Every year, great movies slip through the cracks because they did not have Marvel-level marketing budgets. Here are films from the last two years that deserved more attention.
2025-2026 sleepers:
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The Brutalist (dir. Brady Corbet) — Adrien Brody as a Hungarian architect immigrating to America post-WWII. 3.5 hours long and every minute earned. This is a masterpiece that most people skipped because of the runtime. Source: 8 Academy Award nominations.
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Nickel Boys (dir. RaMell Ross) — First-person POV drama based on the Colson Whitehead novel. Technically groundbreaking. The camera IS the character. Challenging but rewarding.
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A Real Pain (dir. Jesse Eisenberg) — Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as mismatched cousins on a Holocaust remembrance tour in Poland. Funny and devastating. Culkin won the Oscar for Supporting Actor.
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Anora (dir. Sean Baker) — Palme d'Or winner. A Brooklyn exotic dancer marries the son of a Russian oligarch. Baker captures chaos and humanity in equal measure.
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September 5 — Based on the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage crisis, told entirely from the ABC Sports broadcast booth. Tense, innovative storytelling.
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Nosferatu (dir. Robert Eggers) — Not exactly "underrated" but underseen relative to its quality. Bill Skarsgard's Orlok is the most terrifying vampire put on screen. Lily-Rose Depp is haunting.
Why these get ignored: Marketing budgets. A movie like The Brutalist costs $10M to make and $5M to market. A Marvel movie costs $250M to make and $150M to market. The algorithm buries smaller films.
Sources: Box Office Mojo for financial data, Academy Award nominations, Cannes/Venice festival selections