30 Obscure/Overlooked Films
by phowell666 | created - 05 Feb 2011 | updated - 05 Feb 2011 | PublicIn no particular order
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1. Apartment Zero (1988)
R | 124 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
In early 1980s Buenos Aires, a struggling movie theater owner takes in a roommate but suspects he is responsible for a series of political assassinations.
Director: Martin Donovan | Stars: Hart Bochner, Colin Firth, Dora Bryan, Liz Smith
Votes: 4,234 | Gross: $0.67M
2. The Aura (2005)
Not Rated | 134 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A deluded taxidermist plans the perfect crime.
Director: Fabián Bielinsky | Stars: Ricardo Darín, Manuel Rodal, Dolores Fonzi, Mariana Malamud
Votes: 14,724 | Gross: $0.06M
3. The Reflecting Skin (1990)
R | 96 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
In the 1950s, a young boy living with his troublesome family in rural USA fantasizes that a neighboring widow is actually a vampire, responsible for a number of disappearances in the area.
Director: Philip Ridley | Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Lindsay Duncan, Jeremy Cooper, Sheila Moore
Votes: 9,331
4. Map of the Human Heart (1992)
R | 109 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
Arctic, 1965: Avik tells his story starting in 1931. A mapmaker flies Avik, then a preteen Eskimo boy with TB, to a hospital in Montreal where he meets Albertine. They meet again when Avik joins World War II in the UK.
Director: Vincent Ward | Stars: Jason Scott Lee, Anne Parillaud, Patrick Bergin, Robert Joamie
Votes: 3,429 | Gross: $2.81M
5. All the Real Girls (2003)
R | 108 min | Drama, Romance
Small-town love story of a young man with a reputation for womanizing and his best friend's sister.
Director: David Gordon Green | Stars: Zooey Deschanel, Paul Schneider, Patricia Clarkson, Shea Whigham
Votes: 11,030 | Gross: $0.55M
6. George Washington (2000)
Not Rated | 89 min | Drama
A group of children, in a depressed small town, band together to cover up a tragic mistake one summer.
Director: David Gordon Green | Stars: Candace Evanofski, Donald Holden, Damian Jewan Lee, Curtis Cotton III
Votes: 8,662 | Gross: $0.24M
7. Keane (2004)
R | 100 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A disheveled man desperately searches New York City for his young daughter.
Director: Lodge Kerrigan | Stars: Damian Lewis, Liza Colón-Zayas, John Tormey, Brenda Denmark
Votes: 5,815 | Gross: $0.03M
8. Eye of God (1997)
R | 84 min | Crime, Drama
We see two stories told over four time lines, which wind down to a devastating ground zero collision, as we watch a double tragedy unfold in a small Oklahoma town. The two stories are told ... See full summary »
Director: Tim Blake Nelson | Stars: Mary Kay Place, Nick Stahl, Chris Freihofer, Woody Watson
Votes: 1,266
9. Stalker (1979)
Not Rated | 162 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Nikolay Grinko
Votes: 144,545 | Gross: $0.23M
10. Trust (1990)
R | 107 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
After being thrown out of her house, Maria encounters a married woman who complains of not having children. Maria ends up in an abandoned house, where she meets Matthew. When a baby is kidnapped Maria sets out to find the woman.
Director: Hal Hartley | Stars: Adrienne Shelly, Martin Donovan, Rebecca Nelson, John MacKay
Votes: 12,307 | Gross: $0.36M
11. Citizen Ruth (1996)
R | 106 min | Comedy, Drama
An irresponsible, drug-addicted, recently impregnated woman finds herself in the middle of an abortion debate when both parties attempt to sway her to their respective sides.
Director: Alexander Payne | Stars: Laura Dern, Swoosie Kurtz, Mary Kay Place, Kurtwood Smith
Votes: 9,111 | Gross: $0.15M
12. Exotica (1994)
R | 103 min | Drama
A man plagued by neuroses frequents the club Exotica in an attempt to find solace, but even there his past is never far away.
Director: Atom Egoyan | Stars: Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas, Don McKellar, David Hemblen
Votes: 21,070 | Gross: $4.18M
13. Bronson (2008)
R | 92 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A young man who was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending three decades in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter-ego, Charles Bronson.
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn | Stars: Tom Hardy, Kelly Adams, Luing Andrews, Katy Barker
Votes: 140,758 | Gross: $0.10M
14. Before the Rain (1994)
Not Rated | 113 min | Drama, Romance, War
Three interconnected stories of love under the threat of civil war in Macedonia and London.
Director: Milcho Manchevski | Stars: Katrin Cartlidge, Rade Serbedzija, Grégoire Colin, Josif Josifovski
Votes: 15,847 | Gross: $0.76M
15. Sauna (2008)
Unrated | 83 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
As a 25-year war between Russia and Sweden concludes, two brothers who are part of an effort to outline new border accords become undone by their actions, and their mistreatment of a young woman during their journey.
Director: Antti-Jussi Annila | Stars: Ville Virtanen, Tommi Eronen, Viktor Klimenko, Rain Tolk
Votes: 7,469
16. Shy People (1987)
R | 118 min | Drama
New York journalist visits her distant cousin for the first time to write an article about her hard life in the bayous of Louisiana. Journalist's wild drug addicted daughter just adds to tensions between two families' cultures.
