Hate to sound cynical, but this critic isn’t the only longtime moviegoer who will tell you that the past 10 years have been the worst in the history of American cinema. Things have been so bad, in fact, that it’s surprising that any good movies could have slipped under the radar.

Yet many did. Poor marketing, crowded opening weekends and miniscule releases were sometimes to blame, but in many cases, critics just didn’t get it.

Here are a dozen American movies since 1991 that somehow got away. Some are low-budget indies; others are big studio films. Some were barely seen; others have simply been too quickly forgotten. They’re not all necessarily masterpieces, but all deserve more respect than they got.

THE MAN IN THE MOON (1991) underknown

This superbly-rendered coming-of-age story was well-reviewed, yet never found its audience. Young Reese Witherspoon made her screen debut as a 14-year-old growing up in the South of the 1950s. She and her older sister both fall in love with a 17–year-old neighbor, leading to family conflicts and tragedies. The material could easily have been clichéd, yet every emotion rings true.

The film is genuinely heart-wrenching. Director Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird) coaxed sensitive performances all around (it remains one of Witherspoon’s best), and the great cinematographer Freddie Francis made the best of the lazy, summery southern light. Mulligan shows true mastery of craft here; many sequences feature purely visual, wordless storytelling. Unfortunately, the 76–year-old has not directed a movie since.

A MIDNIGHT CLEAR (1991) underknown

Crisp WWII drama of a small squad of American soldiers in the French Ardennes Forest. They discover a German platoon wishing to surrender and agree to stage a skirmish so it will appear that the Germans surrendered honorably. This is only one of the film’s several instances of wartime absurdity, and it leads to a powerful climax worthy of the great war pictures. Not only is the story intelligent, but great respect is shown for the audience’s intelligence. Keith Gordon directs uniformly quality performances from his ensemble. More impressively, he strikes just the right balance of satire and drama—and ends up with poetry.

THUNDERHEART (1992) underrated and underknown

Director Michael Apted elevated this routine murder mystery into a mesmerizing study of cultures and identity. It boasts Val Kilmer’s best role as a half-Indian FBI agent who finds himself drawn to his Indian roots while investigating a murder on a Sioux reservation. This is an elegant and satisfying story structure, and Apted lends to it a great sense of mysteriousness and spirituality, especially in the way he presents the landscape. The film also has a perfect ending.

A PERFECT WORLD (1993) underrated and underknown

Clint Eastwood is one of our most underrated directors. A year after Unforgiven he turned out this quiet little road movie about an escaped convict who takes a young boy as a hostage and flees across Texas. Kevin Costner is superb as the decent but highly unstable convict (by far his best work), and his relationship with the boy is extremely compelling, subtle and original.

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (1993) underrated

Many found it cold and distant; they missed the point entirely. These qualities are inherent to the Wharton novel, which is about repressed people in a repressed time. Yet beneath the surface seethes emotional intensity. The characters move slowly and speak deliberately; their clothes and gestures are just so. And then in swoops Michelle Pfeiffer, and passions break loose—all under the surface. It’s quite subtle and beautifully realized by Martin Scorsese, who expresses the passion through visual language. He uses close-ups, color and actors’ glances, for instance, as punctuation to what’s really going on under the strangely distant dialogue. Though there’s no blood or gunplay, this is one of Scorsese’s most violent pictures—the difference is that the violence is emotional.

THE THIN RED LINE (1998) underrated

Like everyone else, I expected a traditional combat movie—another Saving Private Ryan, perhaps—when I first went to see this, and I was disappointed. When I saw it again a year later, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t taken it for what it was: an impossibly beautiful, dreamlike meditation on combat. Terrence Malick presents combat as a part of nature and the life experience by giving as much attention to battle as he does to plants, animals and native tribes. He is saying something quite different from other combat pictures. The surface war story is not as important here as is depicting the intense emotions that men experience in combat. It’s thrilling, sobering, philosophical and poetic all at once. It also has a gorgeous score—as does every movie on this list.

