In my review of After Earth, I mentioned it wasn't the first time I loved a movie nobody else seemed to care about. Which begged the question, what are the other movies I think are good but got unfairly passed up on? The ones I love that seem to have no fan base, never get aired on TV, or discussed on the internet...

Titan AE
First movie to come to mind is the one that has a similar title to After Earth. Done at a time when traditional animation was being replaced by computer animation, Titan AE has a hybrid visual style: hand-drawn characters and computer-generated spaceships in matte-painted scenes. For me, this one has it all: fast-paced action that never lets up, alongside character development and deeper themes, in a rich setting they barely scratch the surface of. The places they travel to are exotic like nothing else in sci-fi, some of the main characters are furries, and the ships are gorgeous. I'm always sad when it's over and there's no more of them to see.

The Dark Crystal
The original trailer has deteriorated, and does not do it justice. The sets are beautifully detailed, as are the puppets, though they sit squarely in uncanny valley... on purpose. Dark and brooding, the Dark Crystal is full of a sense of creepy strangeness. Not wall-to-wall action like a modern movie, more like the dread of the inevitable shootout at high noon... with the odds stacked against the heros. Its characters, visual style and atmosphere are unforgettable, why it's not iconic like some other films is beyond me.

I might as well get this off my chest now: the long wait to see it again was especially painful. I saw it just once as a kid and it left a lasting impression on me. Yet for many years I could not find the movie again, every search for "That Fantasy Jim Henson did" led me to Labyrinth, until I began to think this story had been just a dream I had as a kid...

Last Action Hero
Full of camp and sight gags... it's pure meta-humor at the cliches of action films. Yes it's designed as kid's movie, but its jokes are aimed squarely at adults. The movie hero just takes the warped Hollywood physics he's lived in all his life for granted, not even turning to look as a car full of bad guys explodes behinds him (they always do that), merely annoyed there's a ninja assassin in his closet (there's one every day) and so on. That it's Arnold Schwartzenegger, the epitome of 80s action heros, making fun of his own genre is a rare treat.