best obscure/underrated films
chrono order
stuff with under 1000 votes or under a 7.0 rating that i think is very good (at least 8/10)
will try to update this to remove titles that no longer meet this criteria
stuff with under 1000 votes or under a 7.0 rating that i think is very good (at least 8/10)
will try to update this to remove titles that no longer meet this criteria
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204 titles
- DirectorWilliam K.L. DicksonStarsWilliam K.L. DicksonThe earliest extant sound film. William K.L. Dickson stands in the background next to a huge sound pickup horn connected to a Thomas Edison phonograph recorder. As he plays a violin, two men dance in the foreground. This film was made to demonstrate a new Thomas Edison machine, the Kinetophone. These machines were Kinetoscope peepshow viewers mated with Thomas Edison wax cylinder phonographs. But the Kinetophone never caught on and this film was never released. The film still exists, but the phonograph soundtrack has been lost.
- DirectorD.W. GriffithStarsLillian GishMae MarshHenry B. WalthallThe Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.
- DirectorLouis FeuilladeStarsMusidoraÉdouard MathéMarcel LévesqueAn intrepid reporter and his loyal friend battle a bizarre secret society of criminals known as The Vampires.
- DirectorAbel GanceStarsRomuald JoubéMaxime DesjardinsSéverin-MarsThe story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.
- DirectorCharles SheelerPaul StrandThis groundbreaking silent documentary captures the beauty and majesty of the New York City in its streets, skyscrapers, bridges, rail yards and harbors.
- DirectorRobert FloreySlavko VorkapichStarsJules RaucourtVoya GeorgeRobert FloreyA wannabe movie star experiences the surreal horrors of dehumanization at the bottom of Hollywood's social ladder as his hopes for success vanish and his identity is reduced to a number.
- DirectorHerman G. WeinbergStarsErna BergmanWilly HildebrandA story told with few words. We see a solitary man and a solitary woman, each alone with their thoughts. She is in the country, staring out a window. Nature is quiet, waiting for spring, trees are bare. He is in the city, walking from the docks, watching, somewhat aimless. She walks a country lane. Both are alone. She writes him a letter, offering an opportunity. Will he take it?
- DirectorJean VigoStarsJean TarisJean Vigo films the talents of great swimming champion Jean Taris performing different acts. Vigo film technique allied with Taris swimming style are intertwined with grace and effect.
- DirectorBoris BarnetStarsYelena KuzminaMikhail ZharovNikolay BogolyubovOutskirts is an internationally renowned masterpiece of early sound cinema. In a remote Russian village during World War I, colorful and nuanced characters experience divided loyalties: family loyalty vs. personal desire, nationalism vs. transcendent humanism.
- DirectorBoris BarnetSamad MardanovStarsYelena KuzminaLev SverdlinNikolay KryuchkovTwo best friends shipwreck on an island in the Caspian Sea and fall in love with the same woman while helping the villagers of their new home.
- DirectorHans RichterStarsJack BittnerLibby HolmanJosh WhiteAfter learning how to look inside himself, a poetic bum sells people vivid dreams.
- DirectorJohn FordStarsCharles WinningerArleen WhelanJohn RussellWilliam Pittman Priest has to use all his wiles to retain his position as judge in his Kentucky hometown, while continuing to be a voice for the town's underclass and for democratic values.
- DirectorJosef von SternbergStarsAkemi NegishiTadashi SuganumaKisaburo SawamuraFrom June 1944, twelve Japanese seamen are stranded for seven years on an abandoned and forgotten island called Anatahan.
- DirectorChristopher MaclaineA short film which explores the last day in the lives of six different people.
- DirectorRobert BreerAn experimental short film from Robert Breer utilizing various colors and light.
- DirectorPeter KubelkaAn early experimental short film produced by Peter Kubelka.
- DirectorRobert BreerAbstract figures rapidly shape-shift until finally settling into the form of a man and his dog, but only for a moment.
- DirectorJohn FordStarsJohn WayneMaureen O'HaraDan DaileyA biography of Navy flier-turned-screenwriter Frank W. "Spig" Wead.
- DirectorMaya DerenStarsDon FreisingerRichard SandiferPatricia FerrierDancers, shown in photographic negative, perform a series of ballet moves, solos, pas de deux, larger groupings. The dancers glide and rotate untroubled by gravity against a slowly changing starfield background. Their movements are accompanied by music scored for a small ensemble of woodwind and percussion.
