We find ourselves halfway through what has been a wonderful year of movies. So far, this year features a wide catalog of diverse conversation starters, group chats filled with debates about “The Drama,” your mom asking if you’ve seen “Obsession” yet and our collective impending quarter-life crisis when a talented 20-year-old directs a terrifying blockbuster. We may have suffered through some slogs like “Wuthering Heights,” but the success up to this midpoint shows movie culture is continuing to grow. This is further evident when the films not at the top of the popularity iceberg are just as good, if not better.
The following list is a collection of films released this year that you might not have seen or heard of. They all have fewer than 150,000 viewers on Letterboxd, but each is great in its own way and deserves to be in the cultural conversation.
“Blue Heron” by Sophy Romvari
Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari’s debut feature film, “Blue Heron,” is an unmatched depiction of adolescence. The film follows the life of the youngest sibling in a family of Hungarian immigrants, Sasha (Eylul Guven), as she witnesses the mental unraveling of her older brother, Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), but won’t quite understand it until she’s much older. The feeling of recontextualizing one’s childhood memories as an adult is so particular yet universal. “Blue Heron” gives the viewer space to map their own childhood experiences onto the film and decide its meaning for themselves. It’s a devastating film that leaves you in an intense, melancholic state. It’s ability to evoke such a visceral experience is why it should be considered in this year’s conversation.
“Mile End Kicks” by Chandler Levack
From another Canadian filmmaker, Chandler Levack, “Mile End Kicks” is a smart romcom about music journalism and being a stupid young adult. Featuring former “Euphoria” star Barbie Ferraria as an up-and-coming music critic navigating the likes of both pretentious male journalists and an inter-band love triangle between the lead singer (Stanley Simons) and guitarist (Devon Bostick). Meanwhile, she is attempting to write a book about Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill to fully realize herself as a writer. “Mile End Kicks” pins the pivotal moment of being reckless, feeling a growing need to conform to cliches and finding your voice while praying someone cares about what you have to say. This touching movie plays all of the right notes and does a wonderful job of creating such a lived-in, infatuating experience. The depiction of writing about what you love is so exact and gives it a sharper edge than any stereotypical rom-com.
“Our Hero, Balthazar” by Oscar Boyson
Released right as “larping” began infiltrating our everyday vocabulary, “Our Hero, Balthazar” follows two wildly different people, donning different internet personas, meeting in person. One poses as an online gun rights activist and the other is pretending to be violent enough to incite a mass shooting. It has the same approach as 2025’s “Eddington,” and they stand tall as two of the very few movies to successfully crack the code on how to display internet culture accurately. Like “Eddington,” it tackles many different current topics, but can be distilled down to the gullibility of lonely men mixed with the allure of internet notoriety, creating a powder keg for violence. It’s incredibly abrasive, hilarious and, at times, hard to watch, but it strikes at something entirely relevant to our current moment.
“Carolina Caroline” by Adam Rehmeier
In the lineage of “Bonnie and Clyde” and “True Romance” — or a much tamer version of Pumpkin and Honey Bunny from “Pulp Fiction” — “Carolina Caroline” is a light, fun and hot crime movie. Starring the criminally undercast Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner as a couple driving across the American South, robbing banks and falling in love, the film accurately captures the feeling of a Soderbergh-slash-Tarantino thriller with these two performances at its center. While it may not reinvent the wheel, it executes what it’s borrowing so well you’ll never roll your eyes. Weaving is phenomenal as the titular Caroline, and she possesses a magnetic charisma, which is the secret ingredient to making something like this feel exciting. This kind of movie is rarely made well anymore, but if more of them looked this good and respected where they came from, the landscape of Hollywood would be a lot brighter.
“Mother Mary” by David Lowery
Anne Hathaway stars in two fashion-focused movies released within a week of each other, and it’s clear “Mother Mary” is the better version. The titular Mother Mary is a fading Madonna-esque popstar in search of a new outfit to perform in. This forces her to reunite with her estranged wardrobe designer (Michaela Coel) and try to reconcile their friendship. The film shows the give-and-take of the collaborative artistic process and the intense, claustrophobic feeling of working so closely with one another. Though the film takes place almost entirely within a barn, it is incredibly visually striking and creative in finding unique framing. It’s also great to see Hathaway given the rare chance to truly flex her acting muscles. This film did not disappoint and, if nothing else, is worth watching for some of the best costume design you will see all year.
Daily Arts Writer Sam Brown can be reached at sbrownie@umich.edu.
