Jun 24, 2016 10:00 AM

Forget the Multiplex: 6 Franchise-Free Movies You Need to See this Summer

Need a break from superheroes and wise-cracking cartoons? Here are some primo indie-flick picks for the summer, from docs to dramas to (neon) demons.

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At WIRED, we've got nothing but love for robots, aliens, and mutants. (Really! You should see our lobby sometime!) But as the summer-movie season hits the midway point, we find ourselves longing for a break from the sort of big-budget, bigger-body-count films that seem to open every three days or so. Here are six excellent movies that deserve your attention—and, perhaps, a place on your end-of-the-year best-of list.

Think *you’re* the greatest narcissist of all time? Just wait ‘til you see the self-obsessed antics depicted in this documentary about former Congressman Anthony Weiner, whose career was undone by a sexting scandal. Focusing on Weiner's 2013 mayoral run—and the effect it has on his wife, Huma, whose quiet suffering is communicated via downward gazes and folded arms—*Weiner* rides shotgun as its titular subject/self-sacrificial lamb confronts smarmy talk-show hosts, pissed-off constituents-to-be, and his own past, each time using his mouth to dig himself into a deeper hole. It’s an intimate, hilarious, increasingly phantasmal tale of pure-ego behavior, one that’s best watched through closed fingers. *—Brian Raftery*
It's rare to walk out of a theater and think, "Wow, that movie about failed relationships was *fucking delightful,"* but writer-director Rebecca Miller's romantic comedy is so slyly funny and spot-on, you can’t help but fall for it. Greta Gerwig plays a young New Yorker who's *thisclose* to getting her life together when she meets an aspiring novelist (Ethan Hawke) and his academically accomplished wife (Julianne Moore, employing a wonderfully ridiculous Danish accent). A series of break-ups and meltdowns ensue, allowing Miller to highlight the cast’s super-powers: Gerwig’s winning naiveté; Hawke’s daydreaming aloofness; Moore’s sturdy timing. *Maggie's Plan* is a movie for, and about, immature grown-ups everywhere. *—Brian Raftery*

Director Brian De Palma has made some very good movies (*Blow Out*, *Carrie),* some very bad movies (*The Bonfire of the Vanities*), and a few movies that fall within the "I literally can't tell if this is brilliant or terrible" category (*Raising Cain*). In this densely packed but appropriately obsessive documentary, he talks about every entry in his decades-long filmography, telling tales of studio battles and on-set scuffles (boy, that Sean Penn sure sounds like a fun dude to work with!). Those looking for unknown biographical details will have to search elsewhere, but movie goobers eager for intel on cult hits like *The Phantom of the Paradise* or *Sisters* will have a blast. *—Brian Raftery*
A divisive entry at Sundance, where it became known as "the farting-corpse movie"—*Zoolander 2* hadn't come out yet—*Swiss Army Man* opens on an empty beach, where a desperate, bearded castaway named Hank (Paul Dano) is about to kill himself. But when the sea coughs up a gassy dead body (Daniel Radcliffe), Hank uses it to fart-ski to safety, and as they try to make it home, the duo strike up a deep, imaginative, possibly hallucinatory friendship. *Swiss* is much smarter (and much fartier) than you’d expect—a mix of the profound and the profoundly stupid, anchored by a pair of spot-on, admirably committed performances. You’ll never look at a dead body the same way again (assuming you look at dead bodies a lot, you weirdo). *—Brian Raftery*

*Neon Demon* is a Nicolas Winding Refn movie. If you know Refn’s work, you know that means it's colorful, probably violent, and more than probably discomfiting. *Neon Demon* is indeed all of those things; however, on this film Refn stepped away from the machismo of films like *Drive* and *Bronson* and instead chose to focus on a young ingenue (played by Elle Fanning) who moves to LA to make it in modeling. Naturally, the town and its status-hungry denizens threaten to chew her up and spit her out, but because this is a Refn film, what actually happens is watch-with-held-breath intense. *—Angela Watercutter*
Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ English-language debut *The Lobster* presents a speculative dystopia that surely resonates with anyone feeling besieged by dating apps: single people check into a hotel where they're given 45 days to find a partner; if they fail, they’re turned into an animal. While a resident of the hotel, David (Colin Farrell) endures enough forced socializing and pro-couple propaganda to make anyone want to run for a monastery. It’s a darkly cynical film, but also a pitch-perfect observer of the trajectory so many are expected to follow. *—K.M. McFarland*

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