Director: Andrey Konchalovskiy | Stars: Jill Clayburgh, Barbara Hershey, Martha Plimpton, Merritt Butrick
Votes: 1,523 | Gross: $0.77M
17. Petulia (1968)
R | 105 min | Drama, Romance
An unhappily married socialite finds solace in the company of a recently divorced doctor.
Director: Richard Lester | Stars: Julie Christie, George C. Scott, Richard Chamberlain, Arthur Hill
Votes: 3,409
18. Germany Year Zero (1948)
Not Rated | 78 min | Drama
A young German boy faces the problems of the tough life in the immediate post-WWII Berlin.
Director: Roberto Rossellini | Stars: Edmund Moeschke, Ernst Pittschau, Ingetraud Hinze, Franz-Otto Krüger
Votes: 13,690
19. The Stunt Man (1980)
R | 131 min | Action, Comedy, Drama
A fugitive stumbles onto a movie set just when they need a new stunt man, takes the job as a way to hide out and falls for the leading lady while facing off with his manipulative director.
Director: Richard Rush | Stars: Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback, Barbara Hershey, Allen Garfield
Votes: 10,439 | Gross: $7.06M
20. Dead Man's Shoes (2004)
Not Rated | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A disaffected soldier returns to his hometown to get even with the thugs who brutalized his mentally-challenged brother years ago.
Director: Shane Meadows | Stars: Paddy Considine, Gary Stretch, Toby Kebbell, Stuart Wolfenden
Votes: 58,310 | Gross: $0.01M
21. Killer of Sheep (1978)
80 min | Drama
Set in the Watts area of Los Angeles, a slaughterhouse worker must suspend his emotions to continue working at a job he finds repugnant, and then he finds he has little sensitivity for the family he works so hard to support.
Director: Charles Burnett | Stars: Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett
Votes: 7,527 | Gross: $0.40M
22. Rancho Deluxe (1975)
R | 93 min | Comedy, Romance, Western
Two drifters, of widely varying backgrounds, rustle cattle and try to avoid being caught in contemporary Montana.
Director: Frank Perry | Stars: Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston, Elizabeth Ashley, Clifton James
Votes: 2,144
23. Some Mother's Son (1996)
R | 112 min | Drama, History
The 1981 hunger strike in an Irish prison, in which I.R.A. prisoner Bobby Sands led a protest against their treatment as criminals rather than as prisoners of war. It focuses on the mothers of two of the strikers, and their struggle.
Director: Terry George | Stars: Helen Mirren, Fionnula Flanagan, Aidan Gillen, David O'Hara
Votes: 2,990 | Gross: $0.61M
24. Rosetta (1999)
R | 95 min | Drama
Young and impulsive Rosetta lives with her alcoholic mother and, moved by despair, she will do anything to maintain a job.
Directors: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne | Stars: Émilie Dequenne, Fabrizio Rongione, Anne Yernaux, Olivier Gourmet
Votes: 15,560 | Gross: $0.26M
25. The War Zone (1999)
R | 98 min | Drama, Thriller
An alienated teenager, saddened that he has moved away from London, must find a way to deal with a dark family secret.
Director: Tim Roth | Stars: Ray Winstone, Annabelle Apsion, Kate Ashfield, Lara Belmont
Votes: 11,173 | Gross: $0.25M
26. Waterland (1992)
R | 95 min | Drama, Mystery
In 1974 Pittsburgh, a high-school history teacher seeking closure tells his class about his experiences as teenager in England during World War II.
Director: Stephen Gyllenhaal | Stars: Jeremy Irons, Sinéad Cusack, Ethan Hawke, Grant Warnock
Votes: 2,455 | Gross: $1.03M
27. Cal (1984)
R | 102 min | Drama, Thriller, Romance
A young man fraught with guilt longs to defect from the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He is drawn to the widow of a slain Protestant policeman but must hide his secret that he was involved in her husband's murder and evade the authorities.
Director: Pat O'Connor | Stars: Helen Mirren, John Lynch, Donal McCann, John Kavanagh
Votes: 1,628
28. I Can't Sleep (1994)
Unrated | 110 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A serial killer terrorizes Paris at night, but that doesn't stop Daïga and Théo from meeting up, and falling in love.
Director: Claire Denis | Stars: Yekaterina Golubeva, Richard Courcet, Vincent Dupont, Laurent Grévill
Votes: 1,376 | Gross: $0.11M
29. Limbo (I) (1999)
R | 126 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
In an economically devastated Alaskan town, a fisherman with a troublesome past dates a woman whose young daughter does not approve of him. When he witnesses the murder of his shady brother, he, the woman and the kid run to the wilderness.
Director: John Sayles | Stars: David Strathairn, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Vanessa Martinez, Michael Laskin
Votes: 6,385 | Gross: $2.00M
30. Landscape in the Mist (1988)
TV-MA | 127 min | Drama
Two children journey the long road to Germany to find the man they believe to be their father.
Director: Theodoros Angelopoulos | Stars: Michalis Zeke, Tania Palaiologou, Stratos Tzortzoglou, Eva Kotamanidou
Votes: 9,631
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