The 1970s was the age of New Hollywood, a time when film auteurs and movie mavericks were exploring the human condition from all manner of angles. Cinema had moved away from the mega budgets of the previous decades, had shifted drastically from lavish epics and star studded musicals, and moved to smaller, more personal fare.

Directors like Hal Ashby, Bob Rafelson and Peter Bogdanovich, among others, led the way with their exercises in existentialism. That said, the 1970s were not all introspection when it came to the movies, and there were all kinds of genre films still attracting punters and critical acclaim alike. The thriller, for instance, came in all kinds of guises throughout this era, from intense chillers to subtle character studies. Some were mega hits, others sank without trace. The following list features ten great thrillers from that era, some you may know and love, others you may have never heard of.

1. Prime Cut (1972)

After his glorious moment at the Oscars, winning Best Actor for The French Connection, Gene Hackman continued to work solidly. Some of the films were major blockbusters (Poseidon Adventure), others more arty fare. Prime Cut (1972) is sadly one of the less talked-about films he made in the early to mid 1970s.

Directed by Michael Ritchie, it follows Lee Marvin as Nick, an enforcer sent from Chicago by the mob to retrieve a debt of £500,000 from Kansas City meat industry tycoon “Mary Ann”, played with menace by Hackman. But this is no straight forward gangster shoot ’em up. There are hints of homosexuality between Mary Ann and his twisted brother, and more disturbingly there is a sub plot where Nick saves a young girl (played by Sissy Spacek) from Mary Ann’s human sex slave sale, where the teens are drugged and taken away by the highest bidder. On top of this is the fact that, at the film’s very start, it’s clear that Mary Ann has arranged for one of the Chicago mob’s men to be mashed up and processed into sausage meat.

All this, it’s fair to say, made the picture pretty controversial in 1972. It may leave a bit of a nasty taste in the mouth, but it’s bold, brilliantly acted and finely constructed. It’s so well written in fact that it literally flies by, and it’s peppered with quotable dialogue. There is a statement being made here about meat as a concept, as dead flesh, the price of flesh, and the value of human beings when compared to our more primitive friends who are bought, sold and processed. But for the most part it’s just an exciting, utterly involving thriller. Marvin is the solid hero, while Hackman is pure sleaze as Mary Ann, a creep who runs his empire with ruthless abandon, unconcerned with the world outside his realm of seediness.

2. The Domino Principle (1977)

The Domino Principle (1977) is another recognised dud in Gene Hackman’s mid to late 1970s output, but one that I feel deserves more credit than it gets. Critically mauled at the time, it stars Hackman as Roy Tucker, a man imprisoned for murder who receives an offer in jail from someone who will help him escape, but only if he promises to work for an “organisation” upon release.

For a film with such a bad reputation, The Domino Principle is actually really good. Opening with a great shot of a melancholic Hackman in close up, peering through his cell bars, he immediately makes you interested in the tale that follows. It may not be the greatest film he made, but it’s a strong effort that should not be overlooked. From his early interactions with cell mate Mickey Rooney, to his tense shenanigans on the outside, Gene gives his part intensity, a brooding resentment that makes Tucker a classic Hackman figure.

It’s a thriller with little depth, granted, but it keeps you intrigued and fully involved to the very end. An under-appreciated gem in my view, The Domino Principle is vintage Hackman in anti hero action mode – and it’s brilliant.

3. The Onion Field (1979)

The Onion Field is a powerful and often very moving film based on a true story, originally adapted into a book by LAPD sergeant and author, Joseph Wambaugh. It concerns the infamous murder of LAPD police detective Ian Campbell, and the escape of Officer Karl Hettinger from the scene of the crime. The two officers had pulled over a car with suspicious drivers, Greg Powell and Jimmy Smith, the latter just out of prison, the former a crazed sociopath without a care in the world. Greg pulled a gun on the cops and forced them into their car, where they drove out to the outskirts of town. Pulled out of the vehicle, Powell murdered Campbell in cold blood, and Hettinger fled into the night. The subsequent farce of a trial to lock up the killers – among the most dragged out in US history – highlights the painfully fatal flaws in the legal system..

Produced by Wambaugh himself, and directed by the often overlooked Harold Becker (who later made Sea of Love), the finished film is a rare gem. Becker directs beautifully, a true actor’s director who lets the players get to grips with the material. He establishes a mood of unrest from the start, but it is only that fateful night when Campbell is killed that the atmosphere shifts into truly dark territory.

Becker and Wambaugh were aided by a terrific cast; Franklin Seales is brilliant as Jimmy Smith, while Ted Danson and John Savage are also very convincing as the two cops, the one sadly murdered, and the one that escaped with his body but not all of his mind. But the most striking and indeed disturbing performance comes from James Woods as Greg, a sociopathic narcissist who can turn the charm on just as quickly as he can draw a gun. This star making turn, which earned Woods rave reviews and a Golden Globe nomination, is a breathtaking, terrifyingly convincing piece of work which is right up there to this day as one of the finest acting feats of 70’s American cinema.

Rarely singled out as a solid 70s film, it’s largely unavailable these days and you will have to track down a second hand DVD if you want to see it. That said, it is more than worth the digging around. A remarkably effective film.

4. Klute (1971)

In 1971, Donald Sutherland would give one of the most subtle, quietly impressive performances of his working life, starring alongside Jane Fonda in Alan J Pakula’s paranoid classic, Klute. While much of the positive notices went to Fonda, as indeed did the awards (including, among others, the Best Actress Oscar), Sutherland’s work was so measured and nuanced that some might look past it. But without his oddly comforting presence, the film would have lost much of its tension.

Klute is a thriller on the subdued side, a film that is deceptively quiet with seemingly very little happening. That said, beneath the restrained surface is a lot of hidden tension, and a plot which carefully unravels as it goes towards its climax. With an often melancholic atmosphere, Klute might not appeal to fans of ultra violent thrillers, but those who enjoy character-led stories will be pulled in, albeit quietly, from the word go.

Sutherland is the detective of the title investigating the disappearance of a friend, who may or may not have had something to do with a call girl, played with a certain jagged edginess by Fonda. Again, Fonda is brilliant here, but the film is held together by Sutherland. From the more madcap material he took part in during the previous year (MASH for instance), Sutherland reined it in for Klute, and I believe his work in the picture has aged the best of all. A pity then, that it was so overlooked at the time of the movie’s release. (And even since for that matter, given that most people tend to focus on Fonda and Sutherland’s real life love affair rather than any of the work they did together.)

Klute is an undisputed classic, but one I feel is fading away with time. At one point it was highly regarded, but these days it seems to slip through the viewing cracks of many film buffs.

5. Night Moves (1975)

Arthur Penn’s seminal Night Moves (1975) is a film that often gets ignored, perhaps due to the fact that it isn’t remotely showy and is intensely character-based, if not fustily so. Gene Hackman eases himself into the curious role of Harry Moseby, a private investigator who is looking for the missing daughter of an ageing veteran actress. Melanie Griffith is the young girl, and James Woods has a minor part as Quentin, a sleazy mechanic.

The supporting players fit their roles like gloves, but this is Hackman’s show all the way through. The plot unwinds with subtlety, is beautifully directed by Penn, and is a real showcase for Hackman’s more reserved style of acting. Moseby is another one of his crumpled, slightly crusty middle aged outsiders, a man so into his work he’s found it’s had a negative effect on his personal life, and more specifically his marriage.

Night Moves is one of those quietly compelling, curious character studies, with Hackman as one of his most off-to-one-side obsessives, a man who pokes around so much in other people’s lives he’s forgotten to focus on his own. Like The Conversation’s Harry Caul, this is a perfect shell for Hackman to inhabit, and he gets right under Moseby’s skin from his first scene onward. The picture itself has a healthy pace, neat direction and complex characters expertly played by the whole cast, but it is Hackman who remains centre stage and demands (very quietly) our attentions until the bizarre closing chapter.

The 1980s was the age of the blockbuster, a time when stories and backdrops were getting bigger and more lavish by each passing year. The Indiana Jones and Star Wars franchises led the decade when it came to box office receipts, while sequels and prequels also guaranteed big bucks. In the eyes of both the film studios and the majority of mainstream movie-goers, the auteur-led New Hollywood of the 1970s was over. Excessive gore and special effects reigned supreme.

That said, the 1980s were also a good time for smaller, more character based films, in particular thrillers, even if many of them slipped through the viewing cracks of most cinema punters. The following ten films are stand out thrillers from that decade, films you may or may not have seen, but either way deserve more light shedding on them all the same.

1. Cop (1988)

Cop, based on James Ellroy’s Blood on the Moon, has James Woods in the role of hard-assed Police Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins, who is trying to get to the bottom of a brutal murder in LA. The mystery leads him to the world of feminist literature, when he meets the owner of a poetry store and finds possible clues to the identity of the real killer, who in the mean time strikes again, and in an even more brutal fashion.

In the hands of another actor, he would have been the typical 80’s cop, the renegade with a mullet, the gun happy maverick repeatedly given stacks of paperwork to fill in after whacking some scumbag. But Woods makes the cop an individual; a maverick yes, but one who doesn’t really care about the personal consequences his actions will have. For him, work is life and life is work. Unable to separate the two, he loses his family, but keeps his focus on busting the killer.

He is not a wise-cracking hero, and this is no buddy cop movie of the breed that were all the rage at the time (even though there are some lovely interactions with Charles Durning, who plays his partner). No, this man is something of a lone wolf, totally single minded and intent on catching the bad guy. He ensures the film itself transcends the genre and becomes more of a character study than a police thriller. Woods turned down the lead in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street for this, so it was clear he was committed to the script and the part he was to make his own.

2. The Package (1989)

The Package is a murky tale of intrigue set during the Cold War. The Package of the title is none other than Tommy Lee Jones, a prisoner called Walter Henke, who must be transported from East Berlin to America by US Special Forces Sergeant Johnny Gallagher, played by Gene Hackman, where he will face a court martial. However, things do not go smoothly to plan and he proves to be a slippery customer, escaping at the airport. Only then do the complications mount, and Hackman ends up working against the clock to solve the mystery and save the life of a politician who is due to be assassinated.

