10 Movies That Embarrassed Other Movies Released At The Same Time

Don't feel bad if you don't remember Valkyrie - Bryan Singer's WWII thriller was released at the tail-end of 2008 and starred Tom Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a German army Colonel who plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

It came and went upon a firm wave of indifference, and its fate as a forgettable also-ran was categorically sealed the next summer when Quentin Tarantino released his similarly-themed Hitler assassination movie, Inglourious Basterds.

It of course goes without saying that Tarantino's film is very different - while Valkyrie was based on true events, Basterds was fashioned more as a subversive revisionist history of what Tarantino wishes had happened.

Despite the inherent ridiculousness of his film, it's in many ways easier to take seriously than Valkyrie, given that large swaths of the ensemble cast are Europeans and, therefore, can speak German and/or French as makes them inherently more believable in their roles.

In the case of Valkyrie, Singer opted for a cast consisting primarily of British character actors and... Tom Cruise, and rather than have them affect a German lilt, he simply had the cast speak in "neutral" accents.

Despite being the more "serious" and high-brow of the two films, Valkyrie was a box office disappointment and failed to receive even a single Oscar nomination, while Basterds was a box office smash, received eight Oscar nominations and even won one - Best Supporting Actor for Christoph Waltz.

15 years on, have you heard anyone talk about Valkyrie?