The possibilities of the cinematic medium are so huge for an artist, that rarely have we seen stories told on the silver screen that happen entirely in one setting. That’s more of a theatre thing, screenwriters must reckon, and in fact a lot of single-setting movies are stage adaptations looking to be faithful to the original text. However, some directors have seized on the opportunity of a single-setting movie to explore human relationships, the chemistry between their actors, or to encapsulate a complex subject in a way that’s accessible and entertaining for audiences.

This list aims to call attention to lesser-known single-setting movies that nevertheless deserve to be discovered, watched, and appreciated for the way they use such a constraint to their advantage. It’s a cinematic trick that not every director could pull off, and it certainly puts pressure on the actors to work their characters fully and in a way we can really grasp their motivations and conflicts.

10. Deterrence (Rod Lurie, 1999)

Rod Lurie’s directorial debut, “Deterrence,” is not nearly as discussed as his follow-up, “The Contender,” but has many of the same hallmarks. It’s a high-tension thriller about big-picture politics with a few pacing problems that make for an overall interesting viewing.

It has Kevin Pollak as one of the big screen’s most unlikely American presidents, Walter Emerson, who ascended to the job after the death of his predecessor and is now on the campaign trail for reelection. A severe snowstorm leaves the president and his advisors trapped in a small diner in Colorado, precisely at the moment when Iraq invades Kuwait, killing hundreds of American soldiers.

With this kind of setup, “Deterrence” puts itself in the unique position of discussing the morality of war and the political and personal factors that go into starting one. Written, made, and released before the United States embarked on yet another war in the Middle East, “Deterrence” feels terribly prescient (and a bit naive) if seen today. This one-setting film draws its power from history, and from great performances by quirkily cast actors. While imperfect, Lurie’s debut is certainly worth the while.

9. Pontypool (Bruce McDonald, 2008)

Bruce McDonald’s “Pontypool” is quite a unique cinematic experience, in that it was planned and released as both a movie and a radio play, influenced by Orson Welles’ infamous radio production of “War of the Worlds.”

The film stars Stephen McHattie as Grant, a former shock jock who finds himself broadcasting live during a deadly virus outbreak beyond the walls of his station. McDonald’s version of the zombie apocalypse is a disease that attacks the English language, leading the infected to become violent when fixated on certain words, which they repeat over and over again.

For a film that leans into the radio format, that concept works perfectly as McDonald guides us through a story full of twists and turns, almost exclusively set in the recording booth of Grant’s program. The relationships between the characters come to light as the virus outbreak becomes increasingly less remote and more real, an impressive balancing act achieved by screenwriter Tony Burgess, who worked from his own novel.

8. The Man from Earth (Richard Schenkman, 2007)

An academic conversation turned into a low-budget sci-fi movie, “The Man from Earth” hits viewers hard with philosophical and theological questions as it tells of John Oldman (David Lee Smith), a professor who’s about to move away from his friends.

As they come to his house to say goodbye, he reveals to them that he’s actually a 14,000-year-old man who’s been everything from a friend of van Gogh, a disciple of Buddha, and Jesus Christ himself. As his friends both play along and get emotionally involved in his “story,” Richard Schenkman’s film challenges us to see ourselves in each of them.

With little more than a talented (if mostly unknown) group of actors sitting in a room talking, “The Man from Earth” is a fascinating experience, even if you choose to nitpick its cinematic shortcomings. 

Made from a previously unproduced screenplay by “Star Trek” and “Fantastic Voyage” veteran Jerome Bixby, it’s a true exercise in science fiction, the kind of film that will have you thinking about it long after the closing credits. Schenkman and Bixby’s son, Emerson, even made a sequel in 2017.

7. Musarañas (Juanfer Andrés/Esteban Roel, 2014)

Somewhat lost between cult horror hits like “The Babadook” and “It Follows,” this France/Spain co-production is worth discovering. Directors Juanfer Andrés and Estevan Roel tell the story of two sisters who live alone in a Madrid apartment in the ‘50s after their parents’ deaths.

Montse (Macarena Gómez, perfectly melodramatic), the eldest, is agoraphobic, suffering breakdowns every time she steps out the door. When a reckless young neighbor, Carlos (Hugo Silva) falls down the stairs and Montse takes him in to treat him, things from the sisters’ past and their fractured relationship begin to emerge.

While the film has one foot firmly planted in the melodrama, directors Andrés and Roel carefully craft a genuinely creepy, shocking horror tale around that familiar territory of Spanish cinema. “Musarañas” is efficient in the way it uses cinematography, scoring, and set design to manipulate the fears of the spectator, and the way its horror story is steeped into family conflict and social anxieties is sure to get under the skin of most people.

6. Secret Honor (Robert Altman, 1984)

A forgotten gem in the middle of Robert Altman’s highly acclaimed filmography, “Secret Honor” takes Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone’s play and transports it almost intact to the screen, putting an extraordinary Philip Baker Hall at center stage as a fictionalized version of Richard Nixon.

By the time this story is set, he’s already resigned from the presidency, and delivers a rambling monologue into a tape recording. Remembering his humble childhood and his meteoric political career, he also delves into the “real” reasons for Watergate, raging against enemies such as Dwight Eisenhower, the “goddamn Kennedys,” J. Edgar Hoover, liberals, the media, and “the Jews.”

Never mind that “Secret Honor” feels as urgent as ever today: regardless of political leanings or relevance, it’s a stunning feat of filmmaking by Altman and his play/screenwriters, a gripping drama that definitively mythologizes an important figure in American history. Baker Hall being passed over for an Oscar nomination in 1985 was a travesty, especially because this great American actor, now 86, was never nominated for one.

Ambition in art, and specifically in cinema, is always complicated. As much as we as an audience want filmmakers to take risks and aim to make the best movie they can, it’s never pleasant when artists shoot for the stars without the talent to back it up. Moreover, ambitious projects are always a risk, commercially speaking, because they tend to carry a very particular tone and style that audiences around the world might not embrace.

The films I selected for this list are all interesting case studies in that sense: conceived and realized with tremendous ambitions and specificity, they are good or great movies that were not as seen as they deserved, or were incorrectly evaluated by critics and audiences alike at the time of their release. Now, a few years or decades after that, maybe it’s time to give them a good look and celebrate their uniqueness and their sheer scope.

