You haven’t heard of it, so now please watch it

I know how lists work. Readers pour through them looking for titles they actually recognize, exclaim in either joy or disgust at the critic’s choice and forget the rest. Now WEEKEND has crafted a list in which, ideally, there will be no recognizable titles.

Part of me fears the response, if any, we will get. 

I predict that some will look at our list and assume the worst.

“I haven’t heard of it nor seen it, so the film must be (1) a Euro trash, arty foreign film from God knows where, (2) an avant-garde, pretentious piece of junk made for critics to gush about or (3) a lame, indie, feel-good charmer with an aggravating sound track and more hipster cred than “Juno.”

And the truth is, while some of these films are far and away from a familiar screenplay and may demand patience the audience isn’t used to, I promise you all of these films are better than a majority of the junk and even above average junk that has come out of Hollywood in the last 10 years. 

Is it so hard to believe that an indie may actually imply a first-time filmmaker with little to no budget and no means of distribution who is just dying to tell his or her story? What about the possibility that there are legendary directors in foreign countries that have zero notoriety in the States? 

Many of these films are just that, and nearly all of them have a criminally low user rating on IMDB, Metacritic or Netflix. Some average Joe stumbled across the film based on a recommendation from a friend or a film critic, and they were so bored (typically the uninformative adjective of choice) and angered by a film that challenged them that they were compelled to write a scathing review, often claiming they’ve never done so before. 

Oh, thank you for going so far out of your way to warn the masses that you gave up within 10 minutes of this film you didn’t even try to understand.

Some of the filmmakers represented on this list are amongst the most acclaimed directors working today. The Dardenne Brothers are masters in France and at the Cannes film festival. Roger Ebert wrote on his blog that Ramin Bahrani would be the next great American director, predicting the same fate he did for Martin Scorsese. Edward Yang’s “Yi yi” was named the tenth best film of the last 25 years by the Sight & Sound Critics Poll.

The funny thing is, we made this list harder on ourselves than it needed to be. We excluded the Oscar nominees and the directors who have worked with subjects just too well-known from our list, and dozens of these have gone unknown and forgotten by the general public. 

And what’s more, most of these are available at the push of a button. It’s called the Netflix Instant Queue. Try it sometime.

Our goal is not to tell you your tastes are wrong or immature, nor is it to argue if you disagree with any of the titles on our list. We love watching movies at Weekend, and if we can share in that joy by introducing you to something new, that experience is all the greater.