--- title: How We Chose the Most Underappreciated Movies of the Century description: TIME's film critic compiled a list of underseen films released between 2000 and 2025 that are deserving of a second look. canonical: https://time.com/7362428/how-we-chose-50-underappreciated-movies/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-02-04T12:52:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-11T00:52:14.786Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: How TIME’s Film Critic Chose the 50 Most Underappreciated Movies of the 21st Century og:description: TIME’s film critic compiled a list of underseen films released between 2000 and 2025 that are deserving of a second look. og:url: https://time.com/7362428/how-we-chose-50-underappreciated-movies/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd9e6b6cd19b190a/6998cd5a93610c6ac3c305cf/UnderappreciatedHowWeChose_final.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: UnderappreciatedHowWeChose_final og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How TIME’s Film Critic Chose the 50 Most Underappreciated Movies of the 21st Century twitter:description: TIME’s film critic compiled a list of underseen films released between 2000 and 2025 that are deserving of a second look. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd9e6b6cd19b190a/6998cd5a93610c6ac3c305cf/UnderappreciatedHowWeChose_final.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How TIME's Film Critic Chose the 50 Most Underappreciated Movies of the 21st Century > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: The Most Underappreciated Movies of the 21st Century [Watch (HLS stream): The Most Underappreciated Movies of the 21st Century](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/2Xfr54wO.m3u8) (1:22)  _Published 2026-02-04. TIME's film critic compiled a list of underseen films released between 2000 and 2025 that are deserving of a second look._  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Feb 4, 2026 12:52 PM UTC   by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Feb 4, 2026 12:52 PM UTC Whenever I browse through social media or Letterboxd to see what movies young film lovers are discovering, I often see the usual suspects: pictures made by Hitchcock, Coppola, and [Scorsese](https://time.com/collection/time100-leadership-series/6311403/martin-scorsese-killers-of-the-flower-moon-interview/), with a smattering of classic films noir or [romantic comedies](https://time.com/6147549/best-early-2000s-romantic-comedies/) thrown in. Nothing wrong with that! But it got me thinking about all the terrific, surprising, yet [undersung films](https://time.com/5956164/oscar-nominations-2021-to-watch/) that, in the old days of moviegoing—let’s say before the pandemic—would roll by week by week. Sometimes they’d do well at the box office and then disappear from our collective memories; other times, they’d open to lousy reviews and audiences would simply fail to find them. Where do [underappreciated movies](https://time.com/collections/50-most-underappreciated-movies/) go after they’ve had their chance to shine? Here, for one. I’ve compiled a list of films, from the early days of this century to the present, that may have fallen through the cracks upon their initial release, pictures worthy of a second look or a first-time discovery. I look back with great fondness on the texture of moviegoing in the first 20 years of this century, that feeling of stepping into a theater and hoping that you were about to discover something great, or maybe even just something strange and wondrous—a 1930s-style musical with an all-Black cast, like [_Idlewild_](https://time.com/collections/50-most-underappreciated-movies/7353518/idlewild), or a magical English-language version of [_The Magic Flute_](https://time.com/collections/50-most-underappreciated-movies/7353541/the-magic-flute) set during World War I, or a velvety historical romance like [_Bright Star_](https://time.com/collections/50-most-underappreciated-movies/7353492/bright-star). Sometimes it’s the modestly scaled, or even ambitious but flawed, pictures that stick with you for years, and decades. I also note that this list is skewed to, though not limited to, films that American audiences might have missed at the multiplex or at their local indie cinema (when those still existed). For reasons having to do only with practicality, most are English-language films. That’s only because, in compiling this list, it quickly became clear that there was no way to survey the whole of world cinema and assess what might have slipped past English-speaking audiences. That said, there are a few non-English-language films here that I believe warrant some special love, especially in cases of unsung geniuses (like Marco Bellocchio) or filmmakers who went on to make bigger, acclaimed pictures but whose earlier work deserves a spotlight (like [Jacques Audiard](https://time.com/7175205/emilia-perez-review-netflix/)). Still, there are so many astonishing filmmakers whose works are missing—please forgive me, Hou Hsiou-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang—and your favorites might be missing, too. But then, this list is intended only as a starting point, a new way of assessing recent film history. What does _underappreciated_ mean, really, outside of any individual’s taste? Your idea of what constitutes a movie that hasn’t gotten enough love is most likely going to differ from mine—but that’s exactly the idea. This list is intended chiefly to get the gears of your own moviegoing memories turning. We’ve all got plenty of lists of the Greatest This and the Greatest That. Time for a list of Movies That Live in Our Memories for Indefinable Reasons—a category that [AI could neither generate](https://time.com/6297575/even-ai-filmmakers-think-hollywoods-ai-proposal-is-dangerous/) nor comprehend, because loving movies is the province only of humans. 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