-manners efforts to find a husband for herself and her daughter.
Tea time for Kate Beckinsale (Photo: Amazon Films)
De Palma (in limited theatrical release now)
While he may not have quite the reputation of his illustrious ’70s-American-cinema peers (George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola), Brian De Palma remains the heir apparent to Alfred Hitchcock — a predecessor whose films De Palma often channeled in his own thrillers. The legendary director of Carrie, Scarface, Dressed to Kill, The Untouchables, and Mission: Impossible gets a reverential documentary tribute courtesy of Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow, which is dominated by candid interviews with De Palma himself.
De Palma directs John Travolta in Blow Out (Photo: A24)
Swiss Army Man (in limited theatrical release now)
Daniel Radcliffe has been busy carving out a distinctive post-Harry Potter career, and no project has taken him further from Hogwarts than this wacko indie, in which he stars as a corpse named Manny who’s befriended by a suicidal Paul Dano — and who has a particular habit of expelling enormous bursts of gas.
Watch the Swiss Army Man trailer:
Everybody Wants Some!! (on VOD/digital platforms now; on home video July 12)
Fresh off the success of Boyhood, Richard Linklater shifts his gaze to university-age guys for this 1980s-set comedy about a group of college baseball players consumed with partying, dating, and getting into trouble. A spiritual companion piece to his 1993 cult classic Dazed and Confused, it’s a rowdy and rollicking boys-will-be-boys coming-of-age saga.
It’s party time for the Everybody Wants Some!! gang (Photo: Paramount Pictures)
The Lobster (in limited theatrical release now; on VOD and home video Aug. 2)
Colin Farrell has never been funnier than in this oddball dystopian-future dramedy from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth), about a single man who checks into a hotel where he (and his fellow lonely souls, including John C. Reilly and Ben Whishaw) must find a mate within 45 days — or, per law, be turned into the animal of his choice. Rarely has a satire about romance, relationships, and identity been this wonderfully, wildly weird.
Watch The Lobster trailer:
Related: From ‘Dory’ to Snore-y: Our Midseason Summer Box-Office Report
