12 Best Hidden Gem Movies Of 2016

Robert Budreau’s innovative Chet Baker anti-biopic presents a semi-factual, semi-fictional take on the legendarily talented yet troubled jazz musician’s life that focuses more on capturing its protagonist’s spirit than presenting a standard biographical movie.

Playing out like a meta biopic-within-a-biopic, Ethan Hawke takes on Baker in one of the best performances of his career so far, portraying the trumpeter in the mid-1960s as he is hired to play himself in a fictional film about his earlier career and first dalliances with heroin abuse.

British actress Carmen Ejogo plays Baker’s love interest, the fictional actress Jane Azuka – a composite character made up of the many women in his life. A risky move, but one that works in Born to be Blue thanks to Ejogo’s and the chemistry she and Hawke share.

It might be a tad too elusive a biography for some, but the film’s impressionistic style nevertheless allows for an intimate portrait of a gifted but tormented man.