A slick, smart, beautifully played thriller, The Package is directed with panache by Andrew Davis, who keeps the action coming while also leaving enough room for his cast to flesh out their roles. John Bishop’s script stays clear of cliches, though it also sticks to the rules of a good thriller. Indeed, the movie never lets you relax and become complacent as the twists and shifts in the plot arrive to take you by surprise.

The cast are great too. Hackman and Jones are marvellous in their roles, and there is a real thrill to be had in their interactions and the unfolding plot which reveals Jones’ character to be a much more dangerous figure than expected. There are also fine supporting turns from Joanna Cassidy, Dennis Franz and John Heard, the latter at his most villainous and slimy. Though it wasn’t a big hit at the time, it does have a healthy reputation as a solid entry in the paranoiac Cold War genre. That said, it definitely deserves more acclaim, as well as a decent Blu-ray release, too.

3. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

Back in 1981, fresh off the combined backlash and acclaim of The Shining, Jack Nicholson teamed up with Bob Rafelson again for a remake of the classic noir thriller, The Postman Always Rings Twice. Bringing it into the 1980s, they turned up the heat, casting the sexy Jessica Lange as Cora, the diner worker who finds herself in a passionate affair with a seedy drifter, Frank, played by Nicholson. As the pair get closer, in more ways than one I might add, they plot to kill her husband, Nick (John Colicos), and after a botched first attempt, the adulterers eventually murder him and stage it as a car crash.

However, though the local prosecutor cannot prove they did the deed, he locks up Cora in a bid to stir up a confession, thus pulling them both in for the crime. When Lange comes out on probation, she finds Frank has been having an affair with Marge (Anjelica Huston), complicating further the fact she is pregnant. The tension mounts when a lawyer’s assistant called Kennedy (John P Ryan) blackmails them for $10,000. Against all odds though, the terrible twosome marry, though a blissful union is not on the cards.

Rafelson gets us inside the story and exposes the desperation of these unsavoury characters. David Mamet’s wonderful screenplay ensures the film is full of quotable dialogue, and though it runs for over two hours, it does not feel even over 90 minutes. The central strength to the film though is undoubtedly the acting. Lange is terrific as Cora, a deceitful but appealing vixen who could pull any man into her web of lies. Jack is excellent as Frank, one of the least glamorous and most beastly roles he’s ever played.

For me, The Postman Always Rings Twice is one of the best thrillers of its time. Its air of desperation, of seedy deprivation, makes it so you instantly mistrust and even dislike the two main protagonists. Their lust, uncontrollable and untameable, draws them closer together, even as they both realise, at one stage at least, that they don’t actually like each other as people. They are bad for each other, of that there is no doubt, but their intoxicated desire for one another pulls them closer, and in the end they have no one else and nothing else but each other. And that is what makes the finale all the more troubling. A weird part of you wants them to get away with it all, to have a happy ending and a fruitful married life, even if you know their union is going to be troubled and seedy, and they will surely get themselves into more deep water.

4. The Ninth Configuration (1980)

William Peter Blatty’s vastly underrated The Ninth Configuration is an electrifying experience, a film that lures you in with madcap comedy for its first half, and then delivers an unexpected sucker punch during its final chapters. The film takes place in a castle doubling as an asylum in the early 70s, near the end of the war in Vietnam, where a group of soldiers deemed insane are residing. Colonel Hudson Kane (Stacy Keach) is brought in to reside over the inmates. A Vietnam veteran himself, it slowly becomes clear that he may be the infamous Killer Kane of ‘Nam legend, and that he could be just as crazy as half the inmates appear to be.

Most of the time speaking in a flat tone, and acting very strangely indeed, he indulges the patients and encourages them in their wild eccentricities. One patient, Cutshaw (Scott Wilson), builds a rapport with Kane, and the two go into theological discussions about good and evil, about the existence of God, an almighty creator, against theories of evolution. When Cutshaw escapes from the castle one night, Kane follows him, and finds the emotionally fragile man being roughed around at a bar frequented by Hell’s Angels. It is here that Kane snaps into violence, reverting to his manic, demented former self of Vietnam legend.

The Ninth Configuration is a complex, multi-layered film, a study of faith, of the existence of god, of good and evil on the earth, of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man, blurring the line between so called sanity and madness, a deeply theological film in every sense. But importantly, it is also extremely entertaining and gripping, a ride into pure, unadulterated madness, a horror film without creatures, monsters and demons, but human beings, who are the most monstrous beings of all. Brilliantly written, excellently directed, and acted with perfection, The Ninth Configuration is as good as filmmaking gets – and then some.

5. Thief (1981)

Thief is one of the finest thrillers of the 1980s, a movie which doubles as an intriguing story and a carefully executed character study. Though James Caan had been one of the biggest American actors of the 1970s, wining public and critical acclaim with such films as The Godfather and Rollerball, in the latter part of the decade he suffered a bout of depression which dented his career. Following a personal tragedy, he also struggled through some substance abuse problems in the 1980s. That said, despite his demons, in the early part of the decade he did have one of his most important parts, in the seminal Thief.

Caan plays Frank, an experienced safe cracker who is hoping to escape his seedy criminal life. A flawless, note perfect performance, it highlighted his subtle grace as an actor, and his intense watch-ability. Indeed, even when he is doing very little in Thief, you can’t take your eyes off him.

Mann directs with care, the script (also by Mann) is subtle and raw, while the supporting performances from such greats as Tuesday Weld, Robert Prosky and Jim Belushi are all superb. While most movie lovers know Michael Mann for Heat, itself an undisputed classic, I feel more people should seek out Thief. Not only a fine film, it’s also proof of how deep and talented an actor James Caan really was,

The 1990s were a golden era for high quality thrillers, from the erotically charged likes of Basic Instinct and Disclosure, to exciting blockbusters like The Fugitive and The Juror. So many thrillers were made throughout the decade, though, that naturally many of them were destined to slip under the radar and became neglected as the years went on.

While many of the films in this list are available if you seek them out, they are unlikely to appear on streaming services any time soon. Thankfully, Hollywood’s rich and varied history is there to be discovered if you have the time. So here are ten stand out thrillers from the 1990s, many of which have become buried in time.

1. Narrow Margin (1990)

Gene Hackman was firmly in star mode for Narrow Margin (1990), a thriller directed by Peter Hyams and co-starring Anne Archer. Hackman plays Robert Caulfield, an LA deputy district attorney and Vietnam vet, who is taking Carol (Archer) back to America where she will hopefully testify against a mob boss. After the perpetrators of the murder she witnessed track them down, Robert and Carol board a train from Canada to America. But then the duo realise hitmen are on board, and they spend the next day going cross country trying to keep alive.

Genuinely gripping, Narrow Margin is a damn fine thriller, wonderfully shot and expertly played by all involved. Fans of Gene Hackman in intense mode will be pleased, and he definitely delivers the goods. Indeed, the character might just be one of his most memorable from this era. He has the Hackman cynicism, the cocky humour and thorough forthrightness, but a lot of the time he’s basically a slave to the film’s tension, which tightens as it goes on. Yet there is room for Hackman quirkiness and he has many stand out scenes. Within the confines of this slick genre piece, Hackman is more convincing an action hero, albeit one wearing a suit and tie, than any muscle bound herculean warrior.

Unfortunately the film was not greeted with too much enthusiasm, either by the critics or movie-goers, but thirty odd years on it remains a solid slice of intrigue. In fact, it’s arguably one of Hackman’s most enjoyable pictures.

2. True Crime (1999)

In Clint Eastwood’s underrated True Crime, based on Andrew Klavan’s hit novel, the big man himself plays a journalist who hopes to bring to light some evidence which will prove a man’s innocence who is destined to be executed on death row.

This measured and carefully paced picture, a ticking time bomb of a drama that mostly takes place in a 24 hour period leading to the execution, has aged very well. Eastwood, a master of his craft, takes a mature tone with the material as director and is great in his role as the recovering alcoholic ready to step up. But some of the best moments are filled out by the splendid supporting cast, which includes Denis Leary and James Woods as Alan Mann, Eastwood’s editor-in-chief.

Woods is pure vital energy in this small but important role, wired up at all times as he makes his way back and forth through the busy office. He’s fast talking, funny and full of quips, put downs and witticisms. He works against Eastwood’s more laid back style beautifully and they enjoy some genuinely fantastic moments together. Denis Leary plays against type here as the boss, a role rather unlike his more comedic, fast talking usual parts.

True Crime didn’t fare too well upon release and is almost totally forgotten these days. It’s an exciting story, superbly directed and acted flawlessly by a top notch cast. Seek it out and you will not be disappointed.

3. A Kiss Before Dying (1991)

Based on Ira Levin’s classic novel, director James Dearden’s early 90s update of A Kiss Before Dying (it also hit the big screen in 1956) is a tight, suspenseful, unsettling, and engaging thriller. Starring two of the era’s most underrated stars, Sean Young and Matt Dillon, it has a plot that may look far fetched on paper but is in fact cleverly woven and brought to the screen with a lot of surprises.

Dillon stars as the conniving Jonathan Corliss, a young man who murders his girlfriend Dorothy (Young) and stages it as a suicide. Soon after he begins to get close to her twin sister Ellen (also Young), using a fake identity, and moves in on her life. As Ellen begins to investigate the mysterious “suicide” of her twin, Jonathan, acting as Jay, charms Ellen’s rich father, Thor, his eyes very much on the family fortune. As the plot thickens and Carliss reveals himself capable of even more dastardly acts, the film moves towards its shocking climax.

Sadly, A Kiss Before Dying was not a hit upon release and received mixed reviews, though Dillon did attract praise for his creepy, villainous turn. He had played rogues and tear-aways brilliantly prior to the film’s release, but never before had he been so evil. He would return to the dark side in Lars Von Trier’s highly disturbing The House That Jack Built, but for some time this would remain Dillon’s darkest performance. Sean Young, who shone brightly for a brief period in the late 80s and early 90s, is exceptionally good here, and the whole thing is brilliantly written and directed. A twisted treat from start to finish, this lost gem deserves a rediscovery.

4. Wild Things (1998)

Wild Things (1998), directed by John McNaughton, is one of the best sleazy thrillers of the decade. Starring Matt Dillon as a teacher accused of improper behaviour with two students, the film is full of twists and turns from the word go, right until the very last frame – quite literally so, in fact.

