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In an era with endless entertainment options, many fantastic films get overlooked. This list highlights ten amazing but lesser-known movies, including Rian Johnson's debut 'Brick' and the compelling drama 'Thunder Road'.
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00:00We as modern movie fans are suffering from an embarrassment of riches.
00:04There are simply more great films available at our fingertips at any moment
00:08than anyone can realistically watch in a lifetime.
00:11And so it's inevitable that some movies end up slipping through the cracks
00:15and getting passed by for one of many reasons.
00:18Perhaps most commonly that they just didn't have enough marketing might
00:21to stand out in a crowded field.
00:23But on purely their own merits away from the business side of the industry,
00:27these 10 incredible movies absolutely need to be seen by as many film lovers as possible.
00:33So with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture here with an amazing movies nobody knows about.
00:38Brick.
00:39It's truly bizarre that despite Rian Johnson becoming a household name
00:43thanks to both Star Wars The Last Jedi and the Knives Out franchise,
00:46that his 2005 directorial debut Brick hasn't been rediscovered in recent years.
00:52A staggeringly fearless and audacious first film,
00:55Brick is a beguiling mystery thriller in which high school student Brendan
00:59investigates the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend Emily.
01:03The genius hook of Johnson's film is that it's effectively a classically styled film noir
01:08transplanted onto a modern high school setting,
01:11made most evident by the intentionally affected hard-boiled dialogue.
01:15While it would be easy for such a concept to fall flat on its face or feel a bit student
01:19-filmy,
01:20Johnson's atmospheric direction, twisty storytelling, and the efforts of a remarkable ensemble cast
01:26make this a rich, fiercely original take on the contemporary thriller.
01:30Even with all the success that Johnson has had in recent years,
01:34there's a fair argument to be made that Brick remains his very best film.
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01:55Thunder Road.
01:56Adapted from filmmaker Jim Cummings' own award-winning 2016 short of the same name,
02:02Thunder Road is an excellent dramedy about a grieving, rage-filled police officer Jim
02:07struggling to cope with both the death of his mother and recent divorce.
02:11As director, writer, and star, Cummings proves himself to be a terrifically talented man,
02:17bringing pathos and nuance to a prickly character
02:20who audiences might not be immediately compelled to sympathise with.
02:24Cummings' razor-sharp performance as a man wrangling with his own masculinity
02:28is buffeted by some truly excellent filmmaking,
02:31especially his daring use of single takes for many of the grandstanding dramatic exchanges,
02:37a trick borrowed from his original short, which was shot in a single 13-minute take.
02:42For as magnificently crafted as Thunder Road is for its mere $200,000 budget,
02:47it's not known by nearly enough film lovers.
02:50Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
02:52Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is something of a spiritual successor to 2017's One Cut of the Dead,
02:59another low-budget Japanese genre film centred around supernatural phenomena
03:03unfolding over a seemingly single take.
03:05But this film is sci-fi rather than horror,
03:08following a cafe owner who discovers that his apartment's computer monitor
03:12can display two minutes into the future from the perspective of a TV in his cafe downstairs,
03:17while the cafe TV displays events from two minutes in the past.
03:21It's a brain-breaking concept which sends the central characters on a mesmerising odyssey
03:26as they discover inventive ways to create larger windows into both the past and the future.
03:31Combined with the film being near-seamlessly presented as a single take,
03:36it results in a technically virtuosic piece of work in spite of its meagre budget.
03:40Shot on an iPhone and clocking in at a drum-tight 71 minutes,
03:45this is a no-nonsense affair that again proves that creativity will prevail
03:49no matter the scant resources a filmmaker might otherwise be working with.
03:54The Woodsman
03:55Though it isn't difficult to deduce why this brilliant Kevin Bacon-starring drama
03:59wasn't exactly a multiplex hit,
04:01it's nevertheless a laudably bold and provocative meditation on a deeply disturbing subject.
04:07In The Woodsman, Bacon stars as Walter,
04:09a convicted child molester who returns home after 12 years in prison
04:13and attempts to start his life anew.
04:16Naturally, many simply aren't interested in watching a movie from the point of view
04:19of someone who has committed such horrible acts,
04:22but such is the very point of the movie.
04:25Are you able to sympathise with this man?
04:27And despite this enormous emotional hurdle for audiences,
04:31Kevin Bacon's Oscar-worthy performance ensures the film largely succeeds,
04:35lending humanity to a person who would be keenly dehumanised as a monster by most.
04:40To be clear, this is certainly a deeply uncomfortable and squirm-inducing film at times,
04:45and one that probably wouldn't get made in 2023.
04:48It's not a film you'll want to watch often, if even more than once,
04:52but it is an exceptionally brave character study
04:55with a magnificent lead performance from Bacon.
04:58The Wackness
04:59In 2008's The Wackness, Josh Peck stars as Luke Shapiro,
05:04a troubled young man who deals weed to Dr. Jeffrey Squires
05:07in exchange for therapy sessions, all while developing a crush on Squires' stepdaughter,
05:12Steph.
05:13This film absolutely nails the vibe and atmosphere of a summer in mid-90s New York City,
05:17but what truly makes it sing is the typically remarkable work from Ben Kingsley,
05:22and more unexpectedly at the time, Peck,
05:24who, fresh off of his tenure on Drake and Josh,
05:27gives a perceptive performance atypical of this well-trod genre.
