Highly Underrated/Unknown Movies

[Hombre Secreto]

Layer Cake
Gattaca
Kingpin
Tigerland
El Norte
Dead Presidents
American Me
The Salton Sea
Brokeback Mountain
The Descent
Natural Born Killers
Swordfish
Kalifornia
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Twelve Monkeys
Freeway
Election
High Fidelity

 

[lefty]

How can a movie that received 8 Academy Award nominations and three Oscars be underrated or unknown?

lefty

 

[dfagdfsh]

Babylon AD
Street Kings

 

[Harold falcon]



Layer Cake
Gattaca
Kingpin
Tigerland
El Norte
Dead Presidents
American Me
The Salton Sea
Brokeback Mountain
The Descent
Natural Born Killers
Swordfish
Kalifornia
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Twelve Monkeys
Freeway
Election
High Fidelity

None of those are unknown or underrated. If anything Natural Born Killers is overrated. And Swordfish is a *************.

 

[javyn]

Ebola Syndrome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_Syndrome

One of my most favorite ******* movies EVER.

 

[LawrenceMD]

i think a highly underrated xmas movie is love actually. that movie always hits the right notes for the holiday season. its obviously the opposite of an unknown movie, but its re-watchability (especially on airplane seat movie monitors when flying during the holidays) is totally underrated.

 

[Piobaire]

For cyclists: American Flyers

 

[afton1]

Angel-A from Luc Besson

 

[Hombre Secreto]

Goddamn whiners. I will give you a better list next year... lol. Happy New Year guys.

 

[munchausen]

Babe: Pig in the City. Maybe not unknown, seeing as it's a sequel to a pretty popular movie, but most people haven't seen it. Much weirder and better than the first movie in the series.

 

[munchausen]



Pretty much everything by John Sayles.

Matewan is a great piece of left wing cinema.

 

[Saturdays]

Not sure if mentioned, but 'A Prophet' - surprised I had never seen it or heard of it til recently, so its possible its unknown to others. Great film.

 

[thebunk]



Obscurity is relative. How about some suggestions?

Sure, I will put up or shut up. I am a child of the 90s so my apologies in advance:

- The resident of Britain/Out of Sight (Steven Soderberg): Both are terribly underrated even though OoS is filled with some mega stars. These 2 flicks, along with the not so-underrated Traffic (though still a good film in my opinion) were Soderberg's best films before he started over indulging in remakes (Solaris) mega-action films (Oceans 11/12/13) and smaller newage indie films (Girlfriend Experience). The resident of Britain is so underrated it is criminal.

- The Princess and The Warrior (Tom Tykwer): Better known for Run Lola Run,TPATW is a great follow-up that no one has seemed to have seen. If you like adult style fairy tales, you need to really see this and Tykwer's other flicks which some are very underrated (Perfume, Heaven).

- Hoodlum (Bill Duke): Ok, so this is a paint-by-numbers Hollywood flick and it is honestly nothing special from script originality or direction perspective. It is really all about Tim Roth. That is all. Is it worth owning? I am not sure though it is definitely worth a view when you just want to sit back and be entertained.

- The Straight Story (David Lynch): Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks get all the praise. Heck, even Wild at Heart and Lost Highway get more props. I chalk this up to the fact that The Straight Story is very non- Lynch and many people cannot get past that fact. Their loss. Definitely worth checking out.

Others mentioned in this thread that I endorse and I think fits this thread include:

- Grosse Pointe Blank (Dan Akroyd and John Cussack in both fine form)
- Tremors (Kevin Bacon and Michael Gross in a fairly on cheesy thriller)
- Love Actually (one of the most underrated chick flicks/holiday flicks of all time)
- Go (very influenced by Tarrantino as many indie films at that time were but it is still a very entertaining film)

All of the above (with the exception of Hoodlum perhaps) shoud have ultra special editions released on Blu Ray but sadly do not.

 

[munchausen]

I definitely wouldn't call Out of Sight obscure. I seem to remember it being a pretty big hit. Grosse Point Blanke as well, although that might be considered more of a cult hit.

 

[thebunk]

Out of Sight earned 37.5 million and Grosse Pointe Blank earned 28 million (all Domestic). I would say both films found its following from rentals and DVD purchases from over the last couple of decades like many films have (Mallrats, High Fidelity, etc). That said, neither were box office hits. If anything, GPB would be considered more of a cult favorite then OoS which is never mentioned in terms of best films of the 90s. While neither would be on my top 10 for that decade, they would find comfortable homes amongst my top 20 or so.