10 Recent Movies NOBODY Expected To Be This Good

10. Zack Snyder's Justice League

For several years, the so-called "Snyder Cut" of Justice League was scarcely more than a pie-in-the-sky pipe dream blathered on about by die-hard Zack Snyder fans desperate to see the director's original vision brought to life.

Snyder of course encouraged the fandom to continue banging the drum for the film, enough that Warner Bros. finally agreed to give him $70 million to complete his four-hour epic for release on HBO Max.

Fans rejoiced, though more even-handed commentators expressed concerns over both the exhausting potential of a four-hour Zack Snyder movie, and the dim likelihood that it would be much of a marked improvement upon the wretchedly dull Joss Whedon-helmed cut released to cinemas in 2017.

A truly pleasant surprise it was, then, when the Snyder Cut debuted to solidly positive reviews - touting a 71% Tomatometer compared to the original's 40% - with most critics praising its massive scope and tectonic improvements upon the "Whedon Cut."

Releasing the film direct-to-streaming was the smartest thing Snyder and Warner Bros. could've done - it allowed audiences to break the mammoth runtime up into episodic chunks, aided by the equally-genius decision to separate the film into several chapters.

While the visual effects weren't always up to snuff and it's an undeniably, inherently indulgent project, it's also a shockingly entertaining piece of work which does barnstorming justice to Snyder's operatic, ambitious original vision.

It would've surprised nobody if a filmmaker as hit-and-miss as Snyder delivered an absolutely chaotic mess of a final cut, but the end result instead vindicated the enormous effort he and his fanbase exerted to ensure it finally saw the light of day.