best unknown films?

Spacedog

Anyone who regularly goes to the IFC or the Screen etc. will know that there is a wider range of films released than what Hollywood rams down our throats on a regular basis. Anyone suggest any gems they've come across. I've been in carlow for the last couple of years where the cinema show nothing but the Ammerican Pies and Fast and Furiouses, what have I missed?

Tusky

Donnie Darko , but thats really well known now...

tman

yeah, gwan donnie!
shame it all got fnucked up by 911.
it would have been nice to see that film gross hundreds of millions in the box office.

mavedic

battle royale so i've heard. i haven't got round to seeing it yet, but i've heard nothing but great things about it.

Repli

Originally posted by mavedic
battle royale so i've heard. i haven't got round to seeing it yet, but i've heard nothing but great things about it.

Its a great movie.. probably very popular in japan.. not so much over here..
Another good unknown movie is Seven Samurai - its another japaese movie - the closing scene is one of the best fight scenes ive ever seen

therecklessone

Try the following...

Waking Life
Tape
The Believer
Bully
The Experiment

Wook

'batteries not included' on LSD.
'Battle Royall' on THC
'Apocalypse now , Redux' to get you all funked up the visual way.
'Ichi the Killer' Alcohol (prepare a nice bucket next to you)
'Bad Taste' just as a starter.

LoLth

Dog Soldiers.

released in the shadow of some quite well known films so it sort of got overlooked. Great laugh.

Brotherhood of the wolf.

Different. Interesting sword fights and martial arts. Get subtitled version if at all possible.

patch

City Of God is excellent. Should be out soon to rent I'd imagine.
The Warrior isn't bad, brilliant to look at, but doesn't amount to enough.

matrim

intacto (sp?) was good.

Jimi-Spandex

I wholeheartedly agree with patch on the City of God thing. Probably the best film I have seen in the cinema in years. I think its out to buy in August.
Others;
Donnie Darko
Metropolis
Hana Bi
Battle Royale is well worth watching
Takasi Miike's stuff isn't bad (Ichi the Killer, Audition)

Stark

Remember "shopping" an old film starring Jude Law was really good. Saw "murder at devil's glen" on tv a few weeks ago, thought that was pretty good. Some of the films TV5 shows can be really good as well. A lot of those french actors have the puppy dog eyes that make every situation seem tragic.

davej

Recent (in the last year or 3 or so i guess) good films include:

In no particular order.

Igby goes down
25th Hour
Adaptation
Moonlight Mile
Punch Drunk Love
Confessions of a dangerous mind
Dog Soldiers
All or Nothing
Donnie Darko
Heaven
Intacto
Monster's Ball
Harry, He's Here to Help
Avalon
In the Bedroom
Lantana
From Hell
Chopper
High Fidelity
Narc
Quills
Requeim for a Dream
Man on the Moon
City of God
Mullholland Drive
Talk to her
Solaris
The quiet American
Das Experiment
Nurse Betty
Insomnia
Titus
The Royal Tenenbaums
Rushmore
The Luzhin Defence
Nine Queens
28 days later
Traffic
The Princess and the Warrior
Kiss of the Dragon
Wonder boys
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Training Day
Dancer in the Dark
Ghost Dog
Read my lips
Secretary

davej

Clintons Cat

Late Night Shopping,



Cant wait for City Of God to come out on DVD.

bringitdown

Some good calls so far:

Pi, Requiem For a Dream, Dark Days, Dancer in the Dark

eth0_

Originally posted by davej
Recent (in the last year or 3 or so i guess) good films include:

Uh...perhaps you missed the whole 'unknown' point of the question?

davej

Uh...perhaps you missed the whole 'unknown' point of the question?

Well "unknown" is a bit of a subjective term isn't it ?

So far in this thread there have been only 2 movies that i haven't seen before, Late Night Shopping and Hana Bi. But you don't hear me complaining.

I bet you that the average "goes to the odd blockbuster" person hasn't heard of at least half of the movies I've mentioned. The original poster mentioned movies that are shown in the ifc or the screen; for the most part these are the one's i've listed.

davej

Tusky

battle royale so i've heard. i haven't got round to seeing it yet, but i've heard nothing but great things about it

great movie, adn theres a sequel on the way..

as far as Daves list goes, alot of those films were in the big cinemas BUT many of them were fairly unknown ( no advertisen etc ) and maybe didnt get the seccess they deserved,

but yea alot of them are great films , good job dave

koneko

People don't nearly mention Memento enough.

