10 Massively Underrated Movies From The 1990s

6. The Man In The Moon

The Man In The Moon Reese Witherspoon
MGM

Another feature debut for an Oscar-winning actress, 1991's The Man In The Moon was Reese Witherspoon's first big-screen outing - and she got off to one hell of a start.

The final film directed by Robert Mulligan (the man behind the 1962 classic To Kill A Mockingbird), The Man In The Moon is a touching coming-of-age story about two sisters competing for the affection of a handsome young man who lives next door.

Admittedly, the story does hit most of the beats you'd expect from this type of movie, but the predictability of the film is a minor quibble when compared to its superb performances, perfectly balanced tone, and beautiful rural setting, photographed with great precision by legendary cinematographer Freddie Francis.

Witherspoon went on to do much bigger (and arguably better) things, so it's somewhat understandable that a small movie like this would fade into the depths of her IMDB page. However, this is a movie that was praised as one of the best of the year by renowned film critic Roger Ebert - so it's absolutely worth seeking out.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!