The 24 greatest movies you probably didn't see this year

What it's about: Out of work, Gloria moves back to her hometown and reconnects with some people from her past and drinks too much. At the same time, she learns that she can control a giant kaijū monster terrorizing Seoul.

Why you should see it: Since it has a high-concept story, "Colossal" could have easily been terrible, but bucks the trend by being a funny and smart movie about the dangers of alcoholism and abuse. Anne Hathaway anchors the whole thing and Jason Sudeikis demonstrates he can be an effective dramatic actor.

What it's about: Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani falls in love and breaks up with a graduate student named Emily Gardner. When Gardner falls ill, he finds himself taking care of her and becoming close to her parents as their cultures clash.

Why you should see it: Aside from being the best movie about an interracial romance ever made, "The Big Sick" is hilarious, deeply personal, and has a miraculously nuanced portrayal of Nanjiani's Muslim-American heritage. Oh, and it's also based on a true story — Nanjiani is happily married to Emily V. Gordon.

What it's about: Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem play a couple living a peaceful existence in his childhood home — until unexpected guests upend their lives.

Why you should see it: You've probably read a lot about "Mother!" when it came out this year. But given it's box office performance, you probably haven't seen it.

No movie split audiences more. There are some people who thinks director Darren Aronofsky made something way more compelling than whatever he thinks he made. And there are also a lot of people who think it's a total wreck, a hubristic, elaborate allegory that adds up to nothing more than sound and fury. But even if you end up hating it, it's interesting enough to watch. "Mother!" is worth hating on your own terms.

What it's about: Saoirse Ronan plays a teenager coming of age in Sacramento in the early 2000s, figuring out college applications, high school, boys, and how to deal with her parents and friendships.

Why you should see it: Ronan's sensitive performance is one of the best of the year, and the movie as a whole is a rare yet wholly welcome portrayal of a woman figuring out her life. Greta Gerwig's direction and screenplay is also remarkably nuanced; she has plenty of humor, and thoughtfully looks at Lady Bird's upbringing in the context of the War on Terror and looming financial crisis.

What it's about: Two veterans returning home from fighting in World War II — one black and one white — deal with PTSD and segregation in rural Mississippi.

Why you should see it: Directed by Dee Rees, "Mudbound" is a sensitive look at love and America's racial strife that doesn't glamorize the past, but does find how soul-searching can change a community.

What it's about: A 17-year-old has a summer romance with a student visiting his father, a professor, at their home in Italy.

Why you should see it: Every frame of "Call Me by Your Name" is luminous. Director Luca Guadagnino conjures a version of Italy's countryside that will make you never want to leave, and Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer have incredible chemistry in their relationship. Oh, and stick around for Hammer dancing to "Love My Way" by The Psychadelic Furs.

What it's about: A young girl grows up with a genetically engineered "super pig" in a remote South Korean jungle, until a conglomerate food corporation whisks it away to turn into meat. She sneaks herself off to New York to save the pig.

Why you should see it: Like many of Netflix's movies (see also: "Mudbound"), "Okja" seems to have come and went without making much of a cultural impact. That's disappointing.

Everything about the premise sounds ludicrous, but director Bong Joon-ho pulls it off and makes it as exciting and achingly sweet as an early Steven Spielberg movie.

What it's about: A bunch of intersecting love triangles in Austin's music scene.

Why you should see it: Honestly, who cares what it's about? It's directed by Terrence Malick and stars Ryan Gosling, Michael Fassbender, Rooney Mara, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Val Kilmer, and Holly Hunter. "Song to Song" doesn't reach the heights of "The Thin Red Line" or "The Tree of Life," but it's much better than Malick's last couple of efforts, and the world's greatest actors love working within his highly enigmatic style.

What it's about: A small-time political fixer does a favor for a low-level Israeli politician. When that politician becomes prime minister three years later, he tries to call in a favor and gets entangled in a web of competing agendas.

Why you should see it: The only political movie that didn't make me feel terrible this year, "Norman" is an astonishingly soulful movie about how the mechanisms of politics hollows people out and can force someone to betray their values. Director Joseph Cedar — with great performances by Richard Gere, Lior Ashkenazi, Hank Azaria, and Steve Buscemi (playing a rabbi for some reason) — ties together a neat moral parable that feels like it could have been written by Chekov.

What it's about: Two fourth-graders hypnotize their evil principal into thinking he's a character from their comic book, Captain Underpants, who has to battle the evil Professor Pee-Pee Diarrheastein Poopypants, Esq.

Why you should see it: Unless you are under the age of 10 or have a child under the age of 10, you probably didn't pay attention to "Captain Underpants" at all.

And that's totally fair.

But if you were a fan of the books growing up, the new "Captain Underpants" movie is surprisingly charming. It has a lot of poop jokes, sure, but the voice cast and upbeat tone makes it a joy. Plus, it's just really great that the long-awaited "Captain Underpants" movie finally got made, and it's actually good.

What it's about: With local police failing to solve her daughter's murder, a mother publicly shames them and causes friction in their community.

