It was hard to put together my list of The Best Films of 2013 and The Worst Films of 2013, but nowhere near as hard as populating my selections for the most underrated. Putting the other two lists in order was hard, but it was clear – at least – what films should be on them. Noting most underrated movies of 2013 requires me to not only take into account whether or not I thought a movie was good, but also to consider what everyone else seems to think about them, and go out on a serious limb and say that all the naysayers are wrong, or at least exaggerating a little bit.
As such, some of the films that follow on my picks for The 10 Most Underrated Movies of 2013 are merely better than advertised or rumored. Some quite a bit better, some merely more fun. I think there’s a tendency to ride a wave of popular opinion and say a certain film is the worst thing ever when, in fact, it’s just merely kind of junky. And junky can be just fine, provided you weren’t expecting brilliance in the first place, and the film had no greater obligation to its characters, fanbase or to society at large.
So what follows is a list of what I consider to be the most underrated movies of 2013: films that have a little more going on than many of my peers seemed to recognize, are more entertaining than audiences gave them credit for (often the result of mismarketing), and – in one particularly notable case – are so spectacularly bad that they deserve to achieve cult status, because against the filmmakers’ wishes I laughed non-stop from beginning to end, and loved every minute of it.
Here they are, my picks for The 10 Most Underrated Movies of 2013.
Read Witney Seibold’s picks for the most underrated films of 2013.
Read Fred Topel’s picks for the most underrated films of 2013.
Read Brian Formo’s picks for the most underrated films of 2013.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
The Top 10 Underrated Films of 2013
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Honorable Mention: White House Down
"I" haven’t underrated White House Down. If anything, I’ve built it up too much. But one of the so-called “Worst Films of 2013” is, if nothing else, a lot better than most of the rest of the other critics say it is. White House Down is a handsomely produced, funny, convincingly acted ode to naïve sentiment and awesome explosions, and if it wasn’t already on my Top 10 Films of 2013, it’d be at the top of this list too.
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American Mary
The Soska Sisters have crafted a striking new horror figure in American Mary, a film about the moral degradation of a victimized woman into a bizarre, surgical supervillain with a refreshingly sympathetic opinion about outsiders of the strangest variety. American Mary’s plot has some problems, but the affection the Soskas have for body modification enthusiasts, and the horror they still manage to eke from that same premise, make for an intriguing and exciting new horror film.
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Beautiful Creatures
An overblown, campy entry in the teen-fantasy-romance subgenre, and also one of the best examples of how to do it right. Richard LaGravenese directed the imaginative (if broad) dramatization of a woman’s coming of age in a repressive conservative environment through amusingly conceived magic powers, and threw in that rare pair of young lovers who are interesting, funny and smart enough to be worth rooting for. Beautiful Creatures has too much personality to be bad, although it may also have too much to be anything other than quirky.
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Dark Skies
A box office disappointment for Blumhouse Productions, and quickly forgotten by just about everyone (critics and audiences alike), but there was a lot to admire about Dark Skies, a creepy sci-fi thriller about a family being stalked by aliens whose appearances are creepily similar to what we normally associate with supernatural hauntings. The message about preserving the family unit over individual preoccupations is simplistic, but the gradual deterioration of the cast’s sanity – and some damned eerie scenarios strewn throughout – make Dark Skies an above-par chiller.
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Dead Man Down
I’m not going to come right out and say that this surreal hybrid of action, romance, crime, drama, and moral judgment was a “good” movie, but I can say that it deserves to be remembered as a fascinating example of what can happen when a movie has too many ideas, and treats every single one with the same enthusiastic emphasis. Dead Man Down is difficult to describe, but never difficult to watch, whether you’re laughing at its weirdness or unintentionally swept up in its strange sincerity.
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The Family
A lot funnier, sweeter and more exciting than most gave it credit for, The Family stars Robert De Niro as a former Mafioso in witness protection, trying to fit in for the sake of a family who – like De Niro – can’t quite shake the antisocial, ultraviolent and yet somehow wholesome trappings of their old criminal lifestyle. The comedy zings, the action explodes, the feel-good family schtick actually tugs at your heartstrings a little. It’s not a classic, but The Family was still one of the better comedies of 2013.
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Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters knows it’s stupid. They picked that title for a reason. But this steampunk action-fantasy has a charming pair of leads, some impressively distinctive visual effects, and energetic action sequences that make it immensely watchable, and allow me to forgive its dopey concept and occasionally questionable thematic underpinnings that make light of a very dark chapter in human history.
Read my original review of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.
Watch our exclusive behind-the-scenes video about the film's special effects.
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The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
The teen-fantasy-romance genre had not one but two underrated entries in 2013, and while The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is the lesser of the two (and easily has the most ungainly title), it’s also the kinkiest, fetishizing leather, tattoos, bondage, and all other forms of outré sexuality to the extreme… or at least, as extreme as you can get with a PG-13 rating. (Which, by the final twist, turns out to be pretty damned extreme.) It’s slash-fiction treated like the real thing, and has all the petty, simplistic, gaudy charms you would expect from that description.
Read my original review of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.
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Oz the Great and Powerful
Sam Raimi’s first foray into 3D filmmaking turned out to be one of the finest examples of how to do it right, fusing cinema’s most tawdry tool of showmanship to a film about the power and allure of, you guessed it, tawdry showmanship. James Franco plays the stage magician who cons a magical land into thinking he’s a real wizard, and Sam Raimi revels in that falsehood, creating a gorgeous film with an interesting message and a few memorable characters to boot.
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Planes
Disney got a lot of crap for Planes, a formulaic Pixar knockoff about believing in yourself and overcoming all obstacles. But you know that? It’s a formula for a reason, and Planes follows it well, crafting a simple but pleasing adventure that’s wholesome, kinda funny, and just a tiny bit inspiring. If nothing else, it was a lot better than Turbo.
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Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor
Practically every critic seems to agree that Tyler Perry’s latest damning indictment of sex, pretty much as a whole, was a terrible film. But what many seemed to ignore was the fact that it’s an AWESOMELY terrible film, with unintentionally hilarious performances and plot points, and a final twist that Perry somehow gives away in the title. The TITLE. This intensely naïve scare film has the same bizarre and wacky watchability as that “classic” Reefer Madness, and demonstrates the same absolute lack of understanding about the people and behavior it tries to warn audiences against. It’s the most unintentionally hilarious movie in years, and it’s in desperate need of a passionate, ironic cult following.
Read my original review of Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor.
