The Ten Best Films you've never seen

1. Straw Dogs (1971)
Director Sam Peckinpah, better known for his 1969 film, The Wild Bunch, is on the top of his game in this 1971 thriller. Dustin Hoffman plays a timid American who finds himself harassed by local thugs upon moving to Britain with his wife. The film culminates in a bloody siege of Hoffman's house, in which Hoffman finally decides to settle things by violence. Controversial for a perceived pro-violence message, this gritty classic is worth the difficulty you may have in finding it.

2. The Conversation (1974)
This film, from director Francis Ford Coppola, is often overshadowed by Coppola's The Godfather Pt II, released in the same year. Although this film is far less popular, it is definitely worth checking out. Coppola's original screenplay examines the dangers in monitoring others. Gene Hackman gives one of the best performances of his career as the complex and paranoid snoop, Harry Caul.

3. Alphaville (1965)
In this unorthodox film noir, Jean Luc Godard, director of Breathless, creates a nightmarish future city and a hardboiled wise guy trying to tear it all down. The film is almost like blending Roman Polanski's Chinatown with Orwell's novel, 1984. Utilizing the jump cuts that made Godard famous, this film is an interesting take on a classic genre.

4. El Mariachi (1992)
Everyone has heard of director Robert Rodriguez and his films like Spy Kids, or his most recent film, Machete. Few though, have heard of Rodriguez's first film El Mariachi. Made for a microscopic budget Rodriguez earned from a stay in a research hospital, the film twists the classic tale of mistaken identity from goofy comedy to brutal action.

5.Happiness (1998)
Despised by many for it's comedic treatment of controversial subjects, Happiness was avoided by many mainstream filmgoers. Raunchy and candid in its subject matter, Happiness manages to deal with very tough topics without having a cruel tone. The story concerns a group of people whose sex lives are not quite normal. If you have a strong stomach and aren't easily offended, Happiness might be a great film for you.

6. My Dinner With Andre (1981)
This film might seem incredibly boring. The plot is nonexistent, with the whole film consisting entirely of a dinner conversation. That aside, this is a stunningly original work with unorthodox insights on the human condition and its relation to the theater.

7. Onibaba (1964)
This stunningly shot Japanese horror film is among the best films to ever be produced in the land of the rising sun. When a young woman who lives with her mother in law learns that her husband has been killed in a war, the young woman begins to have a relationship with her late husband's best friend, only to be haunted by a demon. The cinematography is amazingly well done, particularly in the horrific chase through a field of tall grass during a hellish thunderstorm.

8. Two Lane Blacktop (1971)
Part road race film, part reflection on speed and human nature, Two Lane Blacktop is a staggeringly well written work. With characters simply known as the driver, the mechanic, the girl, and GTO, director Monte Hellman crafts a wonderful tale of youth, speed, and the dangers of both of them.

9. Army of Shadows (1969)
Master director Jean Pierre Melville reintroduces us to the French Resistance during the Second World War with this dramatic thriller. Melville's men and women of the resistance find great turmoil not only struggling with the Third Reich but with their own moral choices and the consequences of their choice to take a stand.

10. Secret Honor (1984)
Phillip Baker Hall steals the show in Robert Altman's one actor film about the life of Richard Milhous Nixon. Hall's Nixon sits secluded in his study dictating a secret autobiography that covers his whole presidency, and all the people who tried to bring him down. Hall gives one of the best screen performances of all time, often breaking his lamenting soliloquy with a fit of rage.