- DirectorBruce ConnerStarsTheodore RooseveltClips of atomic explosions, pornography, and B-movies are spliced together to evoke certain emotions.
- DirectorRoberto RosselliniSeveral stories depicting the landscapes and fauna of India are mixed with documentary footage.
- DirectorStan BrakhageAn experimental short film of flashing images made by Stan Brakhage.
- DirectorJerry LewisStarsJerry LewisHelen TraubelPat StanleyA clueless, recently-single graduate unwittingly takes a job as a servant in a mansion inhabited by dozens of young women.
- DirectorEd EmshwillerStarsBecky ArnoldMac EmshwillerIntroducing some innovative film techniques, Emshwiller won a Special Award at the Brussels Experimental Film Festival for this expression of internal anguish. He described the film as "The confrontation of a man and his torment. Juxtaposed against his external composure are images of a woman and lights in distortion, with tension heightened by the sounds of power saws and a heartbeat."
- DirectorStan BrakhageA "found foliage" film composed of insects, leaves, and other detritus sandwiched between two strips of perforated tape.
- DirectorStan BrakhageStarsStan BrakhageJane WodeningAn experimental film from Stan Brakhage in which a man and his dog ascend a wooded mountain.
- DirectorZoltán HuszárikFrom time immemorial, man has enjoyed the horse in all manners, as an art object, a speed racer, a cart-puller, and in circus acts. Cars are taking the horses' place in transportation, and horses are being slaughtered for meat. Will men hear the whinnying of the horses again?
- DirectorLarry JordanAn experimental short from Larry Jordan in which a horse rider and gymnast are filmed.
- DirectorMarlen KhutsievStarsValentin PopovNikolay GubenkoStanislav LyubshinFollowing three lifelong friends who return to Moscow after military service, we see their aspirations juxtaposed against everyday life in 1960 Soviet Union.
- DirectorPaul MorrisseyAndy WarholStarsBrigid BerlinRandy BorscheidtChristian PäffgenLacking a formal narrative, Warhol's art house classic follows various residents of the Chelsea Hotel in 1966 New York City, presented in a split screen with a single audio track in conjunction with one side of screen.
- DirectorJohn FordStarsAnne BancroftSue LyonMargaret LeightonIn 1935 China, seven dedicated missionary women try to protect themselves from the advances of a barbaric Mongolian warlord and his cut-throat gang of warriors.
- DirectorRoberto RosselliniStarsJean-Marie PatteRaymond JourdanCésar SilvagniAfter the death of Cardinal Mazarin, young king Louis XIV decides to assert his power to control the aristocracy.
- DirectorMonte HellmanStarsMillie PerkinsJack NicholsonWill HutchinsA mysterious woman persuades two cowboys to help her in a revenge scheme.
- DirectorOtto Muehl
- DirectorDon LevyStarsMichael GothardGabriella LicudiPeter StephensWhen young poet Max (Michael Gothard) hires a marketing company to turn his suicide-by-jumping into a mass-media spectacle, he finds that his subversive intentions are quickly diluted into a reactionary gesture, and his motivations are revealed as a desperate attempt to seek attention through celebrity.
- DirectorMichael SnowStarsHollis FramptonLyne GrossmanNaoto NakazawaClaimed by some to be one of the most unconventional and experimental films ever made, Wavelength is a structural film of a 45-minute long zoom in on a window over a period of a week. Very unconventional and experimental, indeed.
- DirectorStan BrakhageAfter the title, a white screen gives way to a series of frames suggestive of abstract art, usually with one or two colors dominating and rapid change in the images. Two figures emerge from this jungle of color: the first, a shirtless man, appears twice, coming into focus, then disappearing behind the bursts and patterns of color, then reappearing; the second figure appears later, in the right foreground. This figure suggests someone older, someone of substance. The myth?
- DirectorJacques RivetteStarsBulle OgierJean-Pierre KalfonJosée DestoopDuring the rehearsals for the production of the tragedy Andromaque, the leading actress and her director, a couple behind the scenes, can't find a way to leave their personal problems at home. And life imitates fiction, creating a real tragedy for this couple when the man finds comfort with other women while the actress prefers to stay focused on her work, as if nothing is happening with her partner.
- DirectorSantiago ÁlvarezAn agit-prop documentary marking the death of Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chí Minh, using found footage to link his work to worldwide political movements including the Cuban revolution and resistance within the USA to the Vietnam war.