THE SECRET OF ROAN IRISH (1994) underknown

Many of John Sayles’ pictures are “underknown,” which is a travesty—especially here, as this is one of his most accessible. Part fairy tale, part fantasy, this is a tale of a young girl sent to live with her grandparents on the Irish coast, who becomes entranced by a family legend and comes to believe that her long-lost baby brother is living with the seals on a local island. In some ways this is an unusual Sayles picture (he’s not known for children’s fables), but it’s no different from his other films in that it totally captures a world and invests the audience in that world. With Sayles, you’re never on the outside, looking in; you are entirely inside. Look carefully at the opening of this picture, with the girl on the boat. Sayles invests us in her point of view simply but masterfully. It’s his key to making the rest of the picture work.

BEYOND RANGOON (1995) underrated

John Boorman’s most underrated movie. The master director of Point Blank, Deliverance and The General took a difficult script (with some klunky exposition and dialogue) and turned it into a moving story of personal rebirth, thanks to amazing visual storytelling. Patricia Arquette is a near-catatonic woman after her family has been senselessly murdered, and she renews her will to live after getting caught up in the Burmese pro-Democracy movement. Boorman, as usual, brings an impeccable sense of place to this story; the beauty and spirituality of the Burmese landscape is a major character. The movie is also economical as hell—within the first two minutes, it uses composition, music, voiceover and editing to set up the story and main character with absolute effectiveness.

SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS (1999) underrated and underknown

Many of the pictures on this list were dismissed because of their slow paces, and this one’s no exception. But “slow” does not necessarily mean “bad.” (Lawrence of Arabia is “slow,” after all.) Ostensibly a courtroom drama set just after WWII, the gripping Snow Falling weaves in numerous flashbacks depicting the friendship between a white boy and Japanese girl, which grows into illicit romance on the eve of the war. The flashbacks dart all over time and space, but director Scott Hicks holds things together nicely by maintaining the themes of longing and justice. He actually trusts his audience to think. The flashback sequence depicting Japanese-Americans herded into internment camps is incredible visual storytelling; not a word is spoken, but the emotional punch is devastating. There are many such sequences in this film, with issues/44/images and music expressing everything.

TWO FAMILY HOUSE (2000) underknown

This little indie comedy-drama was one of last year’s best movies. Set in 1950s Staten Island, the story follows a married Italian-American who falls in love with an Irish single mother, whose newborn son is half black. It could be cloying, but director Raymond De Felitta captures a sweetness in his story that is utterly believable. One senses a great deal at stake for these characters (played by Michael Rispoli and Kelly Macdonald), which makes their complete transformation into lovers quite moving. The film is rare in that it features an uplifting story of prejudice that never condescends to its audience or wallows in self-importance.

TIGERLAND (2000) underknown

Rising star Colin Farrell (Minority Report, Hart’s War) started his rise here. Scene for scene, you cannot take your eyes off this guy. His screen presence goes a long way, but the movie itself is superb. Set entirely in a Vietnam-era military training camp, the story becomes a fascinating parable for the Vietnam War itself, as the men are divided into groups and forced to stage a mock battle against each other. Intense, and filmed by Joel Schumacher in a low-budget, near-Dogme style.

Beyond Rangoon (1995); Tigerland (2000); Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)

LEGALLY BLONDE (2001) underrated

No, you’re not on crack, and neither am I. Many filmgoers and most critics seemed embarrassed to admit how much they loved this picture, describing it invariably as “a guilty pleasure.” Why feel guilty about it? This delightful, unpretentious comedy was one of the few studio features last summer that delivered the goods. Its comedy didn’t derive from mere surface shtick; it had a genuinely funny story, which is the mark of real comedy. Its resolution was predictable yet satisfying—as opposed to predictable and annoying (an important difference). Of course it was fluffy, but there is room for good fluff. (To Catch a Thief is fluff, isn’t it?) MM

Fearless (1993) underknown
Flesh and Bone (1993) underrated and underknown
When a Man Loves a Woman (1994) underrated and underknown
The Edge (1997) underrated
Lolita (1998) underknown
Without Limits (1998) underrated and underknown
Sweet and Lowdown (1999) underrated
Fight Club (1999) underrated
The Yards (2000) underrated and underknown
Bread and Roses (2001) underknown