Sidney Lumet was one of the most prolific and versatile American filmmakers of all time, a man and an artist of seemingly infinite talent for reinvention, gifted with a truly admirable curiosity for all types of people, characters and stories; and a willingness to branch out into different genres and territories.

So it’s not a surprise that, in such a vast and rich filmography, among the many classics he gifted the world and that have gained the recognition they deserve, there’s still many more unsung gems worthy of discovery.

So let’s dig a little into the treasure trove that is this career for 10 great Sidney Lumet Movies You May Not Have Seen.

10. Night Falls On Manhattan (1996)

Sidney Lumet is just as iconic and formative a figure to the New York cop movie as Martin Scorsese is to the mafia film. There’s perhaps no other filmmaker who has shown a more consistent interest in every aspect of police work, particularly the institutional corruption embedded into its structure and the moral dilemma that entails.

It’s a theme the director returned to again and again throughout his career, resulting in some of his most acclaimed classics (namely “Serpico”) and a handful of relatively obscure gems in need of rediscovery. “Night Falls On Manhattan” is one of his most nuanced explorations of this pet preoccupation, starring Andy Garcia as an ambitious and upright District attorney who stumbles upon a police corruption investigation that may implicate his father, as well as the father’s partner (respectively Ian Holm and James Gandolfini, both terrific).

What’s most admirable about Lumet’s recurring, relentless interest in the machinations of the police world and it’s inherent destruction, is that he always found new ways to approach it dramatically, never allowing it to become repetitive, giving each movie a unique perspective. “Night Falls On Manhattan” is one of his most impressive juggling acts: the film works as an intriguing morality play, a father/son relationship drama and just a tight procedural.

9. The Morning After (1986)

Of all the great New Hollywood titans, Lumet is probably the most modest; there’s no grand epic to his name, no myth behind the stories of obsessive vision chasing nor, most rare, a preciousness with regards to material. Lumet was a director who put as much effort and care into an adaptation of Eugene O’Neill as he did into one of Agatha Christie.

Whether that carefree nature was due to a lack of better options, a necessity to keep working no matter what or a genuine interest in elevating subpar material is unclear and irrelevant, the fact remains that, curiously, for one of the most gifted American filmmakers of all time, Lumet was never one to shy away from trashier stuff.

“The Morning After” is one of the most enjoyable examples of his sillier side, telling the story of an alcoholic actress (Jane Fonda) who wakes up one day next to a dead body in an apartment she doesn’t recognize and flees in fear of getting the blame. On the run, she tries to put the pieces together to find the real killer, while getting mixed up with a retired cop (Jeff Bridges).

It’s a fun and intriguing story on its own, but it would be much less remarkable a film were it not for Lumet’s subdued approach, focusing on the two wonderful actors at the centre and letting them do the heavy-lifting.

8. Running On Empty (1988)

Lumet had an extensive theater background before transitioning into film, which no doubt helped him become an exceptional actor’s director. Even though he had a wildly varied career, moving through several genres and applying a remarkable flexibility of style, there was always one constant: excellent performances.

In fact some of the most iconic screen performances of all time exist thanks to Lumet, from Al Pacino in “Dog Day Afternoon” to Peter Finch in “Network” (or the entire cast of that movie, really). River Phoenix’s turn in “Running On Empty” may not have reached that level of acclaim in collective cinephile culture, but it’s every bit as brilliant as any of the best performances in Lumet’s filmography.

This relative obscurity of both the film and Phoenix’s exquisite performance may be due to the fact, unlike the other movies mentioned here, that “Running On Empty” is not a fleshy crime film or a flamboyant satire, but a quiet, intimate drama about a family of activists on the run, that Lumet handles with acute specificity and sensitivity. But at the end of the day, it’s really Phoenix that makes the film: raw, real, transfixing.

7 and 6. The Anderson Tapes (1971) and The Hill (1965)

Given that talent for directing actors, then, it’s no wonder that Lumet established a creative partnership with several great performers, but none longer or more fruitful than the one he enjoyed with Sean Connery, whom he worked with five times.

The two best out of the five are “The Anderson Tapes” and “The Hill,” both of which showcase Lumet’s often unheralded mastery of film language. As said before, given his background in theater, this filmmaker’s most celebrated movies tend to eschew formalism, opting for as minimally obtrusive a visual language as possible, favoring muted style and simple staging. Such choices could sometimes be mistaken for sloppiness, a lack of acumen behind the camera. But as Lumet explains in his essential book “Making Movies,” he always opted for whatever aesthetic best fitted the story he was telling – naturalism wasn’t simply a default.

“The Anderson Tapes,” a stylish paranoid thriller/heist movie hybrid, finds Lumet at his most playful, employing a timeline jumping narrative (intercutting the planning and preparation for the heist with the police investigation in it’s aftermath), and a typically excellent score from Quincy Jones, all of which amount to a very entertaining caper.

“The Hill,” on the other hand, is one of the most grueling films in Lumet’s oeuvre, a punishing prison drama about a group of British soldiers suffering ever-more severe abuse at the hands of their sergeant. But if that sounds simply too unpleasant to endure, don’t worry; this film might just be Lumet’s most visually bold picture ever, with staggeringly expressive black and white cinematography, creating a sense of unease through dutch angles and deep focus framing. It’s a magnificent visual experience, unrivaled by anything else Lumet ever did.

The state of mainstream American cinema is so deplorable that it’s more important than ever for cinephiles to appreciate and celebrate the few remaining pop auteurs we have left; the filmmakers who can bridge the gap between the personal and popular, the fun and the artistically valuable.

James Wan is a great example of this dying breed, an artist with great personal style who can imprint his own idiosyncratic vision both on original movies and in huge studio fare – whether he’s making a superhero epic or a gonzo horror flick, Wan’s name is a guarantee of visual inventiveness and sturdy old-fashioned craft.

In that spirit, let’s rank Wan’s first 10 movies, from worst to best, a career trajectory that proves this guy only gets better as he goes along – so, hopefully, he’s still got many more movies in him.

10. Death Sentence (2007)

Though he’s primarily thought of as a horror director, Wan’s output is fairly varied; ranging from mega-blockbuster action films to smaller dramas – even in the realm of horror itself he’s played with styles as different as torture porn and giallo.

But if on one hand it’s always admirable when a director attempts to step out of their comfort zone and expand their reach, there’s something to be said for a filmmaker staying in their own lane – case in point, Wan and his terrible crime thriller “Death Sentence.”

Wan’s best works are playfully silly; their insanity in terms of plot is justified by a campy, self-aware, hyper-stylized tone. “Death Sentence”, by contrast, completely lacks that quality despite being atrociously stupid; it’s a dour revenge flick that’s far too cartoonishly violent to be emotionally affecting, but too serious-minded to be enjoyable as pure pulp.

Wan’s greatest strengths as a filmmaker are his sense of style and the sly sense of humor he brings to the most outlandish material – “Death Sentence” has little to none of those elements, making it one of his worst.

9. Dead Silence (2007)

As said before, Wan’s silliness is a feature, not a bug; even the chilling horror of his most famous movies always have an element of the ridiculous about them – it’s in the dichotomy of heavy atmosphere and winking wackiness that his voice as a director thrives best.

That being said, there is such a thing as being too silly and ridiculous, and the movie in which Wan most clearly crossed that line is “Dead Silence”. The core premise here (of a murderous possessed ventriloquist dummy wreacking havoc) is dumb enough to lend itself to a no-frills B-movie, but Wan hadn’t quite cracked yet how to handle that kind of tone, so he treats this stupendously stupid material in an unexplainably flat register. Everything from the characters to the plotting and especially the style is just completely listless – in complete opposition to the absurdity of the story itself.