10. Ishtar (Elaine May, 1987)

An Elaine May comedy epic with Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty? Sign me up! It’s still impressive how spectacularly “Ishtar” failed when it was released in 1987. It had two of the best loved movie stars of the time, and a crazy, interesting premise: in it, Hoffman and Beatty play talentless lounge singers who book a gig in a Moroccan hotel, only to find themselves embroiled in a multinational political plot involving the CIA, the local government, and a group of rebels seeking to overthrow it. With a whopping $55 million budget (an absurd amount for a comedy in the ‘80s), “Ishtar” certainly has big ambitions – if it does enough to realize them is a point of contention.

Hoffman and Beatty still defend the film today, with the latter blaming the bad reception and commercial failure on studio head David Puttnam, who supposedly leaked reports of production and budgetary problems to the press in a personal vendetta against Beatty.

“Ishtar” has other famous supporters: Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and Edgar Wright have praised it as a great overlooked comedy of its time. It’s telling that the critical reappraisal of “Ishtar” hasn’t brought more attention to May’s work; however, at the time of its release, the term “movie jail” was invented for the great comedienne, who hasn’t directed another film since.

9. Beloved (Jonathan Demme, 1998)

Clocking at two hours and 52 minutes, Jonathan Demme’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s great novel “Beloved” was too faithful to the source material, which resulted in a punishing movie with a myriad of pacing and tonal problems. It didn’t deserve, however, the disdain of critics and audiences, nor the near-complete exclusion from that year’s award season.

“Beloved” has stunning performances from the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover and Thandie Newton, and Demme’s direction lends gravitas to the novel’s most impactful and important moments. Better movies have been made about its subject matter, but “Beloved” has a surprisingly unique effect on the spectator.

Using fantasy and folklore to tackle the lasting, lingering effects of slavery in a post-Civil War America, Demme’s film tells of mother-daughter duo Sethe (Winfrey) and Denver (Kimberly Elise), freed slaves who bump into an old acquaintance, Paul D (Glover), and with him form a new, lovely family unit.

Shortly after, however, a mysterious girl named Beloved (Newton) comes into the picture, bringing strange, possibly supernatural occurrences with her. “Beloved” is turning 20 this year, so maybe it’s time to give it a second, more generous watch.

8. Sunshine (Danny Boyle, 2007)

Many people loved “Sunshine” but hated the twist in its third act, and I can frankly understand that. It splits the film in two very different, very ambitious genre exercises, and director Danny Boyle isn’t exactly comfortable with one of them. It doesn’t, however, erase all the things that “Sunshine” does right in the first and second acts.

Boyle’s film is a gem of high-wire tension and has at least one great performance (unsurprisingly, it comes from the very talented Cillian Murphy), plus a script by Alex Garland that, as usual for him, bravely examines deep questions about human existence through the lens of science fiction.

“Sunshine” follows a group astronauts sent on a suicide mission to throw a nuclear fission bomb into the dying Sun in the year 2057. They’re the second crew to be sent over there, after the mysterious failure of the first one.

Certainly a precursor to films like “Moon” and “Ex Machina” (which is also scripted by Garland), “Sunshine” feels like an underappreciated film even today. It’s imperfect in its experimentations with genre, but it succeeds in creating an engrossing story and a good cast of characters to tell a sci-fi tale of tremendous significance.

7. The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)

If there’s a filmmaker nowadays who’s never afraid to be ambitious, it’s Darren Aronofsky. Save for the modest (and brilliant) “The Wrestler,” all of Aronofsky’s movies demand that the spectator take huge leaps of faith with the director, following a plot that’s as much emotional as it is practical.

It can work spectacularly (“Requiem for a Dream,” “Black Swan”) or it can fall flat, as a lot of people felt that “The Fountain” did in 2006, when it was finally released after a tribulated production process that included switching the leading man from Brad Pitt to Hugh Jackman.

Well, Jackman works wonders in a triple role (or it’s just one role, depending how you look at it) here, lending charisma to a story that clearly needs it, while Rachel Weisz, then Aronofsky’s wife, makes sure the film’s emotional punches land.

A moving story about undying love and devotion, tremendously shot and wondrously conceived, “The Fountain” has its shortcomings, and might prove too mystical for some, but it tackles huge themes in the only way it knows how: extravagantly.

6. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Terry Gilliam, 1988)

Terry Gilliam’s weird genius reached its breaking point in “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” the last in a series of fantastical, paranoia-filled 1980’s films that included “Time Bandits” and “Brazil.”

While both those films are considered classics nowadays, “Baron Munchausen” remains as overlooked as it was at the time of its release. Adapting the legend that already earned films in Germany, Czechoslovakia and France, Gilliam cuts loose his own imagination to create lavish sets, costumes, and a delirious string of genre-tinged adventures.

The title character, Baron Munchausen, is played with gusto by John Neville, in a career-defining performance. As he travels to the Moon and back (literally) to save his town from the Turks, he meets quaint characters with absurd looks played by the likes of Eric Idle, Oliver Reed, Jonathan Pryce, Uma Thurman, Robin Williams, and, yes, Sting. Even if only as the fever pitch of Gilliam’s 80’s filmography, “Baron Munchausen” deserves more love than it got in the 30 years since its release.

Cinema-goers all around the globe, but especially in the United States, are suckers for war movies. They tend to capture the audience’s imaginary with feats of bravery from courageous soldiers, or horrific scenes of violence that make us question the morality of going to war, even when it seems necessary. Regardless of the point of view, though, war movies that fly under the radar are more the exception than the rule.

That’s why it was difficult to compile this list of the great war movies no one really talks about. Going beyond the “Saving Private Ryan”’s and “The Thin Red Line”’s of the world can be quite a challenging proposition, especially because those movies are so damn good.

The resulting list is filled with a few early 2000’s forgotten films, some foreign offerings, at least one especially gut-wrenching documentary, and even underseen works from acclaimed filmmakers like Jean-Jacques Annaud, Brian De Palma and Werner Herzog.

If war movies are your thing, suffice to say these movies will satisfy you. Check it out:

10. Enemy at the Gates (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 2001)

Only Jean-Jacques Annaud, the man behind “Quest for Fire” and “The Name of The Rose,” could turn a sniper vs. sniper World War II epic into a tragic love story played out on the frontlines of the Battle of Stalingrad.

