Greatest Movies No One's Ever Heard Of

[BattleFranky69]

I wasn't sure if this was already a thread but given how many off-the-radar movies are released all the time, I figured there should at least be something to let everyone bring up and talk about the movies they've discovered that are incredibly awesome but which are so far off the mainstream that no one's ever heard of them. The more esoteric, the better, so hopefully we'll all find some good ones to check out and some recommendations.

Here's one of my recent favorites: A Cuban Zom-Com (Zombie Comedy) I stumbled across at my local library. I rented it, watched it, loved it, and went out and bought a copy from my local used video store so I could own it, that's how good it was.

It's called Juan of the Dead. I didn't watch the trailer prior to the film itself but I think you might be enticed by it, so give it a whirl:

[Robby]

Fish Story. Japanese film that came out in 2009. Greg's hype over it forced me to watch it as soon as a fansub was available, and then bought the dvd as soon as it got a stateside release nearly two years later. Its just a fantastic mix of multiple genres, and the first time through it's just such a crazy thing. I've watched it a bunch of times now showing it to new people each time, but I've watched parts of it way more than that. It was easily on my top ten films for a while but it's lost a little bit almost nine years later with too much familiarity.

I wish I could forget everything about it and watch it again for the first time.

Not gonna post the trailer because I think the trailer gives too much away. Just go in blind.

This song



Will save the world.

I don't know if a subbed version of this movie is available yet but I just saw it and it was FUCKING GREAT. No one said shit about this film when it was released and it's easily the best movie I've seen this year. Do yourself a favor. Don't watch any trailers. Don't read any reviews. Just see it.

This is what I expected out of 20th Century Boys, BUT NEVER GOT.

GREAT ENTERTAINMENT FOLKS.

I think it was about 20 minutes in that I got the feeling I hadn't gotten since, oh, seeing Pulp Fiction for the first time. Where you have NO idea where the story is going or how these unreleated segments work and tie together, but you can tell the craft is so solid that you're assured it will come together and pay off and that every detail is deliberate.

[Mr. Zoro]

Dang, Robby beat me to it. So consider this a 2nd opinion, Fish Story is fantastic. It was on Netflix years ago, might still be?

And it really is best to go in with knowing nothing about it.

[Rolas]

The Long Goodbye, I never hear people talk about this movie. Kinda slow paced, but a good take on film noir story with the main character being hard boiled in 60s/70s California. Elliot Gould pulls off one solid performance as a snarky Philip Marlowe.

[BattleFranky69]

I have an immense esoteric DVD collection so I'm going to be posting quite a few titles, hopefully enough others will hop on board so I can keep going without having to double-post.

Anyone here a fan of Kung Fu Hustle? Shaolin Soccer? Journey to the West? Mermaid? Stephen Chow, famous Hong Kong director, started gaining real momentum with that list but before that he was in a less popular but still just as hilariously well-put-together pair of films called The Royal Tramp and its sequel. It was released by Dragon Dynasty with both the matching subtitles and a more humorously Westernized dub and subtitles so you can literally watch it twice and almost be seeing two different movies, depending on how you look at it. I strongly recommend both if your sense of humor is such that you're into the Three Stooges even now, as I am (those guys will always be timeless to me).



I'll admit that trailer doesn't do it any justice at all, so please, give the full version a whirl.

[Conekiller]

Shaolin Soccer is a damn Masterpiece!

[BattleFranky69]

New Zealand horror flicks, post-Peter Jackson's heyday, are largely pretty good. I'll mention a few others but this one is my current favorite. If you like the vibe of Shaun of the Dead-style horror comedy, you'll probably dig this heavy metal themed one with a younger, more energetic personality than the aforementioned, more popular film.

[MrPecans]

My favorite movies that most people I meet haven't seen:

The Apartment - 1960, directed by Billy Wilder who is known to you (hopefully) for directing Sunset Blvd and many other things. He's actually my favorite director, and this is my favorite of his films, and in my top five movies, in the number two spot. It rides the line between comedy and drama in a way that I don't generally see (though Wilder is adept at this). The main character is C. C. Baxter, who seeks to get ahead in his gigantic New York office building by allowing his seniors at the firm to use his APARTMENT for their extra-marital affairs. Things get interesting (and then actually quite dark for 1960, but I won't spoil it) when he finds out that his big crush, the elevator girl with a pixie-cut, is sleeping with the head of the firm at his place - and she finds out that said boss is lying about leaving his wife for her. They both get depressed, but eventually sparks fly between them. The main character is a spineless nice-guy-ish character, but in a time period when that wasn't yet ubiquitous, so it makes for an interesting time capsule, on top of being quite funny and heartfelt.