“Dead Silence” is not really atrociously made, but it’s still the worst thing that it could be: insufferably dull. Thankfully, Wan seemed to learn his lesson here because every one of his subsequent efforts, even the most substandard, at least reach for a certain level of genre madness that justifies their existence.

8. Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)

Despite having created one of modern horror cinema’s most successful and long-lived franchises with “Saw”, James Wan never actually directed any of it’s many sequels, which became increasingly more byzantine in violence and nonsensical in plotting with each new installment.

The first time Wan personally made a follow-up to one of his movies was with the sequel to 2008’s hit “Insidious”, perhaps in a bid to secure a more natural continuation of the tone and story established by the original movie. If that was indeed the intention, it can be said that he was successful; “Chapter 2” is in many ways of a piece with its predecessor, but not all of them are necessarily good.

If anything, the film’s main flaw, what keeps it towards the bottom of Wan’s career, is that it doesn’t feel particularly fresh or new – while just as genuinely tense, atmospheric and stylish as the original, “Insidious: Chapter 2” is far too indebted and derivative of the first one to have any personality of it’s own.

7. Furious 7 (2015)

The choice of a pop horror craftsman like Wan to helm the 7th installment of one of the most popular and unlikely action franchises of all time may initially seem bizarre – after all, what could the director behind the supernatural chills of “The Conjuring” and the hyper-violent mayhem of “Saw” have to do with the good-natured fun of the Fast Family?

“Furious 7” made the answer to that question seem completely obvious in retrospect: Wan is a great maximalist, and his go-for-broke visual stylings fit perfectly into the soapish, self-aware nature that had by that point become the signature of the fast saga. And that’s exactly what makes this movie a sort of middling entry in the context of Wan filmography. On one hand, it’s a fun, well-crafted blockbuster, with a surprisingly powerful emotional throughline (deeply affecting in that one final sequence); on the other, it very much feels like just another “Fast & Furious” film. Wan’s imprint on the material is not invisible exactly, but much less pronounced than in his other, more personal pictures.

There’s very little discernible difference between Wan’s work in “Furious 7” and what Justin Lin and F. Gary Gray brought to the franchise before and after him – the humor, the dramaturgy, even the action itself; it’s all essentially the same. The film is fine if taken on it’s own, but not as interesting when considered from the prism of a single directorial vision.

6. The Conjuring 2 (2016)

Wan is currently deep in post-production of “Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom”, the sequel to his monumentally successful superhero epic that is eagerly anticipated by fans of the original’s goofy maximalist fun.

But if his track record with second installments is to be trusted, fans should be at least a little bit worried; Wan is yet to make a sequel that doesn’t feel like a rehash, a lesser remix of the same old ingredients. “The Conjuring 2” is slightly better than “Insidious: Chapter 2” and “Furious 7” because it’s less convoluted and features stronger individual set pieces, but it still can’t overcome the fundamental problem of diminishing returns.

There’s absolutely nothing in this film, formally, narratively or thematically, that Wan hadn’t already accomplished in the first Conjuring – it’s not bad as much as it is pointless.

2022 saw the release of Sam Raimi’s first movie in nearly 10 years, so it’s no surprise that many in the film community took the opportunity to celebrate one of our finest pop auteurs, a director whose work has over time become so iconic that it’s easy to take his unique style and artfulness for granted.

After all, how many filmmakers today making either low-budget schlocky horror films or big studio blockbusters have even a fraction of the artistry and craft Raimi brought to classics such as his “Evil Dead” and “Spider-Man” trilogies? And not only that, where are the auteurs primarily known for working within a certain genre who can branch out and direct films as different as a modern spaghetti western or a grounded crime drama, and do both just as well?

That’s Raimi for you – a hugely gifted artist always worthy of celebrating. With that in mind, here’s a list of all his features, from worst to best.

15. For Love Of The Game (1999)

Raimi has made his fair share of bad movies, but even his worst, most incoherent films are unquestionably the product of a distinct voice – the pictures may fall short of greatness but at least they have personality and verve.

The only time Raimi made a completely anonymous work, a film so devoid of any distinguishing features that it could’ve been directed by virtually anyone, was with “For Love Of The Game,” a Kevin Costner-led baseball drama so bland and forgettable that it couldn’t even find a shelf life on cable – despite being a quintessential “dad movie” tailor-made for such viewing.

But even by these standards, “For Love Of The Game” is subpar; a relentlessly boring endeavor that sidelines its sports drama nature in favor of an utterly soporific romance that feels endless. Raimi may have technically made “worse” movies in many ways, but for a director known primarily for the unique visual energy he brings to every project, there could be nothing worse than something as lifeless as this.

14. Oz: The Great And Powerful (2013)

While not as uncharacteristically bland as the aforementioned baseball drama, “Oz: The Great And Powerful” is another film that feels almost completely alien to the distinct style that defines Sam Raimi’s best work.

In fact, less the project of an individual auteur, “Oz” seems more, in the worst ways, like the product of corporate trends. Cashing in on the early 2010s craze for retellings of classic fairy tales with Disney in particular looking to recapture the success of Tim Burton’s “Alice In Wonderland” – which would explain this film’s garish CGI aesthetic, very reminiscent of Burton’s movie.

Raimi does manage to smuggle in here and there some visually inspired sequences (the black and white prologue and the meta climax are particularly well-crafted), but overall “Oz: The Great And Powerful” can’t escape it’s mercenary nature, a soulless studio-mandated affair that got it’s director to stop working for almost 10 years.

13. Crimewave (1985)

A film disavowed by virtually everyone involved in it’s making, from co-writers Joel & Ethan Coen to actor Bruce Campbell (not to mention, of course, Raimi himself), “Crimewave” is really not as bad as it’s reputation would suggest – which is not to say, in turn, that it’s a “good” film, exactly.

If anything, it’s the most frustrating example in Raimi’s career of missed potential; the heavily compromised production (with endless studio interference even leading to Raimi being kicked out of the editing process) destroys much of the essential rhythm of the director’s comedy. Here the chaos feels sloppy rather than deliberate; the gags don’t land as they should and the tricky tonal balancing at work (mixing noir plotting with madcap screwball comedy) is never properly achieved.

Still, amid the relentless noise of it all, “Crimewave” does feature glimpses of Raimi’s Looney-Tunes visual brilliance – it is at times a genuinely funny and inventive caper. Those moments alone would justify a watch, but they’re also enough to make one sad just imagining what the picture could’ve been had Raimi been allowed to fulfill his vision.

12. The Gift (2000)

Following their glorious collaboration on “A Simple Plan”, Raimi and Billy Bob Thornton reunited for a wildly different project with “The Gift”, a southern gothic supernatural mystery that is equal parts indebted to Tennesse Williams and Stephen King.

The film (written by Thornton) boasts one of the most impressive, insanely stacked casts of Raimi’s career; from movie stars such as Cate Blanchett, Keanu Reeves and Hilary Swank to wonderful character actors like J.K Simmons, Kim Dickens and Giovanni Ribisi – almost all of whom are giving extremely big, un-naturalistic performances that fit the melodramatic nature of the story.

Interestingly, however, Raimi himself has rarely been more restrained; forgoing his trademark manic camera moves for a brooding, atmospheric visual stillness. It’s an interesting departure from his style, but also undoubtedly a step down from it. Ultimately “The Gift”, while perfectly competent and mildly entertaining, is simply not interesting enough to stand up to Raimi’s finest outings.

11. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (2022)

The rare Marvel movie eagerly anticipated not necessarily for any larger brand-related reasons (though, of course, there were those who cared about that) but for who was at the helm, “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness” bridged the gap between mainstream comic book fans and cinephiles, for even the most anti-Marvel among us Raimi fans couldn’t help but be excited for his first movie in 9 years.

