Talk about your favorite unseen movies.

I wanted to create this thread to talk about movies we love but maybe most or some of us have not seen. Please post your picks!! I want to start with two films, the first is Take Shelter (2011) with Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain. The short biopsy of the film is here on IMDB. The film features very strong performances by both Shannon and Chastain. The movie carries a very serious tone about what's real and whats not and will keep you guessing until the end. It's a slow burn but highly captivating that will keep you guessing until the end.

My second pick is Road to Perdition, (2002) with Tom Hanks, Jude Law, Daniel Craig and Paul Newman in his last featured roll before his departure. The film is a story of betrayal and reckoning as Tom Hanks plays a stern, but loyal hired muscle man for a mob boss in the 1930's. It features strong performances all around, in which Newman was nominated for an Oscar.

I would like to talk more in detail about these movies, but I'm not trying not ruin the experience these films would bring to you which is why I'm being vague.

Please share your picks!!

edit: that trailer kinda sucks and doesn't carry the tone of the film at all.

Suspect Zero is a fairly decent 2004 thriller featuring some notable names. I enjoyed it. The other film is Sublime which is another thriller movie albeit straight to DVD that has some interesting twists to it.

Surf Ninjas: the greatest movie ever made.

Pretty much anything by Werner Herzog. Unless you are a movie buff you probably don't know who he is.

@demoskinos: If you like psychological thrillers I want to add The Cell (2000) with I know lol Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughn when he still did drama.

Lopez plays a therapist who enters a criminally insane persons mind in his dreams to find the location of a missing girl. Vince Vaughn plays a detective aiding her. To this day it has some of the best costume design I've EVER seen in a film

What fantasy musical sci-fi action dramedy has the little guy from Fantasy Island, BDSM, amazing animation, gun fights, art appreciation, Danny Elfman as Satan singing Cab Calloway, and tits tits tits tits tits?

The best movie never seen.

I've successfully managed to hear about exactly none of the movies mentioned, so that's nice. I don't really watch movies.

My pick would have to be Trollhunter though. It's a Blair Witch style movie featuring trolls, and it's surprisingly good.

Begotten.
That was just weeeird and yet entertaining as hell to watch

@xymox: Trollhunter is fucking amazing, I haven't had the same feel watching a movie like that since Jurassic Park in 1994 on the big screen.

Not sure how popular it actually is, but Tenacious D is certainly a must-see. Guess I watched 3 times already

A close friend who loves 90's era movies as well as The Godfather series and Al Pacino movies (just giving you an idea of his taste), recommended Road to Perdition very strongly. I watched about 15 minutes and fell asleep... EXPLAIN YOURSELF, OP!

My picks:

• The Ring (1996) - A German drama movie about a beautiful woman during the Nazi era that seriously broke my heart.
• True Romance (1992) - Dat young Tarantino writing, so delicious.
• Freddy Got Fingered (2001) - Tom Green is rather entertaining.
• Stand Up Guys (2012) - Walken and Pacino being old and in amazing harmony.
• Office Space (1999) - One of the funniest flicks ever, it almost feels like a cartoon acted by real humans!
• Dazed and Confused (1993) - Classic, love just lying there half-dead and watching it roll.
• Be Cool (2005) - Awesome sequel to Get Shorty, Travolta's and Thurman's chemistry is resilient, and the movie is damn funny.
• Cannibal! The Musical (1994) - Trey and Matt's most hilarious production outside of South Park.

The Hidden Fortress (1958)

Ninth Gate (1999) - yes I know Polanski is a dick, I still like this movie

Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)

Tokyo Drifter (1966)

Headhunters (2011)

The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Love that movie. I remember I was the only person in the video store who ever rented it back then, so the guy behind the counter just said I could keep it. I still have the VHS somewhere, and I got the DVD last year.

I miss my childhood! And old-school independent video stores that had EVERYTHING.

Meltdown (aka High risk) It's a mid-'90s Hong Kong action movie starring Jet Li before he was really famous. It came out here in the early 2000's as Meltdown. It's a pretty cool action movie that unapologetically spoofs hong kong action movies of the era. The US voice-over version is AMAZING. It almost sounds like a Jean Claude Van Damme wannabe voiced Jet Li's character. It's priceless.

Not sure how "unseen" it really is (it's certainly well-known in horror circles, but so are all sorts of obscure stuff, so my perspective is a little skewed... I was stunned to see "Begotten" mentioned, for instance), but I really, really enjoyed "Funny Games". Probably the best of the home invasion subgenre, and all the better for being a meta criticism of itself. Kind of an even more twisted Natural Born Killers.

