8 Underrated Films From Famous Directors You Probably Missed

8. Insomnia - Christopher Nolan

You can't find a modern director more bankable in the mainstream and yet so beloved by critics than Christopher Nolan. There's been a bit of a backlash against the director recently, as is common with such overwhelming praise and commercial success, but those comparisons to Kubrick aren't far wrong (although I'd say he's more of a Hitchcock).

Nolan's breakthrough was Memento, although real success came with the one-two-three-four whammy of Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight and Inception, but between those two sets he made Insomnia, a remake of the Norwegian murder mystery set in a town where the sun never sets.

It's a great little thriller, with Al Pacino an utterly broken, potentially-crooked detective and Robin Williams giving his finest straight performance as a warped, deadly author. Crucially though, it contains a lot of elements that we'd see in later Nolan films - there's direct shot lifts in The Dark Knight and Interstellar, and the themes of loss and guilt run strong - making it an essential part of his filmography.

You should also check out Following, the director's first film; it's an unrefined picture, but like Insomnia contain bears a lot of the stylistic hallmarks of his later movies.