Of course, there was the concern of whether this was gonna be a real Raimi film or if his style would be completely numbed by Marvel’s absolute commitment to visual blandness; all pre-viz and gray color palletes. Now that the movie has finally come out, we can confidently say that the answer to the question of “Did Sam Raimi actually direct Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness?’ is a resounding “kind of.”

Like all late Marvel productions, the film can’t escape the obligatory cameos and empty tie ins to other titles; in fact, it’s even more dependent on the larger brand than most other films, because in order to even understand it’s basic premise one would need to be familiar with not only previous Marvel movies but even a TV show.

So, narratively, this is one of Raimi’s weakest and least personal endeavors; just another inconsequential chapter in an endless ouroboros of interconnected storytelling. But the good news is that a great director can insert some sense of personality and visual inventiveness even in the most barebones material and that’s just what Raimi does here, relishing every opportunity he gets to craft some genuinely creative sequences.

10. Spider Man 3 (2007)

Raimi’s Spider Man trilogy, being the blueprint of not only the entirety of modern superhero movies but also, in a broader sense, of current blockbuster filmmaking in general, was the harbinger of many trends of popular cinema that’ve come to be commonplace.

It established the basic structure of an origin story, helped to usher in the age of astronomical box office numbers and, most telling, in the case of the third film, was one of the first examples of a major blockbuster being the recipient of entitled fan vitriol. The main points of contention against this have been repeated ad nauseam (“emo” Peter Parker, the excessive number of villains, the representation of Eddie Brock and Venom), so instead of re-litigating those same old arguments it’s better to ask ourselves how valid those criticism are in the first place.

Fifteen years later, with the benefit of hindsight and a decade and a half of increasingly more formulaic and subpar superhero cinema behind us, it seems clear that Raimi’s final entry in the trilogy deserves much more than it’s bad reputation – it is undoubtedly inferior to the first two movies (a little too scattered and narratively clumsy; hampered by studio demands) but still filled with tremendous sequences and ideas – the action scenes remain as thrillingly intense as ever,the central character relationships are just as emotionally engaging and everything relating to the Sandman is just brilliant.

9. The Quick And The Dead (1995)

In a lesser director’s career, a movie like “The Quick And The Dead” (deeply stylish, endlessly entertaining, jaw-droppingly cast across the board) would be their crown jewel – so it’s a testament to Raimi’s excellence that this wonderful western doesn’t even rank among his very best efforts.

Like many of his contemporaries, Raimi’s artistry is frequently birthed from pastiche, taking established styles from the past and putting his own spin on them – his main influences being, specifically, Tex Avery-style chaotic visual comedy and comic book silliness. The key to Raimi’s longevity and talent, however, is that (much like his longtime friends and sometimes collaborators the Coen Brothers) he never stoops to simple imitation – every time he tackles a genre or style he doesn’t seek to simply mimic the tropes and visual ideas of the classics, but rather uses them as a stepping stone to exercise his stylistic predilections.

“The Quick And The Dead” is perhaps the clearest example of that. Nominally a spaghetti western (featuring vaguely Morricone-esque twangs in the score, staredowns, and a standard revenge plot), the film is actually an excuse for Raimi to indulge in his most giddy camera moves; a playground for a brilliant stylist to go insane with complicated compositions and wild edits. So, needless to say, just an absolute blast.

Paul Verhoeven is undoubtedly one of the most transgressive artists ever to have been a major Hollywood player; a genius satirist and a master craftsman of spectacle; a pervert with never-ending interest in sexual mores and a populist who makes grand action extravaganzas designed to be enjoyed by all; a funny man who deals with the most serious of social subjects.

This contradiction in his style are exactly what makes him such an essential filmmaker, a perpetually controversial and misunderstood director that’s always ahead of his time – is there anyone else whose work has so often been derided upon release only to be reappraised years later when the world finally catches up?

16. Business is Business (1971)

The level of interest one might have in “Business is Business,” Verhoeven’s feature debut, depends entirely on perspective. Taken on its own, it’s admittedly far from a great movie, but if seen as an hors d’oeuvres to this director’s style, it’s fascinating.

Some of the major themes Verhoeven would spend the rest of his career obsessing over are already present here, mainly sexual desire and its intersection with capitalist exploitation; all filtered through his sardonic sense of humour, which was also noticeable from the get go. In fact, “Business is Business” is one of the few outright, straight comedies he ever made, and while it is a frequently funny movie, it never comes close to reaching the heights of the acidic satire that defines his best efforts.

It’s precisely in that way that the movie is both frustrating and exciting; the former because it doesn’t manage to coalesce to become more than the sum of its good individual parts, the latter because, despite that, it does offer glimpses of the birth of a major cinematic voice.

15. Hollow Man (2000)

Verhoeven’s last American film before his creatively invigorating return to Europe, “Hollow Man” is easily the worst of his Hollywood phase; which is not to say that it’s a bad movie by any stretch – it just pales in comparison to the brilliance of his other features of the era.

It’s easy to point out what is wrong here, why this movie in particular is so inferior to Verhoeven’s previous output, since the director himself has explained it. “I felt like I was doing the bidding of the studio. I couldn’t even put a personal touch to it. I fell into that trap,” he stated in a 2016 interview with Vulture. The filmmaker went on to say: “I felt that I did Hollow Man without making it personal. The studio wanted it this way. The freedom was gone.”

The experience was so clearly personally painful for Verhoeven that it colors his view of the final movie, which he hates and claims it’s the only one of his own pictures that he cannot defend. Thankfully, “Hollow Man” is not as bad as he seems to think, precisely because of how Verhoeven manages to push the classic “invisible man” premise into it’s filthiest, most violent possibilities; in it’s best moments the film becomes a nasty, vicious piece that the filmmaker is made for.

Unfortunately, those moments are mostly buried amid bland Hollywood cliches and tropes, so Verhoeven’s distaste is quite understandable.

14. Spetters (1980)

It’d be essentially impossible to be a squeamish, prude or overly moralistic person and be a fan of Paul Verhoeven; the joy and pleasure of his work lies precisely in the filthy extremes he’s willing to indulge; his shameless passion for the taboo and the unrelenting cynicism of his vision of humanity.

Verhoeven’s best movies combine their fun, pulpy sleaziness with a layered sense of self-awareness; he’s a provocateur, sure, but his finest work rises above mere juvenile titillation to provide thoughtful, complex commentary.

Which is why “Spetters” feels so frustrating; it’s the one film in which Verhoeven’s provocations feel completely empty, meant solely to shock, devoid of a larger satirical outlook. Transgression for it’s own sake has value, of course, but some sequences here (as a gay man raping a homophobic one, who apparently “likes” it) go beyond the usual “bad taste” of his work (that is ironic and self-reflexive), they’re genuinely ugly, juvenile stuff.

13. Katie Tippel (1975)

Verhoeven’s early Dutch phase is essential for understanding the tone, style and intentions of his later, more famous American films. Case in point: “Katie Tippel,” which deals in a more respectable, straightforward (albeit still very Verhoevian) way with many of the same themes the director would return to in the misunderstood “Showgirls.”

The way misogyny and class warfare intersects; the selling of a woman’s body being just another transaction in the capitalist world; the commodification of desire – it’s all here, as is the crude violence and sexual content. And yet, this film lacks something essential – ultimately, it’s just too polite, too clean in its style to fully drive home the point Verhoeven is trying to make.

The garish nature of his later American films is brilliant because it transforms the theme into form – the very aesthetic of the movies reflect the twisted worlds and warped morals portrayed in the stories. “Katie Tippel,” by contrast, while well-made and entertaining enough, lacks the full power of that satirical bite.

