It’s called Mojave, and it’s in theaters right now. Here’s what you need to know about it and some other under-the-radar films to keep an eye out for, including a beautiful animated Oscar nominee and a Mike Tyson punch-out.

1. Mojave

Garrett Hedlund and Oscar Isaac in Mojave.

A24

If there's been little talk about the fact that there's a new movie out starring The Internet's Latest Boyfriend Oscar Isaac, well, that's because Mojave is pretty obnoxious. But the film — which is written and directed by William Monahan, winner of an Oscar for his screenplay for The Departed — is the kind of obnoxious that sticks with you, lodges in your brain. It's the sort of macho, heavily signified affair that people sometimes say is reminiscent of a '70s movie — like, what did the '70s ever do to them?

This is the kind of movie in which Garrett Hedlund plays a handsome, suicidal movie star who gets out of the bed he's been sharing with a beautiful woman, leaves a note saying, "I have to go to the desert," and heads out to the middle of nowhere to have a high-end existential crisis stemming from being too successful. Well, joke's on him, because out in the desert he runs into a drifter named Jack, who's played by Isaac in a role that's just too good to be held back by all the movie's ideas about doppelgänger duels. Jack's a sociopathic killer, but he's so much fun, drawlingly calling everyone "brother," sticking a hard "g" in "Los Angeles," and selling the hard-boiled dialogue as gleeful rather than self-serious. He manages to make this battle of manly archetypes worth watching.

Where to see it: Mojave is available for digital rental/purchase and on DirecTV, and it will be out on DVD and Blu-ray on April 5.

2. Boy and the World

Gkids

Revenant, schmevenant — this year's Oscars may be both boring and a major failure in terms of representation, but at least there's the animation category, which is rich and varied and exciting. Pixar's Inside Out is bound to walk away with the win (and who can complain), but there's also Studio Ghibli's melancholy When Marnie Was There, Charlie Kaufman's caustic and sad stop-motion saga for grown-ups Anomalisa, and the ridiculously adorable Shaun the Sheep Movie.

And then there's Boy and the World, Brazilian filmmaker Alê Abreu's dialogue-free fable about a kid whose idyllic childhood with his mother and father in the countryside is forever altered when his father goes to find work in the city. The boy's journey in search of his dad is rendered in bright, simple drawings that resemble a children's book, but just because the story keeps to the main character's point of view doesn't mean the film does. As he wanders toward the city — a dystopian metropolis in which tanks take to the streets and favelas are piled high as spires — we're introduced to a world in the midst of a fascist industrial takeover, in which the human spirit endures and the kindness of strangers flourishes in the face of disheartening conditions. It's sweet, sad, and really beautiful.

Where to see it: Boy and the World was re-released in New York at the Village East Cinema in honor of its Oscar nomination. It reopens in Los Angeles on Feb. 12 and will expand from there to more locations.

View Entire List ›