Denise Richards and Neve Campbell are two scheming high school students who just might be in on the Dillon abuse case, while Kevin Bacon is a crooked cop who wants a piece of the action. As great as the picture is, for me it’s probably stolen by Bill Murray who is superb as Ken Bowden, a neck-brace wearing dodgy lawyer. From the moment he first appears, it’s immediately impossible to imagine anyone else but Bill playing him. At first it may seem odd seeing Murray in such a sweaty, sexy thriller, but he gives the film the light relief it needs. He even makes a surprise re-appearance at the end.

Full of over the top moments, steamy sexual tension, unexpected violence and a host of superb performances, Wild Things is a tightly structured, gripping, and very funny fable on greed and lust. Would they make it these days? In short, no.

5. Mad City (1997)

In the overlooked Mad City, Dustin Hoffman plays Max Brackett, a local TV journo looking for a big scoop – which he gets when he finds himself in the middle a siege involving fired security guard Sam Bailey (John Travolta), who is holding up a group of people – including kids on a school trip – hostage in a museum. Brackett, seeing he has access to a story that could restore his image as a hot reporter, begins to manipulate the situation, first making Bailey a working class hero, the little man fighting back against the system, then a villain, a bad guy created by the media through manipulation, misunderstandings and cynicism.

Mad City is an enthralling film, wonderfully directed by the French master Costa-Gavras and with a rich, full screenplay by Tom Matthews, and though it could easily have been cliché ridden and predictable, there are enough moralistic twists and shifts to surprise the viewer at every turn.

The acting, too, is sublime. Hoffman is very good as the corrupt, ruthlessly minded journalist, a man who will do anything for his chance at the big time but begins to develop a conscience when he sees what the media is really capable, a realisation that becomes brutally blunt at the film’s climax. The finest performance however, in my view at least, comes from John Travolta as the likeable, slightly slow and ultimately tragic Sam, a wide eyed innocent unaware of the seriousness of his actions and a helpless victim of a harsh, unforgiving, brainwashing media. The great Alan Alda delivers a fine effort too, but Hoffman and Travolta are the focus of the film and their interactions are the vital ingredient.

The reviews, however, were not so good, meaning that with bad notices and poor box office the film has gone down as a bomb, which seems unfair, given that all these years on it’s a perfectly well made and executed mainstream rollercoaster, just as good or even better than the best commercial thrillers that emerged in the 1990s.

Mad City is worthy of your time for a number of reasons; the satirical attacks on the media; the explosive ending including Hoffman’s moralistic awakening; the fine performances. Perhaps most important of all, though, is the fact it’s so enjoyable, just as all good popcorn movies should be.

American cinema in the 1970s was so full, rich and varied that you could fill several volumes of books with overlooked and underrated gems. We all know and love the recognised masterpieces, the Oscar winners and quotable classics, but every film buff has their own list of movies that they wish more people had seen.

This is true of all decades of course, but one could argue that the seventies are more full of obscure bits of gold worth discovering than any other time. Join me, then, as I uncover ten more great American films from the 1970s, some more forgotten than others.

1. The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (1975)

Though the world knows and loves Gene Wilder for the legendary likes of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, his films with Richard Pryor (including Silver Streak and Stir Crazy), as well as his various collaborations with Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles, The Producers and Young Frankenstein), one true gem of his that has sadly become lost in time is the 1975 comedy, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother.

Written and directed by Wilder, he also takes the lead role as Sigerson Holmes, brother of the more famous Sherlock. As the movie begins, the legendary sleuth decides to lay low for a while and hands over a “difficult” case to his younger, less secure and considerably less brilliant sibling. The case leads him to Jenny Hill, a music hall singer played by Madeline Kahn, a shady crook named Eduardo Gambetti (Dom DeLuise) and Holmes’ great nemesis Moriarty (Leo McKern), all the while being assisted by the mild mannered Sgt. Sacker (Marty Feldman), a chap whose photographic memory proves incredibly helpful.

The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother is a total treat from start to finish, the jokes coming thick and fast, and the highly quotable dialogue almost constant. Wilder’s script is both hilarious and genuinely well structured, encompassing song and dance routines, musical numbers, slapstick mayhem and clever wordplay. The performances are faultless, from Wilder’s lead effort to Kahn’s spectacular turn as Hill. One must also mention how funny DeLuise is here, while the ever reliable Roy Kinnear is also brilliant as Moriarty’s simple minded accomplice, Finney. (It’s also worth listening out for Mel Brooks’ voice cameo.)

The film was a massive hit at the time of release and was greeted warmly by critics. Sadly it isn’t as well known and loved today as it should be, at least in my opinion, and definitely deserves firm comedy classic status.

2. The Visitors (1972)

Elia Kazaan’s The Visitors concerns a young Vietnam vet named Bill (played by James Woods) who lives with his wife and son on her father’s farm. One day, two of his supposed buddies arrive, unannounced and out of nowhere. It turns out they are old army friends from ‘Nam, but the men harbour dark secrets from the past, which they are about to bring into Bill’s supposedly idyllic family life.

Low budget, raw and gritty, The Visitors has a tension running through it which is at times suffocating; even from the opening scene with the baby crying and the young couple’s early interactions, the unease bubbles and it’s clear something unpleasant will occur down the line. When the two soldiers arrive, it’s revealed that Bill is going to inform on his old allies, who raped and killed a girl in Vietnam, and the unease one feels at the very start is justified.

The Visitors was scripted by Elia’s son Chris and was shot around the Kazan country house. Creaky in parts, its rough and readiness actually works in the film’s favour. The film was inspired by true events, and written as a kind of sequel to Daniel Lang’s article on the infamous Incident on Hill 192. Lang himself later expanded it into a book, Casualties of War, which was brought to the screen by Brian De Palma in 1988.

Naturally, given its source material, The Visitors is engaging, but for me the main reason to watch it today is for Woods, for the first time the star of a film. As far as starring debuts go, it’s remarkably assured and he shows early promise, completely at one with his character. It may be the most obscure Kazaan movie there is, but it proved that the old master still had a few tricks up his sleeve.

3. The Crazies (1973)

Just as Night of the Living Dead defined the modern zombie movie and started off decades of imitations and reimaginings of the slow moving undead scenario, The Crazies arguably single-handedly invented the highly popular panicky apocalyptic pandemic movie. Without The Crazies, there’d be none of those high paced fright fests consisting of fast moving, foamy mouthed infected fiends out to feast upon you and tear you limb from limb.

In a world without The Crazies, there’s no Rabid, no Shivers, no 28 Days Later, no Cabin Fever; the list goes on. But while Night of the Living Dead’s mighty influence is voiced time and again in both horror and mainstream circles, widely recognised by even the most casual of horror fans as the singular daddy of the zombie flick, The Crazies’ appeal is more cult, underground, and as Romero himself would say, trollish. It might have made only a small dint of impact at the time of its release, but The Crazies is another one of Romero’s terrifying, traumatic gems which has lasted through time and remains a classic after all these decades.

The plot starts with a plane crashing in Pennsylvania, which releases a mysterious virus which gets into the water supply (Cabin Fever anyone?) and begins to turn the town’s folk utterly mad and homicidal in their urges. Back in the early 70s, what with the Cold War and Vietnam still very much clogging up the air, The Crazies must have been a distressing film to watch. But now, a time where we are constantly on our toes waiting for the next horrifying news items of bloody terrorism and mass hysteria, it’s hardly a pleasant watch. It’s bleak, claustrophobic, and totally plausible too.

In The Crazies, Romero tells us we are helpless against the establishment and their decisions, no matter how hurriedly they are acted out. It’s chilling to think that if they wanted us sealed off, shot, disposed of, or out of the picture all together, they’d be able to achieve that in very little time and have a reasonable explanation for doing so. Despite its obvious technical imperfections then, this is a very important film, the first in a sub-genre that gradually grew out of its low key arrival.

4. Time After Time (1979)

Despite being a star since the start of the decade, Malcolm McDowell’s first above the title Hollywood blockbuster was 1979’s Time After Time, an exciting sci-fi adventure with a potentially daft plot premise which, largely because of the appealing performances, manages to stay grounded. Once you get over the initial ludicrous plot, which involves HG Wells perusing Jack the Ripper through 1970s USA after they transport from the 1890s in a time machine, you will enjoy this film. Wells feels he has to stop this killer and save the future from his menace, a future which he believes will be some Heavenly Utopia. What follows is a light suspense thriller with surprisingly gory murder scenes and a quick pace.

Nicholas Meyer’s direction is suffocatingly tense and his script is very clever at times. One of the most chilling and poignant moments in the film is when the positive, almost naive Wells’ dark realisation that the future is a scary place, and nothing at all like his hopeful vision. Worse still, within this sobering reality, Jack the Ripper is an amateur in comparison to what horror 1970s America has to offer. Light relief is had in the romantic sub plot which involves McDowell and Mary Steenburgen as a bank clerk. The duo are incredibly charming together, and there was obviously more than acting going on. Indeed, the two actors fell in love on set and later married.

McDowell, for once not playing the villain, is marvellous, showing a side to his talent that is criminally underused. He perfects his role as the overwhelmed gentleman; soft spoken, well mannered, kind and sensitive, qualities that none of his previous roles had so strongly. David Warner, who is quite simply one of the most reliable actors of all time, is great as the frighteningly unpredictable villain; tense, strange and sinister. Although it may have aged a bit, Time After Time is still a classic piece of Hollywood fun, with plenty of thrills and some simply wonderful moments. It also deserves as lot more attention in retrospective views on 1970s cinema.

5. Murder by Decree (1979)

The cinematic world of Sherlock Holmes is a varied and endlessly entertaining place, full of both straight forward adaptations of Doyle’s classic stories and more experimental, imaginative fare. Definitely among the latter is 1979’s Murder by Decree, an all star romp which has a genuinely clever premise and runs with it without becoming tiresome.

Directed by Bob Clark, and with a screenplay by John Hopkins (based on the book The Ripper File by John Lloyd and Elwyn Jones), it stars Christopher Plummer as Holmes and James Mason as Watson, who are on the trail of Jack the Ripper in late 1880s Whitechapel. There’s a wonderful supporting cast which includes David Hemmings as Inspector Foxborough, alongside Donald Sutherland, Frank Finlay and John Geilgud.