12. Turkish Delight (1973)

Released just two years after his underwhelming debut, “Turkish Delight,” Verhoeven’s second ever feature, marks a huge leap for the director in terms of personality, voice and strength of style – two movies in and he already starts to feel like an auteur.

But even in Verhoeven’s own oeuvre this film is unique, not necessarily in it’s kinkiness and blunt sexual content (a given in any Verhoeven film); but how it uses it’s gross explicitness (including extended sequences involving maggots, worms and rape) in order to create a genuinely sweet love story – a very eschatological one, for sure, but just as emotionally engaging as the finest screen romances.

“Turkish Delight” also marks Verhoeven’s first foray into camp (though not as fully fledged as his later movies) and already demonstrates his proclivity for wild tonal balancing – the film essentially plays like a romantic comedy until it’s harrowing final part. It doesn’t fully work yet as a whole, but it’s an excellent early indicator of a major voice.

11. Flesh + Blood (1985)

Verhoeven’s first English-language movie is as perfect a prelude to his Hollywood period as one could hope for; it basically encapsulates every single one of his thematic obsessions: stylistic predilections and auteurist traits in one supremely savage package.

It’s ironic, however, that “Flesh + Blood” is the film that ushered Verhoeven’s most successful era, considering it had a notoriously troubled production and was, upon release, a massive commercial disaster. That failure is both unfair and completely understandable; unfair because it’s a great movie that deserved recognition in it’s own time, but understandable because the picture’s upending of medieval adventure tropes is far too bleak and cynical to ever be broadly appealing.

“Flesh + Blood” is a film in which lovers plea eternal devotion beneath rotting corpses; innocent maidens get brutally raped; noble warriors give nuns lasting brain damage; mercenaries are considered prophets by priests and everyone eventually succumbs in the most gruesome, graphic ways to the plague. It is, in summary, an acidic portrayal of the Dark Ages that completely rebuts traditional morality and easy dichotomies of good and evil – in Verhoeven’s world the only imperative is survival and everyone is willing to do anything to stay alive and prosperous. Cynical but honest; and never anything less than engrossing drama.

10. Soldier Of Orange (1977)

In many ways Verhoeven’s most respectable, prestige film (so much so that it attracted the attention of Spielberg and George Lucas, even prompting the latter to offer him “Return Of The Jedi”), “Soldier of Orange” is a war epic that bridges the gap between the genre’s typical beats and uniquely Verhoevian quirks.

On one hand, the film delivers on the expected scope and pathos of a war picture, telling a sprawling story full of characters, spanning many years, and packing an emotional punch in its tragic developments. What makes the “Soldier Of Orange” distinct and memorable, however, are the ways in which Verhoeven sneaks his sensibilities in what is otherwise a very good but fairly standard film, the way he stages certain sequences for maximum violence and even humour (as the scene in which a man is killed while in the toilet).

And more than that, the movie is also one of the earliest testaments to Verhoeven’s technical mastery; then the most expensive Dutch film ever made, “Soldier Of Orange” displays every cent of that budget in its exquisite cinematography and sense of grandeur.

9. The 4th Man (1983)

At first sight, “The 4th Man,” Verhoeven’s last Dutch movie before venturing into English-language work, looks like just another one of the director’s quintessential sleazy erotic thrillers – and while it does work marvelously as that, the film is also a unique entry in his filmography.

While Verhoeven’s style is extremely heightened (both formally and dramatically), his work almost never reaches into outright surreal territory – even his most absurd premises and moments are grounded in some kind of internal logic and in the tangible reality of the worlds of the stories.

“The 4th Man,” by contrast, is a complete fever (wet) dream; disregarding any sense of realism for a dream logic that perfectly tracks the protagonist’s descent into madness.

That sense of surrealism also works magnificently in tandem with Verhoeven’s treatment of noir atmosphere – here, every trope and archetype is pushed to its extreme, making what once was subtext explicit (in more ways than one). “The 4th Man” is a Hitchcockian thriller with any inhibitions taken off – a blast, from beginning to end.

The “official” canon of classic cinema, compiled in lists such as the AFI Top 100 or the Sight and Sound polls, can be very useful for young cinephiles making their way through cinema history.For others with more experience, it’s still inherently fun to discuss these choices, to debate about the movies that make it and those that don’t.

And it’s in that aspect that these lists are often such a wasted opportunity, for they fail to go beyond the usual suspects; to look further and reclaim movies that have been unduly forgotten by time or even outright dismissed for no good reason. Female and non-white filmmakers particularly have had their immense contributions overlooked, something that critics are, fortunately, starting to remedy, rediscovering some lost classics and giving these pictures their rightful place in the sun.

With that in mind, here’s a list of 10 excellent movies directed by women that you may not have seen but definitely should, as soon as possible.

10. The Hitch-hiker (1953)

Ida Lupino’s place in the canon of Hollywood cinema was for a long time obscure, relegating the pioneer filmmaker to the peripheries of history, denying her the same acclaim bestowed on many of her male contemporaries.

Recently, however, film historians and critics have looked upon her movies and place in the industry with a keener eye, recognizing both the trailblazing nature of her work (by virtue of having been made by a woman in the 40s at all) and the artistic merit of the pictures themselves.

It’s difficult to single out a particular movie in her filmography, which is filled with undiscovered gems, but “The Hitch-Hiker” seems a perfect starting point for newcomers to her work, since it works on so many levels; just as compelling as a pure, unpretentious genre picture (as tense, tight and to the point as the best of classic noirs) and as a symbolic exploration of male violence, represented through the phallic figure of the gun.

9. The Gleaners and I (2000)

Agnes Varda’s legacy is a paradox; she is simultaneously recognized as a cinematic titan, one of the all time greats (just as essential a figure of the Nouvelle Vague as Godard, Truffaut or Chabrol); but still remains somewhat underrated, in the sense that so many of her movies continue to be largely underseen.

After all, bar some superlative classics like “Cleo From 5 to 7,” Varda’s oeuvre was for a long time obscure, even to many critics; whether due to lack of proper distribution (trapped in the rarefied circles of festival screenings, with little to no presence in physical media and streaming) or by dint of having been dismissed upon release and never reevaluated or reclaimed. Thankfully, in the last few years venues like Criterion have restored and made available many of her films, allowing for more people to discover their brilliance.

And while Varda made many wonderful pictures throughout the entirety of her career, her late non-fiction work merits particular attention; unlike so many other directors who peter out with age, Varda kept putting out masterpieces to the very end. Her documentaries, such as “The Gleaners and I,” are a miracle, achieving an almost impossible balance: they are both formally ambitious, intellectually rigorous work and light, life affirming entertainment.

8. Revenge (2017)

Rape revenge movies are not an inherently misogynistic subgenre; in fact, if anything, they’re uniquely suited for being cathartic expressions of righteous female rage. That potential, however, has rarely been fully tapped into, because the genre has been predominantly dominated by male directors, who are often more interested in the lewder aspects of these stories.

Coralie Fargeat’s phenomenal “Revenge” is the best possible version of a modern exploitation film; a thorough rebuttal of this history of objectification, but also a genuinely incredible piece of pulp nastiness. An unfortunate trend of modern genre cinema is the proliferation of “elevated” pictures, that is, movies that seek to modernize or complicate genre tropes but, in the process, believe themselves to be superior to older classics.

Fargeat is far too intelligent a filmmaker to fall for such cheap faux-arthouse smugness; her “Revenge” works incredibly as pure exploitation, with maniacally violent and well-constructed set pieces (the budget for fake blood on this film must have been a fortune), while simultaneously offering pointed, intelligent gender critique. It’s a film that proves you can truly have it all.