- DirectorDanièle HuilletJean-Marie StraubStarsAdriano ApràAnne BrumagneEnnio LauricellaPierre Corneille's Othon adapted faithfully to cinema, set in the ruins of the Rome of now-a-days.
- DirectorJack ChambersA surreal sequence of images of nature and London, Ontario, life and death.
- DirectorRoland KlickStarsMario AdorfMarquard BohmAnthony DawsonIn a deserted mining town at the end of nowhere three desperate men fight over a suitcase full of cash.
- DirectorAkio JissôjiStarsMichiko TsukasaRyô TamuraEiji OkadaNear a remote Buddhist monastery, a young man falls in love with his sister and gets her pregnant. After a monk finds out, the young man becomes an assistant to a master sculptor, only to proceed to complicate matters with his affairs.
- DirectorDusan MakavejevStarsMilena DravicIvica VidovicJagoda KaloperAn homage to the work of psychologist Wilhelm Reich, matched with a story about a Yugoslavian girl's affair with a Russian skater. Sexual repression, social systems and the orgone theory are explored.
- DirectorHollis FramptonStarsMichael SnowFrampton slowly burning his black and white photographs as he describes and tells the story behind them.
- DirectorBruce BaillieSkin, eyes, knees, horses, hair, sun, earth. Old song of Mexican hero, Valentin, sung by blind Jose Santollo Nadiso en Santa Cruz de la Soledad.
- DirectorShûji TerayamaStarsEimei SasakiMasahiro SaitoYukiko KobayashiAn angst-ridden teen dealing with his dysfunctional family hits the streets. The story is inter-cut with various psychedelic, energetic vignettes.
- DirectorMichael SnowOne of most influential films in avant-garde cinema, this experimental film by Michael Snow was shot over a period of 24 hours using a robotic arm, and consists entirely of preprogrammed movements. Snow programmed all the robotic movements so that they never moved the same way twice, so there are differences in every motion of the camera.
- DirectorJacques RivetteSuzanne SchiffmanStarsMichèle MorettiHermine KaragheuzKaren PuigFollowing the May 1968 civil unrest in France, a deaf-mute and a con artist simultaneously stumble upon the remnants of a secret society.
- DirectorDennis HopperStarsJulie AdamsDaniel AdesRichmond L. AguilarAfter a film production wraps in Peru, an American wrangler decides to stay behind to witness the ways that filmmaking affects the locals.
- DirectorDavid RimmerAn experimental film of footage, negatives, flashing lights, and color of a woman shaking out cellophane.
- DirectorArtavazd PeleshianThe last collaboration of Artavazd Peleshian and cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov is a film-essay about Armenia's shepherds, about the contradiction and the harmony between man and nature, scored to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
- DirectorJacques RivetteStarsPierre BaillotGilette BarbierJean-Pierre BastidA shorter version of Out 1 (1971), however some of the omitted scenes of the long version are included.
- DirectorNicholas RayStarsRichard BockTom FarrellDanny FisherThe most complete, newly restored version of Nicholas Ray's experimental masterpiece embodies the director's practice of film-making as a "communal way of life." Ray plays himself in the film, serving as mentor, friend, and artistic inspiration to his students.
- DirectorStan BrakhageTime-lapse photography of books, paintings, reflections, and light falling on textures, shot entirely through a glass ashtray.
- DirectorStan BrakhageStarsJane WodeningA light connection between Stan and Jane, evidenced by beams of lucent triangular prisms, truncated pyramids, and tetrahedrons emerging from the lens towards the aureate woman.
- DirectorJean EustacheStarsMartin LoebJacqueline DufranneJacques RomainA boy is left to his own devices when his mother refuses to pay for his schooling.
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniStarsNinetto DavoliFranco CittiFranco MerliIn ancient Arabia, a beautiful slave girl chooses a youth to be her new master, then she is kidnapped and they must search for each other. Stories are told within stories: love, travel and the whims of destiny.
- DirectorMarguerite DurasStarsDelphine SeyrigMichael LonsdaleMathieu CarrièreAnne-Marie Stretter, wife of a French diplomat, lives in 1930s India. She takes many lovers as systems of oppression decay around her.
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniStarsPaolo BonacelliGiorgio CataldiUberto Paolo QuintavalleIn World War II Italy, four fascist libertines round up nine adolescent boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of physical, mental, and sexual torture.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsSandrine BattistellaPierre OudreyAlexandre RignaultAn analysis of the power relations in an ordinary family.