The plot premise has been used again, but the idea of Holmes setting his sights on the Ripper was an inspired one at the time. Clark directs beautifully, transporting the viewer back to the shadowy atmosphere of late 19th century London, and the script stays subtle and grounded while still delivering the goods and keeping you guessing until the final reel.

Murder by Decree was a modest success upon release and the critics loved it too. As the years have gone by, however, it has slowly faded away, though it does pop up on TV now and then. It’s one of those enjoyable experiences where you find yourself spoilt rotten by the general fun and the dazzling cast, which is full tot he brim with the kind of solid actors we took for granted in days gone by.

Growing up as I did as a film lover in the 1990s, looking back now I can see it truly was a special time for both independent and mainstream cinema. Every month saw the release of half a dozen tent pole pictures, huge-budgeted blockbusters which essentially kept the film industry afloat so that there was more money to put into smaller, more intimate pictures.

Whether this is the case now, of course, is up for debate, but back in the final decade of the 20th century there seemed to be a fair balance between big and small movies, both the mainstream and more quirky character-based pictures. It’s arguable whether this equilibrium was ever reached again.

Below are ten American films from the 1990s which may have slipped by you in the past couple of decades. Whether they were critical or commercial hits or not, these are movies which I believe deserve more appreciation.

1. Ed and His Dead Mother (1993)

Right after the roaring success of Reservoir Dogs, Steve Buscemi took a lead role in a little known obscurity by the name of Ed and His Dead Mother. Directed by Jonathan Wacks, it’s one of those comforting little indie films the 90s were so full of, only this one has some rather unsavoury factors about it, ensuring it borders on the fine line between horror and comedy.

Steve stars as Ed Chilton, the owner of a hardware shop who is trying to adjust to life now his mother has died. Ned Beatty plays his uncle Benny, who attempts to lift Ed’s spirits and help him get on with his life. When sharp suited salesman AJ Pattle (John Glover) visits his store with the promise he can revive his dead mum, Ed goes along with the scheme for a mere 1000 dollars. However, things do not go according to plan. When reanimated, Mabel (Miriam Margoyles) is not quite the woman she once was. As we are told in the black and white opening scene set in a courtroom, Ed ends up decapitating his mother, whose behaviour has become increasingly bizarre.

If this film is a metaphor for letting go of a dead loved one and moving on in life, then it puts its point across very literally and with many broad laughs. The script is wonderful, full of sharp gags and witty little lines, but it’s the cast who make it gently dazzle. The always great Glover is shiftiness personified as the salesman, and Ned Beatty is hilarious as Benny, always ogling the girl who sunbathes over the road. Margoyles puts in a fine effort too, one of the best British character actresses to make it over the other side of the pond. But it’s Buscemi who carries the film, with his gentle, mild mannered depiction of a son who just can’t move on, until he has no choice.

Ed and His Dead Mother is the kind of film that sells you on its title alone, but the press were less than kind to this quirky tale of a momma’s boy who literally cuts off the apron strings. Many critics claimed the direction to be the film’s major problem, praising the script and performances but having problems with Wacks’ approach. While the film failed to set the world alight back in the day, it is now something of a cult curiosity (thanks largely to Buscemi’s fame) and can be viewed easily, and freely. I suggest you do so.

2. Diggstown (1992)

Something of a favourite among hardcore James Woods fans is Diggstown (1992). Directed by Michael Ritchie and written by Steven McKay, the film stars Woods as Gabriel Caine, a con man who’s just got out of prison and has a fresh scam on his mind. Fitz (Oliver Platt) is his partner in crime, and together they travel to Diggstown, a place that puts boxing on a pedestal.

Bruce Dern is John Gillon, a high roller who owns most of the town and once managed their most famous export, boxer Charles Diggs. Fitz challenges the city’s claim that Diggs once KO’d five boxers in one day and insists that Gillon will pay him $100,000 if he can bring to town a boxer who can floor all ten of Diggstown’s best fighters. Gabriel chooses Palmer (Louis Gossett Jr.) for the job, an ex-boxer nearing fifty whose glory years are behind him. Can Palmer rise to the challenge, or have Fitz and Caine pushed it too far this time?

Diggstown works on many levels. Firstly, it’s the classic underdog story, where the man least likely to succeed does so in the end. Dern is the establishment, smug and complacent, and Woods and Gossett Jr. are the little men, the rebels standing up to his cruel greed. Though the feat seems impossible, we genuinely root for them and want them to come out on top.

The script is great of course, but the acting is what makes the picture a winner. Woods is at his motor-mouth best, a man who could talk his way into and out of anything. This is the kind of role no one else could have played. Woods is the star here, the central figure, and it’s a thrill to see him as the leading man in a major piece of mainstream entertainment. The fact he carries it (aided of course by the brilliant Louis Gossett Jr.) is a credit to him. One of the finest American actors of our time, he shows his range as the wily crook.

Diggstown does have a sizeable following, especially in the US, but I still feel it deserves more attention. A lavish blu-ray release seems the right way to go at this stage. A 90s indie classic, Diggstown deserves cult classic status.

3. City Hall (1996)

Coming six years after their collaboration on Sea of Love, director Harold Becker and Al Pacino teamed up once more for this riveting, largely overlooked drama. With a script co-written by Paul Schrader, the story concerns a mob shoot out which takes place in a busy street and includes the killing of an innocent child.

Martin Landau is Judge Stern, a friend of Mayor John Pappas (Pacino), heavily criticised for having previously let the killer out of jail, while the cop involved in the shooting, Detective Santos, much to the distress of his family sees his name smeared with the ugliness of the scandal. It is the deputy mayor, Kevin Calhoun (John Cusack), with help from police union lawyer Marybeth Cogan (Bridget Fonda), who starts looking for clues, and their investigations lead to worrying links between the establishment and the mob.

City Hall was a financial disappointment upon release, a film which was overshadowed by more showy pictures. Even Pacino fans didn’t bother to see it, instead opting for the much more publicised Heat, his first on screen stand off with Robert De Niro. City Hall, though, is a fine suspense drama, full of tension, twists and turns. It is wonderfully directed in a no-frills fashion by the ever reliable Becker, a hugely underrated director who made some of the finest American movies from the 1970s onwards.

Acting-wise the film is without fault, with Pacino, Cusack, the hugely overlooked Fonda, and Landau all sturdy in their roles. It may have suffered commercially due to its sizeable budget and the uncommercial quality of the story, but thirty years on it seems unfair that such a well made and engaging picture as this is so overlooked.

4. Catchfire (1990)

Despite directing one of the biggest hits of the 1960s, Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper was never really offered a film that matched it. He loved to direct, but the work he got to take on rarely ignited his flame. His first directorial picture of the 1990s was Catchfire, written by Alex Cox and three other writers. It follows Jodie Foster as a woman who goes on the run after witnessing a mob killing at the hands of Joe Pesci. Directing with a touch of glossy class, Hopper also stars in the picture as Milo, a mysterious hit man who tracks her down but typically offers to spare her life if she’ll do anything and everything he desires. Pure Hopper.

As with most of his directorial work, the cutting and releasing for Catchfire was all over the place. There is a three hour cut out there somewhere, rather predictably the one that Hopper preferred, and the film also went out on TV in the States as Backtrack with 20 extra minutes put in. Though we cannot see the 180 minute cut, the Hopper approved TV edit is just about good enough. A simmering, suspenseful film, it’s well acted and wonderfully directed too, with a surreal edge that separates it from other bog standard action thrillers from that era. As well as directing with firm efficiency, he delivers a stunning performance as the New York accented killer. “Passion’s a hard thing to conceal” is one of his stand out lines.

Hopper’s view of Catchfire soured quickly, seeing as he disowned it and wanted his name removing from the credits. Though no masterpiece, it is highly engaging, and just the kind of film that you have to see to believe. When all is said and done, who could resist a film that features Joe Pesci, Charlie Sheen, Dennis Hopper, Vincent Price and even Bob Dylan as a chainsaw wielding artist? I’ll await your response…

5. Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

One of Martin Scorsese’s most underrated pictures is Bringing out the Dead, a harrowing, enthralling and completely disturbing ride into the farthest reaches of urban hell. The film stars Nicolas Cage as Frank Pierce, a New York city paramedic who is starting to lose his mind. He is close to a complete breakdown, a man highly depressed by the number of deaths he has on his conscience. In a dizzying and disorientating fashion, the film charts his near-descent into near mental oblivion.

Written by Paul Schrader, and based on the novel by Joe Connelly, on paper Bringing out the Dead looks like it might merely be Taxi Driver in an ambulance, with Travis Bickle being replaced by a more sensitive soul who just cannot take it any more. That said, it doesn’t take long to realise that the film is a very different beast indeed. Full of jump cuts, speedy editing, and an overall fragmented visual style, it is the most un-Scorsese film you could pick out. Frantic and jarring, it’s a hugely distressing but totally engaging thriller of the mind, a psychological roller coaster which grabs you by the scruff of your neck and refuses to let go for two very tense hours.

Its story and visual approach aside, one reason to watch and enjoy Bringing out the Dead is to see some of the most talented actors of American cinema at their very best. Cage delivers what might just be one of the finest and most overlooked performances of his whole career, while ample support is provided by the likes of a completely unhinged and close to terrifying Tom Sizemore, a sweet and appealing Patricia Arquette and the ever reliable John Goodman.

Bringing out the Dead might take a bit of getting used to, but if you do adjust to its unnerving atmosphere, there is much to enjoy. Certainly seen as a lesser Scorsese movie by most critics, I feel it’s one to reassess now that it’s reached its 25th anniversary.

The 1980s were a lucrative time for American cinema, a decade in where films were consistently making previously unimaginable sums of money at the box office. Largely unpoliticized, much of the most popular cinema of the 1980s was about having a good time, living a rich and fulfilled life, overcoming the odds, and getting the girl at the end before the credits rolled.

Beneath the glossy surface though, there was more gritty, edgy fare being released, films that were far less feel-good in tone and delivered a harder punch. Given these movies pre-dated the political correctness that often stifles modern films, they often went into areas that were daring and controversial, unflinching human dramas that were fearless in their approach. Below are ten 1980s films that may have passed you by, but are well worth seeking out.

