Leonard Maltin is probably the film critic and historian I’ve had the most exposure to over the years. Partly through his work on ‘Entertainment Tonight’ (although I haven’t watched that for years), his array of film books and the website which he currently runs. But undoubtedly his most significant impact is his famous annual film guide. I’ve had a copy always handy for many, many years and refer and flick through it constantly.
While his tastes to have a tendency to be middlebrow at times, I’ve always respected and noted Maltin’s views on films. And his articles on aspects of film history display and excellent and detailed knowledge of Hollywood and its substantial culture and history.
So when I heard last year that he was publishing a book about a list of quality, overlooked films, I was greatly interested. Alas, when I saw the list of 151 films he put in his book, I was disappointed with the overall tone of the choices. I was expecting obscure, unjustly forgotten Hollywood gems from several decades ago. Instead, the list seems to be weighted too much to not only films made in the last 15 years (and are obviously more accessible than overlooked older films) but a fair chunk of them seem to be humdrum modern mainstream films that bombed at the time and are of little significance (e.g Zathura).
Still I always enjoy lists like this and as I’ve seen only a tiny percentage of the films on it, I’m sure there are plenty of interesting titles worth pursuing.
After the jump is the list with comments on the films that I have seen.
List accessed from here:
1. American Dreamz (2006) – The critics panned this at the time… and they were right! What should’ve been a great satire on mid 2000s pop culture was largely forgettable and obvious and nowhere near as cutting edge as it is. There were minor compensations in the performances of Mandy Moore and Hugh Grant. On the other hand,
• 2. The Animal Factory (2000)
• 3. Aurora Borealis (2006)
• 4. Baadasssss! (2004)
• 5. The Ballad Of Little Jo (1993)
• 6. Better Than Sex (2000)
• 7. The Big Hit (1998)
• 8. Blood And Wine (1997)
• 9. Brick (2006)
• 10. Brothers (2004)
• 11. Bubba Ho-Tep (2003)
• 12. Career Girls (1997)
• 13. Casanova (2005) Overlooked after star Heath Ledger’s triumph in ‘Brokeback Mountain’, while no classic this a pleasant and charming film with Ledger demonstrating his versatility in playing the romantic lead.
• 14. Chop Shop (2008)
• 15. Citizen Ruth (1996)
• 16. Connie And Carla (2004)
• 17. C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)
• 18. Criminal (2004)
• 19. Crush (2002)
• 20. Dark Days (2000)
• 21. The Dead Girl (2006)
• 22. The Devil’s Backbone (2001)
• 23. Diamond Men (2001)
• 24. Dick (1999) I’ve read a few people say this was overlooked in what was a very strong year for American cinema, but I think it deserved its fate. Too silly and shallow to hit any satirical targets. Director Andrew Fleming’s previous film ‘The Craft’ is probably a better candidate for a list like this.
• 25. The Dinner Game (1998)
• 26. Dinner Rush (2001)
• 27. The Dish (2000)
• 28. Disney’s Teacher’s Pet (2004)
• 29. The Door In The Floor (2004)
• 30. Driving Lessons (2006)
• 31. Duck Season (2004)
• 32. East Is East (1999)
• 33. Everything Put Together (2001)
• 34. Fast, Cheap & Out Of Control (1997)
• 35. 15 Minutes (2001)
• 36. Find Me Guilty (2006)
• 37. Firelight (1998)
• 38. Following (1999)
• 39. Gilles’ Wife (2004)
• 40. Gloomy Sunday (1999)
• 41. Go Tigers! (2001)
• 42. Going In Style (1979) Notable as much as its veteran cast as anything (George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strassberg are the leads), I liked this quite a lot when I saw it as a teenager. Seeing it more recently, it seemed more sluggish than I’d recalled. Worth a look though.
• 43. The Great Buck Howard (2009)
• 44. The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005)
• 45. The Hard Word (2002)
• 46. The Harmonists (1997)
• 47. Hedwig And The Angry Inch (2001)
• 48. Hidalgo (2004)
• 49. A Home At The End Of The World (2004)
• 50. The House Of Sand (2005)
• 51. How To Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) After a lively and entertaining first half, the film got bogged down badly in the latter stages, especially with a contrived romance subplot shoehorned into it for no good reason. Still, better than its reputation.