Brilliant film.

Stark

It's great, but you could hardly call it "unknown"

bikini widow

Hell Comes to Frogtown:
80's B movie starring ex WWF wrestler Roddy Rody Piper as Sam Hell the last fertile man on the post-apocalyptic world who has to battle giant mutant frogs.

Barbarella:
Classic

Assault on Precinct 13:
street gang declare war on a cop station

The Hunger:
Graphic vampire tale starring David Bowie, Suasan sarandon and Catherine Deneuve. Bloody Brilliant

koneko

Originally posted by k.oriordan
It's great, but you could hardly call it "unknown"

The original poster is looking for gems that have passed him by. Films that usually aren't shown in the big cinemas (like the big action flicks). He's not looking for films no one's ever heard of.

So far I think there's a lot of good suggestions here. As Davej said it's also subjective. I might have heard a lot about Memento, Audition or Secretary, but that doesn't mean the average cinema goer has. So keep em comin folks, is what I say.

trickster

fear and lothing in los vegas is very good (bit long)

patch

Just remembered another I really enjoyed..... Session 9

bikini widow

The Day the Earth Stood Still:

The Princess Bride:

Rosemary's Baby:

Sleuth:
With Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine

Charade:
Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant

Invasion of the Body Snatchers:
(original 1956)

Clintons Cat

"Sleuth:With Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine"

Good call.

2000 ad

Funky

im not sure if its quite unknown but i only heard of it a short while ago

Dr Strangelove or. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb:
its about nuclear fallout basically

bringitdown

Originally posted by koneko
The original poster is looking for gems that have passed him by. Films that usually aren't shown in the big cinemas (like the big action flicks). He's not looking for films no one's ever heard of.

In that case altho' most are well-known there are some gems in IMDB's top 250 list:

http://us.imdb.com/top_250_films

- 12 Angry Men
- Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
- loads more

Indy film top 50:

http://us.imdb.com/Charts/Votes/independent

Makaveli

Doberman
Run Lola Run
Taxi
28 Days Later
Dog Soldiers
City Of God
The Killer (Chow Yun Fat)
Pitch Black is pretty good

Davej, how are Traffic, Monster's Ball and Training Day unknown films?

bandit

'The taking of pelham 123' is an over looked classic staring Walter Matheau. Its about terrorists hijacking a New York subway train.

Its where Tarrantino stole the colour coded gangster names in Resivoir Dogs

Caesar_Bojangle

Pi, as in 3.14159265358979323846...

Its a great film

Battle royale

Donnie darko

Chopper - Its fuppin fantabulous, especially the scene

were he is standing a the bar with his knob out

Rushmore - classic

delop

Anyone seen 'The Limey' - http://us.imdb.com/Title?0165854

The Arrival - http://us.imdb.com/Title?0115571 -Suprisingly good for a SiFi alien flick

Requiem for a Dream - http://us.imdb.com/Title?0180093

patch

Requiem for a Dream - http://us.imdb.com/Title?0180093 [/B]

Ass to Ass.......Ass to Ass.......Ass to Ass

Amnesiac_ie

Top 5 "Lesser Known" films

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Waking Life
Wild Strawberries
Casino Royale
Morven Caller

Clintons Cat

Threads

Z for Zacharia

When The Wind Blows

havok*

Not exactly unknown either. Was massive in art house terms, also doubles up as my fav film ever.

Amelie

Its a masterpeice of cinematography, afiak it won an oscar for it a couple of years back. Very very simple storyline, with tons of tiny sub plots and nuances. Great flick.

BoobeR

Ringu, but thats not really unknown is it.. sorry ehm..
Dog soldier's is good.:)

The City of Lost Children
Hard Boiled
Once Upon a Time in China

schiele

Probably the most captivating film I have ever seen that you may not have heard of is called 'Mother and Son' by Sokurov (he directed Russian Ark that appeared in the IFC recently). It's just over an hour long but is an absolute masterpiece - dialogue is sparce but the effect created by distorting the landscape and how both protagonists seem to merge with their environment is to be marvelled at - unmissable.