1. Best Seller (1987)

One of the least talked of, yet most impressive 1980’s films to feature James Woods, is Best Seller (1987), where he starred alongside the late and great Brian Dennehy. This sharp thriller has Woods as a hit-man named Cleve who wants the help of seasoned cop Dennis Meechum (Dennehy), who also happens to be a best selling writer, to adapt his admittedly fascinating story into book form.

Things aren’t straight forward though. Years earlier, as part of a masked gang, Cleve had killed two of Meechum’s colleagues, and once this fact is revealed he is adamant on busting him. At the start of the film though, Woods appears out of nowhere during Dennehy’s pursuit of a criminal and saves his life. Meechum is therefore torn and also genuinely intrigued by the tale Cleve has to tell him, that he was a paid assassin for Kappa International, a huge empire run by David Madlock (Paul Schena). What follows is a strange game between Woods and Dennehy, a kind of dance of psych outs and double bluffs. Is this relationship, this weird friendship that has developed between the officer and the criminal, at all healthy? Will he turn the hit man in as soon as the book is finished?

As anyone who’s seen it will know, there is much more to the film than a straight forward thriller. One can look into hidden subtext a little too intensely, yet I feel there is something being said about 80’s America here, the era of aspiration, of success being all, of suited yuppies making everything a commodity. Woods gives Cleve a believability, and not once do we roll our eyes when he takes a man down with his gun with ease, or breaks another’s neck because he is in the way. We buy it, and also swallow the fact he could quietly leave the room without you even knowing he’d been there. It’s a subtle performance.

It helps of course that he was cast opposite an actor as good as Dennehy, who also settles into his role with apparent ease. Cleve sees them as soul brothers, is adamant they have a bond. “Cop and killer,” he says, adding “two sides to the same coin.” As he did with De Niro in Once Upon a Time in America, Woods plays off Dennehy splendidly, and Dennehy works against Woods’ snake-like deviousness with a stony determination.

Best Seller is not the standard 80’s thriller it looks to be on its DVD cover. An intelligently written and constructed cat and mouse game, it’s a film about morals, about motives and personal redemption. At its centre are two wonderful performances by a pair of actors who work so well together that you wish they had teamed up more often.

2. The Big Town (1987)

Matt Dillon was one of the best of the young movie brats whose profile was on the rise during the mid to late 80s, and though he didn’t become a mega star like some of his contemporaries did, he always made excellent choices and consistently played challenging, intriguing characters. One of these came in 1987’s The Big Town, in which he portrays Cullen, a small time crap-shooter who moves to Chicago in hopes of making his fortune. He immediately falls in with two hustlers, one of whom is played by Bruce Dern, and meets Lorry (Diane Lane), a stripper who wants vengeance on her husband, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Cullen finds himself stuck between two women, Suzy Amis as the sensitive Aggy, and the bad girl Lorry, all the while working away on making as much money as he can.

Seedy, sleazy and gripping, this cool noir thriller is one of those lost treasures you get a kick out of discovering. Directed by Ben Bolt (who was helped out by an uncredited Harold Becker), and adapted from Clark Howard’s book The Arm by Robert Roy Pool, The Big Town was not a box office success (clearly, it had none of the shallow appeal of the more mainstream pictures), though it did attract some solid reviews. Stylish in an unforced kind of way, it’s simply an enthralling story acted thoroughly well by a top cast. As ever, the likes of Bruce Dern and Tommy Lee Jones are superb, though the film arguably belongs to Dillon and Lane. They had starred in two films together before this (Rumble Fish and The Outsiders) and always enjoyed a lively chemistry. The Big Town is worth watching for these characterisations alone, but it’s also just a good old fashioned thriller with all the twists and turns you want and expect.

3. The Package (1989)

The Package is a murky tale of intrigue set during the Cold War. The Package of the title is none other than Tommy Lee Jones, a prisoner called Walter Henke, who must be transported from East Berlin to America by US Special Forces Sergeant Johnny Gallagher, played by Gene Hackman, where he will face a court martial. However, things do not go smoothly to plan and he proves to be a slippery customer, escaping at the airport. Only then do the complications mount, and Hackman ends up working against the clock to solve the mystery and save the life of a politician who is due to be assassinated.

A slick, smart, beautifully played thriller, The Package is directed with panache by Andrew Davis, who keeps the action coming while also leaving enough room for his cast to flesh out their roles. John Bishop’s script stays clear of cliches, though it also sticks to the rules of a good thriller. Indeed, the movie never lets you relax and become complacent as the twists and shifts in the plot arrive to take you by surprise.

The cast are great too. Hackman and Jones are marvellous in their roles, and there is a real thrill to be had in their interactions and the unfolding plot which reveals Jones’ character to be a much more dangerous figure than expected. There are also fine supporting turns from Joanna Cassidy, Dennis Franz and John Heard, the latter at his most villainous and slimy. Though it wasn’t a big hit at the time, it does have a healthy reputation as a solid entry in the paranoiac Cold War genre. That said, it definitely deserves more acclaim, as well as a decent Blu-ray release, too.

4. True Believer (1989)

Director Joseph Ruben’s True Believer (1989) is another solid movie featuring yet another committed 80s James Woods performance. Here he excels as maverick defence attorney Eddie Dodd, a man who, slightly disenfranchised with the legal system, finds himself stirred once again by a prison murder which takes him back to a Chinatown killing from a decade earlier.

Way back when, Dodd was a man excited and enthralled by the very idea of seeking justice. In the late sixties and early seventies he was a famous civil rights lawyer, but twenty years on, at the end of the yuppie era, he’s slightly burnt out. He still has the long hair, but it’s tied back in a weird mullet. (In a later interview, Woods joked that he had kept the wig as a pet.) He is still on the edge, but he doesn’t have the faith and passion he once had. This case however, immediately landing him in hot water, gets his blood flowing again, and he is in his element once more, as if the 1980s never happened.

Robert Downey Jr. is effective as the rookie straight out of law school sent over to work with Dodd, but this is Woods at centre stage. Of course this does not mean he chews scenery and asserts himself over the rest of the cast, but Dodd is such a charismatic role that there was no way Woods wasn’t going to make him the heart of the picture. Embodied in this one character is the hope of a whole generation, one that believed that justice would win in the end, that truth and integrity were absolute. The fact he’s frazzled, let down by the system, only makes his resurgence all the more exciting. Woods plays it with perfection.

Overall the film is consistently gripping and keeps you fully invested and guessing away until the final reel. Though popular at the time (it even spawned a spin off TV series), it’s overlooked today and deserves a lot more attention.

5. Split Decisions (1988)

Split Decisions (1988) is a raw urban drama from director David Drury, with Gene Hackman at his grisly best as boxing trainer Danny McGuinn. He’s getting his son Eddie into the ring, while his other son, Ray, is mixing with the wrong sorts. When Ray gets killed, Eddie finds out the murderer was a mobster who also boxes, so naturally he challenges him to a match.

Some have compared the tone of the film to Rocky (1976), and though it’s very much a film which triumphs the underdog, this is a very different tale. Gritty in some ways, perhaps a little familiar in others, it is a film elevated by a subtle, multi layered performance by Hackman. Totally overlooked today, I would single it out as a minor gem in Hackman’s filmography, worth watching for his portrayal of the trainer who also happens to be a father.

Hackman played fathers very well in the 1980s, perhaps because he himself was by then an established dad to grown up kids. In Twice in a Lifetime he portrayed the wandering, tired, weary middle aged dad brilliantly, torn between his family and his fresh new love, but not torn enough to actually put his family first. Here, as in the later Wyatt Earp, family is the key word and blood comes before all else. Though some have said he sleepwalked through the part of Danny McGuinn, even a sleepwalking Hackman is better than 99 percent of other actors at their peak.

Thankfully, Split Decisions is easy to find these days and is readily available on both DVD and various digital platforms. Boxing buffs will love it, of course, but I would argue it would mainly appeal to die hard Hackman fans. Made the same year as the far more acclaimed and popular Mississippi Burning, Hackman is just as good here.

Every era of Woody Allen’s long and winding career as a filmmaker is varied and eclectic, and the 1980s, which might be dubbed his mid-period, is perhaps the most diverse of all. From sex comedies to madcap farces, theological dramas to mockumentaries, this was indeed a rich and highly creative decade for Woody Allen as writer and director. For Woody devotees, the 1980s could contain more masterpieces than any other decade, and even part time Woody fans might have to admit there are more genuine classics here than even in the glorious 1970s.

In such a rich period, it is indeed very difficult to pick out any film that isn’t at least very good. That said, there are films here that one would rank above others without taking anything away from the so called “lesser” works. Below then, is a list of all Woody’s directorial films from the 1980s, arranged from Worst to Best.

11. September (1987)

Straight from 1987’s Radio Days, Woody took himself in a completely different direction, staying behind the camera for a tense drama based on Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. September stars Mia Farrow as Lane, who winds up in a complex love triangle involving Howard (Denholm Elliot), Stephanie (Diane Wiest) and Peter (Sam Waterson). Lacking in any direct humour, it’s a character piece with the performances centre stage, and is wonderfully conducted with masterful control by Woody.

The weird thing about September is the fact that Woody actually filmed it once with a different cast, scrapped it, and then re-filmed it from scratch. Christopher Walken had shot scenes in Sam Waterson’s role, but Woody said it didn’t feel right, and Charles Durning had been in place of Denholm Elliot. One can imagine a very different film, but the idea of Durning in the Elliot role seems impossible. In retrospect, Woody was probably deadly right in his decision to re-film it.

Allen had clearly tired of light material at this point, because September started a new phase of heavy dramatic movies that challenged his audience. The bubbly appeal of Diane Keaton had once been at the centre of his universe, now it was the colder yet still effective presence of Mia Farrow as his muse, time after time, and only she was able to carry the heavy weight of pictures like September. In many ways, the Woody/Mia collaborative years are as much Mia’s show as they are Woody’s. September is not my personal favourite Allen flick – nor does it seem to be anyone else’s for that matter – but it is an admirable drama, like Interiors for instance, very well acted and pieced together.

