We have an overrated thread but what about underrated?
Here is my list.
Half Nelson: A great indie film starring now star Ryan Gosling. Filmed in 23 days and a budget of $700,000 (really low) and Gosling only got paid $1,000 a week, a masterpeice was created showing a real look at adiction and so much more. One of the best films in a long time.
Garden State: Zach Braff’s directorial debut was very good. Natalie Portman stole the movie. This is also an indie film.
High Fidelity: John Cusack and Jack Black play basically themeslves in this romantic comdey. Easily one of the best romantic comdies of all times as well as movies in general. The people in the movie are so real I feel I can se anyone of them on the streets.
Boogie Nights: A great look at the porn industry. Clearly not a family film but what is crafted here by P.T Anderson is amazing.
The Prestige. Imo, best Nolan film. Brick. A really brilliant film that most people I know have never even heard of. Grave Of The Fireflies. My favourite Ghibli movie <3 Holy Rollers. Saw this the other day and thought it was great, but got a very independant release over here.
I thought about A Bug’s Life too, but contary to popular belief, it was popular and well recieved when it came out. It’s just in the longterm people forgot about it as it was overshadowed by the two Toy Storys.
The Brave Little Toaster, The Secret Of Kells and All Dogs Go To Heaven weren’t neccaserily good movies…but I liked them!
A Bugs life is for sure underrated. Despite it’s 91% rating on rotten tomatoes it is Pixar’s forgotten movie and it’s only movie with an all star cast (go figure).
Also The Emperor’s new groove was underrated. That was one funny movie.
A good number of Dreamworks more traditionally animated things (before they went into full on computer animation) are vastly under-rated IMO, these days people forget they exist! Honestly some of those movies are better than some Disney movies for sure.
I know Sinbad is unpopular, but I actually really liked it, especially the Prince who was willing to put himself on the line for his friend. It wasn’t perfect (the mythos and world and even just general storyline seemed like something which would more fit some sort of series than a film I suppose among other things).
One other under-rated example would be Prince of Egypt which I know recieves some praise but I still don’t hear about it enough. I may be an atheist, but this was a great movie. Unlike most biblical movies- the characters actually, you know, felt like real people. But by focusing on Moses and the Pharoah’s potential brother relationship they produced something fantastic and in a way tragic. It actually had character DEPTH which most biblical movies (usually live-action) seem to shy away from and are really hammy in terms of showing emotion (you almost expect actors to scream “I AM ANGRY!” It’s that bad sometimes.). And I felt for Moses, I really did when he was talking to the burning Bush and how scared he was. The emotions coveyed in that scene too were fantastic.
Joseph King of Dreams wasn’t quite the same level, but still from what I remember it was also pretty good, and even more likely to be forgotten.
I also liked Spirit too.
A lot of these movies came from a time everything seemed to be Disney, rip-off off Disney, or just plain bad it seemed in terms of things coming from anything people would have heard of before at all. It’s a shame a lot of Dreamworks older films are forgotten and I still run into people who think their first movie was Shrek. (Which was well, making a mock of Disney).
Dreamworks produced some really good stuff- things which doidn’t fit the traditional ‘Disney Princess’ plotline.
I’m still bummed that I missed my chance to see this! You’ve reminded me that I should, though.
Anyway, some that come to mind:
The Artistocats (is it just me or do few people even acknowledge its existence?)
The Fox and the Hound
Whisper of the Heart
The Cat Returns
Castle in the Sky
Horus, Prince of the Sun
Yellow Submarine
And, here comes a controversial choice…
Snow White!
As famous and oft-mentioned as it is, I still feel like few people give it the proper credit that it deserves. Most of that goes to Cinderella, which is beautiful and has an artistry of its own, but doesn’t come close to Snow White in terms of that fresh, groundbreaking quality.
What a heartbreaking movie. I think I would have a complete and total mess while watching if it wasn’t an anime film. It can be hard for me to to fully connect to characters in an anime film because of the style. I don’t know why.
This is one of my favorite movies of all time! I had a coworker watch it. She watched it with her husband who’s a psycologist and she told me she loved it, her husband loved it and she gave me this detailed analysis on the film based on what she and her husband discussed. It was awesome.
Donnie Darko To this day, I still don’t fully understand this movie, but when I watch it, I’m glued to the screen.
I absolutley loved Grave Of The Fireflies! I remember watching it at a friends house and bawling when [spoil]Seita’s mother dies[/spoil], and when [spoil]Setsuko is asking about death[/spoil], and when [spoil]Setsuko dies[/spoil] and [spoil]how it all comes full circle[/spoil].
I would argue that most anime is underrated, because theres so little distribution of it (of course Disney is changing that).
