We all know how this goes: The Golden Globe nominations just dropped, Oscar nominations come out in January, and in both cases, most of the discourse surrounding both is/will be about what didn’t get nominated.
Some of that has to do with the fact that popular blockbusters rarely get recognized in anything but a few technical categories (“How could they snub Jurassic World: Dominion?” people will ask). But there are lots of reasons movies get ignored by awards bodies—genre among them. Horror movies rarely get nods, for instance (with Nope a possible exception this year), and the same goes for science fiction films. There’s always a certain stodginess to the Oscar selections (though less so these days, now that the voting body has been made more inclusive), so anything weird or experimental is unlikely to make the cut. Likewise, obscure indies rarely grab attention, especially in the streaming era (because there are so many of them).
But genre, weird, experimental, and obscure movies (or movies that are all four) still deserve some love. Here are 22 movies from the past year that deserve awards recognition but probably won’t get it. (If any of these movies do wind up as major-award nominees, it’s not because this list was inaccurate; more likely it’s because voters were inspired by the film’s placement here.)