Jude Law and Joseph Fiennes are on the same side of the war, but are at odds when it comes to Rachel Weisz, a soldier they both fall in love with. Add Ed Harris as a rival sniper coming to liquidate Law’s expert Russian marksman, and you’ve got a masterpiece of tension and unusually realistic warfare.

The best quality of “Enemy at the Gates” is the way it portrays the drawn-out nature of a big war battle and the human relationships that develop within it, amongst the devastated scenery of a bombed-out city.

Making good use of all the tricks on his book, Annaud crafts an intelligent and underappreciated film (a common trait to the relegated latter part of his filmography, honestly). With appropriately high-strung performances by a quartet of great actors, “Enemy at the Gates” is more than worth a watch.

9. Triage (Danis Tanovic, 2009)

After winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2002 for “No Man’s Land,” Danis Tanovic was co-opted by Hollywood to write and direct “Triage,” which was released with minimum impact in 2009.

It’s a shame that this scathing drama has gone largely unseen since then, because it expertly examines post-traumatic stress as it pertains to lead character Mark (Colin Farrell), a war photographer coming back from Kurdistan, a conflict that may have impacted him more than he lets on. When his girlfriend, Elena (Paz Vega) asks for help from her grandfather (the great Christopher Lee), a psychologist and war veteran, things start to unravel.

“Triage” is the flipside of many war movies focused on conflict, rather than the effect of it on people’s psyches. As we get to know Mark and his defensive simulation of a carefree attitude, we figure out that detachment regularly acts as a poor substitute for the direct confrontation of the violence and trauma that people who’ve been to wars go through.

“Triage” doesn’t let the spectator off the hook, and it isn’t a particularly optimistic film either, but it finds some hope for recovery, if never complete, in the complex relationships of its dysfunctional family unit. Plus, it’s just such a pleasure to see Christopher Lee playing a part that deserves his greatness.

8. Stop-Loss (Kimberly Peirce, 2008)

The fact that Kimberly Peirce only got to direct another movie nine years after her stunning debut with “Boys Don’t Cry” speaks to the difficulties female filmmakers face when trying to establish themselves in Hollywood.

Said sophomore effort, “Stop-Loss,” is a testament to her stunning talent: it tells the story of young Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe), who returns home a decorated war hero and tries to resume his life, with many difficulties, until he’s called back to Iraq for a life-altering second tour.

A harrowing and realistic drama co-written by Peirce and Mark Richard (“Hell on Wheels”), “Stop-Loss” is very precise in the way it examines the culture of war in the United States and the way the same acts that are celebrated and condecorated for their bravery can haunt soldiers for the rest of their lives.

With a great young cast that also includes Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rob Brown, “Stop-Loss” feels like an important, vivid film even now, 10 years removed from the height of the American occupation in Iraq. A film that stands the test of time like that definitely deserved more praise than it got.

7. Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (Je-gyu Kang, 2004)

This heartrending South Korean filmic take on the Korean war is a must-see if you’re sick and tired of America-centric war movies about conflicts that are not primarily American.

It tells the story of two brothers, the older Jin-tae (Dong-Gun Jang) and the younger Jin-seok (Bin Won), who are drafted to fight on the frontlines of the war. Trying to get his brother relieved from duty (a superior officer promises to do so if he gets a medal), Jin-tae becomes a true daredevil in the battlefield, but the unexpected tension between them, not the adrenaline kicks, are what makes Kang’s film really worth watching.

“Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War” is about families being torn apart by war, not about the morality or ethics of each side of this particular conflict. It reaches impressive emotional depth in its examination of the brothers’ relationship, and it memorably portrays the family’s everyday life before the war as a stark contrast to what comes next. Clocking in at 140 minutes, it’s as epic as any Hollywood war movie, with an added layer of novelty, genuinity and emotion.

6. Courage Under Fire (Edward Zwick, 1996)

Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “You know what, Meg Ryan should play a military captain who dies protecting her crew”? No? Neither have I, but Edward Zwick still made the right call by casting a surprisingly great Ryan in “Courage Under Fire,” his brilliant post-Gulf War drama.

And before you say anything, Ryan’s character dying is no spoiler – we know she did from the get go, as the film follows Nat Serling (Denzel Washington) investigating her in the process of determining if she deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor.

Serling uncovers a great many lies about what really happened to the tripulation of that particular chopper during Desert Storm, as you can imagine, and we accompany different versions of it all in unreliable flashbacks throughout the tightly structured movie.

Zwick not only orchestrates the action sequences perfectly, but also highlights Patrick Sheane Duncan’s script thoughtful exploration of post-traumatic stress and the scars of the Gulf War. The war epic that time forgot, “Courage Under Fire” deserves to be rediscovered.

Adapting a book to the screen is always a tricky job. There can be great pieces of written prose that do not inspire interesting cinematic translations, purely because movies and books are very different mediums with very different tools at their disposal. Moreover, some screenwriters and moviemakers are not actually interested in adapting a work of written fiction as it was conceived, but in using the concept, the characters, or the setting to tell their own story.

Sometimes, as you might imagine, that unholy crossover of different talents can result in epic disagreements – and, especially when the studio favors the filmmaker over the author, lifelong grudges. The talented wordsmiths on the list below know what that feels like, as they had huge disappointments about the way their work was adapted to the cinema. Take a look:

10. Clive Cussler (Sahara)

Clive Cussler created a huge literary franchise that made his lead adventurer, Dirk Pitt, one of the most popular heroes of the genre. The success, however, didn’t translate well to screen the first time, when “Raise the Titanic” was made in 1980, so Cussler exercised a bigger control over the next attempt, 2005’s “Sahara.”

Even though the screenplay is technically credited to the foursome of Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, John C. Richards and James V. Hart, Cussler is said to have pushed for many revisions and changes, and had final say over the hiring of a director (how he settled for Breck Eisner is a mystery) and main actors (Matthew McConaughey was cast instead of Tom Cruise, who Cussler considered “too short”).

And even after all that, Cussler still hated the resulting film so much that he sued the producers. According to him and his lawyers, the studio reneged on a contract that awarded even more creative control. “They lied to me from the beginning, and I eventually got fed up with it,” he said at the time to the Los Angeles Times.

