The 2020s have already proven to be a rich era for cinema, with countless films making waves on the big screen and streaming platforms alike. But beyond the blockbusters and award darlings, there exists a treasure trove of lesser-known movies—hidden gems that showcase remarkable storytelling, inventive filmmaking, and unforgettable performances. These films may have flown under the radar, but they’re brimming with creativity and deserve a spot on your watchlist. Here’s a curated selection of hidden cinematic treasures from the 2020s that are waiting to be discovered.
These are the 50 Greatest Hidden Gems of the 2020s (So Far).
50. She is Conann (2024)
Watching the work of Bertrand Mandico, you’d swear they came from the world of music videos but once you find out they didn’t, it makes sense because there’s no band cool enough to have videos directed by someone as idiosyncratic as Mandico. I hesitate to call him a filmmaker, he makes cinematic art installations that are singular. He is Matthew Barney if Barney knew had to tell a story and wasn’t pretentious as fuck. One of his latest films (the man never stops directing), is a feminist reimagining of the Conan the Barbarian mythos, exploring the life of Conann through various ages, each portrayed by a different actress. If the word “feminist” immediately makes you check out, you were never going to vibe with this film’s outthere wavelength because that is barely 1% of what’s going on in this thing. It is surreal to the nth degree. She Is Conann is a shotgun blast of cocaine and glitter that’s as gay as it is ultra-violent.
49. No Dogs or Italians Allowed (2022)
No Dogs or Italians Allowed is a semi-autobiographical stop-motion animated film that delves into the struggles of Italian immigrants in the early 20th century. The film begins in the director’s hometown, where poverty forces his family to uproot and move across Europe, confronting hardship, discrimination, and resilience. The narrative is deeply personal, framed by Ughetto conversing with a clay representation of his grandmother, Cesira, who narrates the family’s trials and triumphs. The title reflects the exclusionary signs that immigrants often encountered during that era. The stop-motion animation is charming yet expressive, blending realism with whimsy. Ughetto’s use of handcrafted sets and objects—such as broccoli trees and sugar-cube houses—creates an intimate, tactile world.
This approach heightens the emotional resonance, inviting viewers into a deeply nostalgic yet universally relatable tale. While not always an enjoyable experience, the film is nevertheless a heartfelt portrait of the sacrifices made by many immigrant families. It also serves as a critique of xenophobia, illustrated through the discrimination faced by the Ughettos. No Dogs or Italians Allowed is the perfect balance between humor and melancholy, capturing the hardships of migration while celebrating the resilience of those who persevere.
48. The Wolf House (2020)
Colonia Dignidad was a compound in Chile that for decades housed a cult led by Paul Schafer, a German who fled his country to escape charges of pedophilia. The colony was the site of a range of atrocities that included child sexual abuse, the torture and disappearance of political prisoners, and the physical and mental abuse of its members. The place also had ties to Nazi war criminals and the rise of Pinochet. Knowing that bit of history isn’t essential to understanding and enjoying this film but it does add some context. Since the film is heavily stylized and focuses more on visuals than plot, all that does is add another layer of heaviness to the film.
Without it, the wolf is just a wolf and the house is just a house and that works. That’s a fairy tale. If Jan Švankmajer, Yorgos Lanthimos, and The Quay Brothers had a baby, that baby would be The Wolf House. That’s the type of dark fantasy this film operates under. But with that context, that wolf is now a cult and that house is a prison. It never beats you over the head with its metaphors. You either know what it is or you don’t and again, either way works. I didn’t know beforehand and I just thought it was about mental illness and learning to live with the wolf trying to break in, instead of keeping him at bay and I still loved it. It’s a beautiful, surreal onion with each layer being more thought-provoking than the last.
47. Linoleum (2022)
When comedic actors turn to dramatic fare, it’s almost always an obvious bid for an Oscar. That’s not to say they aren’t talented enough to pull off dramatic work, it’s just the type of roles they pick to showcase their talents tend to be the shit Academy voters love. Linoleum is too weird and quirky to be on their radar, which is a shame because if they had seen it, Jim Gaffigan would’ve definitely been in the conversation. In the film, he plays dual roles as Cameron, a washed-up science TV host, and Kent, his polished counterpart who takes over his career.
