Here's a year-end round-up of films that maybe slipped past you, and are worth a place on your home-entertainment schedule.
Twisty-turny Thrillers: Side Effects, Trance, The Place Beyond the Pines, The East and The Counselor. All of these had interesting pedigrees, good actors and some problems. But on the small screen with lower expectations, they should be decent entertainment.
Documentaries: The Last Gladiators (hockey enforcers); A Band Called Death and Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (two bands that never got as big as maybe they should have); and I Am Divine (more than just the star of John Waters' films). My fave doc of the year, Alex Gibney's WikiLeaks: We Steal Secrets, was fascinating, provocative and nearly unbelievable.
Based on Real Events: No (how PR won a Chilean election), Kon Tiki (ocean adventure), Fruitvale Station (break-out role for Michael B. Jordan) and Behind the Candelabra (HBO's biopic of Liberace's final years).
Just Fun: The Sapphires (about a 1960s aboriginal girl group), In a World (the cutthroat world of voice-overs) and Rush (Formula 1 thrills and spills).
Two Worthy Coming-of-Age Tales: The Spectacular Now and The Way Way Back.
Beltway Blow-out: No winter night would be complete without a head-to-head comparison of two White House-takeover films, Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. Who saved it better?