10 Visual Movie Masterpieces You've Probably Never Seen

9. The Thin Red Line

You'd be forgiven for having missed Terrence Malick's return to filmmaking after a 20 year hiatus, since The Thin Red Line was released around the same time as Steven Spielberg's World War Two epic, Saving Private Ryan, which inevitably overshadowed it. Yet while Saving Private Ryan certainly offered audiences plenty of visceral thrills - not least the stunning opening scene, surely one of the best depictions of battle ever committed to film - Malick's vision was altogether more poetic and understated. It was also a real visual treat, albeit it in an entirely different way to Janus Kaminski's blurred, dirt-flecked cinematography in Saving Private Ryan. With Malick approaching warfare from the perspective of its impact on both nature and man's soul, director of photography John Toll opted for a rich, lush palette which juxtaposed the gorgeous Pacific island with the mess of combat. For some, The Thin Red Line came across as more than a little pretentious (those abstract voice overs can feel a little forced from time to time) and it might have been better received by critics and other filmmakers than it was by the public at large, but most people were rightly bowled over by the grand vistas and graceful camerawork.