Must Watch Non-Mainstream Movies
by t-a-r-r-y-n | created - 23 Jul 2012 | updated - 23 Jul 2012 | PublicA List of films you probably haven't heard of or seen that are truly fantastic (in no particular order)
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1. Elephant (2003)
R | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Several ordinary high school students go through their daily routine as two others prepare for something more malevolent.
Director: Gus Van Sant | Stars: Elias McConnell, Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson
Votes: 97,171 | Gross: $1.23M
2. 12 and Holding (2005)
R | 94 min | Drama
After his twin brother is accidentally killed by vengeful bullies, a 12-year old boy and his friends face the harsh realities of death, teenage hormones, and family dysfunction.
Director: Michael Cuesta | Stars: Conor Donovan, Jesse Camacho, Zoe Weizenbaum, Annabella Sciorra
Votes: 7,116 | Gross: $0.10M
3. M (1931)
Passed | 99 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke
Votes: 168,292 | Gross: $0.03M
4. Nosferatu (1922)
Not Rated | 94 min | Fantasy, Horror
Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter's wife.
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder
Votes: 105,309
5. The Elephant Man (1980)
PG | 124 min | Biography, Drama
A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of kindness, intelligence and sophistication.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud
Votes: 258,201
6. Mary and Max (2009)
Not Rated | 92 min | Animation, Comedy, Drama
In 1976 Melbourne, a lonely 8-year-old girl strikes up a correspondence with an unlikely pen pal: a severely obese 44-year-old New Yorker with Asperger's syndrome.
Director: Adam Elliot | Stars: Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana, Barry Humphries
Votes: 186,668
7. Metropolis (1927)
Not Rated | 153 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working-class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich, Rudolf Klein-Rogge
Votes: 185,316 | Gross: $1.24M
8. Germany Pale Mother (1980)
152 min | Drama, History, War
Germany 1939. Hans and Lene marry the day before the war breaks out, and Hans is sent to the Eastern front. During a bombing raid their daughter Anna is born. The house is destroyed and ... See full summary »
Director: Helma Sanders-Brahms | Stars: Eva Mattes, Ernst Jacobi, Elisabeth Stepanek, Angelika Thomas
Votes: 845
9. Faust (1923)
Short, Comedy
Director: Bertram Phillips | Stars: Jeff Barlow, Adeline Hayden Coffin, Tubby Phillips, Frank Stanmore
10. Ten (2002)
Not Rated | 94 min | Drama
A visual social examination in the form of ten conversations between a driving woman and her various pick-ups and hitchhikers.
Director: Abbas Kiarostami | Stars: Mania Akbari, Amina Maher, Kamran Adl, Roya Akbari
Votes: 8,600 | Gross: $0.11M
11. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Not Rated | 89 min | Drama
In post-war Italy, a working-class man's bicycle is stolen, endangering his efforts to find work. He and his son set out to find it.
Director: Vittorio De Sica | Stars: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Elena Altieri
Votes: 174,980 | Gross: $0.33M
12. The Lives of Others (2006)
R | 137 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | Stars: Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur
Votes: 409,992 | Gross: $11.29M
13. The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)
R | 120 min | Drama
Maria marries Hermann Braun in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. Alone, Maria puts to use her beauty and ambition in order to find prosperity during Germany's "economic miracle" of the 1950s.
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder | Stars: Hanna Schygulla, Klaus Löwitsch, Ivan Desny, Gisela Uhlen
Votes: 14,902
14. Wings of Desire (1987)
PG-13 | 128 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
An angel tires of his purely ethereal life of merely overseeing the human activity of Berlin's residents, and longs for the tangible joys of physical existence when he falls in love with a mortal.
Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois
Votes: 76,863 | Gross: $3.33M
15. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Not Rated | 67 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Hypnotist Dr. Caligari uses a somnambulist, Cesare, to commit murders.
Director: Robert Wiene | Stars: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover
Votes: 69,982
16. Citizen Kane (1941)
PG | 119 min | Drama, Mystery
Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 465,591 | Gross: $1.59M
17. To Have and Have Not (1944)
Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Film-Noir
During World War II, American expatriate Harry Morgan helps transport a French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sensuous lounge singer.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran
Votes: 37,969
18. Casablanca (1942)
PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War
A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Votes: 605,454 | Gross: $1.02M
19. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Passed | 100 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre
Votes: 166,482 | Gross: $2.11M
20. Double Indemnity (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr
Votes: 167,304 | Gross: $5.72M
21. Ugetsu (1953)
Not Rated | 96 min | Drama, Fantasy, War
A tale of ambition, family, love, and war set in the midst of the Japanese Civil Wars of the sixteenth century.
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi | Stars: Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô, Kinuyo Tanaka, Mitsuko Mito
Votes: 25,779 | Gross: $0.01M
22. Heavenly Creatures (1994)
R | 99 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
Two teenage girls share a unique bond; their parents, concerned that the friendship is too intense, separate them, and the girls take revenge.
Director: Peter Jackson | Stars: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent
Votes: 67,368 | Gross: $3.05M
23. Illustrious Energy (1988)
96 min | History
After 12 years, Chinese gold miners in 1895 New Zealand find They have enough gold to pay their debts and return home, but things do not go as smoothly as they had hoped.
Director: Leon Narbey | Stars: Shaun Bao, William Wong, Ha-Lei Yip, Peter Chin
Votes: 58
24. Forgotten Silver (1995 TV Movie)
53 min | Comedy
The film deals with the career of a supposedly forgotten pioneer of international cinema, Colin McKenzie, who was allegedly born in rural New Zealand in 1888.
Directors: Costa Botes, Peter Jackson | Stars: Peter Jackson, Jeffrey Thomas, Costa Botes, Leonard Maltin
Votes: 6,313 | Gross: $0.03M
25. The Piano (1993)
R | 121 min | Drama, Music, Romance
In the mid-19th century a mute woman is sent to New Zealand along with her young daughter and prized piano for an arranged marriage to a farmer, but is soon lusted after by a farm worker.
Director: Jane Campion | Stars: Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, Anna Paquin
Votes: 95,066 | Gross: $40.16M
26. Once Were Warriors (1994)
R | 102 min | Crime, Drama
A family descended from Maori warriors is bedeviled by a violent father and the societal problems of being treated as outcasts.
Director: Lee Tamahori | Stars: Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison, Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell, Julian Arahanga
Votes: 36,810 | Gross: $2.20M
27. The Price of Milk (2000)
PG-13 | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Lucinda, Rob and their 117 cows lead a charmed existence in a magic land. He milks, she's the honey. But Lucinda is worried that their happiness cannot last. She tests their love with a game of sabotage that threatens to curdle everything.
Director: Harry Sinclair | Stars: Danielle Cormack, Karl Urban, Willa O'Neill, Michael Lawrence
Votes: 1,769 | Gross: $0.11M
28. Whale Rider (2002)
PG-13 | 101 min | Drama, Family
A contemporary story of love, rejection and triumph as a young Maori girl fights to fulfill a destiny her grandfather refuses to recognize.
Director: Niki Caro | Stars: Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rawiri Paratene, Vicky Haughton, Cliff Curtis
Votes: 44,024 | Gross: $20.78M
29. Berlin: Symphony of Metropolis (1927)
Not Rated | 65 min | Documentary
This movie shows us one day in Berlin, the rhythm of that time, starting at the earliest morning and ends in the deepest night.
Director: Walter Ruttmann | Star: Paul von Hindenburg
Votes: 4,791
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