All About Eve - My fifth favorite film. All About Eve is, to me, the movie I've seen with the wittiest dialogue. Verbal fencing has never been so spicy as in this 1950s melodrama of an actress who lies and betrays her way to stardom, weaving a heartless web of deceit. The movie's most sinister (and most enjoyable) character though, is a theater critic, who takes the titular Eve under his wing - and he is voiced by the suave George Sanders, the voice of Shere Khan in the original Disney Jungle Book.

Stalag 17 - Another quintessential Billy Wilder dramadey (before the term existed). The action takes place in a German prison camp in WW2, where a group of American soldiers split their time between killing boredom (by either spying on Russian female prisoners, betting on mice racing, or playing volleyball) and trying to escape the camp. Their escape plans are elaborate, and should be fool-proof, but they keep getting caught - leading to the realization that among them is a German spy posing as an American soldier. Veering on slap stick one minute, and then as tense as any thriller the next, Stalag 17 is a true underrated masterpiece.

Key Largo - Key Largo is a 1940s Humphrey Bogart movie, created hot on the heels of Casablanca. Like Casablanca - Bogart plays a tough guy who sticks his neck out for no one, yadda yadda yadda, but the plot is claustrophobic and, despite containing romance, is not nearly romantic. Bogart plays a solider who has journeyed to the Florida Keys to meet the father and widow of a close war buddy, who own and operate a hotel. When he arrives however, things are amiss - the hotel is empty, aside from a few shady customers who have rented the place out. It turns out that these customers are members of a ruthless gang, with Edward G. Robinson at the helm, as the main villain. If you don't know the name, you certainly know him through cartoon parodies of a gangster saying "Myeah, see, myeah." He dominates the film - and the hotel - as everyone is trapped together for a night while a tropical storm rages outside. Outstanding. To me, it is Casablanca's equal.

All of these movies are currently in my top ten, check em out!

[Sugeeking]

My favorite movies that most people I meet haven't seen:

The three I watched from your list are all fantastic, only missing Stalag 17. The apartment is one of my top all-time favorites and All about Eve is not far behind, but I'd like to give a shout-out to Key Largo. I watched it thinking it would be kind of a run-of-the-mill enjoyable noir but it turned out surprisingly intense and that atmosphere was suffocating. I like it better than Casablanca.

Great thread, by the way. I think I have a lot to say here because as a Chaotic Cinephile™ I often end up diverting from the canon and watching a lot of random stuff instead of the mainstream and established classics. A lot of times I end up watching rather forgettable stuff, but finding gems this way is really satisfying.

One of these moments happened with Happy End, a Czech film from 1967 by director Oldrich Lipský. The Czech New Wave is a movement I have watched a relatively huge amount from, and in general it's a kind of cinema that I like, both for what these films offer and the way they bend the rules of storytelling and filmmaking, and for personal and emotional affinity reasons. Happy End was one of the first films I watched from this New Wave and arguably the one that made me want to explore it seriously.

Basically, this is the story of a man who finds his wife cheating on him and kills her. A pretty standard crime drama, you know.

Except the whole movie is narrated backwards. Even the dialogues. The movements. Everything. This gimmick alone made the movie really fascinating to watch, but there's something more to it. The acknowledgement that the whole perspective changes. A murder becomes an act of resurrection. A birth becomes the end of a life. What in a standard method of storytelling would be just a forgettable little tale, turns into a whole and active reflection on the act of narrating itself. A wonderful experimental piece, filled to the brim with dark comedy, at times genuinely disturbing (reassembling a corpse and bringing it back to life...) and always witty and playfully ironic.

The whole movie is available in YouTube with english subs and it's quite short, so check it out if you are interested:

[MrPecans]

The three I watched from your list are all fantastic, only missing Stalag 17. The apartment is one of my top all-time favorites and All about Eve is not far behind, but I'd like to give a shout-out to Key Largo. I watched it thinking it would be kind of a run-of-the-mill enjoyable noir but it turned out surprisingly intense and that atmosphere was suffocating. I like it better than Casablanca.

Great thread, by the way. I think I have a lot to say here because as a Chaotic Cinephile™ I often end up diverting from the canon and watching a lot of random stuff instead of the mainstream and established classics. A lot of times I end up watching rather forgettable stuff, but finding gems this way is really satisfying.

One of these moments happened with Happy End, a Czech film from 1967 by director Oldrich Lipský. The Czech New Wave is a movement I have watched a relatively huge amount from, and in general it's a kind of cinema that I like, both for what these films offer and the way they bend the rules of storytelling and filmmaking, and for personal and emotional affinity reasons. Happy End was one of the first films I watched from this New Wave and arguably the one that made me want to explore it seriously.

Basically, this is the story of a man who finds his wife cheating on him and kills her. A pretty standard crime drama, you know.

