In the modern Streaming Age, you’re never lacking options when it comes to what to watch. The sheer number of films that are available at your fingertips right now, though, can make it hard to actually choose one movie to watch sometimes. That is especially the case when none of the recommended films on your favorite streaming platform are catching your eye or appealing to you.
That is what this list is for. Here are the seven best hidden gem movies that you can stream on Max right now.
“Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole” (2010)
A film so underrated and forgotten to time that most people do not even realize it was directed by “Man of Steel” filmmaker Zack Snyder, 2010’s “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole” works far better than it should. Based on a fantasy book series by Kathryn Lasky, the animated film follows Soren (Jim Sturgess), a barn owl who ends up caught with his brother Kludd (Ryan Kwanten) in a war between a totalitarian, militaristic group of owls known as the Pure Ones (led by Joel Edgerton’s vicious Metal Beak) and the valiant, benevolent owl warriors of the mythical island of Ga’Hoole.
Aside from one misjudged, terribly dated musical sequence set to a song by Owl City (cue: groan), “Legend of the Guardians” is a thrilling, surprisingly effective animated adventure film. It is, like many of Snyder’s movies, visually stunning, and the film’s central conflict allows the filmmaker’s most fantastical, dark and imaginative instincts to work in tandem with each other. It is sneakily one of Snyder’s best movies, regardless of how little known it is.
“Inherent Vice” (2014)
A box office bomb that was wildly underappreciated when it was released, “Inherent Vice” is a minor masterpiece from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson that has slowly but inevitably garnered a bigger fan base over time. Based on author Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 novel of the same name, “Inherent Vice” is a stoner detective comedy about Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), a perpetually stoned private detective whose latest investigation sends him spiraling into a conspiracy involving a missing real estate developer, the FBI, the Aryan Brotherhood, an undercover police informant and an international drug-smuggling operation. At the center of it all is Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston), the ex-girlfriend who broke Doc’s heart.
At once a love letter to the California of the 1960s and a misty-eyed eulogy for it, “Inherent Vice” is a vibes-first comedy. If you can manage to look past its purposefully indecipherable fictional conspiracy, you will likely find yourself overwhelmed by an outrageously funny, deeply moving film about just how much you can miss not only someone but also the world you used to know. Capitalism and the Manson Family killed the ’60s, and whether we realize it or not, the scars of that decade’s death have not faded from American life. “Inherent Vice” honors that loss by simultaneously laughing about it, crying over it and lighting a joint in honor of it.
“The Player” (1992)
One of the greatest and most cynical films about Hollywood ever made, director Robert Altman’s “The Player” is a masterful takedown of the studio system and a searingly satirical comedy about the way it chews up and spits out the artists who keep it going. Tim Robbins leads the film as Griffin Mill, a young studio executive paranoid about his job security who kills the aspiring screenwriter he suspects of sending him death threats.
A perfect film to pair with Seth Rogen’s Hollywood-set, Apple TV+ comedy “The Studio,” “The Player” is a pitch-black, scorched-earth film the likes of which only a director as uncompromising and justifiably jaded as Altman could pull off. Few films have ever better explored how artists are mistreated and exploited by their often rich, corporate bosses than “The Player” does. The fact that it manages to do so while also turning its if-looks-could-kill gaze back on the very industry in which it was made just makes the film that much more miraculous and impressive.
“Days of Being Wild” (1990)
Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai has made some of the most beloved and acclaimed foreign language films of the past 50 years. Very few international directors hold the same, revered place as him. Despite that, his 1990 drama, “Days of Being Wild,” is still a surprisingly underrated film. A very loose prequel to its director’s 2000 masterpiece, “In the Mood for Love,” “Days of Being Wild” follows Yuddy (Leslie Cheung), a smooth-talking womanizer whose non-committal mistreatment of the women he seduces creates emotional ripples that extend into the lives of complete strangers.
The film charts these ripples, all while Yuddy struggles to find peace in his estranged relationship with Rebecca (Rebecca Pan), the former prostitute who took him in as his adoptive mother. Relying on a primarily green, practically monochromatic color scheme, “Days of Being Wild” is filmed with striking sensuality and vibrancy by frequent Wong Kar-Wai collaborator, cinematographer Christopher Doyle. The resulting film is a transfixing cinematic dream overflowing with the kind of yearning you feel in your very bones.
“Paris, Texas” (1984)
A masterful drama that deserves to be better known by non-cinephiles, 1984’s “Paris, Texas” will bowl you over. Co-written by L. M. Kit Carson and the late, great Sam Shepard, this Wim Wenders-directed road film follows Travis Henderson (an all-time great Harry Dean Stanton), a drifter who is found and ultimately taken to California by his brother Walt (Dean Stockwell), where he is reunited with his young, estranged son Hunter (Hunter Carson).
As Travis reconnects with the side of his life he had once run away from, he becomes increasingly intent on traveling through the American Southwest in search of his missing wife and Hunter’s mother, Jane (Nastassja Kinski). Shot with lived-in, textured beauty by cinematographer Robby Müller, “Paris, Texas” unfolds slowly. It reveals the depths of its story and the details of its protagonist’s emotionally turbulent past with elegant patience and grace. Along the way, it emerges as a deeply considered, compassionate story about letting go of your guilt and reaching for redemption — not just for yourself, either, but those you know are deserving of it, too.
“20th Century Women” (2016)
In 2016, writer-director Mike Mills followed up “Beginners,” his Oscar-winning 2011 film about his relationship with his gay father, with a film about his mother. That movie, “20th Century Women,” is a sun-soaked, kaleidoscopic drama about Jamie Fields (Lucas Jade Zumann), a 15-year-old skater growing up in the shadows of his eccentric, proud mother Dorothea (a career-best Annette Bening), their artistic, 24-year-old photographer tenant (Greta Gerwig) and his best friend Julie Hamlin (Elle Fanning), who sneaks in most nights to sleep in his room but does not feel the same way about him that he does about her.
“20th Century Women” is, in other words, an ensemble drama brimming with distinctly drawn, ill-fitting characters and also a film willing to engage in complex ideas about the bonds between mothers and sons and the ever-evolving social dynamic between men and women. Partly inspired by Mills’ own childhood, “20th Century Women” is a vividly realized look back at a very specific place, time and cultural moment that feels simultaneously timeless and strikingly specific.
“Brief Encounter” (1945)
One of the most achingly romantic films ever made, “Brief Encounter” is among the greatest movies that director David Lean created throughout his illustrious career, which also produced classics like “Lawrence of Arabia” and “The Bridge Over the River Kwai.” Adapted by Noël Coward from his own one-act play, “Brief Encounter” follows two married British strangers (Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard) whose chance meeting at a train station ignites an intense, secret emotional affair between them that threatens to tear their respective lives apart.
A noted influence on 2015’s “Carol,” the film is a tender yet unsentimental exploration of how love is powerful enough to make us consider, even if only briefly, completely turning away from the set circumstances and responsibilities of our lives. It is a powerful, affecting piece of work, immaculately directed, performed and written by all involved. There are moments of raw intimacy and emotional honesty scattered throughout it that will take your breath away, including an unforgettable dramatic beat when one character simply looks at Johnson’s lovelorn Laura Jesson and observes, “You’ve been a long way away.”
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