Five Best Movies You've Never Seen

According to The Boss of You

To writers and readers, movies are words set in motion, stories requiring passive absorption instead of active mental cinematography. Read a book, and you’re the director. The movie in your head is of your own devising, based on clues given to you by the author. Watch a movie, however, and you are transported into the director’s vision of a story. It’s the difference between decorating a house yourself or hiring somebody else to do it.

Here, then, with no apology, humility, or excuse, I offer five of the best movies you may have never heard of. They are all wildly different from one other; the only through-line is their singular vision of the world. My hope is that you will discover, as I have, a story that deeply resonates with you, maybe one you return to again and again for a cinematic experience that offers you solace amid the chaos.

Two require subtitles. Deal with it.

Goodbye, Lenin!

A 2003 German tragicomedy, Goodbye, Lenin! has rightly earned itself a 90% fresh rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. Like The Lives of Others, another spectacular German film well worth your time, Goodbye, Lenin! takes place in East Germany, pre-unification.

Why I like it: the movie is heartfelt and touching without ever devolving into tawdry sentimentality. The laughs are deserved.

If you’re in the mood for a movie you aren’t tempted to text through, one that immerses you in a world unknown to most westerners, a movie that makes you genuinely care about the characters, Goodbye, Lenin! is a solid choice.

The Fugitive Kind

Most Americans aren’t familiar with the work of Italian actress Anna Magnani. This film will rectify that. For dramatic acting, Magnani has few equals, then or now. In this 1960 reinterpretation of Tennessee Williams’ Southern Gothic play, Orpheus Descending, director Sidney Lumet elicits breathtaking performances from Magnani and her costar, a young, hunky, intensely brooding Marlon Brando. The premise: a small Southern town, drifter Valentine “Snakeskin” Xavier, a vicious dying husband, a lonely wife, and a whole bunch of organdy-clad polecats in heat. Let’s face it. Nobody writes loneliness and sexual hunger better than Tennessee.

Why I like it: the film is mesmerizing and emotionally daring. Magnani has a face that goes beyond mere beauty. Brando is so archetypally masculine, he sucks all the oxygen out of the room.

If you’re in the mood for a movie that takes its sweet time weaving an unbreakable spell around you, look no further than The Fugitive Kind.

Liquid Sky

If you don’t mind having your brains melted, few movies do that more effectively than this moody, dispassionate, sci-fi indie, which went on to become the highest grossing independent film of 1983 and spawned an entire club scene called electroclash. The film holds an approval rating of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Premise: cocaine-addicted, bisexual model played by the same actress, aliens who extract the endorphins caused by orgasm, Fellini-esque characters, neon neon neon, 1980s punk subculture.

Why I like it: it is wholly unpretentious, affecting without meaning to be, a radical departure from Disney fare, and shines like a cut gem.

If you’re in the mood for a true indie, like one you’ve never seen before, and love the punk aesthetic, pop open a beer and hit play.

Torn Curtain

Hitchcock was (and is) the undisputed heavyweight creator of cinematic thrillers, but I will never understand why classics like Rear Window are better known than this 1966 political thriller starring a stupidly good-looking Paul Newman and a charming Julie Andrews.

The curtain is iron, as you might expect, given the time period, and there are Soviet tropes-a-plenty, but there is one scene in particular involving an oven (no spoilers) that remains fixed in my mind as one of the most suspenseful scenes in cinematic history. If you haven’t seen this movie, you are missing something extraordinary.

Why I like it: big crush on Paul Newman, sure, but the suspenseful pacing, art direction, acting, and that scene are five good reasons to watch.

If you’re in the mood for something tasty, sixties-flavored, with some meat on its bones, Torn Curtain is your entree, campy trailer aside.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days

Artsy-fartsy it may be, but I am a huge fan of Romanian New Wave cinema, in particular the films of Cristian Mungiu. In this gripping, horrifying, and deeply moving thriller, ranked 15 in the BBC’s 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century, two roommates try to procure an abortion in Ceausescu’s Romania. NOT LIGHT VIEWING. I was shook for days.

Why I like it: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days is, hands-down, one of the best and most important films I’ve ever seen. It will haunt you.

If you’re in the mood for a whole meal instead of a over-processed snack, I strongly recommend this film. Do brace yourself. Don’t show it to your Fox News-loving family. Actually, don’t worry about showing it to your Fox News-loving family. They’ll probably sleep through it anyway.