- DirectorJacques RivetteStarsJuliet BertoBulle OgierJean BabiléeThe Queen of the Night battles the Queen of the Sun over a magical diamond that will allow the winner to remain on Earth, specifically in modern day Paris.
- DirectorChantal AkermanStarsChantal AkermanImpersonal and beautiful images of Akerman's life in New York are combined with letters from her loving but manipulative mother, read by Akerman herself.
- DirectorÉric RohmerStarsFabrice LuchiniAndré DussollierSolange BoulangerThe exploits of Sir Perceval, a legendary exemplar of knightly chivalry and one of the champions of King Arthur's Round Table.
- DirectorRobert BreerAn animated short film created by the artist Robert Breer.
- DirectorToshio MatsumotoA psychedelic visual accomplishment with a wide variety of elaborate textures (often composed of religious and other symbols) converging towards the center of the screen.
- DirectorDanièle HuilletJean-Marie StraubStarsOlimpia CarlisiGuido LombardiGino FeliciTwo segments. The first one arranges six stories from Cesare Pavese's "Dialoghi con Leucò", taken from classical mythology. The second segment is taken from Pavese's novel "La luna e i falò": after WWII the emigrant 'The Bastard' comes back to his village in the Langhe (northern Italy) to find that everyone he knew has died and the war has deeply changed relationships between people.
- DirectorHollis FramptonAn experimental short film by Hollis Frampton in which colors, periods of darkness, and images are used.
- DirectorGlauber RochaStarsMaurício do ValleJece ValadãoAntonio PitangaFour Third-World Christs try to stop the American industrialist John Brahms in Glauber Rocha's experimental film inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini's murder.
- DirectorMichael CiminoStarsKris KristoffersonChristopher WalkenJohn HurtDuring the Johnson County War in 1890 Wyoming, a sheriff born into wealth does his best to protect immigrant farmers from rich cattle interests.
- DirectorJacques RivetteStarsMaria SchneiderJoe DallesandroDanièle GégauffElizabeth sends telegrams to her old boyfriend Ben in NYC and to her younger sister Leo in Rome to join her in Paris, where she is selling her dead father's estate. When Ben and Leo arrive, a mysterious adventure begins.
- DirectorStan BrakhageA collage of two-dimensional images of vegetation, each appearing only for a moment, sometimes as a single image, more often with other bits of stem, leaf, bud, or petal. Often we see only the outline of objects against a black background. Black and green are occasionally joined by fragments of orange or of white and blue. The objects in the frame don't move but they are quickly replaced by another collage, giving the feel of rapid motion. Each collage is crisp, its lines etched against the background of black and later of white. Whitman anyone, or Hieronymus Bosch? Although there is no soundtrack, the rapidity of changing images and colors suggests a riot.
- DirectorStan Brakhage
- DirectorJacques RivetteStarsBulle OgierPascale OgierPierre ClémentiYoung unhinged female ex-con with a motorcycle helps a sickly young homeless woman in red discover what the map of Paris she took from her gangster boyfriend leads to.
- DirectorAbel FerraraStarsZoë LundBogeyAlbert SinkysA timid and mute seamstress goes insane after being attacked and raped twice in one day, in which she takes to the streets of New York City after dark and randomly shoots men with a .45 caliber pistol.
- DirectorDerek JarmanStarsKarl BowenGraham DowieChristopher HobbsA collection of Super 8 films shot by Derek Jarman between 1972 and 1975, edited to the music of Throbbing Gristle.
- DirectorMichelangelo AntonioniStarsTomas MilianDaniela SilverioChristine BoissonA director's wife leaves him. He pursues another woman who also departs. This inspires a movie idea about women's relationships. He searches for an actress to star in the film and his life.
- DirectorRobert Breer
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsIsabelle HuppertHanna SchygullaMichel PiccoliA film director has an inspirational crisis while working on the production, Passion, and struggles with the nature of work and art.
- DirectorBéla TarrStarsJudit PogányRóbert KoltaiKyri AmbrusA husband and wife, drifting apart, reflect on the events leading up to the worst argument of their marriage.
- DirectorTakashi ItôStarsBin ShimadaHaunting light and haunted spaces, otherworldly movement and abstracted time. A ghost visits an apartment complex.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsMaruschka DetmersJacques BonnafféMyriem RousselA woman involved with a terrorist group becomes dangerously close to the police officer guarding the bank they plan to rob.
