Movies audiences have been missing out on these underrated movies. On average, in the modern day, more than 1,000 movies are produced every year in the United States. That is a huge number of stories brought to life on screen, and it’s impossible to see all of them. Movies with big budgets make it to the big screens while others get smaller releases on streaming. Lower-budget movies make the film festival rounds and can gain more financing that way. Among those potentially thousands of movies being released worldwide, however, only a few get to stand out.

Many of the rest of those movies are extremely underrated. Either they haven’t been seen by very many eyeballs, or they didn’t get a big release outside of their home country, or for whatever reason, another movie overshadowed them. Some of these movies were even dismissed by critics upon their initial release only for people to gradually rediscover them and second guess the harsh reception. These movies make up the most underrated movies of all time that certainly deserve a watch.

30 Sorcerer (1977)

Directed By William Friedkin

Sorcerer was a box office bomb when it was released in 1977 and is often looked at, along with movies like Heaven's Gate and New York, New York, as one of the ambitious failures that led to the end of the auteur-driven era of Hollywood. While some of those other flops of the late 70s and early 80s have been reexamined as misunderstood gems, Sorcerer is a genuine masterpiece that deserves to be mentioned alongside the other great movies of the 1970s.

Director William Friedkin delivers an epic, surreal, and intense thriller about a group of expatriates living in South America who are hired to transport the highly volatile explosive nitroglycerin through the jungle. The movie makes every bump in the road a nail-biting experience in this tale of desperation. The bridge sequence is one of the most impressive set pieces of the era, with the practical filmmaking allowing Sorcerer to remain thrilling decades later.

29 Drinking Buddies (2013)

Directed By Joe Swanberg

Drinking Buddies takes an indie approach to the rom-com genre to create a completely charming, funny, and thoughtful entry. Jake Johnson and Olivia Wilde star as two friends working at a brewery together who spend their time joking around and drinking together before going home to their respective partners. However, the movie follows the friends over the course of a couple of days as their relationship begins to change.

Johnson and Wilde share wonderful chemistry that makes for a very specific relationship between their characters.

Impressively, Drinking Buddies is nearly all improvised yet maintains a cohesive story thanks to these grounded and authentic characters. Johnson and Wilde share wonderful chemistry that makes for a very specific relationship between their characters. While there are many rom-coms about friends becoming lovers, Drinking Buddies approaches that subgenre in an interesting way, exploring the idea of two people who share an attraction, but know they are better as friends.

28 Ronin (1998)

Directed By John Frankenheimer

The 1990s is often regarded as one of the best decades for Hollywood action movies, with some truly iconic titles like Terminator 2, Speed, and The Matrix coming out of the decade. However, Ronin failed to gain the same recognition as some of those movies despite it being a brilliant piece of genre filmmaking. The movie stars the likes of Robert De Niro, Sean Bean, and Stellan Skarsgård as lone mercenaries who are brought together to pull off a mysterious job only for things to spiral with treachery around every corner.

Ronin is a spy thriller that deals with shadowy figures who operate outside of governments and take on whatever job comes along. It has a slick yet gritty feel while also displaying some of the best car chases in movie history. De Niro gives a reserved performance in the lead role, but his buddy relationship with fellow operative Jean Reno gives the film an unexpected warmness.

27 The Rider (2018)

Directed By Chloé Zhao

While director Chloé Zhao followed up The Rider with her Oscar-winning Nomadland, it is the previous indie that is a truly remarkable achievement. The Rider is the small and intimate story of a former rodeo rider who suffers an injury that ends the career he loves so much. As he comes to with how his life has changed, he attempts to find a new purpose now that the one thing he knew has been taken from him.

The story is presented as a narrative movie, but it blurs the lines between reality and fiction throughout. Lead actor Brady Jandreau is a former rodeo rider whose life and career follow that of the main character, Brady Blackburn. The movie is also populated by Jandreau's real-life friends and family, playing versions of themselves in this story. It is a testament to Zhao as a filmmaker that she is able to get such authentic performances out of non-professional actors while also creating an emotionally involving story.

26 Sneakers (1992)

Directed By Phil Alden Robinson

Long before the Ocean's movies combined humor, big-name stars, and an energetic pace, Sneakers pulled it off expertly. The little-seen crime-comedy stars Robert Redford as a security consultant who leads a crew in testing companies' security by purposely breaking through it. However, when they are hired for a mysterious job that sees them taking some very secure items, they realize they have been set up by a vengeful architect.

