15 Most Underrated Movies Of The Decade (So Far)

1. Killing Them Softly

The biggest danger when a film is under-appreciated upon release is that it risks being lost in time, never given the opportunity to find an audience later on. For every It's A Wonderful Life saved by reappraisal, there's countless films that are forgotten by all but IMDb completionists.

Moreso than any film on this list, Killing Them Softly risks that fate. In fact, it's already beginning to experience it; after an average box office run and good-but-not-great reviews, the film's been treated incredibly poorly, unfairly getting some horrendously low audience ratings on both RottenTomatoes and IMDb.

And let's not mince words here; Killing Them Softly is a great movie. Andrew Dominik proves that a belief in auteur theory doesn't have to lead to identikit features with a modern-set crime thriller totally distinct from his previous The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. What does carry over is Dominik's meticulous construction, which makes it impossible to not get drawn into the world it presents; every scene is purposely styled to mimic whichever of the sprawling cast it's currently following.

Most of the film's detractors take particular umbrage with the (what they deem) overt political commentary. As has been stated before, that's kinda the point; the characters are so involved in their own personal dealings they don't think of what's going on in the wider world (and the only one who does accepts that the whole thing's f**ked).

Which movies from the 2010s do you think are sorely underrated? Give your favourites a shout-out down in the comments.