Except the whole movie is narrated backwards. Even the dialogues. The movements. Everything. This gimmick alone made the movie really fascinating to watch, but there's something more to it. The acknowledgement that the whole perspective changes. A murder becomes an act of resurrection. A birth becomes the end of a life. What in a standard method of storytelling would be just a forgettable little tale, turns into a whole and active reflection on the act of narrating itself. A wonderful experimental piece, filled to the brim with dark comedy, at times genuinely disturbing (reassembling a corpse and bringing it back to life...) and always witty and playfully ironic.

The whole movie is available in YouTube with english subs and it's quite short, so check it out if you are interested:

That movie sounds really interesting! Kinda like Irreversible but, I assume, way less disturbing? I don’t think I’ve seen any Czech new wave.

Awesome to see someone on here with taste like yours! I’m a member of Chaotic Cinema on Facebook. Is that what you were referring to?

[Sugeeking]

That movie sounds really interesting! Kinda like Irreversible but, I assume, way less disturbing? I don’t think I’ve seen any Czech new wave.

Awesome to see someone on here with taste like yours! I’m a member of Chaotic Cinema on Facebook. Is that what you were referring to?

It's a bit more quirky than Irreversible because the characters move backwards, while in Irreversible the narrative units that go backwards are entire scenes (the characters going out at night, sleeping, etc.). It's definitely less violent and disturbing, that movie was pretty intense. This one has some but pretty tame in comparison.

If you ever get interested on the Czech new wave I think this one is a good gateway. Also some other movies like Daisies or Valerie and her week of wonders if you want to start with the quirky and surreal just to have a taste of the creativity of this movement, or Closely watched trains if you want something more conventional and easy to enjoy for starters.

Thanks for your words! And no, actually, I'm not part of Chaotic Cinema. I knew I had read the term somewhere but I didn't associate it with anything, I just thought it fit my viewing habits a lot due to how out of order they are. The group seems pretty interesting, did it have a website or blog at some point?

[MrPecans]

I'm potentially interested in every film movement. If I was in the Straw-Hat crew, "I wanna know everything about the history of film!" would be my going to the Grand-Line declaration.

[BattleFranky69]

I'm not sure if these films are something no one's ever heard of (every time I bring them up to any of my friends, they haven't, so I assume it's the same with the general public), but F/X and F/X 2 are a pair of very fascinating practical-effects driven films. They're about a special effects director implicated in a few murder investigations, and he uses his expertise, knowledge and technology to both evade capture and expose the real culprits. Good stuff, I highly recommend them:

[Nilitch]

I fucking hate Irreversible

[Sugeeking]

I fucking hate Irreversible

I don't like it either. The camera tricks were nauseating, but I actually didn't get at all the strong visceral impression Noé was looking for. I was pretty desensitized to anything on screen. I stand alone was much more effective.

[BattleFranky69]

Anyone get a chance to see Man Bites Dog? It's a really weird one about a camera crew that follows around what I think was a serial killer and/or hitman with a quirky personality while he goes about his business. Some of the scenes are hilariously crazy.

[Nilitch]

I don't like it either. The camera tricks were nauseating, but I actually didn't get at all the strong visceral impression Noé was looking for. I was pretty desensitized to anything on screen. I stand alone was much more effective.

It's far from being that only. This movie is so fucking violent, it's unbearable to watch. One really must be a nihilist to be fascinated by a rape and someone completely smashing a person's face with an extinguisher. The whole film is polarized on these two scenes. The rest is just an embellishment. And honestly, it's fucking boring--- even those two scenes were un-interesting to me

[BattleFranky69]

Well, as long as we're on the subject of films with repugnant violence, might I recommend Cannibal Holocaust? It's a film that was banned in quite a few countries for its alleged acts of actual violence (which you can tell are totally fake when you watch it) but also for its admitted acts of violence against live animals in about half a dozen situations. It's straight-up exploitation and makes no apologies about it, but when you get to the end and the protagonist asks, "who are the real monsters here?", it's a truly biting social commentary and I liked how it turns things on their heads by the time you find out what really went down in the jungle.

[markin]

There are many movies that are greatest but many do not know about that and they are The fall, Man from Earth, Annonymous etc. To know more about them https://techbloghub.page.tl/

[BattleFranky69]

Well, this is meant to be more subjective to the forums users, in that you could submit one that you personally think is great but that isn't very popular. Having a list on another site kind of defeats the purpose and still wouldn't unearth those hidden gems it doesn't account for.

And now that the director has risen in popularity due to Thor: Ragnarok, I'm not sure if this one is still unheard of for most people (but everyone around me hasn't seen it without my letting them know, so...) but he co-directed it with Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords, and they both co-star in it. It's a mockumentary, about vampires living in New Zealand and becoming more accustomed to modern things like the internet and whatnot. "What We Do In The Shadows". Absolutely hysterical and a must-see.