Set in a suburban American town, the narrative is sparked by bizarre occurrences, including a car crash involving Cameron’s doppelgänger and the appearance of space debris in his backyard. These events inspire Cameron to build a rocket, reflecting his long-held dream of becoming an astronaut and setting the stage for a story rich in metaphor and introspection.
The film’s structure mirrors its thematic preoccupations, with moments of surrealism and a Möbius-strip narrative that loops back to reflect the protagonist’s life and legacy. The ending ties these elements together, casting the story as a reflection on memory, loss, and fulfillment. As you can tell, there’s a lot going on narratively but It deftly juggles all of its plot threads, themes, and weirdness without feeling overstuffed. Thanks in large part to Gaffigan’s performance. He anchors the film and keeps it from crawling up its own ass. It’s the best film Charlie Kaufman never made with a truly remarkable lead performance at its center.
46. Moon Garden (2022)
Does a mood piece have to be original? If a film is explicitly aiming for style over substance or rather, prioritizing creating a vibe over focusing on a narrative, do its obvious influences matter? Remove Švankmajer, Gilliam, Gaiman, and Del Toro from this film’s DNA and all you’re left with is the credits. Moon Garden doesn’t have an original bone in its body but dismissing it for merely being derivative is missing the forest for the trees. The director knows you know the references they’re pulling from; pointing them out is about as pointless as trying to use Tarantino’s homages as ammo against him. Moon Garden is its references. The film is every fantasy you’ve ever seen smashed together. Even the plot is reminiscent of a million other plots: a comatose five-year-old girl (the director’s five-year-old daughter Haven Lee Harris) journeys through an industrial wonderland to find her way back to consciousness.
You’ve seen this movie before but the director knows this and uses that to his advantage. Because you’re already intimately familiar with the film’s Alice in Wonderland-esque structure and the obvious visual nods to other films, the director’s job is really just to ladle as much style onto every frame as possible and that’s exactly what he did. Moon Garden is a phantasmagoria of horror and fantasy filled with practical effects and miniatures and a Slenderman-looking monster (who’s got teeth!) and more aesthetically pleasing images than you can shake a stick at. It’s a love letter to the entire genre of grimdark fantasy that you won’t soon forget.
45. She Dies Tomorrow (2020)
This underseen psychological horror-thriller has a brilliant but simple premise: a woman (Kate Lyn Sheil) wakes up one day gripped by an unshakable certainty that she will die the following day. Her existential dread spreads like a virus to those around her, including her friend Jane (Jane Adams) and a growing circle of acquaintances. The film eschews traditional plot structures, focusing instead on mood and emotional resonance. Writer-director Amy Seimetz employs a fragmented narrative, shifting perspectives and timelines in a way that mirrors the chaos of the characters’ unraveling psyches.
The story unfolds like a fever dream, inviting viewers to inhabit the disorienting mental states of its characters while contemplating the fragility of existence. The film can be read as an allegory for the ways existential anxiety spreads in a world rife with crises, or as a reflection on the inevitability of death and the ways individuals cope—or fail to cope—with that knowledge. The movie taps into the universal yet deeply personal fear of the unknown, leaving viewers to wrestle with their own mortality long after the credits roll.
44. Kill It and Leave This Town (2020)
Created over 14 years, Kill It and Leave This Town is a hand-drawn animated odyssey through the fragmented psyche of its creator. It is an unsettling and deeply personal exploration of grief, memory, and existential despair that has a raw, chaotic aesthetic that mirrors the turbulent emotions it seeks to depict. The narrative is loose and dreamlike, following a man who retreats into memories of his past to escape the pain of losing his loved ones. The film blends autobiographical elements with surreal imagery, creating a non-linear story that feels like a descent into the subconscious. Calling the storytelling unconventional would be an understatement.