10. Another Woman (1988)

Allen gets heavy with his ultimate Ingmar Bergman tribute, Another Woman, which is undoubtedly one of his heaviest dramas. Gena Rowlands takes the lead role of Marion, a philosophy professor leaving work to write a book. Renting out a flat for some quiet time while construction work makes her home unsuitable for writing, she overhears a woman called Hope (Mia Farrow) being analysed by a therapist. The woman’s words – about her emptiness and phoniness – ignite something within Marion, who realises she too has been misguided in life and that many parts of her complacent existence are nothing but a lie, including her marriage.

Another Woman is a mid-life crisis movie, pure and simply so, and it’s a picture I am sure many people in the midst of change can relate to. Rowland’s character is fifty (Woody was in his early fifties at this stage) and has clearly stopped to reassess her life and where she went wrong. It’s a valid subject. After all, just how many people, in the real world, have done the same thing?

Often totally overlooked, it boasts a fine supporting cast, which includes Harris Yulin and Gene Hackman.

9. Radio Days (1987)

A key section in the classic book, Woody Allen On Woody Allen, is when Stig Bjorkman asks Woody if Radio Days was based on his own life during the golden era of radio. “Some things are very close and some are not,” Woody says, before reeling off a huge list of similarities that lasts almost a full page. Some of these things include the Communist neighbours, the name of the Hebrew School, the love doomed auntie, the house right by the water and the busyness of the household itself. “All these things occurred,” Woody ends it with. It reminds one of the “What have the Romans ever done for us?” scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

One can see why Woody didn’t admit that the film was totally autobiographical, as it’s not only a good defence against the press who wish to probe his every thought, it’s also a fine method of keeping things private in a mode of expression that encourages self exposition and confession.

Woody narrates the picture, an ensemble piece which looks at the life of a regular American family. Seth Green plays the young Joe, who re-enacts Woody’s anecdotal adventures wonderfully. There are numerous tales coming and going in the loose structure, and key roles are played by the brilliant Diane Wiest, Jeff Daniels and Larry David (who would go on to collaborate with Allen again, on New York Stories and Whatever Works). The film also features both Mia Farrow and Diane Keaton in a minor cameo, the latter very much missed from the whole of Woody’s 1980s canon.

Radio Days was Allen’s biggest budget and most elaborate production up to that date – the budget was 16 million, but one can see where the money went. Meticulous detail has gone into capturing the era; from the costumes, to the sets and the music, we feel slap bang in the middle of late 30s, early 40s Queens.

The film received a lot of major film award nominations – Woody’s screenplay for instance was given an Oscar nod, though if there were any justice he would have won – and it was widely acclaimed the world over. Novelistic in its free form approach to character and sub plot development, it’s a film that washes over you and can be enjoyed time and time again.

8. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

In many ways, the 1980s were a true golden age for Woody. Each new picture was totally different from the last, and he was seemingly coming up with fresh new ideas no one had tried or even dreamed up before. After all, in quick succession, he’d just done a “personal” study of a self doubting filmmaker, a sex comedy set in the country, a mockumentary about a shape shifting odd ball, and an all out comedy about a bumbling showbiz agent on the run from the mob, Then, in 1985, comes a movie where a woman falls in love with a cinema star from the golden age, who literally comes off of the screen and into her life. Woody Allen, nearing fifty at this point, had more imagination and energy than a man half his age.

The Purple Rose of Cairo could be looked upon as a tribute to classic cinema – after all, Woody was bewitched by the movies as a young boy, and this film is set in the year he was born – but there is a deeper thread running through this than you would first imagine. Many films of Woody’s explore the blurring lines between fantasy and reality, the sad fact that living in fantasy for good leads to madness, and the harsh reminder that apparently we all need to wake up and get into the dark, stark cold real world. Purple Rose explores this deeper. Mia Farrow plays Cecilia, the waitress in Depression era New Jersey, falling for the hero in a movie, Archaeologist Tom Baxter (played brilliantly by Jeff Daniels in one of his finest roles).

There is a genuine touching spark between the two and their romance is acted out beautifully, although always with an air of wistful sadness. The fact that Tom notices her in her repeated joyful viewings of the movie, steps out of the screen and into her life, makes the film’s message quite blatant. But this really doesn’t matter. After all, much of Woody’s metaphorical subtext is clear as day and obvious. It is refreshing that they are not hidden beneath pretentious imagery, presented to us with bare honesty. This is no exception.

7. A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982)

After the heavy reception and critical hammering Stardust Memories received, Woody decided to lighten things up with his next picture, a breezy comedy and the first he made with his partner, Mia Farrow. Based on Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night, it’s a minor comedic work, and one that Allen tends to sideline a little as merely a bit of fun.

It was filmed at a custom built house in Pocantico Hills, and for the first time he set one of his movies in the countryside, a place Woody never really liked to visit much, with him being such a city person. Mia was of course the opposite and she had her own retreat country home which Allen rarely went to. “As a gesture of affection to her, I made a picture that embraces the country,” Allen said. “It’s meant to be beautiful.” And beautiful it certainly is, with the vibrant colours shining, glinting even, off of the screen.

Though his follow up was already written, the complex and brilliant Zelig, Allen quickly wrote the script for Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy and decided to make it fast as a kind of break. In Woody Allen On Woody Allen, he states bluntly that he is under no allusion that this a great film. That said, it has its charms and many Woody die hards see it as an underrated gem.

Though we might think we are not that far into the 21st century, we are in fact nearly a quarter way through it already. Naturally, of course, that means that there are already 20 plus years of cinema to investigate from the new millennium alone, a time span which contains numerous masterpieces, more than a few classics, plenty of stinkers, and certainly a lot of buried gems. For me, films that were released in the early 2000s are now starting to take on a strangely nostalgic haze, and it is when looking back upon that decade that one realises just how many solid films came and went without fan fare. We were, it seems, rather spoilt.

Below are ten more notable films of the 2000s which may or may not have passed you by, though it’s more than likely that they wistfully evaded your viewing.

1. Animal Factory (2000)

When people talk about the essential modern prison movie, they will undoubtedly opt for the 1994 adaptation of Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption as the genre’s ultimate experience. However, for quite a few years now, I have been endorsing a little known drama from 2000 called Animal Factory as one of the best. Adapted from the second novel by Eddie Bunker (real life criminal and Mr Blue from Reservoir Dogs), it was Steve Buscemi who eased himself into the director’s chair for the big screen version.

Animal Factory has its admirers, but it has definitely disappeared into time, and there are obvious reasons why. True, this tale of a young man (Edward Furlong) imprisoned for drug possession and taken under the wing of a grizzled jail veteran (Willem Defoe, looking as tough as nails) was hardly pleasant viewing, and there were no real inspirational messages, quotable lines or uplifting epiphanies, certainly not of the kind we see in Shawshank. Animal Factory is exactly what it sounds like; a fearless, raw exploration and condemnation of the prison system, where the men are trapped like beasts and treated like so.

But the movie is brave and worthy. First off, Buscemi’s direction is wonderful. While he had taken a step back and let the actors run free in his previous picture, Trees Lounge, here he adopts a more intrusive style. The camera is closer to the characters, and is much more in your face and jagged. We follow Furlong so closely that we feel we are standing right next to him, experiencing the hell of this prison all the way.

It has to be said, too, that the performances are exceptional; Defoe is terrific in one of his finest efforts, and Furlong proves himself to be a powerhouse. Buscemi puts in a nice cameo too, and it’s also great to see a number of indie regulars in there, like Seymour Cassell and Mark Boone Jr. The great Danny Trejo is notable as well, in one of his more fleshed out roles to date, while Mickey Rourke provides what is perhaps the most surprising supporting turn.

2. Saint John of Las Vegas (2009)

Seeing Steve Buscemi in a lead role is something of a rarity, so savour the chance to see his name above the title in Saint John of Las Vegas (2009). A long forgotten dark comedy, it features Buscemi as an ex gambling addict who’s run out of luck and now works for insurance fraud. An investigation leads him to his old town, Las Vegas, and he finds himself tempted by his former addiction, all the while finding himself in a shady case where his colleague is hardly a man to rely on.

The film sank upon release and hasn’t really been spoken of much since, which is indeed a great shame, as the film is hugely enjoyable. Written and directed by Hue Rhodes, it’s one of those rare gems of indie cinema that we never seem to be treated to these days. Buscemi is great in his role, constantly trying his luck on scratch cards while trying to keep up a rather odd relationship with an unstable girlfriend (Sarah Silverman), and carries the off beat proceedings with a charismatic turn.

It received only a very limited release and did next to no box office when it crept out into a few theatres here and there. Now, sadly it’s already buried in time. You owe it to yourself to dig this one out.

3. What Just Happened (2008)

What Just Happened is based on the book of the same name by Art Linson, all about his experiences and troubles working in Hollywood. Here, Robert De Niro plays the ageing producer, Ben, who is having trouble with his latest production, a brutal thriller starring Sean Penn (yes it’s really him), made by a most turbulent and difficult British director, played by a spot on Michael Wincott in full-on Keith Richards mode. At the same time, he is finding it hard to break off his failed marriage to Robin Wright Penn, who is in turn sleeping with a screenwriter, played by Stanley Tucci.

Though a comedic satire, What Just Happened offers a great insight into the troubles of getting a movie made in Hollywood. No one gets off lightly, whether it’s the preview screening audience, the executives or the moody stars. In the middle of all this, De Niro gives one of his finest efforts of recent decades, a funny and well observed portrayal of a producer on the skids, struggling to get the respect he deserves and put his chaotic life back on track.

Between this more high energy portrayal of the modern film producer and his more quiet, passionate Monroe Stahr in The Last Tycoon, De Niro has covered two key eras in movie making history, giving two very different performances. The one in What Just Happened however, is much stronger and he is more able to carry the punchier picture than he was with his work in the very low key The Last Tycoon.

However, critics seemed to dislike the film, and it was also a commercial disaster at the box office. It seems a good time to dust this one off, then, for a fresh reappraisal.