The producer, in turn, accused Cussler of “torpedoing” the potential franchise after signing a million dollar contract to make the first film, and even making derogatory and racist comments during the production. Adventurer Dirk Pitt hasn’t been back to the silver screen to this day.

9. Richard Matheson (every version of I Am Legend)

Even though he himself wrote for movies and TV, Richard Matheson has never been satisfied by any adaptation of his seminal novel “I Am Legend.” The legendary author, who died in 2013, even tried writing the screenplay for the first one, 1964’s “The Last Man On Earth,” starring Vincent Prince.

However, he disliked the resulting movie so much because of studio interference that he eventually had his name removed, ending up credited as “Logan Swanson.” Matheson would later explain that he felt Price, whom he “loved” in other films, was miscast as survivor Dr. Robert Morgan, and that the direction was “poor.”

When Hollywood had a second crack at his book, in 1971’s “The Omega Man,” Matheson kept his distance. In a later interview, however, he would shadily bash the Charlton Heston-starrer as “so removed” from his novel that it “didn’t even bother” him.

Almost 40 years later, Will Smith would inherit the role in 2007’s “I Am Legend,” and by then an elderly Matheson was simply fed up. “I don’t know why Hollywood is fascinated by my book when they never care to film it as I wrote it,” he famously declared. As fans of the book are quick to point out, he has a point, since none of the films were nearly as successful or as influential as the novel.

8. Roald Dahl (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory)

All evidence points to the fact that, in his private life, celebrated children’s author Roald Dahl was not a pleasant man. His ex-wife Patricia Neal provided evidence for that on her autobiography, detailing his mean tirades against the family and nicknaming him “Roald the Rotten.”

More of his nastiness was reserved for Jewish people, as he described in an article that “there is a trait in [their] character that breeds animosity,” and said that “even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.” So, there’s really no surprise that he detested Gene Wilder’s interpretation of his character Willy Wonka in the 1971 classic adapted from his first “Chocolate Factory” book, right?

Dahl reportedly described the movie as “crummy,” accused director Mel Stuart of having “no talent or flair,” and found Wilder’s Wonka to be “bouncy” and “pretentious.” He even vowed that, in his lifetime, Hollywood would never get their hands on the sequel, “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.”

Dahl passed away in 1990, and while we still haven’t seen the continuing adventures of Charlie and Willy Wonka on screen, there’s reportedly a “origin movie” of the character in development.

7. Bret Easton Ellis (The Informers, American Psycho)

Literary provocateur Bret Easton Ellis doesn’t particularly like most of the movies made from his books (he had a few good words to say about 2002’s “The Rules of Attraction”), but he really has a bone to pick with two of them. The first (and lesser known) is 2009’s “The Informers”; even though Ellis worked on the screenplay alongside Nicholas Jarecki, he felt the resulting film “doesn’t work for a lot of reasons, none of them [his own] fault.”

His case against 1999’s “American Psycho,” probably the most famous adaptation of his work to the screen, is a little more complex: he felt that the novel should’ve never been made into a film at all.

“I think the problem with ‘American Psycho’ was that it was conceived as a novel, as a literary work with a very unreliable narrator at the center of it, and the medium of film demands answers,” he said in a later interview. “You can be as ambiguous as you want with a movie, but it doesn’t matter — we’re still looking at it. It’s still being answered for us visually. I don’t think ‘American Psycho’ is particularly more interesting if you knew that he did it, or think that it all happens in his head. I think the answer to that question makes the book infinitely less interesting.”

6. J.D. Salinger (My Foolish Heart)

Have you ever wondered why a classic such as “The Catcher in the Rye” was never adapted for the screen? Wonder no more, because the reason for it is that author J.D. Salinger had such a horrible time adapting another of his works to the screen that he swore to never let Hollywood  anywhere near his writing again.

In 1949, Salinger consented to have his short story, “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut,” be made into a movie retitled “My Foolish Heart,” but later he felt that the film twisted his tale into a saccharine love story that had nothing to do with the one he told.

“My Foolish Heart” is about an unhappily married alcoholic named Eloise (Susan Hayward), who’s visited by her old school friend Mary Jane (Lois Wheeler). Through flashbacks, we learn of Eloise’s youth during World War II and her infatuation with Walt Dreiser (Dana Andrews), a man very different from the one she’d end up marrying. Salinger, who was reportedly a film buff, felt “mortified” by the adaptation, even though it generated a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Hayward. To this day, the bulk of the film rights to his work remains unsold.

Especially when we’re talking about young directors in their first decade or so of production, each film is a way to improve themselves and show that there’s a lot of untapped talent to explore in the next few projects. The filmmakers I selected for this list arguably belong in that category, as their films, brilliant as they might be, show more raw talent than sophistication or deliberation.

Keep an eye out for their next directing efforts, because these guys and gals certainly will surprise you with the twists and turns of their careers and, eventually, take their place as revered artists in the decades to come.

10. Jennifer Kent

After close to a decade working as an actress in Australia, taking such unfulfilling roles as “Lab Lady” in “Babe: Pig in the City” (1998), Jennifer Kent had enough and decided to focus on directing.

Another 10 years of struggle led to “The Babadook,” the critical darling horror film with a whirlwind performance by Essie Davis, stunning visual ideas, and a beautiful script in which the monster filled in for reflections on grief, guilt and parental neglect. A huge cult hit, “The Babadook” is a brilliant film, but there’s the distinct feeling we’ll soon see even more amazing things come out of Kent’s work.

We’ll be able to validate that feeling this year in “The Nightingale,” her follow-up, a period drama set in 1820’s Tasmania, where a young female convict from Ireland pays an Aboriginal male to get her through the interior of the country while seeking revenge for “horrific” acts perpetrated against her family. Sam Claflin and Aisling Franciosi are in the cast, and the film looks to have a distinct western feel with yet another badass female protagonist to add to Kent’s curriculum.

9. So Yong Kim

While her work has flew under the radar for most cinemagoers, So Yong Kim is one of the most talented, most exciting filmmakers working right now. Born in South Korea in 1986, but raised in the United States, Kim kickstarted her career portraying the reality of Asian-American people in raw, delicate dramas like “In Between Days” (2006), but soon moved on to multicultural casts, delivering two impressive character studies of tremendous evocative power, “For Ellen” (2012) and “Lovesong” (2016).

