The 2010s saw the rise of many cinematic debates—can a Netflix picture win a prestigious film award? Is a TV miniseries just another form of movie? Are comic book features actual cinema or are they, as the great Martin Scorsese calls them, just moving theme parks collecting their fill of entertainment earnings?
We never really got to answering those questions, and perhaps we never will. But what did emerge from all the clash and conflict is a rich collection of titles that add to cinema’s legacy of diversity. There is no through-line between these movies, no one way of pinning them down—just an abundance of genres, backgrounds, and forms—and that difference makes each and every one of them all the more exciting. The 2010s are marked by incredible variety, and we’ve gathered the best of them below.
Here’s our list of the era's most highly-rated yet little-known movies and where to stream them online.