Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen - Maltin, Leonard [1]
A certain segment of the population prefers an informed opinion to that of the man on the street. And people who do put stock in critics tend to seek out someone they agree with most of the time. (If you don’t agree with my opinions, why would you even peruse a book with my name on it?)
I don’t present myself as a sage or an oracle. I love movies, and I’ve spent a great many years watching, writing, and thinking about them. Like any critic, I see more bad films than good, but the best part of my job is leading people to worthwhile movies they might otherwise overlook. That’s what inspired this book.
My goal is simple: to introduce you to unfamiliar films and whet your appetite to see them. I define “unfamiliar” as any movie that failed to find a large audience. While that includes some major studio releases, most of the selections in this volume are independent or foreign films, including documentaries. Many of them are offbeat; even if they had multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns behind them, chances are they wouldn’t appeal to a mass audience. If you have a taste for this kind of entertainment, you may already know some of these titles. Other selections should have developed a following, in my opinion, but didn’t. I hope to offer a sense of discovery even to experienced cinephiles.
Because I want to reach as broad an audience as possible, I have resisted the temptation to stock the pond with movies from Hollywood’s golden age. I love films from the silent era, and the 1930s and ’40s, but that is a very particular pursuit, for another book.
Instead, I’ve concentrated on films from the last twenty years and offered just a smattering of oldies. If you’re not accustomed to viewing movies of the 1930s, you might experiment with Lady for a Day. If you think Westerns are a collection of clichés, you might try Seven Men From Now. If you think issues involving politics and media are strictly a product of our time, you might be surprised by State of the Union, which came out in the presidential election year of 1948.
Otherwise, I’ve restricted most of my proselytizing to films of recent vintage. I like to think of myself as having eclectic taste, and a curiosity about all kinds of films. I don’t think there is a common thread that runs through this list of titles, except perhaps for originality. It probably isn’t coincidental that so many of them are the work of writer-directors who are passionate about telling their stories—as opposed to journeymen who are simply carrying out an assignment—or that a number come from first-time filmmakers whose enthusiasm permeates their work. My synopses are brief because I don’t want to outline the entire plot—just enough to intrigue you. I am not a fan of so-called spoilers.
I’ve also avoided movies that are hard to find, although every rule has its exceptions. I couldn’t compile a list of unsung films and leave out such longtime favorites as Resurrection (1980), Queen of Hearts (1989), and King of the Hill (1993). I live in hope that their owners will see the light and release them on DVD, or at least make them available for downloading. In the meantime, I encourage you to search the Web, check out eBay, fire up that dormant VHS machine, and/or purchase an all-region DVD player that can accommodate foreign-issue discs, which are easy to purchase online.
As you peruse this book you will find references to the Telluride Film Festival, which has offered me unique moviegoing experiences for the past thirty years, and my weekly class at the University of Southern California, where I have the opportunity to interview filmmakers and see how their movies play to a young demographic. If I lean on these two sources, it’s because they consistently inform my life as a critic and an observer of the current movie scene.
A note about cast and credit information: I have strived to be consistent with my annual