An expert at extracting the best out of her actors and a sensitive soul of an artist, Kim has worked a lot on TV over the last few years, and while her contributions in that department are more than welcome, a new feature film would be a gift. Let’s hope this incredibly talented filmmaker gets the chance to make the masterpiece she’s on the verge of for some years now – on her own terms, of course.

8. David Lowery

Frequently compared to the likes of Terrence Malick at the beginning of his career, David Lowery has since proven to be a force to be reckoned with on his own. His somewhat uneven debut “St. Nick” (2009) was followed with uniquely paced drama “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” (2013), and then with a duo of films that showed his true potential: the major-studio breakthrough “Pete’s Dragon” (2016) and the unexpectedly touching indie drama “A Ghost Story” (2017). While every one of these movies has plenty of virtues to flaunt, there’s a distinct sense that Lowery can do more, be more, with the right project on his hands.

Here’s hoping that “Old Man and the Gun,” his next film, is such a project. In it, Robert Redford plays a version of real-life criminal Forrest Tucker, who escaped from San Quentin at the age of 70 and went on an unprecedented string of robberies that charmed the public and confounded authorities. It’s set to be Redford’s last movie, if you believe his claims of retirement, so everyone’s expecting something special from the team-up – Lowery and Redford already collaborated on “Pete’s Dragon.”

7. Trey Edward Shults

Ever since he had his debut feature with “Krisha” (2015), Trey Edward Shults has been, for lack of a better phrase, the “toast of the town” in Hollywood. Shot in a mere nine days in Shults’ mother’s house, with most of the cast chosen from the director’s own family, it’s a touching drama with a dynamite lead performance by Krisha Fairchild. Up next, he made the horror film “It Comes at Night” (2017), a slightly more controversial effort, but one with a strong sense of message and some eerily conceived imagery nonetheless.

Shults’ genre-hopping will continue with his next project, a romantic movie musical by the title of “Waves,” expected to debut in 2019. Maybe that’s the perfect chance for Shults to truly show off his visual chops and deep understanding of character arcs and relationships – especially with great actors like Sterling K. Brown and Lucas Hedges on board. We expect only great things from him.

6. Cary Joji Fukunaga

There’s really no denying that Cary Fukunaga is among the best directors to arise recently in Hollywood. His brilliant work on season 1 of “True Detective” served as an introduction of his talent to a wider audience after critically lauded films “Sin Nombre” (2009) and “Jane Eyre” (2011), while his follow-up, “Beasts of No Nation” (2015), was considered the first serious Netflix contender for the Academy Awards (though it was unfairly overlooked in the end).

Fukunaga’s raw and instinctive kind of direction, plus his penchant for gorgeously shooting some of his own material, makes him a distinctive voice in cinema nowadays, and that’s why his next project, the biography of American conductor Leonard Bernstein (to be played by Jake Gyllenhaal) seems so tantalizing, and so overdue. He’s also directing his own Netflix series, “Maniac,” with Jonah Hill and Emma Stone leading the cast, so we’ll have plenty of opportunity to see him continuing to evolve as an artist.

IMDb ratings have been the center of some controversies recently, especially because of groups of “fans” that took it upon themselves to storm the ratings of films like “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and the Ghostbusters remake to make them lower. The ratings have always been an inexact tool to say the least, though, as they express a popular rather than critical evaluation of a film.

Well, I raided some IMDb titles with ratings higher than 7.0 and selected 10 awful films among them. From one of Michael Bay’s earliest over-the-top mindless action capers, war epics way overestimated by the patriotic crowd, and wobbly starters of unbearable franchise, here’s a list of films who deserve a worse rep than they get:

10. Crank (Neveldine/Taylor, 2006)

While Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor’s breakout hit isn’t devoid of qualities, it’s far from deserving its generous IMDb rating. It’s a crazy stampede of an action film, sure, with some interestingly kitsch ideas for the genre, but not nearly enough to carry even its swift 88-minute runtime. Jason Statham is a somewhat charismatic lead as Chev Chelios, the professional assassin injected with a poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops.

What follows from this “high concept” (I guess…) premise is the showcase of the writer/directors’ will to repeatedly “go there” – from very public sex scenes to insane action sequences, “Crank” wants to be, as a film, a thrill ride comparable to the surreal one its lead character is forcibly on.

It never exactly succeeds in that endeavour, as it forcibly stumbled from set piece to set piece without so much as a connective tissue one could call a plot. “Crank” is not ridiculous enough to support itself as kitschy fun, and not serious enough to supplant that status.

9. The Rock (Michael Bay, 1996)

There’s an exaggerated love for “The Rock,” mostly because of nostalgia, but maybe also because it is Michael Bay’s most bearable movie to date; however, that doesn’t mean that it escapes the director’s worse vices. Nicolas Cage stars as Stanley Goodspeed (yes, that’s his name), a biochemist partnered by the FBI with an ex-con played by Sean Connery, of all people, to stop a former general (Ed Harris) from blowing up the whole of San Francisco.

As with any Michael Bay film, “The Rock” is cluelessly directed – every scene is designed to carry maximum impact, and every action sequence seems straight out of a commercial. The screenplay by David Weisberg, Douglas Cook and Mark Rosner gets too much credit for doing the bare minimum, and the acting is overdramatic all around, which could be fun if you get on the exact wavelength in which they were conceived. Plus, as it is routine for action flicks, the female characters are either absent or inconsequential.

8. The Greatest Showman (Michael Gracey, 2017)

Rarely has the musical genre seen anything as average and boring as “The Greatest Showman.” Normally, musicals are either critically acclaimed (“Moulin Rouge!”, “Chicago”) or universally despised (“Into the Woods”), but “The Greatest Showman” is just an empty spectacle of great music, good choreography, bland (and dishonest) characters, a predictable moral lesson, and mediocre camera work.

And yet, the film charmed audiences, who not only gave it a 7.7 rating on IMDb, but led it to gross over $400 million at the box office. Hugh Jackman is a vanilla version of egomaniacal businessman P.T. Barnum, the creator of show business, who in reality was also a exploitative, cruel prick.

Here, he’s just a dreamer who “gives a shot” to all kinds of misfits in his new show, the first circus of all time. Cue to stunning musical numbers and people like Jackman, Zac Efron and Zendaya showing off their moves in pretty choreographies. “The Greatest Showman” leaves a sweet aftertaste that’s as fleeting as the veracity of its plot.

