10 Recent Movies Certified Fresh On Rotten Tomatoes (That Everybody Ignored)

3. Young & Beautiful

Tomatometer rating: 73%Gross: $61,067 French? Check. Arthouse? Check. R-rated? Check. Yep, Young & Beautiful was never going to make that great a storm at the box office, but something as fine-tuned and engrossing as Francois Ozon's 14th feature deserved a much better fate than a lonely $61,067 figure. It's a bit of a stereotype that French cinema is notoriously steamy, but really the best French filmmakers are far too discerning to be into mere titillation; and so it goes for Ozon with Young & Beautiful, a film which takes a curious, middle-class teenage girl (the enigmatic Marine Vacth) trying out prostitution, and explores that world with a cold, exacting eye. The film is a mysterious teen drama about a young woman who doesn't understand herself or her own sexuality, and who embarks on a seamy life course just in order to feel something. It's not the most upbeat film in the world, but Young & Beautiful is a coming-of-age movie like no other, made with intelligence by a modern French great.