An indie summer – The latest Movie Filter has 7 films worth seeking out

In theaters Friday: After Earth, The East, Now You See Me, The Kings of Summer

New on Blu-ray: Dark Skies, Life is Sweet [Criterion Collection]

In 225‘s May issue you’ll find our summer movie preview, a handy guide to summer blockbusters, the most anticipated and annoyingly advertised films of the year. But some of the more exciting new pictures are the smaller, independent features you won’t see a zillion commercials and print ads for in the coming weeks. In fact, this summer is one of the best for indie films in recent memory. Here’s a quick rundown of 7 indies—and zero robots or super heroes—worth seeking out this summer.

Release dates are tentative, and distribution to Baton Rouge is not guaranteed.

Before Midnight
Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy were made for each other—at least, on screen, this is true. The duo return nine years after Before Sunset and a full two decades after Richard Linklater’s enthrallingly talkative original Before Sunrise. They were two young adventurers in Vienna way back then. Now, they are married with children and facing their lives, their problems and themselves while on an idyllic excursion to Greece.

Frances Ha
The Squid and the Whale director Noah Baumbach and mumble core queen Greta Gerwig spin their neurotic wheels in the late 20s upper middle class milieu of this New York City-set comedy.

Mud
This boys coming-of-age meet outlaw loner drama stars Matthew McCaunaughey and Reese Witherspoon, and is showing at the Mall of Louisiana and Perkins Rowe theaters—but hurry, it won’t be there for much longer.

The East
Anti-capitalist anarchists are the targets of a private security firm that sends spies to infiltrate their ranks and expose their attacks on their corporate giant bosses. This thriller starring Ellen Page and Brit Marling examines attraction and influence in this high stakes world of modern espionage and existential revenge.

The Kings of Summer
Stand by Me meets Beasts of the Southern Wild in this coming-of-age story of three teens that flee their oppressive parents for the forest to build a house of their very own and become men on their own terms.

Violet & Daisy
Saoirse Ronan and Alexis Bledel may look cute and innocent but they are lethal as two friends who become killers for hire in this thriller that co-stars Soprano’s star James Gandolfini.

The Way, Way Back
Ranked a 3 out of 10 by his mother’s new beau, a young introvert slowly finds himself one summer while working at a water park and crushing on the girl next door in this poignant dramedy written by The Descendents scribes Nat Faxon and Jim Rash and co-starring Steve Carell, Toni Colette and Sam Rockwell.
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Only God Forgives
From auteur director Nicolas Winding Refn, this feels like Drive goes to Shanghai (not a bad thing). Forgives is a stylish noir actioner that sees Ryan Gosling brooding, ultra violent and looking to settle a score while under the wicked tutelage of his icy mother Kristen Scott Thomas.

Drinking Buddies
Modern indie godfather Joe Swanberg has carved a career out of mass producing micro-budgeted comedies, but this go-round about two flirty friends at a Milwaukee beer factory steps up his game with TV A-listers Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson, plus Oscar-nominee Anna Kendrick.