So many movies, so little attention. In a time when movies are easier to make and distribute, getting eyes on a particular film has become much harder. Even oodles of publicity, built-in fanbases, brand-name recognition, or being a horror film can’t guarantee an audience.

2025 had enough riches to justify ample time in the cinema (or on a streamer) and yet so many good, and a few great, films went unnoticed or underappreciated. The films on this list share several features. Many of them are holdovers from 2024, premiering at festivals before being unceremoniously dumped in the next year with scant publicity or fanfare. Some of them are retro in look, feel, or setting and harken back to a time when movie releases were (or at least felt) less formulaic, even if people have been saying they don’t make them like they used to for almost as long as they’ve been making them.

Finally, several of these films are actually quite sweet, good-natured, and even goofy. Given that many of the best, most commanding, and high-profile films of the year were unerringly dark in subject matter, tone, or both (One Battle After Another, Sinners, It Was Just an Accident, the list goes on), it’s not surprising that lighter, gentler fare ended up under the rug.

Obviously, this list is subjective and based on one person’s watching. There was a wealth of cinema released last year, most of it unnoticed or underappreciated, and this list would likely look very different in a week or month’s time. That point aside, here are 10 great overlooked movies from 2025.

10. Caught Stealing

Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing isn’t just set in the 1990s, it feels like it was made then as well. This crime-thriller-comedy is the type of movie aimed at adults that critics insist they don’t make anymore. It turns out they do, the audience – at least on opening weekend – didn’t show up. Which is a shame because Aronofsky’s first film since Oscar-bait The Whale is one of his most solid outings. Caught Stealing is propulsive. It’s plot jump-starts early and doesn’t slow down. Characters are dispatched early and often. No character is safe. It’s also quite funny.

Austin Butler stars as a baseball pro turned drunk whose life turns upside down when he agrees to watch the cat of his punk neighbor, played by Matthew Smith mohawk and all. Things escalate quickly as he incurs the wrath of the Russian mob, Hasidic gangsters, cops clean and dirty, and large swathes of ‘90s-era New York. Aronofsky’s film is rollicking, a true wild ride that doesn’t let up. Much of it plays out as one long chase. Smith is a standout, but the entire cast – from D’Onofrio’s gangster to Regina King’s cop and Bad Bunny – is strong. After dismal numbers, Caught Stealing was dismissed as lesser Aronofsky, but time will likely be kind to this one. It’s a keeper.

9. Mickey 17

Given how Parasite shattered expectations in 2019, from winning Cannes to becoming the first foreign film to win the Best Picture Oscar, Bong Joon-ho was always going to have an uphill battle following it up. The fact that his next picture came 6 years later, after several delays, and landed in March didn’t bode well, and Mickey 17 did disappoint. Those who came to Bong’s work from Parasite were likely expecting another immaculately tense and funny social commentary that hit all the right buttons. Audiences looking for something more Memories of a Murder got more of a Snowpiercer or Okja, which is to say they got a sci-fi comedy that veers from slapstick to gallows-humor satire without much need for subtlety.

Mickey 17 is wry and quite goofy – not exactly the work of a self-serious director deftly satirizing society so much as one that caricatures the ridiculousness of an economic system run amok. Everything here is over-the-top, from Pattinson’s sweet-hearted dullard of a human guinea pig to Mark Ruffalo’s crass, buffoonish, hammer-on-the-nose cartoon-take of a certain contemporary political leader. Made by anybody else, this might’ve been received as an impressive, knowing wink of sci-fi comedy or an outright dud, but the truth is that Mickey 17 is funnier, sweeter, and darker than it gets credit for. Ceiling-shattering masterpiece it might not be, but there’s still a good time to be had.

8. The Luckiest Man in America

The Luckiest Man in America is one of those ridiculous-but-true stories infused with a retro analog aesthetic. Paul Walter Hauser plays another determined sad sack alongside a great cast including Walton Goggins, David Strathairn, Johnny Knoxville, and Maisie Williams, in this 2024 festival carry-over that would strain credulity if much of it wasn’t true.

In 1984, ice cream truck driver Michael Larson edged his way into a contestant spot on the game show Press Your Luck. Initially struggling on air, he eventually gets a spin and goes on a hot streak that’s almost too good to be true. Samir Oliveros’ film captures the suspense and fun of the moment while unfurling the secrets to Larson’s success. Watching TV executives bristle at the unexpected success of an underdog is always satisfying, and The Luckiest Man in America finds a great deal of charm in the era, the absurdity of the situation, and the excitement that Larson’s hot streak spurs in everyone around him. Like a time capsule of a small but endearing moment of a bygone era, The Luckiest Man in America is good ol’ fashioned fun.

7. Neighborhood Watch

Another adult-oriented crime thriller that feels like it’s from a bygone era, Neighborhood Watch takes two commanding leads and a promising premise then uses them to tell a simple story well with just enough charm. Neighborhood Watch teams Jack Quaid’s Simon, a man with paranoid schizophrenia, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s disgruntled, former rent-a-cop named Ed. Simon’s convinced he witnessed a kidnapping. Everyone else thinks it’s in his head. Ed, though doubtful, is eager to prove his detective bona fides.

This is throwback, comfort cinema that oddly manages to be both weird and cozy. Both leads bring charisma to characters that are often unlikable, with Quaid’s baby-faced temper tantrums complemented by Morgan’s grizzled, no-nonsense surrogate father figure. Strangely enough for a mystery, Neighborhood Watch is driven by its characters, like a buddy comedy set on edge. Seeing two hapless men who’ve been cast aside try to make good on a case that’s invisible to the rest of the world offers up its own plucky charm. There’s something infectious about the earnestness that drives these characters, and Morgan’s face at the end says it all.

6. Bob Trevino Likes It

Another fictionalized true story of a movie carried over from 2024, Bob Trevino Likes It was a little slice of warmth in a sometimes dark, scary year. Tracie Laymon’s film is as an ode to friendship, kindness, and human decency.

There are two Bob Trevinos here. There’s the selfish, self-absorbed toxic father played by former sitcom star French Stewart who goes no-contact with main character Lily near the beginning of the film, and there’s the decent construction manager played by John Leguizamo who Lily accidentally messages on Facebook while trying to apologize to her father. The friendship that results from this mishap is amusing, and Laymon plays it for laughs initially, but what eventually shines through is how genuine kindness and patience can be its own form of connection. Bob Trevino Likes It slyly looks into generational differences and past trauma. While this is thoroughly sweet – even saccharine – business, it’s hard not to be swayed by its warmth and the lack of pretention that pervades it.