20 Underrated Recent Movies You Might Have Missed

16. Dead Man's Wire

When a filmmaker as celebrated as Gus Van Sant makes a really great movie with a hot actor-of-the-moment and can't get many eyeballs on it, we know we're in trouble.

Van Sant's crime thriller Dead Man's Wire is based on the true story of Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) - a man who took the head of a mortgage company (Dacre Montgomery) hostage amid the belief that the firm cheated him out of money.

Perhaps had Van Sant's film been a six-part Netflix documentary it would've done numbers, but as a theatrically released 106-minute drama, not even rave reviews could propel it to success.

But for those who discover Dead Man's Wire down the line, it's a fascinatingly tense, beautifully shot crime thriller that nails its '70s setting and look, all while Bill Skarsgård adds yet another engrossingly intense performance to his growing pile.

Considering that Van Sant's late-career output has been pretty wobbly, it's a damn shame that so few showed up for his best work since 2008's Milk.