Overlooked films

A very incomplete list

The vast majority of great films are little known by the general public. Thus to make this project at least somewhat tractable, I plan to exclude the enormous number of classic black and white films and foreign language films that most Americans no longer bother to watch. Instead, I’ll focus on color films done in the English language.

The second caveat is that I don’t have a great memory. Within 15 minutes of posting this I’ll probably recall a director that I should have included. In addition, the term “overlooked” is relative. Many of these will be well known to older film buffs. The post is aimed at younger readers with at least a semi-serious interest in films, but who haven’t had time yet to fully exhaust the riches of the back catalog.

1. Outback films: It seems like people in our modern high tech society are increasingly far removed from the natural world. Japanese Story, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Until the End of the World, and Walkabout are four intriguing films that take place in the Australian outback. (I’m assuming the Mad Max series is already well known.)

2. Nicholas Roeg films: All of the early Roeg films are worth watching, including Performance, Walkabout, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth and Bad Timing.

3. Theresa Russell films: Bad Timing stars Theresa Russell, who also appears in Roeg’s less impressive later films like Insignificance and Track 29. But it’s a non-Roeg film that achieved her greatest success: Black Widow. For some reason, it didn’t get very good reviews.

4. John Dahl films: I haven’t been able to find Red Rock West, so I hope it holds up as well as I remember it. I did rewatch The Last Seduction, however, and it holds up very well.

5. Bill Forsyth films: Forsyth is a very underrated director. Local Hero and Comfort and Joy are excellent films, and Gregory’s Girl, Housekeeping and even Breaking In are worth watching. Local Hero is very loosely based on the old Michael Powell film I Know Where I’m Going. If you liked Burt Lancaster’s performance in Local Hero, check out Louis Malle’s Atlantic City. A year later, Malle also directed an event better film—My Dinner With Andre. Best dinner conversation ever.

6. David Mamet films: He’s probably best known for the screenplay for Glengarry Glen Ross, but House of Games is his best film. Many of his other films are worth watching, including Things Change, Homicide, and The Spanish Prisoner.

7. Adam Atom Egoyan films: This Armenian-Canadian director’s best films include The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica and Calendar. It’s been a while since I saw his early films, but Next of Kin and Family Viewing have some quirky humor.

8. Guy Madden films: Madden is certainly Winnipeg’s greatest director. His films should especially appeal to fans of silent cinema. I’m not sure where to start, as all his films blend together in my memory, but this link has some good recommendations. Not for people with conventional taste, but David Lynch fans will want to check these out. Some are in B&W.

9. Carroll Ballard films: Ballard films are highly recommended for people that like the natural world. He directed only a few films, with the best being The Black Stallion, Never Cry Wolf, and Fly Away Home. Gorgeous cinematography.

10. Whit Stillman: He’s sometimes viewed as a WASP Woody Allen, but Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco are better than the typical Allen film.

11. The Quay brothers: Stop action animation at its best. As with many surrealists, the short form tends to work better than their full-length works. Highly recommended for fans of writers like Bruno Schulz and Robert Walser. Streets of Crocodiles might be a good place to start.

12. Terrence Malick films: I presume people know about films like Tree of Life. But earlier films such as Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line and The New World are as good or better.

13. Hal Hartley films: I almost forget this director, who did some very underrated films in the 1990s. Start with Amateur or Henry Fool.

14. Michael Powell films: The vast majority of films from the 1940s were black and white. But for you B&W phobics, Michael Powell directed 4 glorious Technicolor masterpieces during that decade: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus (my favorite), and The Red Shoes. Fans of Psycho and Frenzy may wish to check out his 1960 film Peeping Tom.

Occasionally, a film by a major director may be slightly overlooked because it is overshadowed by better known films by the same director. The Coen brother’s Miller’s Crossing, Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, Stephen Soderberg’s Sex, Lies and Videotape, Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, Coppola’s The Conversation, William Friedkin’s Sorcerer. Many of these are just as good as the director’s more famous films, in some cases even better.

[Film purists will insist that Wages of Fear is better than Sorcerer, and they are correct. But it’s B&W and in French, and Sorcerer is still an excellent film.]

Keep in mind that the greatest films of all time were mostly done earlier than the majority of those in the list above—say the 1920s through the 1970s. Perhaps I’ll do a future post on those.

Please add recommendations to the comment section.

PS. I found this comment on Bad Timing in Wikipedia:

Russell's performance was praised by critic Roger Ebert, who wrote: "If there is any reason to see this film, however, it is the performance by Theresa Russell (who was Dustin Hoffman's lover in Straight Time). She is only 22 or 23, and yet her performance is astonishingly powerful. She will be in better films, I hope, and is the only participant who need not be ashamed of this one."

Ebert was wrong on both counts. The film is excellent, and she was never again in a better film.