14 Overlooked Gems from 2024 That Deserve a Second Look — Movies, Music, Streaming, and More
Photo: Roger Kastel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Look, 2024 was loud. Between massive franchise releases, chart-dominating pop albums, and streaming tentpoles with nine-figure budgets, it was easy for quieter, weirder, and often better stuff to slip through the cracks. At 382361 Entertainment, we've been keeping tabs — because finding the thing nobody's talking about yet is kind of our whole deal.
This isn't a list of things you should feel bad for missing. It's an invitation to go discover something great. Let's get into it.
Movies That Deserved a Way Bigger Audience
1. Problemista (Available on Hulu) Directed by and starring Julio Torres, this surrealist comedy about an aspiring toy designer navigating the American immigration system is one of the strangest and most emotionally resonant films of the year. Tilda Swinton co-stars as a chaotic art world figure, and the whole thing feels like a fever dream with a beating heart. Critics loved it. Most people had no idea it existed. Fix that immediately.
2. Monkey Man (Peacock) Dev Patel wrote, directed, and starred in this action thriller set in India, and it is relentless in the best possible way. Think John Wick energy filtered through a story about class inequality and political corruption. It got decent box office numbers but nowhere near the cultural conversation it deserved. If you skipped it because the marketing felt generic, the actual film is anything but.
3. Janet Planet (A24, available for rental) A quiet, achingly specific portrait of a summer in rural Massachusetts told through the eyes of an 11-year-old. Writer-director Annie Baker (a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright making her film debut) lets scenes breathe in ways most American directors are too impatient to allow. It's slow in the best possible sense — the kind of slow that makes you feel something you can't quite name.
4. In a Violent Nature (Shudder) Horror fans, this one is for you. A slasher film told entirely from the killer's point of view, shot with long, meditative takes and almost no dialogue. It's genuinely unsettling in a way that's more artistic experiment than genre exercise. Shudder subscribers had access to this all year and most of them scrolled right past it.
Streaming Series That Got Buried
5. English Teacher (FX on Hulu) A sharp, funny, and occasionally dark comedy about a high school teacher in Texas navigating political landmines in the modern American classroom. Brian Jordan Alvarez is magnetic in the lead role, and the writing is smarter than the premise suggests. This should have been a bigger deal.
6. The Sympathizer (Max) HBO's adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is genuinely ambitious television — a Vietnam War story told from the perspective of a communist spy that deconstructs American mythology with dark humor and style. Robert Downey Jr. plays multiple roles as a commentary on Western power. It's dense, it's challenging, and it's exceptional.
7. Disclaimer (Apple TV+) Alfonso Cuarón directing Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline in a psychological thriller structured as a seven-episode limited series. It got some attention but not nearly enough. Cuarón's visual language is extraordinary, and the story — about a documentary filmmaker whose past resurfaces through a stranger's novel — is genuinely unsettling.
8. Interior Chinatown (Hulu) Based on Charles Yu's meta-novel, this limited series plays with genre conventions in ways that are both funny and surprisingly moving. It's structured like a legal procedural but keeps breaking the fourth wall to examine how Asian Americans are represented in Hollywood storytelling. Genuinely original television.
Music That Critics Praised but Playlists Ignored
9. Manning Fireworks by MJ Lenderman If you like guitar rock with sharp, literary lyrics and a slightly off-kilter sensibility, this album was the year's best-kept secret. Lenderman has been building a cult following in indie circles, and this record is the one that should have broken him through to a wider audience. Spotify it tonight.
10. Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay Okay, this one did find its audience — eventually. But it spent most of the year flying under the radar before a late surge of critical recognition. Synth-pop that's genuinely ambitious in its concept and execution, it's the kind of album you can listen to front-to-back as a complete artistic statement. Worth revisiting if you only caught a single.
11. Manning Fireworks aside, check out Desire, I Want to Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek (technically 2023 but still being slept on in 2024) Look, we're bending the rules slightly here, but if you haven't heard this album yet, 2024 is as good a time as any to fix that. Experimental pop that's also completely accessible. Trust us.
12. GNX by Kendrick Lamar (late 2024 surprise drop) Post-Drake-beef Kendrick delivered a surprise album that felt almost deliberately understated compared to the cultural earthquake of "Not Like Us." It's a West Coast love letter that rewards patient listening and will likely be reassessed as one of the year's best rap projects once the dust settles.
Podcasts Worth Your Commute
13. Normal Gossip (Defector Media) If you haven't discovered this podcast yet, you're in for a treat. Host Kelsey McKinney shares anonymized gossip about ordinary people — not celebrities — and somehow makes it completely riveting. It's funny, warm, and oddly comforting. New episodes drop regularly and the back catalog is deep.
14. You're Wrong About (Independent) A long-running podcast that revisits misremembered or misrepresented cultural moments from recent American history. Whether they're covering the Satanic Panic, the Tonya Harding narrative, or '90s moral panics, hosts Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall bring genuine research and empathy to stories that deserve a second look. If you've never listened, start anywhere.
The Takeaway
The entertainment landscape in 2024 was enormous — and the algorithm doesn't always surface the best stuff. Sometimes the most rewarding discoveries are the ones you have to go looking for. At 382361 Entertainment, we believe there's something genuinely exciting about that. Not everything great needs to be a cultural event. Some of the best things are just waiting quietly for you to find them.
Consider this your map.
