Movies That Are Underrated.....

That's natural given that westerners tend to watch only western films. I noticed that both here and among my friends, that people from the Americas (North and South) and Europe tend to watch only movies made in the Americas and in Europe, with the usual exception of Kurosawa's movies, such as Seven Samurai, Asia's most famous director to the west.

I have friends who are deeply knowledgeable in American and European films, knowing even quite obscure (to people who are not film buffs) titles like the Coen's Fargo, and Almodovar's Talk to Her, but who never watched a single Kurosawa movie.

Films which are underseen are obviously underrated, at least until they're watched. Then they could be overrated in the eyes of the beholder.

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This really isn't an American forum, just because the mods are. There are a ton of British people on here, and a handful of Australian/New Zeland natives. Then we have a half dozen from Belgium, and I think we have Atleast two from Denmark. You're Brazilian, and Genyav is Russian. This place is pretty diverse.

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True. But this is a Western forum. Almost everybody here with a few exceptions is from the Americas or from Europe.

I noticed that while the world has become very integrated economically, it hasn't become very integrated culturally. There are several distinct cultural spheres operating over the world: there is a Western cultural sphere that covers the US, Europe and South America (with several national cultural sub-spheres), there is an Indian cultural sphere, a Chinese cultural sphere and there is a Japanese cultural sphere. Japan and (now) China are very integrated with Europe and the US economically but culturally Japan and China's influence over their national borders are quite limited.

What proportion of Americans drive a Japanese or Korean car? Certainly dozens of times as many as the proportion of Americans who watch Japanese or Korean films and read their books.

another Wachowski film.
cloud atlas, 55 on metacritic.

Film schools love their European art-house films, and would conveniently teach European films rather than Asian films to film students because of academic/time constraints. This isn't surprising considering how the early filmic language was written by the likes of Dreyer, Renoir, Lang and Vertov, subsequently refined by the prevailing post-war attitudes of a generation that were prominently reflected in Italian Neorealism and French New Wave. All throughout Modern Art history our concept of "aesthethic greatness" goes all the way back to the Renaissance. Who cares about the barbaric pagans of the East, who don't possess our refined taste for the aesthetics? Besides, Godard is the greatest living director of all time.

My pick of underrated movies are:

PI, The man from earth, Gattaca, Perfume.

- Tasik Sinha

Personally, I found the Piranha remake to be underrated. It was supposed to be cheesy, guys. Get over it. On the other hand, there was no excuse for the sequel; crap on that movie all you want.

^ Sequel makes the first look like a masterpiece. Plus it had Elisabeth Shue, that's always a bonus.

Have you seen First Born with Shue? Another underrated film in that not enough people have heard of it. It's a really good psychological thriller.

Brian Cranston won't work with the director again. I got the impression the script was very good, and tons of actors signed up because of the director. The director then did a Terrence Malick, cut a ton of people out of it, and made it look like a bizarre dream sequence. There were parts in the film I thought director was trying to troll the rest of Hollywood.

I haven't seen it yet but it's been on my film wish list for a few months now, will get around to buying it soon. Quite a few Elisabeth Shue films on my list that are not available in the UK that I would like.

Angelopoulos films. Well, maybe not underrated but underseen and unknown to many. I've seen many arthouse lovers praising Weerasethakul, Tarr or Tarkovsky not knowing Angelopoulos.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

Beverly Hills Ninja. You can close the thread, because I just named the most underrated film of all-time.

Under Capricorn of Alfred Hitchcock: when talking about the master of suspense, people always talk about his suspense-thriller movie (Psycho, Rear Window, Stranger on a train......), many of them forget that one of Hitchcock's finest films lies in historical drama genre - Under Capricorn (1949). The use of long take, the brilliant poetry in every scenes, Ingrid Bergman's great acting talent.....all make it an unforgettable movie. Too bad I still cannot post the link

George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett: this is the kind of movie which doesn't make money, not an ideal one for the producers & distributors. And yet the way it tells the story is "as beautiful as a dream"; for me, it's like Shakespeare's A midsummer night dream - in which our protagonists running around, living their lives, looking for their identities and their true loves. Katherine Hepburn is real feminine, she and Cary Grant are as great as ever. In some ways, it can be considered one of the most important films in cinema history.

Stanley Kwan's An actress: maybe many Westerners still haven't seen this film, it's a near masterpiece from the Hong Kong filmmaker Stanley Kwan. Had the movement, the pacing been more consistent, it'd have been greater. Maggie Cheung's beauty is just super captivating

Yes, Kate and Cary slept in the same bed, but two years earlier so did Garbo and John Gilbert in Queen Christina.

Maybe you're lost somewhere, they didn't sleep in the same bed anywhere in the movie

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I know Danny Boyle gets a lot of love but Shallow Grave is severely underrated. It's a great little movie with beautiful pacing and a gripping plot. Not to forget some solid performances.

Letters From Iwo Jima is in my opinion one of the best war movies ever made but never gets the same sort of recognition as Saving Private Ryan and other such big budget movies. And speaking of war movies, Brotherhood of War is easily one of the best Korean movies I've ever seen. It treads the familiar lines that other war movies do, such as the brotherhood between soldiers, the repercussions of violence and how war is a reprehensible act but it does so with a severity rarely seen in more "mainstream" war movies.

All this war movie talk has got me thinking...

I know Danny Boyle gets a lot of love but Shallow Grave is severely underrated. It's a great little movie with beautiful pacing and a gripping plot. Not to forget some solid performances.

Letters From Iwo Jima is in my opinion one of the best war movies ever made but never gets the same sort of recognition as Saving Private Ryan and other such big budget movies. And speaking of war movies, Brotherhood of War is easily one of the best Korean movies I've ever seen. It treads the familiar lines that other war movies do, such as the brotherhood between soldiers, the repercussions of violence and how war is a reprehensible act but it does so with a severity rarely seen in more "mainstream" war movies.

All this war movie talk has got me thinking...