It’s intentionally hard to follow in places and the animation offers no lifeline. It is deliberately rough and unpolished, with jagged lines and muted colors that enhance its emotional rawness. This isn’t an easy or conventional viewing experience; the visuals evoke a sense of discomfort, which aligns with the film’s exploration of trauma. Wilczyński’s style is reminiscent of outsider art, emphasizing the emotional over the technical. Kill It and Leave This Town is not for everyone. It’s abstract storytelling and grim tone can be alienating for viewers seeking a more traditional narrative. However, for those open to experimental cinema, it offers a singular experience you won’t find anywhere else.
43. The Timekeepers of Eternity (2021)
The Timekeepers of Eternity is such a bold and unique experience, just describing what it is, makes you sound insane. It is a reimagining/reworking of the 1995 TV adaptation of Stephen King’s The Langoliers that takes the original footage and turns it into an animated collage of paper textures. In doing so, the director transforms the story into an experimental meditation on time, anxiety, and existential dread. The film retains the core premise of The Langoliers: a group of passengers on a red-eye flight awakens to find most of the other travelers mysteriously vanished, and reality itself begins to unravel.
However, The Timekeepers of Eternity isn’t just a retelling—it’s a deconstruction. By literally tearing and manipulating the original footage, Aristotelis Maragkos imbues the narrative with a deeper sense of fragility and transience, emphasizing the themes of time and memory that underpin King’s story. He took a story that, even the most diehard of King fans would charitably call “mid”, and made it infinitely better by creating a meta-fiction on top of it. The paper tears, folds, and distortions reflect the psychological states of the characters, particularly the unraveling mind of the antagonist, Craig Toomy.
The characters in the movie aren’t just stuck outside of time and space like the original story, they are now also stuck inside a reality literally tearing itself apart. If you find the director’s unique approach innovative and playful, you’ll most likely consider this an avant-garde deconstructionist masterpiece but if it screams “art school bullshit” to you, you’ll most likely hate it with the intensity of a million suns. There’s almost no in-between.
42. The Humans (2021)
The highest compliment an indie film can receive is saying it feels like it came from the ’90s. That decade perfected the art of throwing character actors into a confined space and having their uniquely damaged characters bicker and snipe at one another until something triggers an explosion. The Humans is about a family gathering that slowly turns into a ticking time bomb that stands alongside the best of the claustrophobic, panic attack-inducing melodramas about dysfunctional families sub genre.
Brigid (Beanie Feldstein) and her boyfriend Richard (Steven Yeun) have invited their respective families to their new apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. Brigid’s parents, Erik (Richard Jenkins) and Deirdre (Jayne Houdyshell), arrive first, followed by her sister Aimee (Amy Schumer) and their grandmother (June Squibb). As the family settles into their new surroundings, tensions quickly arise.
Each family member has their own individual drama and some have clashing personalities, a recipe for inevitable disaster. The Humans is like being stuck at a stranger’s house during a particularly hostile Thanksgiving, you can either cringe at the drama unfolding around you involving people you don’t know or get invested in their personal problems. Either way, you walk away with a holiday you won’t forget.
41. I Love My Dad (2022)
The word cringe has been robbed of its meaning through overuse. Any slight embarrassment or mildly awkward moment is now labeled as cringe, when in actuality, the word should only be used to describe instances where you literally want to die from embarrassment. Cringe is when something is too hard to take and gives you physical discomfort. I Love My Dad is the perfect example of cringe-comedy. It explores the absurd and unsettling lengths one father goes to in an effort to reconnect with his estranged son.
The story follows Franklin (James Morosini), a young man struggling with mental health who decides to cut his unreliable father, Chuck (Patton Oswalt), out of his life. In a desperate attempt to stay in touch, Chuck creates a fake Facebook profile posing as a young woman named Becca. The plan spirals out of control when Franklin begins to fall for “Becca,” leading to an awkward, uncomfortable, and often hilarious series of events. It’s a story so insane, it’s hard to believe it’s inspired by true events but it is. I Love My Dad is a bold and deeply uncomfortable comedy that offers laughs, heartbreak, and food for thought in equal measure. It’s a poignant exploration of love, connection, and the lengths people will go to repair broken relationships.
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What are some underrated, overlooked, or hidden gems from the first half of the 2020s that you enjoy? Maybe they’ll show up later in the list!
