None of these 2015 movies were among the top 100 grossing movies at the domestic box office — but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give them a chance. And don’t miss our list of under-the-radar films from the first half of this year.
1. Advantageous
Film Presence
Like a forgotten episode of Black Mirror, Jennifer Phang's thinky sci-fi drama is set in a near future in which everything's a little sleeker and more competitive, and everyone's increasingly aware of and anxious about falling on the right side of the growing gap between haves and have nots. Jacqueline Kim, who wrote the script with Phang, plays Gwen, a single mom who's been working as the face of the Center for Advanced Health and Living, a euphemistic name for a place that offers cosmetic enhancement and rejuvenation treatments. When the company decides to pass her over for someone younger and more accessible (and, it's implied, less Asian), Gwen agrees to participate in a new, experimental treatment in order to keep her job and make sure her daughter can go to the right schools. Advantageous feels like it's set right on the cusp of a society turning from an exaggerated version of our own to full-on dystopian, and that delicacy is what makes it terrifying. What makes it sad is Gwen's desperate longing to do better for her daughter than she was able to do for herself, even if it means making an incredible sacrifice. —Alison Willmore
Where to see it: Advantageous is streaming on Netflix. It's also available for digital rental and purchase.
2. Best of Enemies
ABC Photo Archives / Magnolia Pictures
In 1968, desperate for ratings and with little to lose, third-place ABC News decided to do something unusual for its coverage of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions: Give renown public intellectuals William F. Buckley Jr. (a firebrand conservative) and Gore Vidal (a roguish liberal) airtime every night in which to debate the issues of the day. The result was a deliciously vicious and at times explosive series of verbal altercations, and this documentary about them, from directors Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom) and Robert Gordon (Johnny Cash's America), is just as delightful — and insightful. The debates haunted both men far after they aired, and Neville and Gordon outline with great verve how they represented both the beginning of political discourse as televised bloodsport, and the last time men of such unveiled snobbery and unmistakable erudition were allowed to be on television. —Adam B. Vary
Where to see it: Best of Enemies is streaming on Netflix, and is available for digital rental.
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