05:30Even if you can't directly identify with Luke's own journey,
05:35there's still plenty to relate to here for anyone who's ever struggled with transitioning into adulthood.
05:40That is, basically everyone.
05:42Thanks to its witty dialogue and sharp performances,
05:45The Wackness is a rare coming-of-age film,
05:47which truly transcends the formula to deliver something that feels distinct
05:51and very much its own thing.
05:53Europa Report
05:54Audiences often decry the lack of truly imaginative sci-fi fare out there,
05:59but then, did anyone show up to support Europa Report when it came out a whole decade ago?
06:03A rare sci-fi outing produced for just $10 million,
06:07this film cannily adopts the found footage format
06:10to document humanity's first crewed mission to Jupiter's moon Europa,
06:14where they intend to seek out sources of life.
06:17It's a tricky concept to pull off with such little money,
06:20yet the director evidently makes every penny count,
06:23delivering an impressively stylish, tense, and ultimately terrifying piece of work.
06:28Aided by thoroughly plausible performances from its cast and a subdued naturalistic tone,
06:33this is a found footage film which keeps its feet on the ground for the most part,
06:38and in turn, proves all the more unnerving as a result.
06:41As a testament to the pulse-quickening fear of the unknown beyond the bounds of Earth,
06:46this is compulsively effective.
06:48Mean Creek
06:48Despite receiving two Independent Spirit Awards,
06:522004's coming-of-age drama Mean Creek pretty much fell off the face of the Earth
06:56within a few short years of its release.
06:59Yet it remains one of cinema's most savagely authentic and well-crafted depictions of bullying,
07:04revolving around a group of teenagers whose plan to get revenge on their bully goes horribly wrong.
07:10Undeniably inspired by the works of Stephen King, especially Stand By Me,
07:14this is a disturbingly frank examination of teenage strife,
07:18whose potentially heightened melodramatic through-line
07:21is brought straight back down to Earth by the efforts of a first-rate cast.
07:25A haunting dark drama that pulls no punches all the way to its chilling conclusion,
07:30Mean Creek is a film that desperately deserves more eyes on it
07:33per its unflinching narrative and deep characterisation.
07:37The Man From Earth
07:392007's sci-fi drama The Man From Earth is a fascinating beast indeed.
07:44The $200,000 film did enjoy something of an uptick in popularity
07:48due to a pirate copy leaking online mere weeks before its official release,
07:52with even producer Eric D. Wilkinson thanking pirates for raising the movie's profile.
07:57Indeed, the movie, about a university professor who claims to be 14,000 years old,
08:02was illicitly distributed online by pirates, which, in conjunction with rave reviews,
08:07led to it enjoying a brief but fleeting period of buzz.
08:10Yet the movie is more or less forgotten,
08:13which, considering the quality of its enigmatic screenplay
08:16and brilliantly ambiguous central performance, is an absolute travesty.
08:20Though a sequel was eventually released in 2017,
08:23it failed to make much of a dent at all,
08:25in part because the original movie had largely evaporated from the cultural consciousness,
08:29and also the fact that it was a huge step down in quality from the first.
08:34Spontaneous.
08:35It's easy to picture another timeline where Spontaneous was a breakout hit
08:39at the speciality box office and cemented its status as a cult classic.
08:43Yet this fantastic coming-of-age black comedy
08:46had the misfortune of being quietly dumped on streaming by Paramount in late 2020.
08:51It makes little sense that the studio barely gave this thing a theatrical release at all,
08:55given the timelines of its subject matter,
08:57pertaining to both the then-raging pandemic
09:00and also America's never-ending issues with gun violence in schools.
09:05Ignore the movie's undeniably terrible posters,
09:07which bafflingly paint it as a cloying teen rom-com,
09:11because Spontaneous's attention-grabbing hook
09:13sees students at a high school randomly start exploding from the inside out
09:18for seemingly no rhyme or reason.
09:20Filmmaker Brian Duffield uses this delirious setup
09:23to explore mortality and fear of the unknown in a highly original way,
09:28girded by excellent central performances from Catherine Langford and Charlie Plummer
09:32as two star-crossed teens caught in the middle of the bloodily explosive epidemic.
09:37Yet for all its creativity and how expertly it mines emotion from an inherently absurd concept,
09:43it's infuriating how Paramount simply sent it out to die.
09:47Tyrannosaur.
09:48If you can get over its portentious title,
09:50which likely didn't help it find an audience at all,
09:53Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur is one of the most evocative British directorial debuts of the century so far.
10:00This bleak but brilliant drama follows a self-destructive widower,
10:03Joseph, who crosses paths with Hannah,
10:06a kindly charity shop worker who is herself struggling to escape an abusive marriage.
10:10So Tyrannosaur isn't exactly feel-good filmmaking,
10:14and fair warning, not one but two dogs die in it,
10:17but it is an uncommonly transfixing study of two deeply wounded people
10:22from wildly different walks of life forging an unexpected bond.
10:26As a picture of uncontrolled rage,
10:28Peter Mullen gives an awards-worthy performance as Joseph,
10:31and Olivia Colman typically delivers as a picture of fraught compassion,
10:35and Eddie Marson is also terrifying as Hannah's abusive husband, James.
10:40It's easy to see why Tyrannosaur flew under the radar per its tricky subject matter,
10:45but in his debut, Considine proved himself a tremendously skilled dramatist
10:50willing to go down some deeply unpleasant rabbit holes.
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