At the first quarter mark of the 21st century, publications left and right have been making claims (some well-founded, some not) about what the “best” movies are so far. Letterboxd, the online film ranking platform that’s had everyone wondering what their top four movies of all time are, has jumped on the listing bandwagon. But instead of paying homage to the usual classics of the century, Letterboxd has called on its crew and contributors to spotlight the best underseen films of the past 25 years.
The criterion for the list is simple: films selected must have fewer than 50,000 views on Letterboxd. Either because of marketing, legal issues, or even bad timing, these chosen films flew under the global audience’s radar. It’s important to note that the list’s criterion does not indicate the films’ actual view numbers, nor does it indicate how they were received by both local and international audiences.
Included in Letterboxd’s unranked list is Filipino director Isabel Sandoval’s 2019 immigrant drama Lingua Franca. The film was included in the list by Brandon Streussnig, a freelance film critic and journalist whose work has appeared in Vulture, Fangoria, Polygon, and more. “Lingua Franca wasn’t Isabel Sandoval’s first film, but it’s what introduced her to me as one of the vital filmmakers of the 21st century,” wrote Streussnig. “As her character Olivia (Sandoval also stars) traverses life and love as a trans immigrant in New York, shades of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Wong Kar-wai stream through her visions of sensuality.”
Lingua Franca follows Sandoval’s Olivia, who, in order to establish legal residency as an immigrant in the United States, strikes a romantic relationship with Alex (Eamon Farren), the grandson of the elderly woman she takes care of. The film saw its world premiere at the 2019 Venice Days, a sidebar of the Venice Film Festival. In 2020, American filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s distribution company Array acquired the film and began streaming it across North America on Netflix. Lingua Franca was also nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the 36th Independent Spirit Awards and for the title of Outstanding Film (Limited Release) at the 2021 GLAAD Media Awards.
“I made Lingua Franca so that people really make the effort to empathize with Olivia rather than just saying a slogan,” Sandoval said in an interview with Them. “When people realize that Olivia is more than just the sum of these individual sociological markers and that she’s an emotionally and morally complex individual, I feel like I’ve accomplished my task as a filmmaker, because filmmaking is an act of empathetic imagination.”
Also included in the list are many auteur cinema favorites such as Asako I & II by Oscar nominee Ryūsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car), Tropical Malady by Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Memoria), and Morvern Callar by BAFTA and Cannes Best Screenplay winner Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin).
