Movies: 2025’s unsung little gems, ‘Dead Man’s Wire,’ Palestinian stories

No consideration of a year in movies should be without an honor roll of under-the-radar indies that didn’t get the attention they deserved. Below is a list of such woefully underseen “little gems,” whittled down to 10, in alphabetical order. Also this week: Gus Van Sant’s dark hostage comedy and two Oscar-shortlisted Palestinian stories.  

 2025’s Little Gems   

The Knife. Actor and former NFL star Nnamdi Asomugha’s directorial debut features an African American suburban family whose rash decisions during a home invasion lead to a police interrogation. The ordeal makes for a taut suspense drama that illustrates how Blackness is unfoundedly associated with criminality. 

Lurker. Debut filmmaker Alex Russell addresses the lure of fame in this disquietingly entertaining psychodrama about a Los Angeles boutique clerk who worms his way into a pop star’s inner circle and employs devious methods to stay.  

Misericordia.  “Stranger by the Lake” filmmaker Alain Guiraudie again links desire, death and sinister purpose, and makes the familiar subject feel fresh, in a darkly comic French thriller about a baker whose prolonged stay with his former boss’ widow after the funeral triggers an explosive situation.  

Peter Hujar’s Day. Small-cinema master Ira Sachs turns a classy breezy lens on shining moments of everyday existence and brings attention to an underrecognized artist and his times in this re-creation of a recorded 1974 dialogue between groundbreaking gay photographer Peter Hujar (played by Ben Whishaw) and writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall).   

Rebuilding. Max Walker-Silverman’s low-key neo-Western is a narratively slight but emotionally rewarding portrait of connection, community and climate. Josh O’Connor plays a Colorado cowboy who rekindles his relationship with his young daughter and makes new friends in a FEMA camp after losing his ranch in a wildfire. 

Secret Mall Apartment. Jeremy Workman’s documentary follows eight Rhode Islanders who created a secret apartment inside a busy mall and lived there for four years, filming everything. Capturing how the project evolved from an inspired anti-gentrification prank to a meaningful art space, Workman presents a fascinating picture of creativity and purpose. 

Souleymane’s Story. Filmmaker Boris Lojkine follows a Guinean immigrant who has only two days to prepare for an asylum-qualification interview in this topical French drama featuring an extraordinary lead performance by Abou Sangare. 

Twinless. Two 30-somethings (played by director James Sweeney and Dylan O’Brien) with troubling secrets become close after meeting at a support session for twins in Sweeney’s shape-shifting gem, which begins as a pitch-black buddy comedy, then darkens into an unsettling drama about separation grief. 

Unicorns. A straitlaced auto mechanic seeking a conventional hookup finds himself besotted with an alluring British Indian drag performer in Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd’s radiantly romantic love story and celebration of sexual freedom.  

Urchin. British actor Harris Dickinson displays a gift for stirring, humanist storytelling in this filmmaking debut, which centers on a self-destructive addict (played by a raw and wired Frank Dillane) and his everyday struggles to get by and stay clean. 

Gus Van Sant, whose credits range from the addiction indie “Drugstore Cowboy” to the Columbine-inspired “Elephant” to the Oscar-honored “Milk,” now makes a hostage movie, “Dead Man’s Wire.” Combining unhinged action while considering the plight of the little guy, the darkly comic dramatization of an outrageous true story is one of Van Sant’s most satisfying works in years. Bill Skarsgard plays real-life Indiana man Tony Kiritsis, first seen in a “Dog Day Afternoon”–like sequence in which he enters the Meridian Mortgage offices in October 1977 and takes his mortgage broker, Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery), hostage. Charging that the mortgage company and Hall’s heartless CEO father (Al Pacino himself!) shafted him in regard to a plot of land, Kiritsis demands that they make things right, with a formal apology and $5 million.  With a “dead man’s wire,” Kiritsis wires Hall’s neck to a shotgun and parades Hall around Indianapolis. He holds him captive for nearly three days, creating a media frenzy. Van Sant and screenwriter Austin Kolodney leave it to viewers to morally assess Kiritsis, who, while dangerously disturbed, is regarded by some as a hero for his extreme action against the Goliaths that crushed him. Kiritsis also might be seen as a reflection of today’s citizen outrage and ideology-motivated violence.  One wishes that the film had more seriously depicted the emotional impact on Hall of the brutal kidnapping. But it’s mostly Kiritsis’ story, and Van Sant, adroit at the wheel, and Skarsgard, in fearlessly frenetic mode, make it both funny and relatedly human. Colman Domingo, playing a laid-back DJ with a smooth voice and a poetic streak, is another reason to see “Dead Man Wire,” which opens Friday in Bay Area theaters.  

“The Voice of Hind Rajab,” Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s award-winning heartbreaker, chronicles the intense efforts of a group of emergency call-center workers to rescue a 6-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in a car under heavy military fire in Gaza. The Oscar-shortlisted docudrama opens at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco on Thursday. Actors Saja Kilani and Clara Khoury will appear in a live Q&A after the 3 p.m. show Saturday. 

Palestinian American filmmaker Cherien Dabis follows three generations of a Palestinian family in “All That’s Left of You,” a drama that, centering on a 1988 West Bank tragedy, looks at generational trauma, displacement and perseverance. The Oscar-shortlisted movie opens at the Roxie on Friday.