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.

With an artful eye and jazzy unpredictability, Kelly Reichardt unravels the threads of the heist film in this standout from Cannes. As an antihero kicking about on the brink of the ‘70s, Josh O’Connor is unmissable, lending rumpled discontent to this ironic, wry vision of American individualism.

After the discretion of Wendy and Lucy Kelly Reichardt surprised us with her own take on the Western genre: intensely focused, fascinatingly observant, and loaded with portent. It continues Reichardt’s rich partnership with Michelle Williams, but it is Bruce Greenwood as Meek who steals the show.

An eco-thriller made by delicate and observant director Kelly Reichardt may have been a too unusual mix of genre and sensibility upon the film’s release. In retrospect, this haunting character study forgoes genre twists for simmering tension—emboldened by its astonishing cast led by Jesse Eisenberg.

Before moving to Oregon, Kelly Reichardt made a fugitive film set in the Florida wetlands—more like the grungy filmmaking of Jim Jarmusch than her later slow cinema. Tailing wastrel lovers on the run, River of Grass shows she has been committed to America’s margins and outcasts from the very start.