You enjoyed it? You're a monster!

Gentleman Broncos. Man, that movie is awesome. It's one of the strangest movies I've seen, but it's just so entertaining. Also, I'll totally fist bump whoever said Surf Ninjas. Crap was tight.

Haha, I'm certainly not proud of some of the movies in my collection... the kind of stuff that should be on a sixth-generation-copied VHS tape with a title hastily scribbled on the front in Sharpie. I have my standards; I refuse to watch Serbian Film, for instance, but there's something endlessly appealing fascinating about that corner of cinema.

Lest I sound too serial-killer-y right now, It's not the gore and depravity of it (although I do appreciate the creativity that goes into it all) so much as it is the psychology that appeals to me. Funny Games, for instance, left me asking uncomfortable questions about myself and my definition of "entertainment", and that's what great art should do.

@jouseldelka: Its use of breaking the fourth wall, and being a dark comedy at heart, lightens the tone considerably. It's more interesting than horrible.

For obscure movies that I love I present La planète sauvage (The Fantastic Planet). French psychedelic animation at its best. Do not see it dubbed, and I recommend the version remastered by Eureka! The Masters of Cinema Series.

@shagge: I agree with the psychology aspect. The first Saw movie captured that as well. Classics that can also be included (right of the top of my head) would be the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Its disgusting and intriguing at the same time. You might get the same feeling from Salo, but that's up for debate.

@fetchfox: I was lucky enough to go to an animation film festival years back. They had an exhibit on films throughout animation history with concept art and cels and the like. I turned a corner and wham! Tiva was staring me in the face.

I had watched The Fantastic Planet tons of times, was a huge fan, and never realized that it was cut-out animation, I always thought it was hand-drawn. They had tons of the puppets there and many backgrounds too. Seeing them up close was like meeting a celebrity, although maybe better because I didn't have to talk to them. ;)

Anyway, fantastic movie. (see what I did there)

And if anybody's interested in some more obscure animation. Try everything by...

Jan Švankmajer

The Brothers Quay

Priit Pärn

enjoy!

@joshwent: Love it, another enthusiast. That festival sounds like a blast. I had a similar experience going to a film museum in Paris some years ago. I'll check out your links when I get the time, they definitely tickle my fancy. And if you haven't seen Gandahar, you should. Just as interesting (though not as good in my opinion), and also by René Laloux. I've ye to see Les maîtres du temps (Time Masters), it's on my Mubi list.

@mcghee said:

This trailer was at the beginning of the TMNT II VHS, which made it even more hilarious because the main dude was also Keno in TMNT II.

The only film that is coming to mind right now is a film that I watched recently, and it also came out this year, so I don't know whether I can really say it is "unknown" yet, or if it's one of my favourites, but it has certainly left a big impression on me. The film is Upstream Color which is by the same guy who did Primer (probably the best time travel flick I've seen?). I guess I feel it's eligible for this because it's not the sort of film a lot of people are going to like, because it's elliptical, has very little dialogue and is more suggestive than narrative in any sense.

The majority of people are going to write it off as arthouse nonsense, and as always with films like this they are kind of write, but it is also something really special. It's beautiful and poetic in a way that very few films manage. It's brave in the way it refuses to abandon its own idiom, and it reaps the rewards of being so singular. It has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a film, both in terms of score and in terms of really powerful, evocative, almost hyperreal foley work. It manages to really accurately convey a whole range of emotion. Most of all it is full of images that have haunted me since I watched it; in particular the image of a yellow orchid being grabbed at underwater, pulsating like a beating heart which I haven't been able to shake since I saw it.

Honestly, I would find it difficult to recommend this film to everyone, but if you are the sort of person who can sink into a film and let it wash over you like a poem, then you will find a lot to enjoy in this film, I think. A lot of people have compared it to Terrence Malik's Tree of Life, which I haven't seen. For me, the only film I can compare it to is Aronofsky's The Fountain, in that both deal in some way with crisis and recovery, both of them blend elements of the scientific with the mystical, and both of them have really strong visuals. With that said, Upstream Color is a far more successful film.

