Movies don’t exist in a vacuum. When a film gets unleashed upon the world it comes alongside millions of dollars worth of marketing, rampant speculation, and a slew of other factors that make it difficult to judge what we’re actually seeing fairly, on its own merits. And although many films are accurately pegged as classics or junk when they first come out, the history of the art form is riddled with examples of classic motion pictures that were critically reviled, box office bombs, or both when they were originally released.
Don’t believe me? Fight Club was a critical and box office failure. The Shining was nominated for two Razzie Awards, including “Worst Director.” Audiences stayed away from It’s a Wonderful Life in droves, and many critics dismissed Frank Capra’s masterpiece as sentimental claptrap. Buster Keaton’s The General, now considered one of the funniest motion pictures ever produced, was somehow accused of not being funny. I could go on like this.
So although it’s not necessarily the case that every film that critics or audiences ignored, dismissed or outright hated in 2015 will one day be considered an all-time classic, it’s important to remember that time is sometimes kind to motion pictures that come out with too much baggage. That baggage may come from bad marketing, bad press, bad reviews or lack of audience interest, but eventually that baggage will be unpacked, sorted away, and all we’ll have left are films that – in the years to come – audiences will get to experience more objectively, free from the hive mind, mob mentalities and negative buzz that sometimes surround them.
Related: The 15 Most Forgettable Films of 2015
With that in mind, it’s time reveal our picks for the most underrated films of the 2015. These are the movies that deserve a second chance with audiences who either scorned them (perhaps because they were expecting something different than they actually got), ignored them because they were told that they sucked, or didn’t hear about them at all. If you heard that these movies were terrible, you may have heard wrong. We will happily take a stand and say that, whether they’re genuinely great or simply better than you might think, these movies all deserve to be given another chance to find an audience.
The 15 Most Underrated Films of 2015:
Top Photo: Walt Disney Pictures
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
The 15 Most Underrated Movies of 2015
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The Boy Next Door
Rotten Tomatoes: 10% Fresh
Rob Cohen's campy erotic thriller was accused of being a campy erotic thriller by audiences and critics who entirely missed the point. Giggling and shrieking at a movie that's trying to make you giggle and shriek is a good thing, and for those who could get on its wavelength The Boy Next Door was one of the most enjoyable films from the first half of 2015.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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Chappie
Rotten Tomatoes: 31% Fresh
Yes, it's basically just a Short Circuit rehash, but Neill Blomkamp's sci-fi drama about a robot who becomes artificially intelligent had a spark of originality. Sharlto Copley gives a distinctive motion-capture performance, and South African rape-rave duo Die Antwoord play themselves, in the future, as violent criminals, only because it's cool. Add in a psycho Hugh Jackman in short shorts and you've got, well, not a great film, but an interesting film that's worth seeing despite its familiar central concept.
Photo: Columbia Pictures
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Everly
Rotten Tomatoes: 29%
We have NO idea how Everly slipped under so many radars, and why so many critics didn't groove to its over the top charms. Salma Hayek plays a kidnapping victim who fights off wave after wave of psychotic killers - all in one hotel room - in this clever and exciting low-budget action spectacular from director Joe Lynch. It's got a great lead performance from Hayek, and once again proves that Lynch is a filmmaker we should all be watching closely.
Photo: RADiUS-TWC
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Focus
Rotten Tomatoes: 56%
Not so much critically panned as generally ignored, Focus was a welcome return to charismatic form for Will Smith, and proof positive that Margot Robbie deserves to be a major star. It's a heist and con artist film that's stylish as hell, full of clever twists, and downright sexy. Focus deserved a bigger audience.
Photo: Warner Bros.
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Jem and the Holograms
Rotten Tomatoes: 19%
Audiences refused to even give Jon M. Chu's Jem and the Holograms a chance, for the same reason that many critics hated it: the film wasn't a sugarcoated blast of nostalgia for the 1980s cartoon, so much as a dramatic reimagining of the material, capturing the heart of Jem but pushing the stranger aspects off until the sequel (which sadly, will probably never get made). But Jem and the Holograms is guilty of defying expectations, not of being terrible. With a little luck audiences will be kinder to this heartwarming, kitschy film on home video.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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Jupiter Ascending
Rotten Tomatoes: 26%
Audiences were thoroughly unprepared for just how weird The Wachowskis really are this year, when Jupiter Ascending baffled just about everybody and was accused of being downright awful. But "weird" is not the same as "awful" and this elaborate and eccentric sci-fi epic, about a woman from the lowest class in the galaxy who discovers she's suddenly inherited the planet Earth, spoke to many relevant social issues, viciously subverted the old-fashioned "princess fantasy" genre, and boasted the most wonderfully over the top villain performance in years, courtesy of recent Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne. It's a fun, challenging film that flies in the face of the mainstream, for better or worse, and it deserves more recognition for that.
