Top 10 Movies You've Never Seen But Need To

In talking to a lot my friends I’m finding myself more and more interested in introducing them to movies that are very obscure, amazing, and sadly forgotten. To me, these are the best kinds of movies to find. They’re usually films that either didn’t get enough press in their release, they’ve been forgotten over the years, or any other reason. And yet when I do in fact find them, it’s like discovering gold. It’s a piece of cinema history that will always be preserved and viewed again and again, just because it was discovered by someone that found it in a video store and wanted to see it. So in order to honor these unknown treasures, I’m doing the thing all critics do at one point or another, a top 10 list. And without further adieu, here it is:

10. Martin. This is a film made by the zombie genre god George A. Romero, and it’s probably the most interesting vampire movie ever made. The film follows Martin, a disturbed young man that’s convinced he’s a vampire. He’s gone to live with a strongly religious cousin that also believe this, and wants to first give Martin his last rights and God’s forgiveness before killing him. That’s what we’re given in the first 15 minutes. This movie is just fascinating to watch, I’ll grant some of the writing gets a little too tedious in a couple places, but the performances and the characters are just superb and it makes you not mind. John Amplas is just so tragic as Martin because mostly this film comes down to a story of a man that has just given up on life and pretty much fully embodied an addiction, but slowly he starts to realize that he could be more, and have more than that. That and it just has some extraordinary suspense. I’m a big fan of George Romero, but I honestly think that this film here is probably one of his best works. It’s very moody and atmospheric and I just can’t recommend this movie enough.
9. Mean Streets. Martin Scorsese’s first big film, as well as the first time he collaborated with long time star Robert De Niro. A lot of people hold up “Goodfellas” as being Scorsese’s best film, and I agree, but to be honest I’d have to call this film a very very close second. It’s a similar premise, focusing mostly on small time gangsters that run a bar, but has it’s own identity and it just gets more and more interesting the film goes on. Harvey Keitel plays Charlie, a hood that is trying to make it on the streets. He seems he’d be able to do ok if it wasn’t for the fact that his girlfriend’s cousin Johnny Boy (De Niro) wasn’t such a lose cannon with a short temper. It’s hard to really explain what makes this movie great, but it’s certainly a must for anyone that enjoys Scorsese work as this is the first film where his truly unique style starts to shine through and is allowed to go nuts. And that, trust me, is well worth watching.
8. Idiocracy. This is a fairly recent movie and it seems to be gaining a bit of a cult following. So that’s why I put it pretty low on the list, but trust me, it still isn’t getting the attention it deserves and this is one of the most hilarious movies you’ll ever see. The plot is just ridiculous and yet at the same time it’s disturbing as hell. A guy that’s just completely average in every way is frozen as part of a super top secret military experiment, so secret in fact, that he is forgotten and sleeps for 500 years and comes out to find that the gene pool has stagnated and he’s now the smartest man on the planet. The jokes and set ups in this movie are just insanely funny, from the hospital called St. God’s, to the guy that constantly says brought to you by Carl’s Jr. all the time because they pay him to. This movie is just a hilariously original comedy with a unique premise and it certainly deserves a lot more attention than it gets.
7. The Sugarland Express. This movie marked the big screen debut of director Steven Spielberg and I think it is a shame no one has seen it. This movie is just jaw dropping it’s so good. Goldie Hawn plays a woman recently released from jail and finds out that she can’t get her infant son back from foster care. So she breaks her husband out too and through a series of events, they end up taking a state trooper hostage. Basically this movie becomes one great big chase as they try to make it to Sugarland Texas to reclaim their son. The photography is just beautiful and the sight of the enormous about of cars that follow them is something to behold. The characters are will played and the film’s script is just so packed with emotion, from happiness, to anger, to utter sadness. The scene where Hawn’s father gets on the radio and talks of being very disappointed in her, and that if the cops would give him a gun he’d shoot her himself is especially heartbreaking. This is probably up there in Spielberg’s films for me, because it really showcases that he really knows how to make a great movie and that he can give us characters that we all latch onto.
6. Slaughter House Five. Adapted very faithfully from the Kurt Vonnegut’s novel of the same name, this film is just hypnotic. It’s a film where I see not performances at all, but people. All the actors in this movie play their parts so believably that the line between actor and character is amazingly blurred. The camera paints the landscapes just beautifully and adds a nice glow to the whole experience. The music in it is simple but extremely effective, giving a child like innocence that contrasts with the film’s story greatly. To top that off, in my opinion this is the best adaptation of a novel ever done. The story is faithfully recreated and I feel that the novel’s unique voice is always present throughout. I can’t say enough about this movie, it’s a forgotten classic for sure, and to me, one of the finest films ever created.
5. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I like to think of this as the last truly great family film. Terry Gilliam’s imagination seems to be endless as this movie takes us to so many elaborate and surreal locations that it is just such a treat to watch. People have sometimes asked me why I can get so worked up about kids movies these days and all I can say is that I’m tired of films that talk down to children, or are just so silly that they don’t allow kids a chance to try and think and understand what’s happening. This movie doesn’t, in fact most of the kid’s films from the 80’s actually stand up remarkably well today if you ask me. But my personal favorite is this film. Mostly because I was actually 17 when I first saw it and it filled me with such a childlike fascination that I couldn’t believe it. It’s the story of a man, the titular Baron, that has a life of fantastical stories and no one actually believes that they are the truth. John Neville is just amazing as the Baron and it’s odd when I see him in other films because he’s usually very down played and morose, but here he’s full of energy and just goes with the tone of the film so perfectly. The story is set in what is referred to as the Age of Reason, and there is a war going on between an English settlement and a Turkish Sultan. Jonathan Price plays a slimy government official that is trying to run the war “sensibly”, saying that it should be by the books and logically. He even goes to the point of having a man that committed a huge act of bravery and heroism executed because it may make the other soldiers feel inadequate. I’m not kidding about that. When a young girl’s family is threatened by Price with eviction from the city, the Baron comes to the rescue. The rest of the film is the Baron’s effort to save the settlement by finding his friends with amazing abilities and includes a trip to the moon, a visit with the gods Vulcan and Venus, being eaten by a sea monster and an enormously creative and hilarious final battle with the Sultan’s army at the film’s climax. It’s just so charming, but dark at times, and asks people to live their dreams. Something I feel most films these days are sadly lacking.
4. Straw Dogs. I’ve only seen this film about 3 times, and I’ll admit the first time I saw it I wasn’t all that impressed. However I was tempted and curious to give it another look and this time I was stunned. Sometimes it takes a couple viewings for a film to really grow on you I guess. I think part of it had to do with the film’s portrayal of the characters, very few of them have redeeming qualities about them. But watching it again I realized that was director Sam Peckinpah’s point. Peckinpah wanted to show that at our core, we’re all capable of violence. A mathematician and his wife move to a quiet English village, and immediately you get this undertone of the husband being intimidated by the men of the village. He can’t stand up to them at all and because of this, the men don’t respect him and decide that they can do whatever they want, including rape his wife. The film is brutal and has a very dark picture of humanity, never at any point compromising on this idea. The film climaxes with the husband finally reaching his breaking point and violently lashing back that those who wronged him as they try and invade his house to murder a man. I had a tough time wanting to put this movie on this list, but I feel the film is so powerful that it should be remembered because to me, it has a very important significance to film and the way it portrays violence, because it’s not pretty and this film really shows us that.
3. Spellbound. One of my favorite Alfred Hitchcock films, “Spellbound” has an intriguing mystery story, great performances from Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman, a great score and one of my all time favorite scenes in film. It was hard to pick between this and Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat” because I see both as phenomenal films. However, I tip the scales toward “Spellbound” for a couple major reasons. First of all it was one of the first films to seriously incorporate Psychology into a mystery plot, something that’s common place now. Bergman Plays a psychiatrist that’s trying to help discover what’s happened to a doctor that Gregory Peck was seeing and has mysteriously disappeared. Peck has a guilt complex though and is almost certain that he’s the murderer and the mystery is trying to figure out if he did or not. Great suspense is achieved as he has a psychological trigger that puts him almost in a trance and you’re not really sure if he’s going to be violent or if it’s due to a trauma. But the real thing that sets this film apart, the dream sequence. The crucial turning point in the mystery is a dream sequence in which Peck is put under hypnosis and we see one of the most amazing things put on film; a collaboration between Salvador Dali and Alfred Hitchcock. The visuals in this scene are just stunning and I can’t say anything about them that actually does justice, you just need to see it. All these elements combine to be all together great film.
2. Kingdom Of Heaven: The Director’s Cut. This movie met with mixed reviews on its release in 2005 and I can’t say that I really blame it, the theatrical cut made little sense, and was a pretty mediocre movie. However shortly after its DVD release Ridley Scott’s director’s cut also saw its way to DVD. And boy is this a completely different film. All the big problems I had with the theatrical version are gone, and this version of the movie likens back to epics of the 60’s like “Lawrence Of Arabia” or “Doctor Zhivago”. What I also liked was while this is about the holy wars between the Muslims and Christians during the Crusades; it has a lot of chivalry between them. It’s nicely ambiguous because both sides are played fairly sympathetically and the villains are really just men that are drunk with power. Edward Norton gives a wonderful uncredited performance as the leper king Baldwin not to mention the rest of the ensemble cast of characters is diverse, well rounded and stunningly performed. Every time I see this version of the film I remember what makes Ridley Scott a great film maker because he really has a talent for immersing you in the world of the film. The cinematography is just gorgeous and it’s pace never really drags, things are always happening but the audience is never left behind. I’d really love to see this version get a theatrical release because no matter how good or large your home TV is, this is something truly epic in every sense of the word and it really should be seen on the big screen.
1. Cool Hand Luke. This movie is just perfect. I mean perfect. What I think makes this movie earn number one is that I see it for sale everywhere, but it seems almost no one I talk to has ever seen it or remembers it. I can’t tell you how sad that makes me because this movie is just amazing. It follow a man named Luke who has been arrested for cutting the head off parking meters and how his presence in the chain gang he’s sent to changes everything and ultimately leads to his down fall as authority tries to squash him out. It’s got the best photography I’ve ever seen, Paul Newman and cast mesmerize you with their performances, and every time I see it, it hooks me in from the first frame. I could see this movie a thousand times and still rave about it. What surprises me most about it though is that it’s almost never mentioned in any film books. There are some passing mentions about Conrad Hall’s photography, but never anything about the direction or anything else like that makes this movie great. I feel that even though there are people out there that love this film about a man that goes to a chain gang and inspires the prisoners to try and make their lives better, it’s not given the attention that it rightly deserves. This film is just stunning and I shall not rest until it’s considered on the same level as films like “The Godfather” and “Casablanca”, because if any movie deserves to be in that category, it’s this one.