7. Underworld (Len Wiseman, 2003)

I’d chalk this one up to early 2000’s nostalgia, because there’s no other reason why the original “Underworld” would have this high a rating. Sure, it’s not a dismal piece of filmmaking, but 7.0 out of 10? Len Wiseman is a competent enough director to not let his own wobbly mythology get in the way of some kitsch-like fun, but “Underworld” takes itself way to seriously to have its own deficiencies completely ignored.

While she has proven to be a great actress with the right part (see “Love & Friendship”), Kate Beckinsale is completely out of place here, and it’s kind of tragic that this is the film most people will remember her by. The success of the franchise, which released a new chapter as recently as 2016, and the fact that every single film after this one is worse than the original, does nothing to absolve it of its faults – a nonsensical plot and questionable production value among them.

6. The Bucket List (Rob Reiner, 2007)

While it is certainly a tantalizing proposition to see Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson sharing the scene in a comedy/drama by Rob Reiner, “The Bucket List” is far from being as good as the sum of its parts. The legendary actors play two terminally ill men who escape from a cancer ward and embark on a road trip to fulfill a wish list of adventures before they die – and as their journey progresses, antics and heartbreak ensue.

Justin Zackham’s script is true to the screenwriter’s roots – before “The Bucket List,” he authored juvenile comedy “Going Greek,” and has since done the equally bland “The Big Wedding” and “One Chance.” Nicholson and Freeman have fun on screen, which is enough to entertain for the 97 minutes of the film, as director Reiner mainly stays out of the way. The result is a forgettable film, considerably inferior to the one that everyone involved deserved.

IMDb ratings have recently been at the center of some controversies, especially because of groups of “fans” that took it upon themselves to storm the ratings of films like “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and the “Ghostbusters” remake to make them lower. The ratings have always been an inexact tool to say the least, as they express popular rather than critical evaluation of a film.

Well, I raided some IMDb titles with a rating lower than 7.0 and selected 10 great films that deserve a chance among them. From horror films too far from the jump scare fare that makes box office success, to controversial dramas and underseen documentaries, here’s a list of films that deserve a better reputation than they get:

10. Blindness (Fernando Meirelles, 2008)

IMDb Rating: 6.6

José Saramago’s novel is one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed works of fiction of the last few decades, so it’s no surprise that Fernando Meirelles’ work in adapting it has divided critics and audiences alike. However, this brave film by the Brazilian director deserves a closer look, as it is a far better effort than it was initially received. Ambitious, but not so much as to hinder its own humanity, “Blindness” is a dramatic take on the dystopian sensibilities that have taken mainstream cinema by storm in the last decade or so.

Julianne Moore is stunning as the lead, a doctor’s wife who’s one of the few people on Earth to not be afflicted with a mysterious disease that leaves everyone blind. Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga, Gael García Bernal and Danny Glover fill a star-studded and impressively committed cast that manages to navigate the complex emotions of Saramago’s affluent, bittersweet tale of hope and despair.

9. Stoker (Chan-wook Park, 2013)

IMDb Rating: 6.8

Chan-wook Park’s Hollywood debut was understandably surrounded with anticipation, since he’s the man who made “Oldboy” and a few other cult favorites back in South Korea. Maybe it was that hype that made “Stoker” an underwhelming experience for a lot of critics and moviegoers, but the film deserves to stand on its own and be praised for all of its qualities. And there are a lot, starting with Nicole Kidman’s unwaveringly intense performance as Evelyn, the mother of India (Mia Wasikowska), the film’s lead.

Mother and daughter are shaken by the death of the patriarch, and the arrival of his mysterious brother, Charles (Matthew Goode, deliciously diabolical), who seduces both of them. This high-wire act of a thriller with a smart script by, of all people, Wentworth Miller of “Prison Break” fame, is made even better with tense music by Clint Mansell and stunning cinematography by Park habitué Chung-hoon Chung.

8. Happy Feet (George Miller, 2006)

IMDb Rating: 6.5

While I can understand why a few of the films on this list were underappreciated, what’s the deal with the low IMDb rating for “Happy Feet”? George Miller’s animated musical won an Oscar, and, I assumed, everyone’s hearts back in 2006. It’s a smart film with a bunch of great pop culture references, some stunning music tremendously well-performed by the likes of Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, and a positive environmental and social message for children.

Miller’s triumph in each and every one of his projects is in his willingness to not take the easy route, and “Happy Feet” definitely honors that tradition – before this, Miller had never before directed animation, and had been away from movies since 1998’s “Babe: Pig in the City.” It’s quite a daring return, and while the 2011 sequel was underwhelming, “Happy Feet” remains a brilliant example of why this Australian filmmaker deserves his masterful reputation.

7. Mistress America (Noah Baumbach, 2015)

IMDb Rating: 6.7

Noah Baumbach’s first partnership with girlfriend Greta Gerwig, 2012’s “Frances Ha,” sports a healthy (if not representative of how brilliant it is) 7.4 rating on IMDb, but their follow-up, the equally stunning “Mistress America,” is not as beloved. Again writing together, the couple forges a beautiful indie epic about a clash of generations and their silly, idealistic views on life and what it has in store for them.

When college girl Tracy (Lola Kirke) meets her older step-sister Brooke (Gerwig, in another stellar performance unjustly ignored by the awards circuit), she seems to have it all – including a delusional level of self esteem and the absolute certainty that her future is as bright as can be. As a budding writer, Tracy makes Brooke into this Gatsby-style idol, the symbol of a hopeful, yet decadent generation. As it confronts that with reality, “Mistress America” is a awe-inducing portrait of wonderment gone awry, and one hell of a movie.

6. Experimenter (Michael Almereyda, 2015)

IMDb Rating: 6.6

While it refers to its biographed subject, social psychologist Stanley Milgram, the title “Experimenter” could as well be a good definition of its writer/director, Kansas-born 67-year-old Michael Almereyda. In a career spanning close to three decades now, he’s remade Shakespeare in 21st century New York (“Hamlet,” 2000), dealt with the consequences of A.I. in last year’s brilliant “Marjorie Prime,” and, in between those things, made one of the most innovative biopics I’ve ever seen.