- DirectorJacques RivetteStarsJane BirkinGeraldine ChaplinAndré DussollierA play within a play within a play within a play. Actors perform a play in a house; an audience member invites them to work in his own home improvising a play around his own life. The line between fiction and reality blurs.
- DirectorEdward YangStarsChin TsaiHsiao-Hsien HouI-Chen KoLung is a former member of the national Little League team who lives with his old childhood sweetheart Ah-chin, a traditional family woman. Although they live together, Ah-chin is weary of Lung's past liaison with another girl.
- DirectorPeter TscherkasskyA tangled network woven with tiny particles of movements broken out of found footage and compiled anew: the elements of the "to the left, to the right, back and forth" grammar of narrative space, discharged from all semantic burden. What remains is a self-sufficient swarm of splinters, fleeting vectors of lost direction, furrowed with the traces of the manual process of production. (Peter Tscherkassky)
- DirectorAnne-Marie MiévilleStarsBruno CremerAurore ClémentRebecca Hampton11 year old Marie is terribly upset by her parents' separation. Her reaction is to cut herself off from the world and take refuge in books, music and dance. This short film is a complement to Jean-Luc Godard's film Je vous salue Marie.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsLaurent TerzieffAurelle DoazanJean-Pierre LéaudAt a Paris hotel, a hotel detective fired after a murder took place there continues to investigate, helped by his inspector nephew and girlfriend. A boxing manager, owing money to a couple and the mafia, rides on a match next day.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsMyriem RousselThierry RodePhilippe LacosteA college student gets pregnant without having intercourse, affecting people close and unrelated to her in different ways.
- DirectorStan BrakhageDante's Divine Comedy depicted as thousands of abstract paintings by Stan Brakhage himself.
- DirectorJames BenningStarsRhonda BellElion SucherIn "Landscape Suicide" Benning continues his examination of Americana through the stories of two murderers. Ed Gein was a Wisconsin farmer and multiple murderer who taxidermied his victims in the 1950s. Bernadette Prott was a California teenager who stabbed a friend to death over an insult in 1984. Benning's distanced approach to such grisly material is as far removed as possible from sensationalism, however. Although the acts of murder are both bizarre and violent, Benning dwells on them only minimally, emphasizing instead the details of psychological motivation, which in both cases seem frighteningly mundane. Benning has created a script which is a masterpiece of understated colloquial writing, and the actors he employs to re-enact confessional testimony and incidents recounted in trial transcripts perform with a flatly convincing lack of affect reminiscent of Gary Gilmore. The two monologues are embedded in Benning's characteristic meditations of landscape: long shots of the Wisconsin farmlands, general stores, dirt roads and pick-up trucks, and the carefully tended lawns, swimming pools, sprawling bungalows and malls of the middle-class California suburb. These images are offered in the classically spare mise-en-scene which Benning has perfected in his work as a cinematic poet of the contemporary American environment. Here, in his most accessible film so far, the beautiful, open vistas are dense with the significance of the catastrophes they engendered
- DirectorJoris IvensStarsJoris IvensHenxiang HanZhuang LiuAn elderly, asthmatic filmmaker travels to China, hoping to film the wind.
- DirectorJacques RivetteStarsBulle OgierBenoît RégentFejria DelibaA drama following 4 women at stage school. Considered by some to be the summation of director Jacques Rivette's work as a whole.
- DirectorDavid BlairStarsFather BessarionDavid BlairWilliam S. BurroughsA man recalls the story of how his bees implanted in him a bee television, causing him to lose all perception of space, time, and self in the deserts of the American West.
- DirectorCarl J. SukenickStarsNeal DealosiJoe LaPennaMark TorresoSpecial CIA unit must deal with humans who mutated into beasts after being exposed to alien radiation and evil terrorists who attack the CIA base.
- DirectorGerhard ErtlSabine Hiebler
- DirectorStan BrakhageAn experimental short film of flashing images made by Stan Brakhage.
- DirectorDanièle HuilletJean-Marie StraubStarsAstrid OfnerUrsula OfnerHans DiehlA teenaged girl is executed for going against a king's wishes and honoring her brother's death.
- DirectorDjibril Diop MambétyStarsMansour DioufAmi DiakhateMamadou Mahourédia GueyeDramaan is the most popular man in Colobane, but when a woman from his past, now exorbitantly wealthy, returns to the town, things begin to change.
- DirectorStan BrakhageAn experimental short by Stan Brakhage which overlaps various footage, focusing on rocks and ice boulders, with colors and lights.