The movie came and went without much notice, but it remains a crime film that will put a smile on the faces of viewers from beginning to end. Redford is able to give a charismatic and funny performance in the lead role that is reminiscent of the likes of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. He is also ed by an outstanding ensemble, including Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, and River Phoenix as his entertaining team.

25 Black Christmas (1974)

Directed By Bob Clark

Though some will argue that Black Christmas doesn’t belong among underrated movies, it’s often completely forgotten when it comes to discussions about slasher films. Black Christmas has had two remakes since it was originally made in 1974, but the original is, arguably, the best.

It’s also one of the earliest slasher movies with a final girl and influenced all of the slashers that came after it, including Halloween, which was released a few years later. Black Christmas features Olivia Hussey in the main role as a sorority sister who finds that her sisters are being killed off after they’ve been receiving obscene phone calls.

Of course, in the 1970s, reviewers were mixed on whether or not the movie was good. Many didn’t understand the point of the movie since it left events open-ended. It’s since become a cult classic known for its feminist tone.

24 Lost In America (1985)

Directed By Albert Brooks

Lost In America was well received by critics when it was released in 1985, but it didn’t make a splash on any awards circuits or at the box office. Over 30 years later, it might not be ed as well as other Albert Brooks movies. Brooks not only directs and co-writes the movie, but is one of the stars as well.

The movie follows a husband and wife who decide to quit their jobs, sell everything they own, and live life on the road. Unfortunately, it becomes a comedy of errors as everything that can go wrong, will, including the wife revealing a gambling problem once they reach Las Vegas.

Lost In America is a great satire and critique of the American dream as audiences once knew it. The jokes are hilarious and the chemistry of the cast is perfect.

23 Sleeping With Other People (2015)

Directed By Leslye Headland

In the 2020s, there’s a kind of nostalgia for old-school romantic comedies of the 1990s. This 2015 movie, however, is a hidden gem that will fill the void for a lot of audience .

Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis star as two adults who had a one-night stand a decade before the events of the movie. When they meet back up, they develop a friendship and attempt to avoid any sexual tension despite their attraction to one another. As they both begin to develop feelings for one another, they try to move on by seeing other people, not wanting to ruin what they have.

Along the way, they both have to deal with their own complicated issues surrounding sex and intimacy. It makes for a heartfelt, but also hilarious movie that more romance fans should be checking out.

22 The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

Directed By Ron Clements, Burny Mattinson, David Michener, And John Musker

For decades, Disney had the market cornered on animated movies for kids and families. Though other studios put out quality stories, they just couldn’t catch up to the juggernaut of a studio. That has begun to change in recent years, but there are still a few movies in Disney’s animated catalog that have been overlooked by many. One of those is The Great Mouse Detective.

The Great Mouse Detective is Disney’s version of Sherlock Holmes - except, of course, that the detective and his assistant are both mice investigating mysteries in the London mouse community. The villain is one of Disney’s scariest, a rat who isn’t afraid to murder other characters on screen. It’s possible that, like The Black Cauldron, some parents found it a little too scary for their young kids when it was initially released, and that’s contributed to it being forgotten by so many.

It truly is a fantastic Sherlock Holmes adaptation, if it can even be called that. From an era in which animation was still all hand-drawn, the movie is a snapshot of a long-gone era for Disney.

21 Stardust (2007)

Directed By Matthew Vaughn

Stardust got lost in the shuffle of 2000s romance movies despite being a near-perfect adaptation of its source material. The movie is based on the Neil Gaiman novel of the same name and combines the perfect ratio of fantasy, adventure, and romance.

In the movie, a young man sees a star fall beyond the wall that separates his small village from the next and he vows to retrieve the star for the woman he loves. When he crosses the wall, however, he finds himself in a place where magic comes to life, witches use nefarious purposes to keep themselves young, and a star isn’t an object but a living, breathing, woman.

Stardust takes the audience on a superb adventure as the man and the star grow closer, evade a witch and her sisters, and become friends with a ship of pirates that take to the skies. It’s one of the gems that gets overlooked in favor of the bigger-budget fantasies and is easily one of the most underrated romances.