Seeing as I've mentioned it. I would also say that The Fountain is another film I really like that might not be as well known. Probably since The Wrestler and Black Swan more people will have heard of it, but it's, shall we say, mixed reception on it's release probably puts a lot of people off watching it. Personally I think it's his most ambitious, if not necessarily his most successful, film (the latter honour goes to Pi). I used to say that he should have left out the Spanish Conquistador storyline, but I realised later that each of the film's three sections kind of relies on the other two to make any sense. Ultimately what you get is a film that isn't necessarily always enjoyable, and that is a bit of a tangle structurally despite being fairly easy to follow because what is good and bad and what is necessary and unnecessary can be difficult to separate. What is great about the film is that it has some really beautiful SFX, and one of the most honest and well drawn responses to mortality that I've ever seen in a film.

Christiane F comes to mind man. Some sad shit, and she is only 14.

@shagge: Funny Games is great! agreed.

I am also a huge fan of Take Shelter. Movies like that, with lengthy build ups usually let me down, but the ending is excellent.

Here are a few I can think of off the top.Sorry if anyone already mentioned any.

Run Lola Run (German movie with a great storyline and some cool visuals/cinematography. Stars Johnny Depp's first wife from Blow)

True Romance (early Tarantino)

Election (a movie about a high school student council election. Matthew Broderick in the bath tub is PRICELESS)

Made (sort of a spiritual successor to Swingers)

Memento (Guy Pierce with amnesia)

Timecrimes (AMAZING time travel movie where everytime the guy travels he makes a weirder clone of himself)

Slam (one of my all time fav's. Stars Saul Williams as an aspiring poet/rapper)

Sorry, I just kept thinking of more and more! Great thread. Nice work OP!

I don't really have any favorites that are "unseen," but I do have some that I think more people should have seen/should see.

The House on 92nd Street - Based on true stories of the FBI's infiltration of Nazi spy rings

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - Gorgeously imaginative

Jane Austin's Mafia! - Good and stupid

May - Rorie introduced me to this one, over at Screened

Drawing a pretty massive blank.

Ohh, The Killing by Stanley Kubrick. Tarantino (and scorsese, to an extent) were heavely influenced by that movie. Hell, Reservoir Dogs might as well be a modern version of the killing. And for a movie made almost 60 years ago, it's as razor sharp as the day it came out. The criterion Blu Ray of that movie is phenomenal as well

LA Confidential, while popular when it was released, seems to have been forgotten by most (even though it was the best movie of 1997. GOD DAMN YOU TITANIC).

Here's some others

Badlands (A better bonnie and clyde)

Days of Heaven (one of the most beautifully shot films ever made)

The Straight Story (overlooked highlight of David Lynch's filmography)

The King of Comedy (My all time favorite Scorsese film)

Dogville (quasi stage play on film.The set design is as minamalist as you can get. I highly recommend you stop whatever you're doing and watch it)

There's more, but those are some definite highlights

I really liked Fresh. It's kind of an urban crime thriller, but super fucked up and occasionally touching.

I guess I'd say Bunuel's Discreet Charm of the Burgeosie, and for Jodorowsky, Santa Sangre is probably his least accessible (most "unseen") film since El Topo and The Holy Mountain are more watchable for their more extreme weirdness relative to Sangre (though let's be real, Santa Sangre is fucking weird). Oh, and it's been mentioned on the Bombcast, but Zardoz is pretty good if you haven't seen it.

Out and out surrealist films are kind of cheap answers though. I'd say Tarsem Singh's The Fall is really good. Going By The Book and Castaway On The Moon are FANTASTIC Korean films, both available on Netflix. I don't really care for Jarmusch, but Dead Man is pretty excellent and it pairs well with Refn's Valhalla Rising in terms of its 'journey through Hell/Purgatory/death' themes.

Nagisa Oshima's Japanese Summer: Double Suicide is cool in terms of creating distinct and interesting characters, but it's maybe a little slow for most people (or at least it was for me, still cool though).

I'd say that Harold Lloyd movies tend to be better than they get credit for. Lloyd's generally understood as last in line behind Chaplin and Keaton (which is why I'd qualify him as "unseen"), but his movies have EXTREMELY dark undertones, which I really like. See: Safety Last! and look for the ways Lloyd is constantly metaphorically killed, Speedy and look for how Lloyd can't keep up with the world around him and is humiliated by his lack of self-perception, Dr. Jack and look for how terrible Lloyd is as a doctor and extrapolate on the harm he's doing to patients.

Last of all, they aren't "unheard of", but they are perhaps "unseen": if you haven't seen multiple Kurosawa and Godard movies you are missing out.

Edit: I also really like Shion Sono movies, but he's not for everybody.