What are your favorite lesser known movies?

Dredd

 

Great movie. Terribly underrated.

I'm not sure mine is "lesser known," but I LOVED the Mathilda movie as a kid. I could watch it for hours.




Maybe the Rurouni Kenshin movie trilogy would count? Rurouni Kenshin was my favorite manga growing up. In many ways, the original run still is. (My Hero Academia is the only thing that comes close at this time.) It had romance, comedy, action, drama, and great themes. The anime was great too from what I remember. And then in the early 2010s a live action adaptation was announced. Like many live action adaptations before (Dragon Ball) and since (Attack on Titan, Death Note*), fans were skeptical. But the first movie came out, and it was actually incredibly well done! The fights felt true to the spirit of the show, but also grounded. The acting was great, and the music was incredibly impactful. The next two seemed to up the ante, finishing up Kenshin's most famous and iconic arc with soul, spirit, and style. Two more movies just came out, covering the final arc of the original run and Kenshin's origins**, but I have yet to watch them.





Oh! And the Raid movies! Those feel more niche than lesser known, but they're some of the best martial arts and action movies of the past decade. Sadly but understandably, there won't be a third...




I also loved the Super Mario Bros movie, but that was due to me having a fun time watching as a kid instead of actually enjoying the movie for the movie's sake. ...that didn't stop me from buying it in college, for nostalgia though.





Oh, Shoplifters! It's an incredibly powerful and emotion-filled movie that explores the complexities of family and morality, and how the two don't always align for the betterment of those around them.



*I liked the first two Japanese movies, which is saying something since I don't actually like the franchise; but I wasn't a fan of the idea of the third. The American one...let's just forget it happened...
**The OVA covering the same events titled "Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal" is also a brilliant, tragic film. I love it.

 

The Final Countdown(1976). The USS Nimitz goes through a time warp back to just prior to Dec 7, 1941. F-14’s vs Japanese Zeros. Cool stuff.

 

Axe Em

 

The Good The Bad The Weird (2008)


The title may suggest that this movie is just a silly rip-off or parody of the great western epic "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", but it's not. It's its own movie and what a great one it is.
IMO one of the best Korean and western movie of all time. Already the cast is reason to watch this flick (the best Korean actors are playing the three lead characters).

Then there is another movie which I really like, but which is lesser known (probably):

The Twilight Samurai (2002)


IMO this is one of the best Samurai movies of all time. I think this movie could be a great blueprint for the Kenobi series.

 

Solo: A Star Wars Story

 

Voces Inocentes (Innocent Voices) - an anti-war movie about the Civil War in the 1980s El Salvador, told from the perspective of an 11-year-old boy. A masterpiece.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387914/

A Hidden Life - Terence Malick's most recent movie about the life of Franz Jägerstätter, a conscious objector in Austria during WWII.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5827916/

 

Moon is amazing.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 22, 2021, Original Post Date: Jun 22, 2021 ---

Continuing the Sci-fi theme, other good ones are Source Code, Event Horizon and Children of Men.

 

Staying on the sci-fi theme, how about Cube (1997). Canadian low budget sci-fi/horror movie about 6 people that somehow are put into a maze of movable cube-rooms. Interesting look into the psyche of people trapped and their struggle to learn why they are there and how to escape

 

Probably not too many people saw most of my favorites movies. Generally they're not in English language, some of them:

☆Nosferatu (1979): Werner Herzog;
☆Ivan the Terrible I and II (1944 and 1958): Eisenstein;
☆Alexander Nevski (1938): Einsenstein;
☆Fitzcarraldo (1982): Herzog;
☆Aguirre (1972): Herzog;
☆Persona (1966): Bergman;
☆Ran (1984): Kurosawa;
☆Woman in the Dunes (1964): Teshigahara;
☆Eyes Wide Shut (1999): Kubrick

Some that I remembered. Probably there are a hundred more.

 

I haven't seen these yet, but Ran is the Kurosawa movie I want to see most. But I feel like while Eyes Wide Shut and Nosferatu may not be popular, they aren't really lesser known either. Film fans know of them, even if they've never seen them. Then again, I guess that's why they sort of fit.

Speaking of foreign movies, I totally forgot Sword of the Beast and The Seven Seals! I'm not sure The Seven Seals really counts, as I feel like it rates pretty highly on classic movie lists, but it's lesser known these days.

Sword of the Beast is probably the best samurai movie I've seen. Yes, that includes Yojimbo, The Seven Samurai, the Musashi trilogy, and Rashomon.*

*Although Rashomon really doesn't count, as it's not about a samurai in the classical sense IMO.

 

I watched the Seven Seal long ago and I really liked it. But if had to pick one from Bergman it will be Persona or Cries and Whispers.

Never saw this Sword of the Beast. Will search about it.

 

Prospect and 1980s Dune

 

never heard of it

 

Run Lola Run (1999)
Watership Down (1978)
2010: The Year We Made Contact (1984)
Whisper of the Heart (1995)
Darby O’Gill (1959)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

 

Alaska (1996)

Good family/adventure film; worth seeing at least once.