Mr. Milgram would not want it otherwise, as “Experimenter” underlines his clinical curiosity and his propensity to stretch the limits of what is moral or acceptable in psychological studies. His works might have looked like a series of stunts if they didn’t produce such interesting, illuminating, often disturbing results. As played by the always great, frequently underrated Peter Sarsgaard in this curious and brilliant film, he’s a complicated man with a will to do good – and the mind to realize that will.

There’s plenty of discussion to have about what makes a visually stunning film; some movies manage a harmonious marriage between visual stunts and storytelling, and some prioritize one over the other. Conversely, what some people might consider beautiful, others might consider gimmicky and overall unworthy of praise.

In this list, I’ve strived to collect a few films that really place the emphasis on elaborate visuals, be them assisted by state-of-the-art visual effects or luxurious production design. And while they’re good to look at, you might find yourself not really engaged with them at all, because they simply don’t tell a good enough story to support themselves.

10. Jupiter Ascending (The Wachowskis, 2015)

I remember watching the trailer for “Jupiter Ascending” in the theater and thinking it would probably be great. Oh, how naïve I was! Here, the Wachowskis barely maintain control of a runaway train of ideas mashed up together with no concern whatsoever for coherence or, let’s just say it, entertainment value. At 127 minutes, “Jupiter Ascending” is a real drag, occasionally made livelier by a few actors who seem to be in on the joke (namely Eddie Redmayne, of all people).

Also making the experience slightly better, the very thing I got excited about when I first saw the trailer was the visuals. Aided by state-of-the-art special effects and a gloriously decadent set design, the Wachowskis created a sci-fi movie that at least looks unique, including beautiful, detailed costumes and makeup. While it was not meant to be the awe-inducing space opera many wanted it to be, “Jupiter Ascending” is still a campy curiosity with visual oomph to spare.

9. Dracula Untold (Gary Shore, 2014)

Universal’s first attempt at launching their ill-conceived, even worse-received “Dark Universe,” putting together all of their classic monsters, “Dracula Untold” is an unholy mess of a film – an overwrought, over-serious undeservedly pretentious “epic” that forsakes old (or new) school horror for the familiar “thrills” of blockbuster action filmmaking at its least creative. The cast, made up of the likes of Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon and Charles Dance, are as hopelessly bored by it as each of us.

The (hardly) saving grace of “Dracula Untold,” however, is John Schwartzman’s gorgeous cinematography, which relishes in the shadows and seems to be make it much more gothic horror-leaning film than what it is. Aided by some lovingly created costumes (especially the armors), Schwartzman shines particularly in the battle scenes, translating the CGI chaos of this Hollywood dud into some terrifyingly beautiful images.

8. Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, 2010)

It’s not unusual to say that Tim Burton’s films, especially the ones he’s been delivering in the 2010s, are visually great, but otherwise terrible. The director always had a visual flair, an unmistakable style that made his films instantly recognizable – and yet, this last decade has been showing that his visuals don’t count for much when confronted with badly written scripts, resulting in films that range from inconsequential (“Big Eyes,” “Frankenweenie”) to the truly terrible, like “Alice in Wonderland.”

The first in a string of live-action adaptations of classic animated films by Disney, Burton’s “Alice” is a fable devoid of all the soulfulness and surrealism of the original, instead placing its bets on kooky, unfunny antics and Burton’s usual mastery of cinematography, production design, special effects and costumes. A luxurious production that made more than $1 billion at the box office, “Alice in Wonderland” obviously got a sequel that was not nearly as successful, and was astonishingly worse than the original.

7. 300: Rise of the Empire (Noam Murro, 2014)

While the original Zack Snyder film wasn’t exactly a masterpiece, it had some sort of weird charm and an undeniably unique vision in adapting Frank Miller’s masterpiece graphic novel. The thing is, Hollywood had to do a follow-up some eight years later with barely any recognizable actors in it, a tired excuse of a plot and none of the flair that set its predecessor apart from the sea of blockbuster bloodfests arriving in cinemas at the same time.

Noam Murro’s (“Smart People”) film is a disappointing mish-mash of historical inaccuracy, overblown battle scenes, and weird character dynamics that, mercifully, still manages not to disappoint on the visuals. No surprise, the cinematography here is the work of the very talented New Zealander Simon Duggan, who deals with special effects exemplarily and has put his name to films like “The Great Gatsby” and “Hacksaw Ridge.”

6. The Brothers Grimm (Terry Gilliam, 2005)

A Terry Gilliam film being visually stunning is, frankly, a given at this point. The man has conjured unforgettable images in films like “Brazil,” “Time Bandits” and many others – and his visual acumen is not diminished in “The Brothers Grimm,” a revisionist tale of fairytale authors Will (Matt Damon) and Jacob Grimm (Heath Ledger), con-men selling bogus stories who run into a real curse for the first time in their lives.

Every detail of “The Brothers Grimm,” visually, is stunning. The elaborate costumes contrast with pretty great special effects (especially for 2005), and Gilliam has his actors running around on grandiose, and yet entirely believable sets. Shame that all that minutia is wasted in an awful script by Ehren Kruger, who would go on to write the Transformers movies and the “Ghost in the Shell” remake. If you want that healthy dose of Gilliam greatness, we suggest you look elsewhere.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but I beg to differ – it’s best served with a side of cinematic genius. In this list, I strive to give to you revenge movies in a host of different genres (horror, drama, western, etc) that are not as well known as they perhaps should be.

These are some of the finest cinematic works approaching a subject that’s inevitably intertwined with human nature, the very thing cinema is supposed to examine.

10. Harry Brown (Daniel Barber, 2009)

In one of the rare late-career parts that deserve him, Michael Caine delivers a strongly emotional performance as the title character in “Harry Brown,” an ex-serviceman turned vigilante when his best friend is murdered by local thugs. What could be pure B-movie shlock turns into a worthy exploration of the vigilante mentality, and a sobering look into the attitudes of lawmen and women when faced with public outrage.

Emily Mortimer plays well against Caine in such a part, and Daniel Barber’s strong direction suggests that, if provided better material, he could show himself to be one hell of a filmmaker. As it is, “Harry Brown” rests at the bottom of our list as a good recommendation, but not a stunning film.

