5 forgotten mystery movies that are amazing from start to finish: ‘Brick’, ‘The Pledge’ and more

Since the Golden Age of cinema, mystery thrillers have represented some of the best writing and filmmaking in Hollywood, relying on character development and complex stories rather than spectacle alone. Many of the best books have come and gone, struggling to maintain their relevance beyond the year in which they were released, leaving behind a growing list of forgotten gems that deserve far more attention than they ever received. Here are five obscure films worth seeking out.

Elliot Gould stars as Raymond Chandler’s Detective Philip Marlowe, a private eye investigating the apparent murder of his friend while simultaneously taking on a case involving a missing husband, only for the two cases to collide in ways that suggest everyone around him knows a lot more than they’re letting on. The film explores his own development, which demands the utmost attention and rewards it richly, crafting a mystery within a mystery that brings out everything that makes Marlowe one of fiction’s greatest detectives. It’s a slower-paced film that never had the benefit of a rising action star to move it into the cultural conversation, and has slid into relative obscurity with each generation since.

Set a few years after World War II, the film follows John J. When Macready arrives in the desert village of Black Rock in search of a man named Komoko, he finds a community so hostile to his questions that attempts on his life begin almost immediately, hinting at a very dark and repressed city secret. It’s a quintessential neo-Western thriller that uses the trauma of war and xenophobic paranoia to tell a morality play about what happens to a society when violence and resentment are allowed to masquerade as patriotism. Its message is as sharp and relevant now as it was when it was released.

Jack Nicholson stars as Jerry Black, a detective who makes a promise on his retirement day to the mother of a young victim to find the person responsible, even as authorities close the case convinced that her husband has already been found. The film refuses to give viewers the sense of closure that most thrillers trade on, leaving its audience feeling frustrated and sad in a way that is entirely intentional and effective. Despite showcasing some of Nicholson’s best work, this kind of unflinching deconstruction simply wasn’t what audiences were looking for in the early 2000s, and the film has been largely overlooked ever since.

The film begins with a failed assassination attempt and follows a reporter who, three years later, finds himself embroiled in a conspiratorial investigation after witnesses to the incident begin to appear under suspicious circumstances one by one. The film is directed by Alan J. Pakula, the creator of All the President’s Men, is a film that pushes its hero to the limits of what he can understand about the world and takes the viewer with him on every step of that unsettling journey. They were naturally overshadowed by the bigger releases from an era that was throwing one crime masterpiece after another at the masses, never receiving the appreciation they deserved.

A high school student named Brendan Fry follows a series of mysterious clues from his ex-girlfriend that lead him to a crime scene, leading him to take the investigation into his own hands and infiltrate deeper into his city’s criminal underworld until he finds himself on the wrong side of a drug operation he barely understands. Directed by Rian Johnson, who would go on to redefine the mystery genre with the “Knives Out” franchise, “Brick” is a film that showed exactly what he was capable of two decades ago before the world caught up with him. It’s the greatest neo-noir story most crime fans have ever seen, and one of the most original mystery films ever made.