The 10 Best Movies Awards Season Forgot

No one really expected the Oscars to give a damn about a sequel to a cult action movie starring Keanu Reeves doing his best death stare. But with a bigger budget, John Wick: Chapter 2 turned up the already stupefyingly cool “gun fu” action choreography to 11. It unfolds as one unbroken fight for survival staged in increasingly sensational backdrops, from catacombs in Rome to a duel with Common in New York City’s new Oculus and a mirror-filled museum exhibition. If Reeves’ Ted from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure were watching it, he would be making this face the entire time.

The Colin Farrell-starring Killing of a Sacred Deer pretty much defines “too weird and fucked-up for the Oscars.” The actor, who only gets better with age, reunites with The Lobster director Yorgos Lanthimos for this much darker psychological horror film about a surgeon (Farrell) who befriends a boy, only to have his family suddenly turn ill. If you like provocative, creepy, what-the-hell-did-I-just-watch dramas, you will almost certainly love it.

Steven Soderbergh directing a funny heist movie in the vein of Ocean’s Eleven but featuring down-on-their-luck West Virginians stealing money from NASCAR and starring Channing Tatum and Adam Driver... Sounds great, right? Except Logan Lucky somehow bombed in theatres, earning less in the U.S. than its estimated production budget. In retrospect, Soderbergh’s ambitious, unconventional release strategy may not have been the right idea, which is too bad, because the movie is hilarious, touching, and genuinely suspenseful.

Hunky Charlie Hunnam was primed for stardom, but it hasn’t worked out that way. The former Sons of Anarchy actor has instead moved deeper into indie material. He makes a perfect match with director James Gray (Two Lovers, The Immigrant) in The Lost City of Z, the kind of handsome, handcrafted, adult drama that has all but disappeared from big screens. Based on the book of the same name, it tells the true story of the British explorer Percy Fawcett (Hunnam) as he searches for the lost city in question in the Amazon, tracing madness and obsession in an unknown land.

A French-language movie with an esoteric name isn’t the easiest sell, but Nocturama is riveting from beginning to end. It follows a group of disaffected teenagers who carry out a series of terrorist plots across Paris with unclear intentions. They then hide out inside a windowless mall while a manhunt is underway, leading to a hypnotic, pop-scored consumerist fantasy gone wrong. Without any clear message, it forces the viewer to connect a lot of unsettling dots.

In case you’re wondering what happened to Kristen Stewart, the Twilight star has made an improbable transformation into arthouse darling. Personal Shopper marks her second collaboration with acclaimed French director Olivier Assayas, and it’s a breakthrough for both of them. Stewart plays the fabulously soft-butch personal shopper to a celebrity in Paris, but she wrestles with the death of her twin brother, with whom she seems to share a connection to spirits. A series of mysterious texts sends her on a journey that’s one of the best takes on the ghost story in a while.

Costume-y period movies about famous people would seem like home runs for the Oscars, but A Quiet Passion fell under the radar perhaps for being too sensitive and unshowy. Its lyrical take on the life of Emily Dickinson (played by Cynthia Nixon in a masterful performance) attempts to get to the heart of her artistic genius by charting her unusual life.

Netflix took a calculated risk on Okja, betting on the director of Snowpiercer (Bong-joon ho) making an international action blockbuster with a multicultural cast and centring on a young girl’s love for her genetically engineered super-pig. A bitingly satirical parable about capitalism and environmentalism as well as a raucous, Spielberg-inspired thriller, it’s not for everyone. But few summer popcorn flicks have been so daring and innovative. If you can get on its wavelength, it’s a wild ride.

People have been hoping for an M. Night Shyamalan comeback for years now, but Split (from Blumhouse, the same production company responsible for Get Out) proves he actually deserves one. The Sixth Sense and Signs director does what he does best: stages a pulpy, slightly trashy thriller with batshit twists no one else could make up. But what’s even better is watching James McAvoy as a deranged kidnapper playing more personalities than you can keep track of, including an older woman with a serious mean streak. If acting were an endurance sport, he would get all of the medals.

After a somewhat disappointing acting career, Taylor Sheridan has remade himself as one of the most exciting writing talents in Hollywood with his scripts for Sicario and Hell or High Water. He also took on directing duties for Wind River, and while it’s not as visually stunning as those other two thrillers, it’s no less powerful. An FBI agent (a terrific Elizabeth Olsen) and a wildlife tracker (Jeremy Renner) try to solve the murder of a young Native American woman in bleakly cold Wyoming, and the pair come face-to-face with ugly realities lurking among the relationships on the Indian reservation. It’s a poignant testament to the thousands of stories just like it.