4. Rupert Pupkin - The King of Comedy
The perennial underrated Martin Scorsese-Robert De Niro collaboration. It features both men in scarily sharp form ten years on from their first film together. It's the blackest comedy you'll ever see and features a mutated De Niro as a fame hungry comedian who resorts to kidnapping Jerry Lewis in a desperate attempt at stardom. It's ingenious, and is overlooked because it doesn't really fit in with the rest of Scorsese's filmography. The devastating portrayal of fame is as resonant now as it was then, but it's still as underrated now as it was then. De Niro is funny, sinister and surprising as the enigma that is Rupert Pupkin. One of the most intelligent things about the picture is that until the final few minutes you don't know if Pupkin is actually a great or terrible comedian - and it turns out he's somewhere in between. The film, like De Niro surprises us throughout, and is absurdly surrealist in parts. Searing, daring and devastating, De Niro shows us another side in The King of Comedy, a side that would be revelatory and unforgettable.