Under the radar: Rats, intimate portrayals and metaphysics

Our annual compilation of overlooked films. Each reviewer chose five films to highlight.

“A Ghost Story”: It’s nothing but gutsy to put the lead character of a dramatic feature under a sheet, with ragged cut-out ovals for eyes, for most of the movie’s running time. Writer-director David Lowery doesn’t merely make the grade-school Halloween gambit work — he conjures a haunting meditation on time, love and mortality.

“Rat Film”: Urban planners, philosopher rat catchers and biological warfare all figure in this electrifying cinematic essay. Baltimore and its rodent population are the subject, but as documentarian Theo Anthony explores a city’s destiny from unexpected angles, he brings a host of contemporary assumptions into a tantalizing light.

“Barracuda”: As a family of sorts, Allison Tolman, JoBeth Williams and newcomer Sophie Reid are endlessly fascinating in this taut Austin, Texas-set thriller. Directors Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund cast a charged spell not unlike that of the mournful ballads that propel their story of malice, longing and barely contained resentments.

“Song of Granite”: Leaving biopic formula out of the equation, director Pat Collins has crafted a bracingly unsentimental portrait of Irish folk singer Joe Heaney. As much as the film is the story of a nomadic soul, it’s also a moodily luminous immersion in music and language.

“My Friend Dahmer”: Working from a graphic novel by a high school classmate of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, writer-director Marc Meyers deploys a sharp mix of horror, dark wit and profound empathy. Former Disney Channel star Ross Lynch is pitch-perfect as the desperately deranged teen.

Yes. please: Movies that take supernatural and metaphysical themes away from the whiz-bang realms of horror and sci-fi, embracing them on an intimate scale. “Marjorie Prime,” “A Ghost Story” and “Personal Shopper,” three of the year’s most elegant and affecting dramas, did just that.

No more: When used judiciously, voice-over narration can be a stirring poetic echo or jolt of counterpoint. But far too often it’s an uninspired, pretentious or simply distracting substitute for visual storytelling.

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