7. A New Leaf (1971)

It’s fair to say that at this point Elaine May has been fully reevaluated as a major filmmaker; a key figure of the New Hollywood, both artistically and historically, considering she has become in the public consciousness an avatar for the double-standard for female directors, a living embodiment of the lack of opportunities women have to face in the industry.

May only ever directed four features but, in a fair world, she should’ve had as varied, long and fruitful a trajectory behind the camera as her old improv partner Mike Nichols; she was every bit as talented as him, if not more – after all, aside from being a director, she was also a terrific writer and actor. One needn’t look further than her debut, “A New Leaf,” to witness what an immediately brilliant filmmaker she was from the get go.

A screwball comedy that is equally as acidic as it is sweet; the film is of one cinema’s finest farces, taking the archetypes of classic screwball and exaggerating them to absurd proportions – this is a love story between a nihilistic sociopath and the impossibly naive heiress he plans to murder, which in anybody else’s hands could’ve been disastrous, but May makes relentlessly hilarious and, somehow, genuine romantic. A magic trick.

6. Ishtar (1987)

As said, May’s reputation has been almost completely restored; critics who initially dismissed her have either vanished or retracted, and a new generation of cinephiles have embraced her short but rich filmography – or at least most of it.

There’s one movie whose failure was so loud and notorious that not even decades of a changing critical landscape has been enough to fully rehabilitate it’s poisonous fame: “Ishtar,” the film that virtually annihilated May’s directing career in a single fell swoop. It had one of the most catastrophic productions of any Hollywood film ever (on par with “Heaven’s Gate” and “Apocalypse Now” in terms of succeeding disasters). The picture went wildly over-budget, was hindered by constant in-fighting between May and her collaborators (particularly Warren Beatty and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro), and even had a chaotic post-production with three editors working on different cuts simultaneously.

Stories of it’s troubled production began to spread even before the film’s release, becoming the dominating narrative around the movie for months and creating an atmosphere of hostility and bad faith – making it’s overwhelmingly negative reception, both critically and commercially, a foregone conclusion.

Looking back, however, it’s possible to discern that all the backstage drama outgrew the actual movie, which is a flawed but intermittently brilliant farce; every bit as deliriously witty as any of May’s celebrated screenplays and visually lavish in a way comedies can rarely afford to be.

Jane Campion has been a household name for such a long time that it’s easy to take for granted just how spectacularly rare her success really is.

If even now female directors still struggle to get their movies made, let alone have them find the same level of attention dedicated to them as the work of their male counterparts, then when Campion started, in the late 80s, the issue of diversity behind the screen was essentially a non-starter, making the acclaim she found a radical outlier in the cinematic landscape.

But as powerfully symbolic a feminist figure as she was and continues to be (as of this year, the only woman ever to be nominated twice for the Best Director Oscar), describing Campion and her success simply through the prism of gender is actually a disservice – it obfuscates her massive talent and makes her considerable artistic contribution to cinema seem secondary to the social and political advances she represents.

So, with that in mind, and Campion poised to make history in the Academy Awards once again, it seems the perfect time to celebrate her wonderful career and honor a tremendous talent – so here’s a ranking of every single one of her (theatrically released) features.

8. Holy Smoke (1999)

For most filmmakers, becoming an Oscar winner is a key career breakthrough, opening doors for bigger budgets and greater creative freedom, fostering the perfect set of circumstances for the creation of great art – there are many directors who make some of their best movies thanks to prestige bestowed by the Academy Awards.

Curiously, for Jane Campion, the exact opposite happened; following her hit award darling “The Piano,” for which she won an Original Screenplay Oscar, she made her two weakest films, the worst of which is the bizarre “Holy Smoke.” But perhaps it’s unfair to use the word “worst” to refer to this film since it implies something with no redeeming qualities, which is not the case – if nothing else, one needs to respect Campion’s thematic ambition and her commitment to making a film that exists on a unique wavelength; which is more or less what she has always done.

In fact, “Holy Smoke” is in various ways a classically Campion film; filled to the brim with hefty ideas about sexism, power dynamics and gender relations; all delivered via formal experimentation. Unfortunately, it’s also a huge mess: narratively unfocused, tonally schizophrenic, visually grating (Campion puts a yellow/orange hue over everything to demonstrate the heat of Australia, in a rare, obvious choice for her) and edited in a bizarre way.

7. The Portrait Of A Lady (1996)

Campion’s direct follow up to “The Piano” came with just about every signifier of prestige filmmaking imaginable: “The Portrait Of A Lady” is a period piece, based on a classic novel by a canonical writer, dealing with issues of patriarchal oppression and starring a great actress then at the height of her popularity and acclaim.

The fact that all these ingredients failed to garner the same Oscar success she previously enjoyed is a testament both to Campion’s ambition and artistry as a filmmaker, but also of the limitations of this specific film. “The Portrait Of A Lady” was never going to be the kind of swooning period romance that awards bodies go for. There’s little here of that vapid good taste, of the oversimplified and superficial sentimentality that is tailor-made for the Merchant-Ivory crowd – Campion’s film is far thornier and less accessible, not exactly the melodrama one would expect, but an understated character study.

But the film is also, nonetheless, just as soporific as the worst of period melodramas, with a threadbare story stretched out over two and a half hours, tediously underplaying just about every dramatic beat – which works to distinguish “The Portrait Of A Lady” from other movies of it’s kind, but doesn’t do much to make it any better.

6. An Angel At My Table (1990)

With some very few and notable exceptions, biopics tend to be the most creatively insipid and uninspired of all film genres; reducing a notable person’s life to a wikipedia-esque series of bullet points, often veering into outright hagiographic territory.

Most crucially, biopics in general tend to focus on the concrete aspects of its subjects life, meaning, their actions and impact on the world, overlooking their inner life, which, ultimately, is the key to understanding any person. It is in that way, especially, that Campion’s “An Angel At My Table” is such a fresh and distinct take on this most tired formula; based on the autobiographical work of New Zealand writer Janet Frame, the film is chiefly preoccupied with her struggles with mental illness and the inner turmoil brought by personal tragedies.

Biopics, by definition, tend to focus on people who have done extraordinary things, whose existences completely escape the ordinary – it’s much rarer, and more difficult, for a film to chronicle the life of a largely ordinary person and still find beauty in the mundane. And yet, somehow Campion does it effortlessly in “An Angel At My Table,” a supremely sensitive, funny, honest and heartbreaking film that honors its subject’s rich soul.

5. Sweetie (1989)

The late 80s/early 90s were an incredible time for iconic directorial debuts, such as “Blood Simple” or “Reservoir Dogs” – big screen calling cards that both preface their respective director’s brilliant careers and are incredible individual films unto themselves.

It’s understandable that Campion’s own debut (cinematic, anyway, for she had previously directed the TV film “Two Friends”) doesn’t get mentioned in the same breath as these classics, since it lacks their pop appeal and high-stakes thrills – but “Sweetie” is an equally remarkable introduction to a major voice. Formally, Campion was just as supernaturally gifted as those other male superstars: the film is full of tremendous images; her sense of composition was brilliant from day one; always finding the most interesting angle possible, framing subjects in a just slightly off way, communicating their emotional discomfort – pure, effortless visual storytelling that is also aesthetically sophisticated.

Narratively, “Sweetie” is also a microcosm of the tone and themes Campion would come to explore for the rest of her career, dealing with female sexuality, familial bonds and the overwhelming alienation that comes from not fitting in, told in a tragicomical register that makes the bitter pill easy to swallow.

Guillermo Del Toro is one of the last few remnants of a dying breed in Hollywood.