4. The Shipping News (2001)

Based on the novel by E. Annie Prouix, The Shipping News is an understated drama with a fine cast all at the top of their game. It stars Kevin Spacey as Quoyle, a man who has reached rock bottom following an unhappy childhood and equally turbulent marriage to a troubled woman, Petal (Cate Blanchett). Petal runs off with her lover, taking with her she and Quoyle’s young daughter. She later turns up dead, having lost her life, alongside her lover, in a car crash. Scarred by the horrors, as well as the joint suicide of his parents, Quoyle (his daughter having been returned to him by the police) decides to move away from New York and start a fresh life in his ancestral home, a quiet fishing village in Newfoundland. Here he begins a calmer new chapter, meeting a widow named Wavey (Julianne Moore) who promises a brighter future for him.

The Shipping News is a rather grim film at times, but it is an ultimately uplifting story, as soon as you get over the initial bleakness that is. Lasse Hallstrom directs with graceful ease, and Robert Nelson Jacob’s screenplay is a faithful yet cinematically conducive adaptation of the book. It is the acting, however, subtle and completely controlled, which impresses the most. Spacey is superb, playing a kind hearted but wounded man who slowly begins to heal as the story goes on, while Moore is as appealing as ever. Judi Dench might just steal the show though, playing Spacey’s rather eccentric auntie, Agnis. It attracted respectful reviews at the time but did little business at the cinema, and these days it seems almost totally forgotten.

5. This Girl’s Life (2003)

Now here’s a genuine buried gem, Ash Baron Cohen’s This Girl’s Life. It focuses on Juliette Marquis, who plays a young woman who works as a star on an internet reality show. We follow her in her daily life, seeing the problems she is faced with everyday. James Woods plays her father, who is suffering from Parkinson’s, and it is looking after him which pushes the girl’s life over the edge.

This Girl’s Life is an extremely engaging film, directed with raw grittiness by Baron-Cohen, and acted superbly by the whole cast, though it is Woods who stuns the viewer. Referred to only as Pops throughout, he becomes the man so much that one often forgets it’s even Woods. With great subtlety, he gets everything right; the shakes, the mannerisms, the frustration. But he also gives the character depth beneath these tics. He is funny too, telling silly jokes to his daughter and her friends, and trying to remain positive, despite still being heartbroken that his wife died years earlier. Unaware that his daughter is a star, he believes (or chooses to believe perhaps) she is a vet. “Did the animals misbehave today?” he asks as she helps dress him one day. His work here puts a lump in your throat, and he’s so effective that you even feel it in your stomach.

Reviews of the film were positive, and even those not won over by the picture as a whole were glowing about Woods. Roger Ebert, who was niggled by what he saw as flaws (incorrectly in my view), wrote that Woods’ performance was so good it was almost too good for the film itself; a compliment for Woods, yes, but also a misjudgement on the film.

Though we all know America wasn’t the only country putting out solid cinema through the the 1970s, one cannot deny that Hollywood was going through a new golden period. Independent features and major studio films alike were garnering critical acclaim while also getting bums on to cinema seats, in what was arguably the richest and most revolutionary period in film history. This was the era of New Hollywood, when the young mavericks were given free reign over the Hollywood studios, thrown stacks of cash to realise their cinematic dreams. Some were hits, others were not so successful, but even many of the so-called flops were at the very least interesting. The lunatics had briefly taken over the asylum, and the results were extraordinary.

The 1970s were crammed full of outrageously good movies, more than I could ever put into a hundred lists. Below, then, are ten choice cuts which may have gone under your film-viewing radar…

1. Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971)

One of the now lesser known films from Dustin Hoffman’s golden period is the curious Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, in which he plays rock composer Georgie Soloway, looking for the man of the title who’s been spreading lies about him. (To not spoil it for first time viewers, Kellerman’s true identity is very surprising.) The film follows Soloway’s life in the passing of one day, delving into his psychological troubles, his tormented past and his weirdest fantasies.

Then at the height of his stardom, Dustin was attracted to the part because it was a deep character he could really get to grips with, and as it was a small, lowish budget film, he was destined to be at the very centre of it. It was also a drastically different character to what viewers had seen him play before, at least on the screen. Only four years earlier he’d embodied post-teen, pre-adulthood frustration in The Graduate, and played the ultimate outsider in Midnight Cowboy. And here he was, playing an even more complex part, a man who wrote love songs for a living but had never had a meaningful relationship of his own.

It may have been a good opportunity for Hoffman the actor (it was rather like one of the stage roles he’d played in the mid sixties), yet commercially speaking it was suicide after the smash hits that came before it. But Hoffman was not commercially minded, thankfully, and he took roles for their artistic worth, not the pay cheque attached to them.

Ulu Grosbard, who would work with Dustin again at the end of the 1970s, directs this free flowing, experimental and often daring film with just the kind of showiness it needs. The savage critical mauling it received at the time was hardly valid, for it’s certainly an entertaining and ambitious effort that deserves applauding for what it aims at more than damning for what it is.

2. Day of the Locust (1975)

Based on Nathaniel West’s book, the film is set in pre-war Hollywood, following newly graduated Tod Hackett’s arrival in tinsel-town to work as a painter for a movie studio. Moving into an apartment block, he meets various characters, such as aspiring movie star Faye (Karen Black), and shy accountant Homer Simpson (really), played with beautiful understatement by Donald Sutherland.

A savage satire on Hollywood, the film veers towards the nightmarish at times, with touches of visual horror, and is unflinching in its criticisms of the Hollywood machine. Though certain Hollywood insiders might judge the film for its harshness, and in the way it presents Hollywood as a corrupt place that wrecks hopes and dreams, they might also see more than a touch of reality within its multi-faceted, often disturbing take on the land that promises riches and fame, but often delivers the exact opposite.

What deepens the blow of course is the fact it’s shot by one of Hollywood’s great outsiders, John Schlesinger, who made some of the finest American films of his era, perversely through the curious lens of a Brit, a man on the outside looking in while paradoxically being welcomed and celebrated. That said, it perhaps took such an alien eye to achieve what Day of the Locust does. Had an American made the film, it’s doubtful there would have been as much venom in the bite as there is.

Direction aside, the acting is stellar. Though Sutherland is undeniably strong in the picture, the players who garnered the most praise were Karen Black and Burgess Meredith, who was cast as her father. All the cast are great in fact, the script is sharp and the plot keeps you hooked the whole way through. An often overlooked little gem.

3. Doc (1971)

The 1970s marked a second golden period for the American western. Many of the finest entries in the genre were rather unconventional, like Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man (1970) and The Missouri Breaks (1976), Ralph Nelson’s Soldier Blue (1970) and Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971). One of the best of the early seventies, in my view, is the Frank Perry-directed Doc, with Stacy Keach cast as the notorious Doc Holiday.

In this gritty, raw version of the events leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Coral, scripted by Pete Hamill, Faye Dunaway is Kate Elder, who hooks up with Doc early on in the film on his way to look for Wyatt Earp, played here by the great Harris Yulin. When Doc meets up with the Earps, he and the boys are faced with the menacing “Cowboys” who don’t take kindly to Earp’s ruling of their dusty old town

Doc is a western that focuses on character development and interaction rather than action and over the top shoot outs. While we get to see the famous OK Coral Gunfight, it lasts for under a minute, and it’s right at the end of the picture. What we do get are a group of stellar performances, all note perfect in their execution, from a very fine cast. Perry’s direction takes you up close to the mud and the grit, while Hamill’s script leaves the cast a lot of room to flesh out their parts. Keach is fantastic, nailing the former dentist turned Wild West hero, and he broods accordingly through the whole picture. But he makes him a well rounded character too, which is very important to note, bringing Doc out of the history books and into the world of the contemporary.

While I feel Doc is rather underrated, it thankfully does have its fans, and is widely available. Well worth seeking out is the special edition Blu-ray version which features new interviews with Faye Dunaway and Keach, who recall their memories of the movie.

4. The New Centurions (1972)

The New Centurions (1972) stars the unfairly often-overlooked Stacy Keach and George C Scott, the latter who had recently won an Oscar for his performance in Patton. Based on Joseph Wambaugh’s popular book, it was directed by Richard Fleischer and stars Keach as Roy, one of three rookie cops (the other two are Scott Wilson and Erik Estrada) who ends up being assigned a new partner, grizzled veteran Andy Kilvinski (George C Scott), who has some rather interesting methods in keeping the streets clean, some of which do not sit well with the younger yet more traditional officers, Roy included.

Like much of Wambaugh’s work, the film focuses on the pressures of living life as a law enforcer, and how obsessive the job can become. Roy’s marriage suffers greatly due to his fixation on his work, and he starts to comfort himself with the bottle. The finale is tragic, but it does make one stop and think of the toll that life on the force can take.

In preparation for their roles, the cast underwent strict police training, under the insistence of Joe Wambaugh. When observing the actors in their roles, they seem so natural in their uniforms that you’d swear they were real cops – that is, if you didn’t recognise them from other films. Scott is as strong and intimidating as ever, and Wilson is particularly good as one of the rookies. Keach is fabulous as Roy, the cop who struggles juggling life on the beat and life back home when the badge is removed. It’s a dedicated, full performance with a complete arc within the framework of the picture, and Keach makes him a character we genuinely feel and care for. His interactions with Scott are hugely enjoyable, especially in the early parts of the picture, and his downward spiral makes for harrowing viewing.

5. Martin (1977)

It may have been George A Romero’s favourite of his own movies, but nearly 50 years on, for me at least, it is also his most disturbing. As Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hopper pointed out, it’s not the ghouls you should be scared of, but the real people. Martin goes by this rule and from the word go is an uncomfortable, unsettling and fiendish experience. It is also brilliant.

John Amplas delivers a tour de force career best performance as Martin, a young man with vampiric allusions, a fantasist who dreams gothic visions of seduction and isolation, a daydreaming outcast who sees himself as the victim of torch-holding mobs in these strange dark fantasies. Not just a day dreaming loner, we also know Martin is dangerous and twisted from the word go. In one of the film’s most disturbing scenes, Martin kills a young woman on a night train, injects her with drugs, slits her wrist open and drinks her blood.

The young Martin is taken in by Cuda, his granduncle, where he takes shelter with the old man and his daughter, Martin’s cousin. Cuda believes Martin is a full on vampire, warning him off his daughter by using clichéd methods as a threat (garlic, crosses etc.), thus heightening Martin’s sense of egomaniacal power. Martin feels victimised, but Cuda’s fears are justified.

