10 Underrated Films By Amazing Directors

He may not have been prolific on the same scale as some other great directors, but Stanley Kubrick will always go down as one of cinema’s greatest ever contributors. Divisive upon their release, only to be critically lauded years after, his films have always been divisive, outrageous and downright awesome.

But while he will always be remembered for films such as The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket and 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s a surprise that a film as good as The Killing isn’t as well thought of as it should be.

Hot off the heels of Killer’s Kiss, Stanley Kubrick was finally allowed to make his first de-facto studio film. After he and production partner James B. Harris beat United Artists to the rights for Lionel White’s novel Clean Break, United Artists sought to fund Kubrick’s film as long as he could find a star to appear in the project, which led to the casting of Sterling Hayden.

While Hayden himself was not really a big enough star for United Artists to cough up the dough to make the film entirely, they still provided enough of the finance for the project to sort of go ahead.

What followed is a film about a criminal, Johnny Clay (Hayden) planning that fabled last big heist before skipping town for good. Clay gets a rag-tag bunch of criminals together and gets them to aid him in his heist as they aim to steal $2,000,000 (the equivalent of just shy of $20,000,000 today) from a racetrack.

While it may not be the most technically advanced film out there and something of a safe bet from a director who would later go on to be known for his bold choice of film, The Killing is a truly mesmeric film, that manages to keep the audience captivated and on the edge of their seats. The Killing has since inspired numerous heist films and started to get Kubrick’s name out there to the studio brass.

While it’s fair to say that it isn’t the best Kubrick film out there today and perhaps isn’t the best example of what he would later be known for, The Killing is still a worthy entry in any filmmaker’s filmography and it is perhaps a testament to how strong Kubrick’s other films are, that The Killing is as underrated as it is.