8. The New World
Theatrical: 135 minutesExtended: 172 minutes Before Terrence Malick jumped off the cliff of pretension into The Tree of Life's canyon of meandering aimlessness, the director delivered easily his most underrated film to date with The New World. And while the rest of this list is made up of films cut by the studio minus the director's approval (with the exception perhaps of Lord of the Rings, thought you can imagine New Line encouraged Peter Jackson to take the scissors out for his theatrical cuts), The New World had all three of its different cuts assembled by the perfectionist/forever unhappy Malick. Whether you'll prefer his 172-minute extended home video edition depends on how high your levels of Malick-tolerance are. So if you thought The Thin Red Line a ponderous mash-up of war flick and nature documentary, or if you saw the theatrical The New World and thought 135 minutes was enough, then this extended edition won't be for you. But for fans of the director, The New World features some of Malick's most striking photography, and you get 40 minutes more of it in the extended version. While the aching romanticism is upped, the basic narrative remains the same, but Malick's images are rarely made to convey narrative or logic anyway. They're there to be bathed in, like a bath made of milk and sunshine. As a result, the extended The New World turns the film into a gorgeous epic.