Second Run: Twelve Heroines From the 2010s That Deserve a Better Reputation Than the Box Office Gave Them

Every decade leaves behind a shelf of films that were judged too quickly. The 2010s were particularly ruthless toward women-centered cinema: movies that opened wide against superhero product, indies that never got a platform run, and mid-budget dramas that the studio system had already stopped knowing how to sell. Streaming has changed the afterlife of these films — a flop in 2013 can be a revelation in 2025. Here are twelve that deserve the reappraisal.

The Underdogs and the Misread

1. Obvious Child (2014) — Overlooked because: marketed as a novelty and shelved from mainstream comedy conversations. Why it matters now: it made a rom-com out of a subject Hollywood still treats as unspeakable, and it did so with warmth and specificity.

2. Supporting Characters note: Grandma (2015) — Overlooked because: an 800-screen release that vanished in a week. Why it matters now: Lily Tomlin's road movie remains one of the decade's great character studies of female anger and generosity.

3. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) — Overlooked because: the 'vampire western' label confused distributors. Why it matters now: a heroine who hunts abusers, shot with more style than films at ten times its budget.

4. Mistress America (2015) — Overlooked because: Noah Baumbach fatigue set in. Why it matters now: Greta Gerwig's Brooke is a masterclass in a woman written as a force of nature rather than a lesson.

5. The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) — Overlooked because: its frankness about adolescent desire made marketers flinch. Why it matters now: it granted a teenage girl a full interior life, appetites included, without punishment.

The Ones the Awards Ignored

6. Queen (2013) — Overlooked because: international release never cracked the US arthouse. Why it matters now: a woman's honeymoon alone becomes one of the decade's most joyful self-discovery narratives.

7. Miss Sloane (2016) — Overlooked because: critics wanted likability. Why it matters now: a ruthless woman who is never asked to soften — the film trusts the audience to handle it.

8. Certain Women (2016) — Overlooked because: Kelly Reichardt's patience is a hard sell in a trailer economy. Why it matters now: three quiet stories about women whose wants are ordinary and therefore radical.

9. Difret (2014) — Overlooked because: limited distribution and a difficult subject. Why it matters now: a legal drama about a girl who says no to tradition, produced with the urgency it deserved.

The Cult Classics in Waiting

10. The Fits (2015) — Overlooked because: no stars, no marketing, no explanation. Why it matters now: Royalty Hightower gives one of the decade's great silent performances, and the film's mystery has only deepened.

11. Colossal (2016) — Overlooked because: the monster-movie marketing hid the addiction allegory. Why it matters now: a woman as the monster, literally and honestly, with Anne Hathaway doing the funniest and saddest work of her decade.

12. Accelerate note: Madeline's Madeline (2018) — Overlooked because: experimental form kept it in the festival bubble. Why it matters now: Helena Howard's debut remains the most electric performance by a young actress in the 2010s, full stop.

Why the List Matters

What unites these twelve films is not genre or tone but a shared fate: each was released into a market that had no shelf for it. The 2010s built the audience — through streaming, through festival discourse, through the very site you're reading — that these films needed and never got. The rewatch is not nostalgia. It is a correction of the record, one thumbnail at a time.