The clever thing about Martin is that Romero never really lets us know what is real, fantasy or a product of fear, in this case a deep fear of the vampire. Martin lives like a vamp, but even he admits to his granduncle that “there’s no real magic.” Romero has never been too interested in supernatural explanations, and in all his Dead movies only really alludes to why the dead are coming back to life. It’s all left to the mystery, the imagination, which makes the films age better and not appear silly down the line with dated technological or scientific theories. Martin is very much the same, as it’s left to us to decide what Martin really is.

Although Amplas is great in the film (as are some of the supporting cast), the star of the show, once again, is George A. Romero, stripping the vampire legend bare and exposing the grit beneath the usual glamorous polish. His camera work nails the demythologisation sublimely, as does the hard edged, harsh, spiky cinematography. It’s a glimpse into the diary of a mad man, and no punches are pulled.

Martin didn’t make much of an impact back in the day, but is now seen as something of a horror gem. But is it really horror? It certainly has its moments of horror, but these scenes are more real, gut wrenching and sickening, just as believable as the brutal slayings in Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and as psychologically complex as Silence of the Lambs. It’s a very intelligent, deep character study, and also a reflection of teenage isolation, loneliness and despair, feelings which for the luckier ones tend to leave our systems as we leave our teens. Is Martin the ultimate teenage nightmare?

As a teenager in the 1990s, one was aware that American cinema was experiencing something of a golden renaissance, a period in which indie cinema and mainstream blockbusters could exist together and get along. There was room for both, and in fact the average cinema buff could healthily sample the mainstream and the independent, and remain totally satisfied by their viewing experiences.

For every tent pole monster flick or big scale crowd pleaser, there were at least ten more smaller, more character-driven pictures. Sadly, many of them have dimmed as the years have gone by. Below are ten more American movies of the nineties which I feel deserve a lot more attention than they currently get.

1. The Blackout (1997)

Back in 2017 I spoke to Ken Kelsch, the man who has seen to the cinematography for numerous Abel Ferrara classics, all about Abel’s movies and technique. We talked about many films, from Bad Lieutenant to Dangerous Game, but the one he singled out as a lost gem was The Blackout, which he called “another underrated Abel film.” He had a point.

In Abel Ferrara’s forgotten The Blackout, Matthew Modine plays a very famous film star who moves to Miami, and when destroyed by his girlfriend’s abortion, goes out on a wild night with hot shot, ultra hip video filmmaker Dennis Hopper (as Mickey). A year on, things have changed and he is settled down, though there is a section of that night out which remains a mystery. So he returns to Miami to get to the bottom of it, re-immersing himself in booze and drugs to attempt to capture the elusive moment.

Though in my view all Ferrara’s movies are underrated, Blackout is rather unjustly so. Modine gives one of his finest performances, and Hopper, though more in control of his emotions as the revolutionary movie maker, and refreshingly so, is brilliant too. His command of the seedy film set, lined with strippers and cameramen, is especially electrifying. In many ways though, as with most of his films, it still feels like Abel’s show. The master of darkness, unafraid to go where others dare not to, makes his presence behind the camera known. This is dark, unsettling, alluring, sickening, disturbing and mysterious in equal measure.

Unfortunately, as is the case with most of Abel’s movies, the critics didn’t really appreciate it, and few seem to single this one out as noteworthy. Which is a shame. But then again, it’s their loss.

2. Saint of Fort Washington (1993)

In the early to mid 1980s, Matt Dillon was one of the brightest young actors around, and for a while it looked like he might become the great movie star of his era. While his contemporaries went down more commercial routes, Dillon stayed true to himself and chose only the parts that appealed to him. In other words, he made artistic choices rather than commercial ones.

Into the 1990s, Dillon continued to play flawed but intriguing men. Perhaps his most sensitive and moving piece of work in that decade was as Matthew in the underrated gem, The Saint of Fort Washington, the tale of two homeless men (Dillon and a top-form Danny Glover) dreaming of a better life off the streets.Dillon, lovably wide eyed yet also unpredictable as the schizophrenic vagabond, is truly extraordinary in the movie, which made its underwhelming box office even more regretful.

In my view it was perhaps Dillon’s finest performance of the whole decade, and certainly one of the finest of his rich career. Glover is fabulous too, and the duo have a warm, special bond and chemistry which more than rivals the teaming of Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman in the similarly bleak but weirdly uplifting Midnight Cowboy.

Directed by Tim Hunter and written by Lyle Kessler, it never goes towards sentimentality and contains no schmaltz whatsoever. It’s a tale of hope in the most dark and unpromising of locations, but somehow it never becomes too much, or even remotely depressing. There’s a fine supporting cast too, but it’s Glover and Dillon who impress the most, particularly the latter.

Totally obscure today, The Saint of Fort Washington doesn’t look like it’s going to be dusted off and rediscovered any time soon, which is a shame indeed.

3. Permanent Midnight (1998)

Today we all think of Ben Stiller as one of modern cinema’s great comedic talents, a mega star who’s made his way into household name territory with the likes of the Zoolander movies, Meet the Parents and its many sequels, and of course the Night at the Museum franchise. Before he became a huge star though, Stiller in some much less commercial fare. Though the darkness is there in many of his better known parts (it bubbles away quietly and often explodes in a sweaty outburst of burst tension), none of them are anywhere near as bleak and desperately fiendish as his lead role in David Veloz’s Permanent Midnight.

Adapted from Jerry Stahl’s memoir of the same name, it stars Stiller as Jerry himself, who is working at a drive-through fast food joint when we first meet him. During a one night stand with a customer, Stiller goes back on his time as a Hollywood writer, during which he was fighting a crippling addiction to various drugs. Jerry was effectively living a double life, the sweaty pill-reliant creep and the full-of-ideas man of letters. As his story goes on though, Jerry finds it increasingly challenging to juggle these two identities.

Shot with a sense of desperation, it’s acted wonderfully by Stiller, who pulls off what might be his most troubled but strangely convincing turn. We don’t like his Jerry, nor do we understand or relate to anything he does, but for some reason we still care what happens to him. He has no redeeming qualities (I urge you to find even one) but Stiller makes him multi-faceted and far from a drug crazed caricature. The whole cast, which also includes Owen Wilson and Elizabeth Hurley, are also very good, but Stiller is especially strong.

Permanent Midnight is rarely aired these days, and never gets singled out when discussing Stiller’s rich and enjoyable filmography, but in my view it deserves a lot more attention.

4. Living in Oblivion (1995)

Director Tom Dicillo first made his mark in 1991 with the cult film Johnny Suede, but seeing as it was no commercial success, Tom found it hard to find funding for a follow up. Frustrated by the Hollywood system, Tom was so burned by the business that even the mention of a movie would send him into overdrive. But he was desperate to get his frustrations out into something real and physical. He came up with the idea of a film set, where the makers try and try to get the best results, but everything keeps going wrong. He wanted to capture the nightmare of low budget film. When he told his Johnny Suede star Catherine Keener all about the idea, she was mightily enthused, and agreed to play the female lead. Her husband, Dermot Mulroney, put up a little money so Tom could develop his ideas into a short, and Steve Buscemi signed up for the part of the director.

Firstly, the cast and crew filmed a half hour short, completed in a mere four days. But the gang had so much fun on the set that they urged Tom to expand it. When he finally got the money to do so (the budget ended up at half a million dollars), he fleshed out the idea and got everyone back again. The result? Possibly the finest film ever made about filmmaking.

The film is split into three sections. The first is in black and white, as Nick and his crew start filming a scene involving Catherine Keener and an older lady who is playing her mother. The scene won’t go right, and every time they think they are getting somewhere, it all collapses. The second part follows Keener and her romantic lead Chad (James LeGros), who are about to make their way to the set after spending the night together. The shoot is spent battling with Chad’s ego, a love scene that is tired, clichéd and never quite works. The final segment, featuring the brilliant Peter Dinkelage, is where it supposedly all comes together.

Living in Oblivion was released slap bang in the middle of the 1990s, and it represents that golden indie era better than most other films one can think of. Steve Buscemi is fantastic as the tormented filmmaker, and seems to be relishing every second of his part. An intense but also very funny performance, it’s one of Steve’s greatest achievements.

Living in Oblivion actually made a profit a the box office, and for Tom and the gang, was one of the most enjoyable shooting experiences they ever had; which is ironic, given the hell of the making of the film within the film. Tom rips away the myth of the cool “rock star” indie filmmaker, highlighting what he sees as the constant battle to keep sane on the highly hazardous low budget film set. And it has to be said, Living in Oblivion really does define the dichotomy of filmmaking quite sublimely. Essential viewing indeed.

5. Heaven and Earth (1993)

Heaven and Earth is the unjustly overlooked third entry in Stone’s Vietnam trilogy, a triptych which began with Platoon in 1986, and included the adaptation of Ron Kovic’s marvellous book, Born on the Fourth of July, in 1989. Heaven and Earth, released in 1993 to low box office returns and little fan fare, saw the horrors of the Vietnam war from a different perspective, one that few other, if any at all, Americans would think of portraying – from the view of a young Vietnamese girl.

The girl in question is Le Ly (played by Hiep Thi Le), a villager in mid-20th century Vietnam. She firstly has to endure the presence of the French authorities during the Indochina era, who are in turn fought by communist insurgents. Her struggles continue when the Americans arrive to fight the Viet Cong. She is captured by the South Vietnamese, who think she’s a spy for the Northerners, and is beaten and tortured. Later she endures a horrific rape by the Viet Cong. She then moves to Saigon with her family, where she meets Steve Butler (Tommy Lee Jones), a United States Marine Corps Sergeant who falls in love with Le Ly. His apparent kindness changes her situation, and the pair leave Vietnam for a life in America. However, Steve begins to show his true colours, the effects of the war having taken their toll on his mental state. Despite leaving the war in Vietnam behind her, Le Ly’s struggles are far from over.

Heaven and Earth is a story of personal strength, of one woman’s struggles through nightmarish times. It is personal as well as historical, but it homes in one on the individual, a human being often treated like anything but a human being, and a microcosm for mass suffering. Heaven and Earth deserves to be seen by more people. It’s moving, powerful, unpleasant at times, but ultimately a rewarding viewing experience. Le Ly’s journey is told with passion, and Stone stays true to her tale. This is one to seek out and dust off, a vital entry in Stone’s filmography.