Photo: Warner Bros.
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The Last Five Years
Rotten Tomatoes: 60%
The best romance of 2015 wasn't Fifty Shades of Grey (because of course it wasn't), it was this soulful and beautiful musical from director Richard LaGravenese. Based on the hit off-broadway show, the film takes place in the minds of a married couple, exposing their innermost hopes and fears, and eventually exposing every relationship for the confusing jumble of emotions that it really is. The music will stick with you, and Anna Kendrick gives her best performance. The Last Five Years was largely overlooked, and not exceedingly well reviewed, even though it's clearly a treasure.
Photo: RADiUS-TWC
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Lost River
Rotten Tomatoes: 30%
Ryan Gosling's directorial debut is... well, it's not GOOD, but it is admittedly rather fascinating. Taking place in the dystopian wasteland of present day Detroit, Lost River tells the story of a family desperately trying to stay in their house - and also trying to flee - but running afoul of maniacs in a position to keep them under the thumb of the powerful. Surreal imagery and memorable villain performances from Matt Smith and Ben Mendelsohn make this odd, not entirely successful experiment worth watching, whether you fall in love with it or not.
Photo: Warner Bros.
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Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
Rotten Tomatoes: 49%
The second installment in the most underrated YA franchise plays more like an adaptation of a Fallout video game than anything else, and it's actually a pretty good adaptation, filled with thrilling imagery, exciting set pieces, memorable characters and fun twists. Filmmaker Wes Ball has a unique eye for action that makes The Scorch Trials one of the most engaging b-pictures of the year.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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No Escape
Rotten Tomatoes: 46%
It may have been marketed as a political thriller but No Escape is a horror movie through and through, exposing all of our xenophobic anxieties like a raw nerve and poking them. Owen Wilson and Lake Bell move their family to a foreign country on the eve of a violent coup, and are forced to do unspeakable things to protect their children. Yes, it's an uncomfortable concept, but that's the point: to throw our fears right back in our face, make us experience them all at once, and then release us back into the world, unsettled. No Escape was chilling.
Photo: The Weinstein Company
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Seventh Son
Rotten Tomatoes: 12%
Not every genre film has to be a classic. It's okay for some of them to be merely entertaining. Seventh Son is one of those movies, and it fell victim to elevated standards earlier this year. The tale of a monster hunter (Jeff Bridges, hamming it up) and his young ward, waging war against a witch (Julianne Moore, also hamming it up) was a perfectly decent matinee adventure whose only real crime was not being great. Let me put it this way: if you liked Krull, you'll probably like this too.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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Sleeping With Other People
Rotten Tomatoes: 61%
Leslye Headland's sexy, sexy, sexy romantic comedy earned positive reviews out of Sundance but then got dumped into September, where no one noticed it, or even got the joke. This rom-com about an oversexed man and woman (Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie, both great) who refuse to boink each other is full of belly laughs from start to finish, and ultimately turns out to be pretty damned romantic too. The scene where Sudeikis teaches Brie how to pleasure herself, platonically, is particularly (and unexpectedly) sweet.
Photo: IFC Films
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Tomorrowland
Rotten Tomatoes: 50%
One week after everyone fell in love with Mad Max's apocalyptic wasteland was probably not the best time to release a film about why apocalyptic sci-fi movies are bullshit, but that's what Disney did anyway. Tomorrowland is hopeful and spirited and quirky, and it wasn't what anyone wanted to see in late May. But hey, nobody liked TRON when it first came out either. Give this one time too, because although it's got some problems, the good far outweighs the bad.
Photo: Walt Disney Pictures
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Unfriended
Rotten Tomatoes: 61%
A supernatural entity stalks a group of cyberbullies online, in a film told entirely from the perspective of a computer screen, and it didn't suck. Actually, Unfriended was fiendishly clever, transforming a very real issue into fodder for fright, and turning the tables on internet trolls so hard that maybe they'll think twice before their next mean-spirited tweet. It didn't reinvent the horror genre, but it was a neat idea that worked better than it probably had any right to.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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Wild Card
Rotten Tomatoes: 27%
Oh, what a difference a script makes. Jason Statham's latest movie, directed by the usually not-great Simon West (The Mechanic), was written by the legendary William Goldman, author of The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy, and it shows. The story of a Las Vegas security expert who gets roped into a revenge plot, and then has to flee the city (and his own vices) is full of colorful characters, witty dialogue and unexpected twists. It's low on action (although the action it has is great), but high on pulpy drama, and it deserves more recognition. A lot more.
Photo: Lionsgate