He’s a populist director of immense personality and with a very distinct personal style, who primarily makes expensive commercial movies but is still able to imbue such projects with his unique touch. GDT is a filmmaker in the tradition of Spielberg, Carpenter and many others; people who attain both commercial success and critical respect on the strength of their craft and technical mastery.

For many people, it is through the work of such pop auteurs that the passion for cinema is first ignited – so while it is sad that there are so few of them left, at least it makes us appreciate more the ones that are able to do it.

With that in mind, let’s celebrate the career of one of our greatest populist masters, with a ranking of all of Del Toro’s films so far.

11. Mimic (1997)

The worse movies are not necessarily those most obviously devoid of any qualities, but those that, in between indefensible, baffling stretches of badness, demonstrate glimmers of what could’ve been, of a better movie buried within the mess.

One of the most frustrating examples of this is “Mimic,” Del Toro’s first Hollywood studio movie and, ironically, almost his last. On the surface, it has all the makings of a classic Del Toro creature-feature, featuring a ridiculous premise (about a group of scientists fighting a plague of mutated cockroaches who can mimic their prey), magnificent practical effects (including terrifically disgusting monster designs), and a carefully constructed atmosphere of dread.

And yet, while those elements do work individually, somewhat, “Mimic” as a whole feels broken;famously a victim of Harvey Weinstein’s scissorhands, the film we have is a severely compromised version of the director’s original vision that had to be diluted down from what we now know to be his trademark sensibility for a more palatable blandness. The result is a big nothing, a generic B-movie with very little personality.

10. Cronos (1993)

Del Toro’s debut is an interesting oddity when viewed in the context of his subsequent career. “Cronos”, at once, demonstrates an artist with a fully formed personality but also with very little control over craft; an auteur of already established interests and obsessions, but lacking in the mastery of film language necessary to make them come alive.

It’s impressive, on one hand, that Del Toro came out of the gate with such a distinct voice; almost every single element that would come to define his work is present in “Cronos”: his passion for fairy-tale-ish narratives (including sharply binary and rigid divides of good and evil),the integration of fantastical elements with the mundane, carefully designed practical effectsand a shamelessly sentimental tone.

But if later in his work, with greater artistic maturity and a much more assured command of craft, Del Toro managed to create some masterpieces out of those ingredients, his first attempt is wholly flat; “Cronos” is narratively and formally underwhelming – not that there’s anything particularly bad about the movie, it’s just a fairly innocuous, insipid film.

9. Pacific Rim (2013)

It’s interesting that Del Toro has attained a certain aura of respectability, that he is broadly (though not universally) considered a great modern auteur, considering he’s by far the least fussy major director around; never afraid to indulge in silliness and campiness. In fact, the sillier the material the more he seems attracted to it.

“Pacific Rim” is his most nakedly ridiculous movie; a kaiju extravaganza that doesn’t double as some kind of labored metaphor for trauma or imperialism. Del Toro’s interest with this one really does begin and end with seeing giant robots fight giant monsters. But while that purity of intention and lack of arrogance that is all too common in modern “genre” cinema (in trying to “elevate” a genre that was doing just fine as it was) is refreshing. Unfortunately, the results aren’t as fun as they sound on paper.

Compared to most other blockbusters of its era, “Pacific Rim” is a masterpiece, if nothing else for the fact that it’s actually directed by a human being, instead of the product of an algorithm or studio committee. Del Toro’s fingerprints are visible in every gorgeous frame, the film is often beautiful to look at (especially in its lush use of color, another breath of fresh air in the current landscape) and features some truly great set pieces. Unfortunately, it also peaks halfway through, with the Hong Kong battle, and still slogs for about another hour – not to mention the lead is a charisma vacuum, something only worsened by the fact he’s trapped in Del Toro’s worst ever love story.

8. Hellboy (2004)

Another excellent example of Del Toro’s unfussiness when it comes to choosing material is his willingness to not only make a superhero comic book movie, but to make it from a relatively obscure character: “Hellboy”.

Of course, looking back now, with a few more decades of familiarity with Del Toro’s cinematic obsessions, it’s very easy to understand what attracted him to this piece, obsessed as he is with monsters and their humanity. It is the most recurring theme in his work and one that, arguably, he never realized more fully than in this film and its sequel. It’s a feat owed almost entirely to casting; he would go on to create more elaborate designs and more impressive prosthetics, but Del Toro never again found a monster as charismatic as Ron Perlman’s titular hero, who can be effortlessly cool and endearingly vulnerable in equal measure. And the love story between him and Selma Blair’s Liz is the most delicately constructed romantic relationship in this director’s oeuvre.

But while those elements (which would come to be much better explored in the second one) are already present in this first film, they’re suffocated in the midst of many other less compelling parts: the action scenes are shoddily directed, the villains are a non-entity and, worst of all, the de-facto protagonist is the blandest character in the whole movie, someone who was meant to be an audience surrogate but only serves to kill any emotional involvement and narrative momentum.

7. The Shape Of Water (2017)

Most cinephiles understand that the Oscars are not, never have been and are in no immediate danger of becoming, purveyors of actual quality – the Academy is an institution of aggressively middlebrow (not to say mediocre) taste and highly questionable decisions, whose history is littered with laughable winners and criminal oversights.

But still, there’s no denying that it looms large over cinema; the Oscars are not something anyone even mildly interested in film can fully ignore. For better or worse, their stamp of approval means something. For the individual people who win then, it’s a wonderful thing, a career boost like no other. But for movies themselves it can often be the kiss of death; a blow to their artistic credibility, leading people to exaggerate their flaws – which is how, paradoxically, the general reputation of movies like “Shakespeare In Love” or “The King’s Speech” is worse than if they had not won Best Picture.

It’s early, but one can already see the same process happening to “The Shape Of Water”, which, only 4 years into its awards triumph, has already been mockingly reduced to the monicker of “the fish-sex” movie. Not that that’s an inaccurate description of Del Toro’s fairy-tale, but the crassness of the term dismisses the fact that the director sees this as a genuine love story. Del Toro can be accused of many things, but cynical isn’t one of them.

In fact, that’s why it’s strange to see “The Shape Of Water,” of all movies, being dismissed as cheap Oscar bait, as prestige-chasing mediocrity; because it’s so clearly a very personal film, the result of Del Toro’s unique obsessions and interests. It’s far from his best, of course, (too sappy and formulaic), but the fact that something like this managed to strike a universal chord, even with the most conservative of filmgoers in the Academy, is a testament to Del Toro’s emotional honesty and open-heartedness.

If before the pandemic Netflix, and streaming in general, was already an indispensable force in the cinematic landscape, the last couple of years have only accelerated the inevitable; there is now a clear (and seemingly irreversible) divide between movies that are made for theater and those that can only find life in streaming services.

For better or worse, adult-oriented filmmaking has migrated almost exclusively to these new financing and distribution outlets and Netflix, despite facing ever more heavy competition, still reins supreme in the realm of original films. 2021 in particular was a great year for them, with their usual fare of awards competitors (most of which are actually very good) and some excellent obscure genre offerings. These are the 10 best of the crop.

10. Below Zero

The double-edged sword of Netflix’s distribution tactics is that on one hand, yes, they do technically give movies the opportunity to be seen by millions of people who would otherwise never have easy access to them. But, on the other hand, the streaming platform does close to nothing to actually get people to see such movies, thanks to their zero marketing “strategy” (which, curiously enough, they reserve only for already obscure titles and not their awards heavy-hitters or blockbuster star-vehicles).