9. Hard Candy (David Slade, 2005)

This bloody, thorny revenge thriller by David Slade started a conversation about rape, pedophilia, justice and vigilantism that’s been raging ever since. It’s not a sophisticated film, but more of a blunt instrument; a twisty, confrontational story about a girl luring a possible pedophile through the internet and enacting bloody revenge upon him.

Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson make for brilliant scene partners here; their energies as performers juxtapose nicely against the cruder parts of Brian Nelson’s smart, but definitely not subtle, script. Slickly directed and shot, “Hard Candy” is as engaging a piece of entertainment as any film on this list.

8. The Brave One (Neil Jordan, 2007)

Back in 2007, Jodie Foster was already being picky about her acting projects, which I suppose makes it curious that one of them was “The Brave One,” a revenge thriller that flew largely under the radar for its curious mix of genre and prestige sensibilities. It’s really a typical Neil Jordan film in that sense, a vigilante story with a philosophical, almost contemplative overtone that nevertheless turns into an action thriller in the end.

Foster is predictably great as Erica Bain, a radio personality whose life is turned upside down when a brutal attack claims her fiancé, David (Naveen Andrews). After looking to pull herself up in every way possible, Bain turns to violence, and as her revenge leaves a trail of blood through New York City, we are gifted with a weird, tense, great little film that deserves to be rediscovered.

7. Red Road (Andrea Arnold, 2006)

The first part of an unfinished Scottish/Danish trilogy about vengeance, and Andrea Arnold’s first feature in the director’s chair, “Red Road” tells of a CCTV operator named Jackie (Kate Dickie), who spots a familiar face from the past on the monitors and begins to stalk him, plotting a terrible revenge.

We don’t get to know what the man has done to her until the third act of the film, so Arnold’s film (and Dickie’s stunning performance) are both tinted by information they have, and we don’t. A clever mystery and a harrowing drama, “Red Road” plays the complex emotions of vengeance in a way that few modern films have.

6. Ms. 45 (Abel Ferrara, 1985)

Quite possibly the best of a flurry of exploitation revenge thrillers in the 1970s and 80s (think “The Last House on the Left” and “I Spit On Your Grave”), Abel Ferrara’s kinetic “Ms. 45” is still lesser known for its even more explosive, subversive, progressive undertones. The plot concerns a mute, timid seamstress named Thana (the instantly iconic Zoë Lund), who’s raped twice in one day and, on the same night, leaves the house armed with a .45 pistol, randomly shooting men.

Ferrara’s film is brilliant in pursuing a pop-infused aesthetic expression of scorched-earth revenge, making his literally and metaphorically silenced protagonist rebel not directly against those who do her harm, but against anyone who would take advantage of the system that permits them to do so. “Ms. 45” should be a cult classic by now.

Call them dramedies – laughter and crying may seem to be polar opposite emotions, but some works of cinema are able to bring them together in a big amalgam of relatable, hysterical, moving storytelling.

These rare precious films deserve to be celebrated for the gamut of emotions they put us through, their therapeutic value, their true-to-life qualities. Here are 10 of the best:

10. Happy Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh, 2009)

Sally Hawkins’ breakout role as Poppy, the titular happy-go-lucky Londoner whose ordinary life we follow through Mike Leigh’s film, demonstrates the depth of the actress’ ability to convey the heart of her characters and her uncanny charisma and luminosity. As much as her exuberance exasperates everyone around her, Leigh’s script and Hawkins’ performance never let it exasperate us, the viewers.

The result is a funny movie, mostly because we see how people are so frustrated with her and how lost in their cynicism they are; and a heartbreaking one, because we realize that, if this wasn’t a film so expertly crafted, we too would be foaming at the mouth when encountering this wonderful human being. Well played, Mr. Leigh, well played.

9. Beginners (Mike Mills, 2010)

There’s a boasting, colorful simplicity to Beginners’ humor, especially around Hal’s (Christopher Plummer) decision to come out at the end of his life and his relationship with a much younger man, Andy (Goran Visnjic). It’s not disrespectful, just mindful of how lead character Oliver (Ewan McGregor), Hal’s son, would see it as eccentric and improbable, even possibly absurd.

At the same time, Mike Mills’ moving film charts Oliver’s journey toward understanding his father’s life, emotions and desires while living a complicated romance himself. Beginners’ bitter-sweetness comes from the way it contrasts these two experiences and from the stunning good fortune that Oliver himself admits he has.

8. Tangerine (Sean Baker, 2015)

Before the deliciously childish antics of the economically disenfranchised in The Florida Project, Sean Baker lent his sensibility to the equally harrowing oppression suffered by transgender people of color in Tangerine. Filmed with an iPhone and starring transgender actresses, it charts the weird, unrelenting journey a duo of prostitutes go through on Christmas Eve.

With invaluable help from stunning performances by Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor, Baker works his magic again as we fall in love with these people in all their so-called, societally defined crass behavior, and as we understand what they go through and the beauty and solidarity they carry within them. With a touching final scene, Tangerine is prime entertainment with a purpose.

7. Dan in Real Life (Peter Hedges, 2007)

This charming romantic comedy puts together Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche while exploring the dynamics of family reunion in very funny ways. After Dan (Carell) meets Marie (Binoche) in a bookstore, reigniting a flame he thought extinct since the death of his wife, he finds out that she’s also his brother’s girlfriend, which he brought over to the Holidays.

A film that could be just predictable rom-com shtick becomes much more than that because of the grief that Dan is still experiencing, his complicated relationship with his three daughters, and writer-director Peter Hedges’ sensitive way of dealing with all that. It’s definitely a feel-good-movie, that ends on a good note, but expect some well-earned tears on the way there.

6. Stranger Than Fiction (Marc Forster, 2006)

Much of the humor in Stranger Than Fiction comes from writer Zach Helm’s very creative premise – that of a man, Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), who starts to hear the narration of his own life by bitter, creatively blocked writer Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson). The ways this affect his life as a I.R.S. auditor and the way his relationship of bakery-owner Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal) are immensely entertaining and frequently quite funny.

On the other hand, Marc Forster’s film has his patented sensitivity and, as we accompany Harold in this crazy journey, we also slowly learn what’s missing from his mundane, weirdly organized life. What could be just decent comedy elevated by good actors becomes a more complex beats because Helm’s script is so hungry for meaning and so filled with longing.