• 52. I Served The King Of England (2006)
• 53. Idiocracy (2006) While patchy and erratic, this Mike Judge film is often inspired and is at times a brilliant satire on the increasing downfall of modern American/Western culture. Very deserving of being on this list.
• 54. In The Shadow Of The Moon (2007)
• 55. Indigenes (Days Of Glory) (2006)
• 56. Innocent Blood (1992)
• 57. Intermission (2003)
• 58. Island In The Sky (1953)
• 59. Julia (2008)
• 60. Keeping Mum (2005)
• 61. Kill Me Later (2001)
• 62. King Of California (2007)
• 63. The King Of Masks (1997)
• 64. King Of The Hill (1993) Only saw this Steven Soderbergh Depression-era film very recently.It has some minor blemishes and the finale wraps things up too easily, but overall this is an excellent work and it’s criminal this hasn’t received a DVD release to date.
• 65. Kontroll (2003)
• 66. La Ciudad/The City (1999)
• 67. La Petite Lili (2003)
• 68. La Promesse (1996)
• 69. Lady For A Day (1933)
• 70. The Last Shot (2004)
• 71. Lawless Heart (2001)
• 72. Levity (2003)
• 73. Look Both Ways (2005)
• 74. The Lookout (2007)
• 75. Love And Death On Long Island (1997)
• 76. Mad Money (2008)
• 77. The Maltese Falcon (1931)
• 78. The Man From Elysian Fields (2002) Occasionally interesting and with a good cast (especially James Coburn in one of his final roles) but this was largely sunk by a weak script (no surprise it came from someone with a sitcom background) and a weak lead performance by Andy Garcia
• 79. Man Push Cart (2006)
• 80. Marvin’s Room (1996)
• 81. The Matador (2005)
• 82. Matchstick Men (2003)
• 83. Matewan (1987)
• 84. Maybe Baby (2000)
• 85. The Merry Gentleman (2009)
• 86. Metroland (1998)
• 87. A Midnight Clear (1992)
• 88. The Mighty (1998)
• 89. Millions (2005)
• 90. Mirrormask (2005)
• 91. Moonlighting (1982)
• 92. Mountains Of The Moon (1990)
• 93. Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont (2005)
• 94. My First Mister (2001)
• 95. The Mystery Of Picasso (1956)
• 96. Nine Lives (2005)
• 97. Nothing But The Truth (2008)
• 98. October Sky (1999)
• 99. Off The Map (2004)
• 100. Once Were Warriors (1994)
• 101. One Fine Day (1996)
• 102. Owning Mahowny (2003)
• 103. The Painted Veil (2006)
• 104. Paradise Now (2005)
• 105. Peter’s Friends (1992)
• 106. Phoebe In Wonderland (2008)
• 107. The Pledge (2001)
• 108. Priceless (2006)
• 109. Prisoner Of Paradise (2003)
• 110. The Prize Winner Of Defiance, Ohio (2005)
• 111. Queen Of Hearts (1989)
• 112. Quinceanera (2005)
• 113. Raising Victor Vargas (2003)
• 114. Resurrecting The Champ (2007)
• 115. Resurrection (1980) This low-key spiritual drama is generally effective and quite moving at times, propelled by an excellent performance by Ellen Burstyn. Let down somewhat by a contrived romance subplot, but overall deserving of being on this list.
• 116. Safe Men (1998)
• 117. Scarecrow (1973)
• 118. Seven Men From Now (1956)
• 119. Shadowboxer (2006)
• 120. Something New (2006)
• 121. Son Of Rambow (2008)
• 122. Songcatcher (2001)
• 123. Spring Forward (2000)
• 124. Starting Out In The Evening (2007)
• 125. Startup.Com (2001)
• 126. State Of The Union (1948)
• 127. The Steel Helmet (1951)
• 128. Still Crazy (1990)
• 129. Stone Reader (2003)
• 130. Sweet Land (2005)
• 131. The Tao Of Steve (2000)
• 132. Taste Of Cherry (1997) This Iranian film I haven’t seen for about a decade and I probably need to see it again to appreciate its minimalist and unusual story and style.
