Underrated movies...

[AGXStarseed]

There are many times in life where we watch movies in our childhood and absolutely love them, but as the years go by we tend to forget about them. Furthermore, there are some movies out there that definitely deserve a watch but - due to been underrated - we don't even know these movies exist.

Here, the Nostalgia Critic lists his own 'Top 11' underrated classics:

Here's his list:
11: Disney's The Rescuers Down Under - (see also this review of the movie here)
10: Tiny Toons Adventures - How I Spent my Vacation
09: The Rocketeer (another specific N.C review here)
08: The Prince of Egypt (N.C review here)
07: Explorers
06: The Iron Giant
05: Flight of the Navigator (N.C review here)
04: Return to Oz (N.C review here)
03: Babe: Pig in the City
02: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
01: The Secret of Nimh


What about you? Do you know any nostalgic movies or indeed movies in general that you think are underrated?

 

[Mia]

I really liked: Babe Pig in the city and have seen it several times.

Some favorites in no special order:

Oh Brother where art thou?
One true thing
Fried green tomatoes
Casablanca
The Thin man series
The Maltese falcon

Many others that I can't think of for the moment, but I'll add later.

 

[watersprite]

I am not knowledgable as to whether all of these are officially under-rated, but here are some favorites.
The Shipping News
The Secret of Kells
Mr Smith Goes To Washington
The Lake House
Ondine
A Room With A View
Mr Hulot's Holiday

 

[AsheSkyler]

Lessee... Well, I like a lot of the Feature Films For Families collection. Like Rigoletto, I still LOVE that movie. And Jacob Have I Loved, Split Infinity, The Girl From the Limberlost, and I think Seasons Of The Heart were part of it but I don't remember. There was also some movie called The Rogue Stallion that was pretty good. Of course, half my love of Feature Films For Families was also the opening advertisements for their other movies. I liked the narrators voice, and seeing the little Wonderworks blimp in the beginning got me all hyped up for the movie, because the Wonderworks blimp also was on the BBC Narnia tapes I had. (And I hate the Disney Narnia with a burning passion.) Lots of fond memories.

11: Disney's The Rescuers Down Under - (see also this review of the movie here)
05: Flight of the Navigator (N.C review here)
01: The Secret of Nimh

"YOU ARE... THE NAVIGATOR!!"
Awesome movie. Particularly like those three!

The Last Starfighter was pretty good too. A little gross for my liking in some parts, but still a good movie.

 

[watersprite]

AsheSkyler I have a very old first edition of the old book The Girl of The Limberlost. I will now have to find that movie. Surprised the heck out me to see it written here.

 

[AGXStarseed]

Lessee... Well, I like a lot of the Feature Films For Families collection. Like Rigoletto, I still LOVE that movie. And Jacob Have I Loved, Split Infinity, The Girl From the Limberlost, and I think Seasons Of The Heart were part of it but I don't remember. There was also some movie called The Rogue Stallion that was pretty good. Of course, half my love of Feature Films For Families was also the opening advertisements for their other movies. I liked the narrators voice, and seeing the little Wonderworks blimp in the beginning got me all hyped up for the movie, because the Wonderworks blimp also was on the BBC Narnia tapes I had. (And I hate the Disney Narnia with a burning passion.) Lots of fond memories.


"YOU ARE... THE NAVIGATOR!!"
Awesome movie. Particularly like those three!

The Last Starfighter was pretty good too. A little gross for my liking in some parts, but still a good movie.

I've not seen any of the films you've listed as underrated, but I've had a quick look and they all sound interesting at least. Maybe I'll try and hunt some of them down and have a watch. (What's the betting they'll all appear on TV at some point in the coming weeks now I've said that? )

• The Rescuers Down Under was one of my all time favourite Disney movies - who (after watching that) didn't want those eagles to be real so we could find and ride on them?
• Flight of the Navigator was one that I came across by accident one lazy Sunday during my childhood and absolutely loved it. Even now, I still love the flight scenes - especially when you've got the Beach Boys song "I Get Around" playing.
• I've seen a bit of The Secret of Nimh but didn't watch it as I was a kid, it was already part way through and that scene with the owl really freaked me out. (Mind you, Don Bluth had a habit of scaring the crap out of kids in his films. I'm sure Charlie's Nightmare in All Dogs go to Heaven caused my phobia of dying).
• Agreed with you on The Last Starfighter - that was an entertaining movie, if (as you say) a bit gross in places.
  
• As for the other films on N.C's list, I loved The Prince of Egypt, The Iron Giant and Explorers - all were good in their own ways.
• Another one the Nostalgia Critic mentioned that he thinks is Disney's The Prince and the Pauper - another of which I agree with.

A few underrated films in my opinion:

• The Last Starfighter (mentioned above)
• The Railway Dragon/The Birthday Dragon - Two short movies about a girl who befriends a dragon and has some adventures with him.
  
• Starman - A classic for me as a human woman works with an alien (disguised as her deceased husband) to reach a rendezvous point and help him get home.
  
• The Pagemaster - A boy who is scared of everything ends up going on an adventure through several works of fiction including Jekyll and Hyde, Moby Dick and Treasure Island.
  
• Dragonworld - An American boy who has to live with his Grandfather in Scotland after the death of his parents wishes for a friend, and gets one in the form of a baby dragon called Yowler. As time passes, he must protect Yowler from a greedy developer.
  
• The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep - An old man recounts on his childhood during the Second World War, where he finds a mythical creature called a water horse - which turns out to be the Loch Ness Monster.
  