That’s how a terrific action thriller like “Below Zero”, which could easily have become a widespread hit, can go virtually unnoticed not only by audiences but even critics. It being a non-english language film already gives it a barrier to overcome, but one of Netflix’s greatest gifts is that it can boost non-american titles into international success (see: “Squid Game”). And there’s no reason that couldn’t have happened to this movie, a sort of Spanish “Assault On Precinct 13” set in an even more inhospitable environment than Carpenter’s classic, as a prisoner transfer is attacked and becomes trapped in the middle of a snowstorm, leaving the officer in charge to fight both the criminals and the natural elements.

“Below Zero” is everything you could want out of such a thriller: taut, gory, violent and admirably committed to its own simplicity, mining all the pulp it possibly can from its premise.

9. Oxygen

Another excellent little thriller that got completely buried by Netflix’s all-powerful and completely elusive algorithm (and, perhaps not coincidentally, also a non-english language title), Alexandre Aja’s “Oxygen” is an instant classic of the “single-location” suspense film, designed to give claustrophobia’s excruciating agony for years to come – and delightful thrills for the less squeamish viewer.

The set-up is as simple and effective as it gets: a woman (played by Mélanie Laurent) wakes up in a cryogenic chamber with no memory of whom she is, or how she got there. To make matters worse, her air supply is fast running out and she needs to find out exactly what’s going on if she has any hope of staying alive.

What follows is the kind of tight, no frills claustrophobic thriller that Aja, between this and “Crawl”, has been becoming an expert in. The key difference here is that, unlike that delicious killer croc movie, the director has extremely limited space in which to stage the action, which aids the tension by itself, but could also become dull if not handled well. Thankfully, Laurent is terrific, making her character’s struggle intense and believable even as the plot spins into wildly silly directions. It’s up to the viewer to embrace such twists or not, but those willing to accept them will certainly have a great time.

8. tick tick…BOOM!

A perfect example of what the Netflix machine can do for movies it deems worthy of promotion, Lin Manuel Miranda’s directorial debut “tick tick…BOOM!” may not seem, initially, as a particularly niche film, but it absolutely is, only it’s tailor made for a demographic not often catered to in cinema: theater kids.

It’s a group that can be as rabid about its history and closed off culture as any comic book fan – and Miranda, being one of them, has made a movie essentially to celebrate musical theater and those who are passionate about it, peppering cameos from Broadway actors the way superhero films thrown in fan favorite characters, and treating a Stephen Sondheim appearance as the ultimate easter egg for those in the know.

The whole approach could easily become annoying, but Miranda’s lovingly sincere affection not only for his central subject Jonathan Larson (played by an admirably committed Andrew Garfield), but also for the broader world that defined his obsession is moving; and his craft is surprisingly sturdy for a first-time director, with particularly excellent use of cross-cutting for the best musical sequences.

7. The Hand Of God

One of the unambiguously great things about Netflix is the fact that they give interesting directors a large budget to realize some passion projects they’d never be able to make otherwise, at least not at the scale that the streaming platform allows.

It’s how we got masterpieces like “The Irishman” and “Roma”, movies that are both contemplative and bombastic, miraculously marrying their deliberate rhythms and complex questions with a huge scope, visually and thematically. Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand Of God” is not exactly on the same level as these two seismic works of art, but it presents many of the same qualities that made those movies so essential; a film that skillfully treads the line between the intimate and the universal without ever losing sight of either.

“The Hand Of God” is a sort of culmination of every thread from Sorrentino’s career, featuring both his acerbic sense of humor and heartfelt emotion; not to mention a new aesthetic high from one of the world’s most visually sophisticated directors.

6. The Harder They Fall

In the same way Netflix grants generous budgets to great masters of old, they also admirably take chances on new filmmakers to make original projects, something ever more rare in the current studio system, which has never been more financially lucrative nor more creatively bankrupt.

That dichotomy is the point of origin for one of the fiercest debates in film circles of the last few years: is Netflix’s dominance something to be celebrated, since they provide opportunities for underrepresented voices, or is their power just another depressing sign of the times, proof that mainstream adult filmmaking is all but dead except as another piece of “content” for a juggernaut, with no chance in cinemas (considering the streamer’s absolute unwillingness to play their movies in theaters)?

It’s possible that both assertions are simultaneously true, but movies like “The Harder They Fall” give hope that the current state of American cinema may not be as grim as some think. Jeymes Samuel’s debut is at once a throwback and a completely new vision, a spaghetti western that lovingly pays homage to the classics while re-contextualizing those scenarios and characters for genre revisionism and historical accuracy. And, no less important, it’s just one hell of a fun movie: violent, stylized and with one of the years greatest soundtracks.

It’s a complaint now as cliched as the thing it’s meant to criticize: Hollywood has completely lost its appetite for originality.

It’s a statement simultaneously true and exaggerated. On one hand, it’s undeniable that the big studio system seems more interested than ever in mining every conceivable piece of known IP available, to the detriment of new stories; on the other, this is not exactly a new phenomenon, as Hollywood has always taken previous material to craft a movie, be it a book, a TV show, or the most common of all, remakes.

And that’s what makes this old “Hollywood is not original” truism fundamentally wrong, because it’s meant as a statement of quality – that all remakes are a creatively bankrupt endeavor. But the fact is that remakes can often become masterpieces; some of the biggest staples of pop culture today are remakes (Brian De Palma’s “Scarface” is just one example).

So to honor the craft and artistry that takes to make any good movie, let alone a worthy remake, this list shines a light on some of the best and least recognised remakes out there.

10. Harakiri: Death of a Samurai (2011)

Remakes in general tend to be a hard sell for cinephiles, who are inherently suspicious of a filmmaker’s intention in retreading known ground. And if that’s true of any film, even those not necessarily considered untouchable, it’s infinitely more condemned in cases of remaking universally beloved classics.

That goes to explain the to-this-day persistent skepticism surrounding Takashi Miike’s “Harakiri,” a remake of the iconic 1962 samurai epic.  The original is a virtually perfect film, an enduringly popular masterpiece (it’s the third highest rated movie on Letterboxd) that’s often considered the greatest chambara picture of all time – so, naturally, any attempt to outdo Masaki Kobayashi would be viewed as heresy.

And, indeed, on simply a story level, Miike’s remake is pointless, since the narrative is essentially identical, beat by beat, to the first film. But to focus on that is to miss the director’s subtle, but essential, rearranging of this story’s tone. If Kobayashi’s vision is essentially a thriller, Miike makes this a classic melodrama; an understated study of class disparity that refuses to fully give into pulpy pleasures even in its action finale.

9. 13 Assassins (2010)

If “Harakiri” was Miike’s biggest gamble in terms of remakes, then “13 Assassins” was his surest bet, since the original is not nearly as idolized as a film and, if anything, it has been forgotten even by connoisseurs.

And so, even though his “Harakiri” is a terrific film on its own, it could only ever be a companion piece to Kobayashi’s movie, because there was absolutely no room for improvement; whereas “13 Assassins” is the definitive superior picture, perhaps precisely because of the freedom provided by the original’s relative obscurity.

In both of these chambara re-readings (which the director released back-to-back in the early 2010s), the pleasures and qualities are essentially the same, mainly Miike’s fabulous formalism (his sense of composition and movement has not been better this decade), but in “13 Assassins” specifically he also unleashes his other side: the maniacal sadist. The final 45 minutes of this movie may very well be the finest samurai action ever committed to film: brutally conceived, cleanly staged, and viscerally exciting.

8. Zatoichi (2003)

Rounding out the “remakes of classic samurai tales by legendary Japanese filmmakers” portion of this list, we have Takeshi Kitano’s “Zatoichi,” though that categorization may be somewhat of a cheat.

After all, “Zatoichi” is one of Japan’s greatest franchises, dating from the early ‘60s, spanning no fewer than 26 films and even a TV series, making this movie less of a remake and more of a revival of a character with long tradition. But it qualifies for this list because, not only does it have enough in common with the first movie (the excellent “The Tale of Zatoichi”) in terms of story and plot points, it’s also the one that perhaps most accurately recaptured the original’s expert balance of character study and swordplay.

