I'm a film critic – here are 5 movies that are criminally underrated

Metro

21-07-2025

Tori Brazier Published July 17, 2025 4:14pm Updated July 17, 2025 4:57pm Link is copied Comments Not every film always gets the attention and accolades it deserves. From awkwardly-timed releases, poor marketing efforts and audiences sometimes just not turning out for no clear reason, it can hurt. As a film critic, some of these have bothered me more than most and I still question why they didn't get the love I feel they were worthy of. Here are five of these movies... (Picture: Netflix) Better Man, famously, was the musical biopic about Robbie Williams where he was played by a CGI chimpanzee. It sounded utterly insane at first, but actually ended up putting a poignant and original twist on Williams' no-holds-barred autobiographical movie. Unashamedly British in its humour and swearing – and packed with nostalgic tunes – Better Man sadly flopped quite spectacularly at the box office over the Christmas period, making just $22.5million on a reported $110m budget – but hopefully it can finally find the audience it deserved now it's streaming on Prime Video (Picture: Paramount Pictures) An absolute gem of a film, The Ballad of Wallis Island has achieved cult status already among fans of its heartwarming and off-beat British humour thanks to buzz that built immediately after its Sundance Film Festival premiere in January. Its premise of an eccentric millionaire attempting to reunite his favourite musical duo for a gig on a remote island is simple but expertly well-executed, thanks to the talents of long-time comedy duo Tim Key and Tom Basden, who wrote and star in it, alongside multiple Oscar-nominee Carey Mulligan. Over 18 years in development, it's still showing in some cinemas following its UK release in May so make sure you pop along and see it; then you can be smug about catching this upon original release in years to come (Picture: Alistair Heap/Focus Features) Many people won't agree with me on this one, but I really enjoyed Netflix's irreverent (some would say blasphemous) take on Jane Austen's Persuasion, starring Dakota Johnson, in 2022. Johnson's heartsick but knowing Anne Elliot, a spinster at 27, swigs rather more wine than I remembered from the novel, with the film featuring anachronistic language and features such as 'goss' and ghosting advice. Some fans were aghast at what was dubbed the 'Fleabagification' of Austen (Johnson breaks the fourth wall) but I think its value and entertainment lies in being a bold adaptation that surprised (Picture: Netflix) Rocketman got a pretty decent showing in 2019, earning impressive and near-matching critic and fan scores of 89% and 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, and $195.2m at the box office. It also nabbed an Academy Award for best original song and other critical praise - but it feels like it didn't land as solidly as it should. This is in large part due to Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody the year before, which seemed to suck a lot of attention up in this genre thanks to overhype. Rocketman painted a more interesting and unflinching portrayal of its protagonist, Elton John, the musical arrangements and orchestrations were sensational - and Taron Egerton should have received an Oscar nomination for his performance (Picture: David Appleby/Paramount Pictures) The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is easy to overlook when it's part of Joel and Ethan Coen's stacked filmography, which also includes Raising Arizona, Fargo and No Country for Old Men. But their last collaboration to date offers a satisfying and action-packed collection of six Western-style shorts set out on the frontier and starring the likes of Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson, Tim Blake Nelson, Tom Waits and Harry Melling. We've got singing gunslingers, bank robbers, gold prospectors and a young woman navigating the Oregon Trail. A Netflix original that made an impact on me when it showed at the BFI London Film Festival in 2018, it did win prizes including three Oscar nominations, but its week-long cinema run allowed it to fade into the obscurity of Netflix's vast back catalogue (Picture: Netflix) I could share several more examples of films that, in my book, should have earned more attention and admiration than they actually got. In the era of streaming, it's easier than ever for the smaller budgeted titles to get lost in the noise too - although there's also a healthy amount of subjective opinion to go with all my picks too (some more than others) (Picture: Alistair Heap/Focus Features)