Top 5 Most Underrated Movies of All Time

Number 4:


Big Fish (2003)


Directed by:  Tim Burton

Starring:  Billy Crudup, Albert Finney, Ewan Macgregor, Jessica Lange, Helena Bonham Carter

Academy Awards (winners in bold):  Best Original Score

Academy Awards it Should have been Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay

Why this movie is underrated:  Everybody has one, that "one that got away" type story that gets repeated every year and keeps getting bigger and bigger and consequently less believable and less believable.  But what if it's not the person's actual story that changes every year, but rather, our perception of their story as we grow older and change?  That is what this movie is all about.  It's about when people stop believing what their parents tell them, it's about when people stop believing in others and in themselves.

The movie follows the story of a young man, as told in a retrospective by the same man on his death bed, about his travels he had taken, the life he had lived, and the many people and characters he met along the way.  I will not spoil any more for you at this point as that is the majority of the fun for this movie.  What makes this movie underrated is that people see it as a "fantasy" movie and then when they see it directed by Tim Burton they lump it into the same surreal category as movies like "Charlie and the Charlie Factory."  Now, while this movie does have a great amount of "fantasy" elements to it, it is not your typical Burton fare.



This movie is about one man and his life and how perspective changes everything.  Perspective can change life to a story and eventually to something just made up.  It's about the desire and the need we all have to believe in something fantastical.  Whether or not something winds up being true is not the point, the fun is in the journey and what you learn along the way.  Maybe a story is made up, maybe it's real, but either way it's going to tell you something and help you learn something about yourself along the way, whether the story is about you or just being told to you about somebody else.  That is what this movie is all about, no matter what your stage in life, where you've come from or where you're going, everybody needs to believe in the fantastical every now and then.