Hidden Gems: The 20 Best Movies You Probably Missed in 2025

SOURCE:Hollywood Reporter|BY:McKinley Franklin

The Hollywood Reporter picks the best overlooked films of the year.

December 27, 2025 2:00pm

Published on December 27, 2025

Hidden Gems 2025 (Clockwise from top left): 'Lesbian Space Princess,' 'The Last Viking,' 'The Ballad of Wallis Island,' 'The Botanist'

Hidden Gems 2025 (Clockwise from top left): 'Lesbian Space Princess,' 'The Last Viking,' 'The Ballad of Wallis Island,' 'The Botanist' © We Made A Thing Studios/TrustNordisk/Alistair Heap/Arsin Meiyu/Monologue Films

With the race for the Oscars starting to narrow, and a small cadre of frontrunners monopolizing all the hot takes and column inches, The Hollywood Reporter wants to spare some time for those films that got overlooked this year. The hidden gems that we loved but, for whatever reason, failed to light up awards season or catch fire at the box office.

We’ve polled our critics, reporters, and trusted tastemakers to come up with an oddball collection of cinema delights — from European art house to Asian animation to low-budget U.S. horror — that got lost in the shuffle but deserve another look.

Afternoons of Solitude

Image Credit: Courtesy of Films Boutique

In this immersive documentary, Catalan director Albert Serra uses the same stripped-down slow-cinema techniques he perfected in his 2022 drama breakout Pacifiction — the long takes, the contemplative silences, the quasi-dream mood — to craft a beguiling portrait of Andrés Roca Rey, a 27-year-old Peruvian bullfighter who has become a star in the scene. While never downplaying the brutality of a blood sport performed as high art, Serra gives a masterclass in tone and texture that transforms a controversial tradition into a hypnotic study of ego and mortality.
Dragonfly

Image Credit: Courtesy of EIFF

Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn dazzle in this bleak and shocking slice of British kitchen-sink drama that takes a surprising twist. Paul Andrew Williams’ movie follows Elisie, and elderly woman living in a drab housing complex (Blethyn) who gets help from her next door neighbor Colleen (Riseborough), arousing feelings of jealousy and resentment from Elsie’s son John (Jason Watkins). What feels like a Ken Loach social drama makes bold and surprising tonal shift into the horror genre in the final reel. Riseborough and Blethyn are at the top of their game (they got a joint best acting award at Tribeca) and the film’s final jolt lingers in the memory.
Drowning Dry

Image Credit: Courtesy of Locarno Film Festival

Lithuanian director Laurynas Bareiša follows up his Venice winner Pilgrims (2021) with an even more haunting sophomore feature that cements his status as a major new voice in Baltic cinema. Using a fragmented, non-linear structure that jumps around like a misremembered dream, Bareiša tracks two sisters and their families during a fateful lakeside retreat where macho posturing and petty domestic tensions give way to a sudden, devastating tragedy. won best director and best performance honors for its cast at Locarno last year. While its pacing and elliptical structure might not be for everyone, this is a masterful study of how trauma ripples through time, and rewards a patient re-watch.