Capt'n Midnight

Dreams - by AK

An excellent film - won the Palm Gore - Bad Taste (from New Zealand)

Most films by Werner Hertzog & Klaus esp Fitzcaraldo & Aguira Wrath of God

I forgot to record it and missed it completely
- Triumph of the Spirt (ah well - will be back on BBC2 about 2017)

Ivan the terrible - parts I and II - when you watch it remember it was done in the middle of WWII
The german version of the adventures of baron munchenhausen - again a WWII film - negro actors etc - mad films when you take into account the context

Battleship Potempkin - have not seen

That one with peter lorrie and the hand

temptation (griffith) - KKK PR piece from the 20's

Metropolis - was on ARTE a while back - with the old german subtitles - gothic script - but hey who needs a script .. -most definetly not the queen version (but that's not too bad either)

I loved Blade Runner - but try finding the one that is not the directors cut - it's a great noir detecive story

the cars that ate paris...

the visitors - the original french one
delicatessen
betty blue

the icicle thief

the one about the japanese guy going to Iceland to bury his parents

poitin

the swedish one about sophies dreams - great visuals - who needs hollywood

tHE vAGGABOND

aussie movie called Rabbit Proof fence

bikini widow

man bites dog.

Tyrrial

Igby Goes Down

Fantastic. going to see it again as soon as i can

Saruman

Have not read any of the other posts so dont know if they are good quality movies or just unkown films people enjoyed... anyway im only going to go on about Hong Kong style martial arts movies... There are the obvious big ones like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li... Anyway.. the unknown one is one that was on las night and not made by any of these 3!!

Tai Chi Boxer was on CNX last night... excellent stuff.. like Jet Li's early stuff... Something along the lines of "Once upon a time in China" only not as well known... Subtitled of course but great stuff. Nothing compared to a masterpiece like crouching tiger but still great stuff.

beardedchicken

Originally posted by therecklessone
Try the following...

Waking Life
Tape
The Believer
Bully
The Experiment

absolutely- i'd agree with all of the above!!
also people have been mentioning requiem for a dream, pi, rabbit proof fence, and donnie darko.

some others i'd suggest are:
office space- quite a few years old, but funny as hell- anyone in a menial 9-5 job will sympathise entirely!

one hour photo- i've always found robin williams creepy but for totally different reasons- he does "bland, slimy guy" so well- storyline is excellent as well

immortal beloved- quite similar in theme to amadeus- this one's about beethoven instead. it's excellent, but it'll never touch amadeus

also, y tu mama tambien, and ghost world are worth a look


oh, and by the way- dancer in the dark (i think someone mentioned it) - the single most depressing movie i have ever seen! just when you think things cant possibly get any suckier for her- they go right ahead and suck!!

Bard

Originally posted by bikini widow
man bites dog.

Man Bites Dog is an awful, badly-written vomitous mass of excrement, - a pathetic and disturbing sorry excuse for the use of celluloid.

I agree with Memento though - great film.

mewso

When recommending films can you please state whether you are a wanky nerdlinger pretentious git. That way most visitors here will know that watching Pi or films where the 2 main characters merge into one can be ignored.
While I'm here I have to give the nod to Heaven, Tykwer's (of Run Lola Run fame) latest which does almost fall into the pretentious/wanky but survives. I'm assuming it might meet the criteria of something that passed you by.
For the Pi lovers try Eraserhead, one of the worst films I have ever seen (in fact Pi is actually good in comparrison) so you'll like it.

Cianan2

Hey guys,i didnt see these films in here,but you should definately check out these two films.

Fallen:Denzel Washington at his best,an absolute gem.(by gem,i dont mean shiney happy people,but a great movie)

La Haine:French movie about the slums of paris,where teenagers are going through their "Fluck tha police" stage in life.Brilliant.

Hip

I'll second "La Haine", great film with great French hip-hop tunes.

Villain

Hi there I'm new to this thread but I didn't see Fallen or ID listed.

ID is about soccer holligism maybe not to everyones taste but I think it's a class film.

Fallen on the other I think everyone will enjoy it's ranks as one of the best movies I've ever seen and I've seen many.
It stars Denzil Washington,

RENT IT NOW

Draco

Fallen is mentioned two posts above yours.

I really like it myself, especially the chase scene about half way through.