Granted, Takeshi Kitano’s style is infinitely more tongue-in-cheek than any of the previous directors to work on the series, so this version is much more comedic (bordering even on wacky meta at times) than any other Ichi flick, but the core contrast of introspection and action extravaganza is kept intact and executed to perfection.

7. The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

John Frankenheimer’s “The Manchurian Candidate” is possibly the single most canonized political thriller of all time, a formally daring and thematically challenging piece of work that continues to baffle and dazzle in equal measure.

But it’s also, somewhat paradoxically, extremely of its time, especially in regards to political paranoia and the 1960s scare of communism (even if in the film those concerns are largely satirized), so it made sense that the basic concept and characters of the story could be revamped to comment on the evolving landscape of American politics. And that’s exactly why the remake is so smart: the structural backbone of the narrative is intact, but it’s a complete aesthetic and thematic reimagination that offers what is arguably even more nuanced and thoughtful insight into the plight of PTSD and how those afflicted with it are simply pawns in the a game of the powerful.

But that’s what you get when you hire a uniquely sensitive director like Jonathan Demme who, despite not being as gifted a stylist as Frankenheimer, makes this material entirely his own: heartfelt, humanistic and with a deep love for actors, each of whom get a magnificent showcase in this film.

6. Sorcerer (1977)

Another case in which a great director dared to touch an unimpeachable classic, though in this instance it may have had more to do with hubris than genuine interest in commentary: William Friedkin’s “Sorcerer,” a remake of “The Wages of Fear,” the French thriller so good that it allegedly even made Hitchcock envious.

So it would really take an astronomical ego to even consider undertaking a reimagination of that movie, but in the late ‘70s, Friedkin had as much justification as any filmmaker has ever had for his over-inflated sense of self. Fresh off the Oscar triumph of “The French Connection” and the record-smashing, culture-impacting hit of “The Exorcist,” he made “Sorcerer” with the conviction that it would be his greatest masterpiece, the one he’d be remembered for.

Alas, upon release, the film was a major flop, a disaster at the box office and, most surprisingly, derided even by critics. Instead of being the final jewel in his crown as the finest auteur of New Hollywood, it was the first step in Friedkin’s long journey to the bottom. But what’s most ironic is, time proved him right: “Sorcerer” is a masterpiece and may very well be his greatest movie indeed – a marvelously constructed piece of cinema that could only have been the product of a feverishly confident artist at the height of his power.

Guillermo del Toro’s knowledge and passion for horror cinema is too expansive to be contained by a single list – there’s simply too many recommendations of too many great movies to ignore.

So here’s a second list of horror movies recommended by del Toro, for your viewing pleasure (listed chronologically).

1. I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

People who don’t know the history of horror at all have lately taken it upon themselves to coin all manner of new terms to demonstrate how the genre is currently much more sophisticated than what it used to be. First it was “post-horror,” then “elevated horror,” now there’s even “horror as a vehicle” threatening to make its way into film conversation.

All of these self-evidently ridiculous monikers are always used to mean horror movies that, while undoubtedly presenting tropes and aesthetic elements of the genre, are also artistically serious and have genuine thematic heft – something which, these people believe, is a wholly new phenomenon. The thing is, horror has always been one of the most socially conscious cinematic genres and also one that has often attracted some of the most artful filmmakers in the world.

Jacques Tourneur’s “I Walked with a Zombie” is one of the greatest rebuttals to the notion of sophisticated horror not existing in the past; it’s not only one of the best, most intelligent films ever made about colonialism, it’s a superb aesthetic experience, with stunningly expressive black-and-white cinematography and a surreal mise-en-scene filled with spectacular use of the natural environment to highlight the supernatural elements of the story.

As del Toro says, the film is “Jane Eyre or Rebecca with Voodoo,” a swooning gothic romance that is also as spooky as any other horror offering. A seminal masterpiece.

2. The Uninvited (1944)

Cited multiple times by del Toro as one of his favorite ghost stories on film, “The Uninvited” is a relatively unknown title in the field of haunted house classics, a lightweight when put in the ring with heavy hitters such as “The Haunting” or another film that will be mentioned just below.

But ever the scholar of B-movie glory, del Toro’s hearty recommendation is merited: Lewis Allen’s film is wonderful, a story that works equally well as a standard melodrama and as an atmospheric horror tale. But the real reason for its success and longevity among connoisseurs such as del Toro is that this is one of the most impressively crafted horror movies of the 1940s (the cinematography is particularly great, with phenomenal use of shadows and silhouettes) and low-key one of the most influential as well, having been one of the first to position the supernatural as a plausible, palpable, and serious threat rather a ridiculous or campy element.

3. The Innocents (1961)

Jack Clayton’s seminal masterpiece may be the definitive ghost/haunted house movie in the history of cinema, the one by which all others of it’s kind are measured, so, naturally, it’s a del Toro favorite.

Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw” is one of the most frequently adapted works of literature, with new versions of the story popping up in the same breath as reboots of major franchises (last year alone saw the release of two different adaptations); none of which has ever come close to capturing the power of “The Innocents.” In fact, it’s a wonder why anyone even bothers to keep trying, considering this one has already perfected every possible facet of James’s novella, mining the latent ambiguity of the premise for terrific effect, transforming the story into much more of a character study. This movie is a spiraling narrative of the deterioration of a fragile mind, in which the ghosts may or may not be just figments of the protagonist’s imagination rather than a literal presence.

And on a formal level, not enough can ever be said of this movie’s staging and camera work: Clayton’s ability to reframe without cutting, of rearranging the characters and the camera in a space so as to change the shot, is second to none. “The Innocents” is an incessant masterclass of visual mastery that has inspired filmmakers for decades – not the least of which was, per his own admission,. del Toro himself.

4. The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

It will surely come as a surprise to no one familiar with del Toro’s tastes that he’s a fan of Hammer, the legendary British horror studio responsible for some of the most iconic iterations of classic horror characters, such as Peter Cushing’s Frankenstein or Christopher Lee’s Dracula.

“The Curse of the Werewolf” was Hammer’s major contribution to another quintessential horror staple; and although not as well-remembered as the ones mentioned above, this lupine tale features all the pleasures one can expect out of the studio. It’s campy and silly, of course, but also lush, with beautifully vivid colors and detailed production design, plus a gothic tone that is entertainingly over the top while never becoming obnoxiously ironic.

Not an essential masterpiece, naturally, but a damn good time at the movies.

5. Matango (1963)

As is apparent by his own work, del Toro, despite being an undeniably erudite and cultured man, has the most love for what can more easily be described as (tough no doubt he would protest this term) “low-brow” material – the films, TV shows, novels, and comics that deal in the silliest things with the most earnest grandeur.

That’s the crux of his sensibility as a filmmaker; after all, who else could’ve taken the love story of a woman and a mutant man fish all the way into Best Picture-winning glory, through sheer force of craft? Conversely, his big robots versus big monsters movie, albeit less successful with awards, was also a gloriously polished reimagining of a traditionally low-brow genre, of which “Matango” might be the peak.

There’s something incomparably satisfying about a movie that delivers on what it promises, and Ishirō Honda’s film is exactly what you’d expect out a of a story about people slowly transforming into murderous mushrooms – meaning, it’s a deliciously weird, trippy and scary slice of B-movie heaven. Sure, there’s a dark tone and bleak subtext, but at the end of the day, this is still first and foremost a movie about people turning into mushrooms. And it’s the best one that you’ll ever see – that ‘s a guarantee.