Added by Toby White on 9 Jan 2013 08:00

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Under-Appreciated Film Gems

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Decade: Rating: List Type:

728

6.8

It Follows

A really creepy atmospheric horror. Very unsettling and understated. This is a modern Horror classic with a brilliant score.

Toby White's rating:

2269

7.4

7.6

Run Lola Run (1998)

Toby White's rating:

1193

7.2

7.1

Naked Lunch (1992)

Toby White's rating:

2246

7.3

7.6

The Fly (1986)

Toby White's rating:

2893

7.2

7.5

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Toby White's rating:

991

7.1

7.3

La Femme Nikita (1990)

Toby White's rating:

258

6.2

6.1

Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991)

Toby White's rating:

1333

7.6

7.7

Barton Fink (1991)

My favourite Coen brothers film.

Toby White's rating:

1171

7.2

Wild at Heart (1990)

Toby White's rating:

1137

7.6

7.5

Dead Alive (1992)

Toby White's rating:

389

6.1

6.5

The Exorcist III

Toby White's rating:

739

7.3

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Toby White's rating:

479

6.8

Creepers (1985)

Toby White's rating:

539

7.3

24 Hour Party People (2002)

Toby White's rating:

294

6.9

6.6

From Beyond

Toby White's rating:

475

5.6

6.1

Critters (1986)

Toby White's rating:

453

7.4

7.2

The Changeling (1980)

Toby White's rating:

672

7.7

Being There (1979) (1980)

A masterpiece. Essential viewing.

Toby White's rating:

256

Ashes of Time

Toby White's rating:

101

7.4

7.1

Images (1972)

Toby White's rating:

6.6

The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972)

Toby White's rating:

526

5.5

Mimic

Toby White's rating:

453

7.5

Holy Motors

Toby White's rating:

656

7.2

Only Lovers Left Alive

Toby White's rating:

134

6.8

6.4

Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

Toby White's rating:

555

7.6

7.5

13 Assassins

Toby White's rating:

1067

6.6

6.8

eXistenZ (1999)

Toby White's rating:

518

7.7

7.5

Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Toby White's rating:

1171

5.9

Halloween

Toby White's rating:

336

6.9

7.1

The Drop (2014)

Enjoyable. Simple and straight forward story. Great performance by Tom Hardy in the lead role. Gandolfini is always a joy to watch. Sadly, it's his last film.

Toby White's rating:

246

7.9

7.7

Sorcerer (1977)

Toby White's rating:

374

7.3

Sexy Beast (2000)

Toby White's rating:

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

317

6.9

6.7

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Odd, distinctive, atmospheric and strangely hypnotic.
It's a beautiful and sad piece of filmmaking. Moving in a way that's hard to pin-point.

Toby White's rating:

745

7.2

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Toby White's rating:

1773

7.1

Elephant (2003)

A very disturbing and intense experience. Brilliant filmmaking.

Toby White's rating:

735

6.7

6.8

The Babadook (2014)

The best Horror film I've seen in many years. Very creepy and atmospheric. I cared about the characters and felt their trauma. It works on two levels, as a ghost story and as a story about a mother and child who struggle to deal with the loss of a loved one. It avoids the cliches of most horrors and goes for a more subtle approach of building up suspense and atmosphere.

Toby White's rating:

522

7.2

7.5

Midnight Run (1988)

Toby White's rating:

575

6.9

6.7

Inherent Vice (2014) (2015)

Inherent Vice is my favourite film I've seen so far from 2014. I had been anticipating this one for quite some time and I was not disappointed. Once again Paul Thomas Anderson delivers a brilliant film.

Its sprawling narrative and witty dialogue had me hooked. It's odd and wacky and hilarious, and I didn't want it to end. It kept me zig-zagging along on a weird and wonderful trip. Even though at times I was thinking to myself "what the hell is actually going here?", it didn't even matter. This seemed to be part of the experience, that it was written in this manner. It really captured the mood and atmosphere of its time. Looking forward to seeing it again. Brilliant.

Toby White's rating:

109

6.6

6.9

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013)

Toby White's rating:

905

5.9

House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

Pretty disturbing film from Rob Zombie. Dark as hell. Visually impressive. Atmospheric and off-the-wall, it packs a punch and it doesn't pander to the typical Hollywood ending.

Toby White's rating:

129

7.7

7.5

Blue Collar (1978)

Toby White's rating:

1546

7.4

7.6

25th Hour (2002)

Toby White's rating:

214

6.7

6.9

Something Wild (1986)

A really funny Road Movie with political undertones.

Toby White's rating:

113

7.3

6.6

Extreme Prejudice (1987)

An entertaining action Western from Walter Hill. Powers Boothe has some amazingly funny but inappropriate chauvinistic lines. His character is ridiculously over the top.

Toby White's rating:

178

7.7

7.6

Wake in Fright (1971)

Brilliantly shot. Dark as hell. Donald Pleasance is excellent.

You can practically feel the heat of the outback emanating from the screen as the characters sweat and chug beer like water. The main character is sucked into a self-destructive nihilistic underworld with devastating consequences. Unmissable.

Toby White's rating:

1086

7.9

Harold and Maude (1971)

An absolute classic. A truly great piece of cinema. Very inspiring, dark and hilarious.

Toby White's rating:

914

7.8

The Straight Story (1999)

Toby White's rating:

7.5

6.9

The Sun's Burial

Toby White's rating:

7.6

7.1

The Day He Arrives (2011)

Toby White's rating:

243

7.9

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

Toby White's rating:

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A list of films that I think have received ludicrously low ratings. Clearly my taste is at odds with the majority as these are some of my favourite films.

The low ratings of films by directors like Jim Jarmusch, Abel Ferrara and John Carpenter reveal how under-appreciated these visionary filmmakers are within the mainstream.

Also, there are too many David Cronenberg films with low ratings such as Cosmopolis, The Brood and The Dead Zone. For one thing, The Brood is an incredibly disturbing film that ranks amongst the most unsettling films I've seen. It is a neglected masterpiece of horror.

Nicolas Winding Refn's films are also rated poorly. Valhalla Rising and Only God Forgives are great films that will probably achieve cult status in years to come.