Oscar season is imminent. From The Whale to The Fabelmans to Empire of Light, studios are unveiling all their awards contenders. The Academy tends to favor prestige issue-based dramas like The Woman King and She Said and universally acclaimed blockbusters like Top Gun: Maverick. But if the Academy wants to take a look outside the box and vote for an underdog, there are plenty of great 2022 movies beyond their purview that deserve some recognition. From the disturbing psychological thrills of Pearl to the brutal Viking action of The Northman to the mix of multiversal antics and moving family reconciliation in Everything Everywhere All at Once, this year has offered a ton of outstanding outliers that should be given a chance at Oscar glory.

Pearl Is A Truly Unsettling Psychological Thriller

Mia Goth with an axe in Pearl

It’s rare that the Academy acknowledges horror movies, but Ti West’s 2022 contributions to the genre are worthy of award contention. With the double whammy of X and its prequel Pearl, West has introduced the first ever franchise in the A24 catalog. While X was praised for combining the grisly terror of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with the porn parable of Boogie Nights, Pearl managed to outdo it with a truly unsettling character study exploring the origin story of the sexually frustrated villain.

RELATED: Pearl: The Perfect Prequel

When the Academy does recognize horror films, they tend to be psychological, like The Silence of the Lambs and Get Out – and West’s creepy prequel received a rave review from none other than Martin Scorsese himself – so Pearl might be in with a chance this year.

RRR Is A Bonkers Action-Adventure Epic With Timely Themes

A tiger attacks a man in RRR

The Oscars have a whole Best International Feature Film category to keep non-American movies out of contention in all the other major categories. But a few foreign-language films have managed to break through to the mainstream categories. In recent years, Amour, Roma, and Minari have all been nominated for Best Picture, and in 2020, Parasite won Best Picture along with three other awards. Out of the many great non-English-language movies to arrive this year, the one that has found the most international success is RRR.

If it’s not the best movie of the year, it’s certainly the wildest. This movie has a man fighting a tiger with his bare hands, a man fighting a crowd full of people with his bare hands, and a man jumping a motorcycle off a bridge and swinging through fire. Not only is it a bonkers action-adventure epic that doesn’t let up for a second of its three-hour runtime; RRR deals with timely themes like loyalty, legacy, and systemic prejudice.

The Northman Is As Beautiful As It Is Brutal

Alexander Skarsgard in a village in The Northman

Robert Eggers took on his biggest budget by far to create The Northman, and he put that money to good use. The movie is a mesmerizing retelling of the Viking legend that inspired Hamlet, with nuanced performances from a dedicated star-studded cast and deeply immersive long-take action scenes that play like a John Wick movie set in 10th-century Iceland. The Academy doesn’t usually favor action-centric films, but The Northman tells a timeless tale of revenge and betrayal.

The harrowing twist reveal subverts the usual revenge thriller formula. After Amleth has spent his entire life plotting to avenge his father and save his mother, he learns that his mother wanted to leave his father and that every one of his thoughts and emotions from his childhood onward have been based on a misconception.

The Banshees Of Inisherin Is A Darkly Comedic Delight

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson sitting at a pub in The Banshees of Inisherin

This year, Martin McDonagh reunited his perfectly matched In Bruges stars, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, for The Banshees of Inisherin, another deceptively simple story about two human beings with a tumultuous relationship. Set on a remote island in the 1920s, Banshees begins with a fiddler telling his long-time friend that he doesn’t want to hang out with him anymore. An oddball breakup movie, Banshees exhibits McDonagh’s usual pitch-black humor with a more somber approach than his fans have come to expect.

McDonagh’s last movie, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, made him an Academy favorite. The Banshees of Inisherin is a much stranger, more abstract, more ambiguous movie than Three Billboards, and its social commentary is a lot broader and subtler. It’s not the kind of movie that usually wins Best Picture, but it is one of the most distinctive, inspired, challenging films of the year.

Everything Everywhere All At Once Is Everything A Movie Can Be All At Once

Michelle Yeoh with hot dog fingers in Everything Everywhere All at Once

Academy voters rarely take entertainment value into account as they tend to prefer artsy, contemplative dramas over high-octane genre fare. But the Daniels’ multiversal epic Everything Everywhere All at Once manages to accomplish both simultaneously. It’s both a thrilling sci-fi action comedy with breathtaking martial arts choreography, inventive visual gags, and countless visions of alternate realities, and an intimate, deeply moving family drama with nuanced, three-dimensional characters who share strained, painfully relatable dynamics.

If the Academy was truly dedicated to honoring the finest films of the year, Everything Everywhere would at least get a nomination for Best Picture. The Daniels’ magnum opus is proof that a movie can have its cake and eat it, too, providing action-packed spectacle, heart-wrenching emotions, and important life lessons all within the same gonzo sci-fi extravaganza.

MORE: Everything Everywhere All At Once Is The Best Movie Of The Year So Far