10 Great Movies You May Have Missed (Or Forgotten)

Written by Jacob Chimilar (@sweetlows)

There are plenty of movies that come out every year, many of those get lost as time goes on, and even some popular movies just fade into the mist. I thought it would be fun to do a list of 10 movies that I really like that no one I know has seen or hasn't seen in ages and deserves to be watched.

Wolf Children

The story revolves around a mother who marries a werewolf and gives birth to two half werewolf children who are able to turn themselves into wolves whenever they please. They move deep into the countryside to stay away from the city life and allow the children to express their wolf side without being demonized by the public. It's a really powerful animated tale that dives deep into a mother trying to protect and do what is best for her children and two kids who develop very differently and struggle to live “normal” balanced lives given their circumstances.

Nightcrawler

With an amazing performance by Jake Gylenhaal, the story of a man who finds his calling in filming graphic accidents and shootings, dives deep into the “profession” and does whatever it takes to succeed in the cut-throat world of breaking headline TV news. If you like movies that give you the creeps and make you yell “oh god why are you doing that you crazy man!” you'll really dig this movie, It's one of Gylenhaal's best performances and will send a chill down your spine.

In Bruges

Man do I love this movie. It's a small, quiet, dark comedy where a couple of hitmen have to lie low in Bruges, Belgium after a botched job, while they await instructions from their boss. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson make for a great odd couple, almost like a father and his teenage son. Gleeson soaks in all of the city's culture and charm regaling at how wonderful it all is and Farrell wants nothing more than to leave like the ultimate stick in the mud. The back and forth the two share has the kind of musicality to it that makes for great dialogue and a sense of humor that is dark without being overly crass or rude despite talks of “midgets” and pedophiles.

Her

Set in the near future where people have access to an operating system with artificial intelligence Theodore Twombly is looking to escape the blues as his impending divorce looms and his job writing love letters for people incapable of being romantic with their words leaves him even more depressed. He decides to buy himself one of those OS'. What ensues is a really interesting take on what love is and what a different kind of love looks like to just about anyone. It's not a same sex/transgender finding love movie “proving love comes to people other than those who are straight!” this is about finding love in a place no one has really experienced and that makes for some interesting thoughts about what constitutes a true relationship, can a voice in your head really be all you need to live a happy life with “someone”?

Moon

How unappreciated is Sam Rockwell? He completely owns this movie. Again set in the near future, Lunar Industries sent automatic mining machines to the moon collecting Helium-3 as an alternate fuel source as the Earth faces an oil crisis. Sam Bell is the lone person on the moon, acting as a on site maintenance worker,. With only two weeks to go in his 3 year term he starts to get hallucinations that distract him while he is out collecting a helium 3 canister from one of the harvesters and crashes his rover. He then wakes up in the infirmary with no memory of what happened. Curious as to what is going on he sets back out to find the damaged rover and finds someone who looks exactly like him passed out in the rover that had crashed earlier. What follows is one of those really great character study movies that only a great actor and hard sci-fi can do.

Buried

Before he became the awful Green Lantern and the foul mouthed badass Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds showed off his dramatic side in this claustrophobic thriller asking the question a lot of have wondered, what would you do if you were buried alive? Reynolds is the only on screen actor but with a lighter, a phone and a few other tools he tires everything he can to get free and it is simply riveting. Between the intense performance by Ryan Reynolds and the tough task of keeping the movie visually interesting this is one of those great low budget genre movies we could use a lot more of.     

Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil

Similar to The Cabin in The Woods, it takes the tired group of college kids go on a road trip to a camp and get murdered by psychos and frames all the kills as complete accidents perpetrated by the kids and made to look like the two hillbillies vacationing in their new cabin are out to get them. The kids think the hillbillies are murdering psychopaths and the hillbillies think they have stumbled upon some kind of suicide cult, and thus screwball hilarity in sues. If you can't watch horror movies with a straight face then you'll get a kick out of this movie.

Ruby Sparks

A man who hasn't been able to write a novel after his early first success, starts to write a story about his dream girl and finds that his dream girl comes to life. Great news right? Well not for long. Things soon turn south and the idea of how people claim ownership of another person and feel their sole purpose in life is to make the other person happy and not treat them as a human being. It's a tough concept to explore but is done in really thoughtful and dark ways. Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan (also the writer) give great performances and prove they should be getting more starring roles in movies, this one being a highlight (also see Love and Mercy for another slice of Dano awesomeness).

The Adventures of Tintin

Did you like Indiana Jones? Did you think the fourth one sucked? Well Spielberg is here to fix that with essentially an animated early adventures of Indy only starring Tintin and Captain Archibald Haddock. Full of mystery, action, globe trotting and intrigue, Tintin is one that sort of flew under the radar for most in North America despite being directed by Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson and written by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. It's a fun romp and deserves more attention than it got given the talent involved.

Seven Psychopaths

Marty, a screenwriter in a rut is trying to write a story about seven psychopaths when he gets caught up in a scheme with a bunch of real life psychopaths, thanks to his broke actor friend Billy along with his friend Hans who go around stealing dogs and returning them for rewards. They inadvertently steal from a crazy gangster and now are being hunted by him all the while Billy and Marty work together to create his screenplay. Billy wants nothing more than for what is happening to them to play out like one of those awesome movies about psychopaths. It's another dark comedy from the director of In Bruges and has an all-star cast including Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson and Christopher Walken. It almost the opposite of In Bruges, it's a much more whacky, mad cap comedy caper that has fun with the crime thriller genre and keeps up the great dialogue that made In Bruges so great.    

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So there are 10 films you may have missed or forgotten about, do you have any others that you feel are worth watching? Have you seen any of the ones listed above? what did you think? Let us know and happy watching!