10 Star-Studded Movies On Netflix You've Never Heard Of

By Kristy Puchko | Lists | April 8, 2016 |

By Kristy Puchko | Lists | April 8, 2016 |

There’s a unique brand of cultural confusion when you discover stars you geek out over have made or joined forces for movies you’ve never, ever heard of. Maybe it’s because the film was too niche to score a theatrical release. Maybe it’s just from that dreaded “before they were stars” phase. Maybe it’s because it’s a terrible garbage flick. Whatever the reason, these movies don’t disappear. Thanks to Netflix, they lurk in a library of titles, waiting to be discovered, for better, worse, or WTF.

Lila & Eve

Turns out The Boy Next Door wasn’t the only thriller Jennifer Lopez released last year. And this one actually squeaked out about $3 grand more, despite only spending three weeks in theaters. Here, JLo co-stars with two-time Academy Award nominee/Emmy-winner Viola Davis, playing a pair of mothers who lost their sons in a drive-by. When the cops won’t help, they go vigilante to get justice and revenge. Though the film got razing reviews, critics agreed Davis was divine, despite the rest of it being “dreck.”
Watch it here.

Edges of the Lord

You might think a Haley Joel Osment joint you’ve never heard of came post-puberty or before his breakout role in 1999’s must-see ghost story The Sixth Sense. But this forgotten religious drama fell between two of his most popular movies, A.I and Secondhand Lions. Osment slathered on a Polish accent to play a Jewish boy, whose quest to escape the Nazis leads him to the to care of a priest played by Willem Dafoe. Despite Osment’s fame and the positive reviews of his work here, Edges of the Lord failed to score a theatrical release in the U.S.
Watch it here.

Are You Here

By the summer of 2014, the world was in a full-on swoon over Matthew Weiner’s dashing TV drama Mad Men. So you’d think any movie he deigned to write and direct would get notice, especially when it boasts beloved comedians like Owen Wilson, Zach Galifianakis, and Amy Poehler. And yet here we are with Are You Here, a “late night” comedy movie about a womanizing weatherman (Wilson), his bipolar buddy (Galfianakis) and the buddy’s bitter sister (Poehler).
Watch it here.

A Stoning in Fulham County

Behold the only film to contain both Brad Pitt and Ron Perlman. This Lifetime made-for-TV movie hit in 1988, while Perlman was the leading man in the romantic-drama series Beauty and the Beast and Pitt was still years away from his shirtless scene-stealing in Thelma & Louise. But he’s less than lovable here, playing one of a band of truck-riding, rock-hurling rednecks whose stupid shenanigans lead to the death of the seven-month-old child of Amish patriarch Perlman.
Watch it here.

Devil’s Knot

Based on the incredible murder trial of the West Memphis Three, this Atom Egoyan drama drew a lot of headlines in pre-production, pulling together a cast that boasted critically celebrated stars like Mireille Enos, Dane DeHaan, Bruce Greenwood, Stephen Moyer, Elias Koteas, and Alessandro Nivola, as well as Oscar-nominee Amy Ryan and Oscar-winners Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon. But Egoyan’s whodunnit approach failed to impress critics or lure in audiences, and was soon forgotten in favor of the heralded, thorough, and life-changing Paradise Lost documentaries.
Watch it here.

Perfect Sense

Eva Green and Ewan McGregor, two of the most deliciously campy actors in the world, were lovers in a movie. You shouldn’t go another second without knowing that. Of course, those two didn’t likely sign on for just any ol’ love story. So this one is about him being a chef and her being a scientist in a world afflicted by a sensory-stealing plague. Touch it and taste it while you can! This British bit of yes comes from David Mackenzie, the helmer behind such electric dramas as Tonight You’re Mine and Starred Up. So, sight unseen, this 2001 flick is my pick for top “must watch immediately” priority of these titles.
Watch it here.

The Yards

Let’s set the stage for this 2000 flick’s making. Mark Wahlberg had successfully made the leap from pants-shrugging rap star to critically heralded movie star with Boogie Nights. Charlize Theron was chiseling her way to future greatness with schlocky messes like The Devil’s Advocate, The Astronaut’s Wife and Reindeer Games. Joaquin Phoenix was carving a niche in indie dramas like Inventing The Abbots, U Turn and Clay Pigeons, but Gladiator was just around the corner. Director/co-writer James Gray was years away from a pair of critically championed dramas, We Own The Night, Two Lovers and The Immigrant. Co-writer Matt Reeves had created the TV drama Felicity and had an unseen future in horror (Cloverfield, Let Me In) ahead of him. The Yards is where these careers collide to tell the tale of an ex-con trying to go legit.
Watch it here.

Unrelated

Royal Deceit (A.K.A. Prince of Denmark)

After Newsies and Swing Kids, but before Little Women and Velvet Goldmine, Welsh ingedude Christian Bale headlined a Hamlet retelling that aims to stay truer to the Shakespeare play’s historic inspiration. A post-Much Ado About Nothing Kate Beckinsale swans is as his Ophelia. Gabriel Byrne and Helen Mirren co-starred as king and queen, just ahead of the Oscar-winning The Usual Suspects and The Madness of King George.
Watch it here.

The Hole

Four teenagers go down into an abandoned bomb shelter for a wild weekend, but only one comes out alive. Before Keira Knightley won hearts with Bend It Like Beckham, she co-starred with Thora Birch, who was between American Beauty and Ghost World. This is the only one of this list I’ve seen. And it was because I have a soft-spot for sultry teen thrillers like Cruel Intentions that popped up in the late ’90s/early ’00s. But man, this flick is such a convoluted mess full of wooden performances and grim revelations that even its tawdry teen sex scene doesn’t make it worth the runtime.
Watch it here if you dare.

Kristy Puchko is Tomato-metered approved now. ~Struts~