25. “Like Crazy” (2011)
Providing break-out roles for Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin (along with a puzzlingly brief part for Jennifer Lawrence — bet you forgot she was in this, right?), Drake Doremus’ film about the Transatlantic romance between two college kids separated by visa issues, has the immediacy and atmosphere of a break-up record, evoking pangs in anyone that has loved and lost. It’s better at mood than at actual content — the partly-improvised feel is aimless and banal more often than not — but manages to salvage something raw even after the more eye-roll-inducing moments.
24. “Old Enough” (1984)
The very first winner of the top prize at Sundance, and a sort of model for a hundred similar coming-of-age films to follow, Marisa Silver’s “Old Enough,” about the friendship between a tough New York teen and a new arrival in the neighborhood from a wealthy family that’s tested as their sexuality develops, probably played better at the time, when the premise wasn’t quite so familiar. Still, it’s authentic and deeply felt in places, even it it’s often awkward in a way that doesn’t so much evoke puberty as it does a filmmaker still working out what they’re doing.
23. “Quinceañera” (aka “Echo Park, L.A.”) (2006)
A surprise winner of both the Jury Prize and the Audience Award in a year that had been dominated on the ground by crowdpleaser “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Half Nelson,” “Thank You For Smoking,” and “The Illusionist,” “Quinceañera,” from “Still Alice” directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, revolves around an Echo Park teenager whose preparations for her fifteenth birthday are disrupted when she discovers she’s pregnant, despite being a virgin. It’s familiar stuff carved from what had become a Sundance-friendly template, but it’s not a bad example of the genre: sweet-natured, compassionate, and well-acted by a then-unknown cast.
22. “The Young Poisoner’s Handbook” (1995)
Pretty much the sole non-U.S. made winner of the Grand Jury Prize (it predates the creation of the World Cinema Jury Prize Dramatic award), “The Young Poisoner’s Handbook” was a British dark comedy inspired loosely by a real case, about a suburban teenager and aspiring chemist who begins to poison those who cross him. It’s uneven and a little difficult to love, but writer-director Benjamin Ross has a confident handle on performance and period, and with lead actor Hugh O’Conor, is able to carefully walk the tightrope of making his protagonist genuinely disturbing, but maintaining empathy with him. There are some bleak laughs to be found too.
21. “Sunday” (1997)
Another of the more forgotten top-prize winners, “Sunday” is worth checking out even if it feels a bit minor compared to some of the other films on this list. Based on a short story by James Lasdun (who co-wrote the script with director Jonathan Nossiter), it’s the striking tale of an unlikely encounter between a British actress (Lisa Harrow) and a middle-aged man she believes is a film director (David Suchet, best known for playing Poirot on TV), but who may or may not be actually a homeless drifter. Sensitively and subtly written, although indulgently and slackly directed, it’s most noteworthy for the two central performances, which dominate the movie, and which suggest that Suchet and Harrow should be much better known in the U.S.