• 133. The Third Miracle (1999)
• 134. Thumbsucker (2005)
• 135. Tristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story (2006)
• 136. Tumbleweeds (1999)
• 137. Tuvalu (2000)
• 138. The TV Set (2007)
• 139. Two Family House (2000)
• 140. Two Lovers (2009)
• 141. Waking The Dead (2000)
• 142. The Weather Man (2005)
• 143. Welcome To Sarajevo (1997)
• 144. Went To Coney Island On A Mission From God … Be Back By Five (2000)
• 145. What Doesn’t Kill You (2008)
• 146. The Whole Wide World (1996)
• 147. The Wide Blue Road (1957)
• 148. Winter Solstice (2005)
• 149. Word Wars (2004)
• 150. The World’s Fastest Indian (2005)
• 151. Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005) A strange choice to have on this list imo. It’s respectably done but in truth it’s a routine, forgettable mainstream Hollywood children’s film (a poor man’s Jumanji) that gets churned out by the dozen every year. Watchable, but you’re not missing out on much if you never see this.
I’ve always valued Maltin more as a historian than as a critic. I seem to remember somewhere his admission that he hadn’t even seen all the movies in his guidebooks.
“While his tastes to have a tendency to be middlebrow at times-”
I resent that, sir!
Still laughing that the TV Set is on there. That’s my go-to movie when I’m feeling unappreciated.
Still want to see I served the King of England.
Yeah, I remember reading that about Maltin somewhere a while back and being quite surprised. Although realistically it would be impossible even for someone like Maltin to have seen all the films listed there, especially when you factor in he used to have a large amount of tv movies in there (always seemed an unnecessary addition imo) in there.
He’s not the only one. I read an interview with the late English film historian Leslie Halliwell (creator of Halliwell’s Film Guide) in the early 1980s where he admitted that he’d never seen The Magnificent Seven – a significant enough film that you would think would be essential viewing. Apparently his rating was just a collating of what other critics had thought of it!
I saw this in the bookstore over the summer, and I actually wrote a Facebook status about it:
“Thumbed through Leonard Maltin’s “151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen” at Barnes and Noble today. Turns out I have, in fact, seen about 35 of them. About half of those aren’t very good (15 MINUTES?). So if Maltin is to be believed, I can only surmise that I’ve already seen most of the good movies out there. Bummer.”
There are some good ones, though. Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone is very good, and I agree that Michael Keaton’s The Merry Gentleman was also unfortunately overlooked. Brick of course has been seen by a lot of us, but how that isn’t a huge cult favorite I don’t really get. And I don’t think anyone even on this blog saw Sweet Land but me, and I liked it a great deal.
But more of his choices are just quizzical. Besides the aforementioned 15 Minutes, I didn’t even remember that The Door in the Floor existed until I saw it in the book. Highly forgettable, that one. I thought The World’s Fastest Indian was a half-baked version of The Straight Story, which I see Slim has just reviewed on his own blog. There are a lot like those, stuff that isn’t quite what I’d actually call bad, but the idea that these are the BEST movies that the masses have overlooked seems highly dubious.
Maltese Falcon is an overlooked film? BS. Anyway, I’ve seen some on the list – some are good, some sucked. I can’t go through them all.
Maltin isn’t talking about the Bogart version, he’s talking about one made a decade before that is considered a decent film (and being pre-Production Code, more sexually explicit than the 1941 version) but is now almost totally forgotten because of the success of John Huston’s version. It’s that type of film that should appear more often in this list.
I can’t imagine watching another Maltese Falcon. I’ll never get the time I spent watching the Bogart version back as it is.
You just went way down in my book, Juan. Maltese Falcon is one of my top-ten movies, all-time.
Oh, thank you, Juan-
What about Ponette ? An absolutely heartbreaking film !