10 Movies Not Screened For Critics (That Were Actually Good)

Just before its release, 20th Century Fox as good as abandoned Idiocracy, offering no advance screenings, trailers or ads. Not surprising really, given the way in which it skewers the entertainment industry and many of the world's biggest brands, advertisers that film companies are usually keen to keep on board.

Director Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead) delivers a caustic but hilarious satire of a future world in which commercialism has run rampant and the populace has been dumbed down in a very literal way. Unlike most dystopias, there's no wicked force behind all this. Go all the way to the top and you'll only find Terry Crew's fantastically overblown President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, an increasingly plausible celebrity-turned-politician. When a modern man (Luke Wilson) hibernates for 500 years and awakes in this brave new world, he finds himself cursed with being the most intelligent person on the planet.

It divided the scant audiences who watched it on release but has since earned a deservedly large cult following. It's frequently hilarious and uncomfortably prescient...