• Paulie - a parakeet named Paulie tells the story of his original owner Marie, and the amazing journeys he has undertaken to try and be reunited with her.
• The Dirt Bike Kid - A boy buys a old Dirt bike and restores it, only to find it has a mind of its own as it helps him take on a greedy banker.
  
• The Flight of Dragons - With the world of magic fading and an evil sorcerer planning to corrupt humanity, the good Wizard Carolinus and his allies call upon the help of an author from present-day Boston to help save their world.
• Bartok the Magnificent - A prequel to Anastasia, in which Bartok the Bat must rescue the Russian prince from the clutches of the evil witch Baba Yaga.
• Ferngully: The Last Rainforest - A group of fairies, rainforest animals and an accidentally shrunken human try to stop the destruction of Ferngully caused by humans and Hexxus (The spirit of destruction).
• Jennifer - Similar to both Carrie and Willard but just original enough, this story tells of how a poor country girl uses her telepathic connection with snakes to get revenge on the snobby upper class girls who pick on her.
  
• The Ugly Duckling (1997) - An animated re-telling of the classic storybook tale.
  
• The Boy Who Could Fly - A girl called Milly and her family moves in next door to a mute Autistic boy called Eric. As Milly interacts more with Eric, an attraction slowly develops while Milly learns there is more to Eric then meets the eye.
• Famous Fred - Made by the same people who made The Snowman, two children find out that their recently deceased cat Fred is - in feline circles - the cat equivalent of Elvis. See it here:

 

[Beverly]

The most underrated movie I have seen is Feed, staring Alex O'Loughlin. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, it is a psychological horror/thriller produced in Australia. It does have some nudity so is borderline rated R or X The main characters are very twisted mentally and, the gore is rather graphic. I had to watch it four times before I understood the overall dynamic going on in the movie but, once I did I saw how complex it is and, how a role reversal is depicted in a way that makes the good guy into a twin of the bad guy.

 

[Judge]

Rollerball (1975)

A dystopian future without nations or wars. But there will be Rollerball.

A game? It wasn't meant to be a game. Never!

 

[AsheSkyler]

AsheSkyler I have a very old first edition of the old book The Girl of The Limberlost. I will now have to find that movie. Surpriese the heck out me to see it written here.

I seriously wondered if all FFFF movies were all based on books. I'll have to go digging for sure now!

I've not seen any of the films you've listed as underrated, but I've had a quick look and they all sound interesting at least. Maybe I'll try and hunt some of them down and have a watch. (What's the betting they'll all appear on TV at some point in the coming weeks now I've said that? )

It'd be nice! Some of those movies you could only get by ordering straight from FFFF, but I'm starting to see some of them popping up in generic DVD bins at Walmart and other places.

 

[umbrellabeach]

Here are some I discovered on Netflix:
The Letter Writer
The Ballad of Lucy Whipple
Christmas Angel
Fly Away

Unfortunately most of them have been taken off Netflix (though I made a bootleg copy of Lucy Whipple before it went away because that's literally the only way to see it right now; it's not on DVD or available for streaming anywhere else, can you believe that? INJUSTICE)

 

[watersprite]

AsheSkyler
In rearranging my movies and books (fun ) I found A Girl of The Limberlost. So here's a couple of pics.

 

[Beverly]

It is a Christian film but, it's a very good story and message.

 

[AGXStarseed]

One of the underrated movies I mentioned in an earlier post. Sadly the sequel, which was also on YouTube, has been taken down. Maybe it'll be back up again in the future

 

[Myron]

One of my favorite movies is Phantom of the Paradise. It's very loosely based on Phantom of the Opera, with elements of Dorian Gray and Faust mixed in (according to Wikipedia). It's a 70s rock opera, and it became a cult classic - though the only place it achieved fame was in Winnipeg, Canada. If that's not underrated then I don't know what is!

 

[AGXStarseed]

Having more of a look around, I think the film Gorgo is pretty underrated and needs some more love.

The film was made by Eugène Lourié, who also made The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). However, his daughter wasn't happy with its spiritual sequel The Giant Behemoth (1959), so he decided to make it up to her with Gorgo - his third and final giant monster movie.
The movie shows a pair of men who manage to capture a monster 65ft tall off the coast of Ireland. Choosing to sell the monster to a circus rather then to science, the monster (named Gorgo) is taken to London to be used as an attraction. However, the men discover that Gorgo is in fact only an infant, and it's Godzilla-sized mother is very angry...

Interestingly, the movie was originally going to be set in Japan before it was later chosen to be set in England. Furthermore, people complain that Gorgo's species resembles Godzilla too much, although considering the Rhedosaurus from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was part of Godzilla's inspiration, does it count if you are inspired by something that was inspired by what you created?
(I don't know - there's probably a law somewhere about it).
Also, despite been a British monster movie, I cannot find this in any movie store here in England. Seriously?!

Here's the trailer:

 

[Cali Cat]

My favorite under-rated movie is Crossroads with Ralph Macchio, Joe Seneca and Jamie Gertz.

Like Oh Brother Where Art Thou, it has a strong supernatural subplot, but that's not the main point to the story.

Also, like Oh Brother, it is an often hilarious but sometimes touching road trip involving three travelers with different agendas.

The music by Ry Cooder is fantastic, and Steve Vai plays a mean guitar dual near the end! Highly recommended!

 

[Judge]

"Tribes"

Thoughtful and sad story of a hippie drafted into the US Marine Corps. Major culture clash.

A movie made-for-television given away free on YouTube. Here's part one of six: