Arriving on the cusp of the Great Recession, Wendy and Lucy struck a nerve with its stylistically subdued but emotionally powerful look at how American society lets some of its citizens fall by the wayside. And in the title role, indie queen Michelle Williams earned every rave she got.

In Alex Ross Perry’s audacious dark comedy, Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss, and Jonathan Pryce round out a stellar cast for a story that takes emotionally rich, surprising turns. A comment on the loathsome, narcissistic writer figure that’s full of brutally acidic humour hiding deeper ponderings.

Peter Sarsgaard often operates according to his own enigmatic frequencies, and here the character actor exactingly fine-tunes his persona as an eccentric intellectual. Playing an audiophile who has a near-mystic obsession with ambient sounds, he exudes weirdness in a magnetic performance.