Why you should see it: Dark comedies about murder are always tricky territory, but "Three Billboards" pulls it off with a moving performance from Frances McDormand at the center.

What it's about: The real-life story of Tommy Wiseau and the making of "The Room," one of the worst movies ever made.

Why you should see it: The story behind "The Room" is even weirder than the movie itself, and if there's anyone who can turn it into a great and funny film, it's meta-narrative expert James Franco, who both directed the movie and stars as Wiseau himself.

What it's about: During the Civil War, a Union soldier unexpectedly crashes at a small all-girls school in Virginia, setting up a game of jealousy and betrayal.

Why you should see it: Every Sofia Coppola film deserves a look, and "The Beguiled" is one of her more interesting efforts. The movie is an adaptation of a book, which was first adapted by ultra-male Clint Eastwood in 1971. Coppola's adaptation — with Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning — is an intriguing companion piece with a a more incisive perspective on the story's gender dynamics.

What it's about: A portrait of the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson's inner life.

Why you should see it: Yes, it sounds really boring, I know. "A Quiet Passion" is a quiet movie and doesn't have much of a plot.

But for fans of Dickinson, it's a remarkable movie with a remarkable performance by Cynthia Nixon. Director Terrence Davies gives us a more solid idea of how the enigmatic Dickinson lived her life and thought about the world, blurring her public history with what he imagines her life to have actually been like.

What it's about: After he dies, a man returns as a ghost in a white sheet to remain in the house he shared with his wife.

Why you should see it: It's a simple, gimmicky conceit that director David Lowery turns into a movie that's almost unbearably tender.

What it's about: Members of an estranged family get together and revive past controversies in the twilight years of their semi-successful artist father.

Why you should see it: "The Meyerowitz Stories" is, unfortunately, yet another great movie buried on Netflix, but it's very much worth seeking out — if nothing but for the great Adam Sandler performance.

Aside from the great ensemble cast, the movie asks important questions about the imprint people leave on the world, whether through art or through their family, before they die. A subplot regarding sexual assault also makes it surprisingly timely and adds a sort of meta-textual depth to it, since co-star Dustin Hoffman has been accused of (and denies) sexual harassment.

What it's about: A sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic "Blade Runner," the new movie takes place even further in the future, where a bounty hunter stumbles upon a secret that threatens to upend the society around him and leads him to seek out Rick Deckard, who's been missing for 30 years.

Why you should see it: Even though it cost $150 million and was the sequel to one of the most influential science fiction movies ever made, "Blade Runner 2049" was a box office failure, raking in only $90 million domestically.

It deserves a close look. The movie is held back a bit with the same problems as the original, but it's still a surprisingly thoughtful detective movie masquerading as an epic, and it's much smarter than it looks.

And it looks amazing — literally. The futuristic environment has a majestic and lush hollowness to it. Filling it is a set of great performances from Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, and Sylvia Hoeks.

What it's about: A young girl and her siblings grow up and escape their eccentric, nomadic parents.

Why you should see it: Based on Jeannette Walls's memoir of the same name, "The Glass Castle" is a harrowing, moving story about independence and how we escape or embrace the influence of our parents. Except in this case, the parents are way more weird. Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Watts all fill out the movie with outstanding performances.

What it's about: A group of young kids get into adventures in the motels around Disney World, trying the patience of the adults around them.

Why you should see it: "The Florida Project" is a fun romp through central Florida — all with three young children as the main actors. But it's also a moral study about poverty and joy in a segment of society that rarely gets a close look.

What it's about: Two young people who are basically intergalactic FBI agents save the universe from evil.

Why you should see it: The long-awaited "Valerian" didn't quite turn out to be the next "Star Wars," but it's still really fun. Watch it for no other reason than to see director Luc Besson's splendid visual imagination and to see Cara Delevigne bloom into a talented actress.

What it's about: A widowed Hasidic man tries to gain custody of his son while trying to pull his collapsed life together.

Why you should see it: The fact that "Menashe" even exists is already a miracle: It's entirely in Yiddish. Even more impressive is that it's a great, tender drama about the everyday sacrifices parents make for children and the challenges they face to support them.

What it's about: A documentary about the life and career of Roger Stone, the flamboyant Republican lobbyist, fixer, and conspiracy theorist who advised Richard Nixon and helped shape Donald Trump's career.

Why you should see it: While it isn't as outrageous as last year's "Weiner" or break any news about Stone's long-chronicled career, "Get Me Roger Stone's" onscreen interviews show us more color about the work of one of the most outrageous figures in modern American politics.

What it's about: A young woman who shops for celebrities refuses to leave Paris until she reconnects with her dead brother, who may be the person sending her mysterious text messages.

Why you should see it: Olivier Assayas proves himself to be the best director alive who knows how to use Kristen Stewart, who nails it in the tricky central role. More than that, "Personal Shopper" utterly subverts the haunted house genre and uses its pieces to become a deeply moving and strange movie about mourning.