The 10 Must-Watch Indie Films of the Summer

So far, 2022 has been a bounce-back year for Hollywood. Box-office receipts are trending toward pre-pandemic totals, and movies such as Top Gun: Maverick and Elvis have actually succeeded in luring older viewers—the last COVID-era holdouts—back to theaters. Coverage of this resurgence has mostly focused on the biggest-budget features—superhero movies and sequels. But small-budget indies, niche art-house fare, and exceptional international offerings have all been thriving lately. (A strong Sundance Film Festival this past January positioned several under-the-radar movies to get proper funding.) They can be harder to find because of how diffuse release strategies have become; some films play in art cinemas around the country before becoming available to rent on demand, others debut simultaneously in theaters and online, and still others are available exclusively to bespoke streaming platforms such as Shudder, AMC+, and MUBI. These 10 indies from 2022 could well feature on my favorite-films list of the year.