2008 was a fairly significant year at the movies. Major milestones in superhero cinema hit theaters along with heavy hitters from Pixar and other major franchises. There were plenty of essential films from 2008 that made box office or awards history in one way or another, but and didn't make it onto any best-of retrospective lists.

Some of these underappreciated efforts are films that may have gotten good reviews but were crowded out of the conversation by more prominent films. Meanwhile, others didn't get the respect they truly deserved, whether because audiences didn't understand them or because hindsight was necessary to fully appreciate them. However, whenever one remembers the films of this landmark year for cinema, one.

is often considered one of the most disappointing sequels thanks to the fact that it followed up , objectively one of the best Bond movies ever made and an important movie in the spy genre. This stripped-down, bare-bones action movie was absolutely not what audiences or critics wanted after watching cinema's favorite spy get rebooted in such stylish and entertaining fashion, and even over a decade and a half later, . That's honestly an unfair assessment of a movie that, at the very least, was . Acting as a direct sequel, it picks up mere moments after the end of Casino Royale and sees as a cold, careless killing machine hunting down those responsible for the death of Vesper Lynd ().

It's James Bond a la , and that is something that everyone should get on board with. The shaky-cam action may be a product of its time, and the villains may not appeal to anyone, but there is something very satisfying about how ruthless Bond is here, and for the simple sake of variety, . Bond is a character that has come in a variety of flavors, and while this one might not be to every fan's taste, it certainly doesn't deserve the hate it's gotten.

There was no shortage of R-rated comedies in 2008. From and to and , there was plenty of material to keep audiences laughing out loud. Lost somewhere in the shuffle, though, was the highly underrated , which and director. and starred as energy drink spokesmen who, after a traffic altercation, are sentenced to community service in the form of acting as "big brothers" in a youth program. Rudd is teamed with the LARP-loving Augie (), while Scott gets foul-mouthed pre-teen Ronnie ().

Rudd and Scott both play to their strengths and make for a hilarious duo together, but the real chemistry is with their youth counterparts. Thompson is an F-bomb-dropping delight, while Mintz-Plasse proves McLovin wasn't a one-off success. The cast also includes , , , , and . It is a who's who of 2000's comedy stars, and director shows he knows how to utilize them just as well as he did the cast of his cult classic .

Coming off franchise, critics and audiences didn't know what to make of the ' bubble-gum pop anime adaptation . With its cartoonish visuals and themes of artistic integrity versus corporate interests, the movie was received with a confused shrug by many. Over time, it has gained a very vocal fan following, who have praised it for its kinetic racing sequences and visual storytelling that was ahead of its time.

stars as the titular character, part of a family of racers whose brother died previously. Now entering a circuit on his terms, he must contend with issues of race-fixing and corporate corruption within the racing league. It's surprisingly. The Wachowskis certainly have an uneven filmography, but along with the original Matrix film, Speed Racer is solid proof of their .

may have started his acting career among 'sstable of fast-talking criminals, but through the 2000s, he quickly became a star known for B-tier action in franchises like and . There are plenty of movies that have come to define Statham's career, but one that is often left off that list may also appeal to fans of the actor's Ritchie roots in the heist thriller . Based on a real-life heist, the '70s-set film is slick and breezy in an effortless way, whereas many current films of the genre end up feeling manufactured.

The heist plot involves a safe deposit box in a bank that happens to contain some very compromising photos of a member of the royal family, adding a level of political intrigue to the proceedings, which also involves real-life revolutionary . While some of the details may have been embellished or outright invented, it doesn't detract from what is an otherwise . Director has made a career out of similarly underrated thrillers, including the neo-noir and Cuban Missile Crisis drama .

Horror movies that focus on viral outbreaks usually fall under the zombie subgenre, which was still on the rise in 2008. While it might be hard to avoid an infectious bite amid a zombie hoard, it's arguably much harder to avoid the spoken word, which is how the infection is spread in the wildly original Canadian horror film . Based on the novel by ,this small-scale thriller in the small Canadian town of the title, where a shock jock and his crew try to maintain their sanity while a virus, which is spread through language, causes residents to devolve into murderous rage.

Character actor plays the lead role and carries the film on his shoulders as things quickly go from bad to worse while the linguistic plague ravages the town outside the radio station. The character-driven horror may be limited to the claustrophobic setting, but . Pontypool remains a stand-alone horror film that, ironically, .

The 21st century has had plenty of Westerns that can be ranked among the genre's best, plus many that are overlooked, the best of which is . Based on the novel of the same name by , the film was directed by , who stars alongside as two lawmen hired to protect a small town from a violent rancher who has run roughshod over it. The plot is fairly standard Western material, but it finds fertile ground to explore in its performances and character relationships.

As the brotherly lawmen, Harris and Mortensen have tremendous chemistry, while makes for a venomous villain and is promiscuously free-spirited as the young widow who Harris falls for. The relationships and unexpected humor help . Harris, along with cinematographer , stages the action handsomely. It's a downright shame that .

Coming the year after their Oscar-winner , the 'black comedy political thriller was never going to match the acclaim that film received (few films could). Still, the more muted critical response meant audiences were missing out on one of the filmmakers' funniest films, mixing a thriller plot with really stupid characters.

Coen regulars and center an all-star cast as a dimwitted, philandering U.S. marshal and a vapid, superficial gym employee, respectively, who become romantically involved. Clooney is also having an affair with , whose husband () is a former CIA analyst. Somehow, his mundane memoir finds its way into the hands of McDormand and her dumb blonde coworker (), who believes it to be classified information. Things get farcical fast as characters make mistakes that cause more confusion than anything else, and the Coen's continue their propensity for .

Though nobody saw when it was originally released, this visionary fantasy film has become a beloved cult classic thanks to its beautiful visual style. In an era where most fantasy efforts seem to supplement their settings with an abundance of CGI, Tarsem's film stands out for . The director financed the film himself and used his commercial directing jobs to scout locations and used the same crew to shoot scenes for the film to accomplish it on its $30 million budget.

plays a stuntman hospitalized from a debilitating injury who strikes up a friendship with a young female patient. He begins to tell the young girl fantastical tales of a bandit and his compatriots, which are . It's a fantastic adventure that struggled to find a distributor and . Eventually, MUBI recently picked the film up for a 4K restoration, making now the perfect time to view one of the most visually stunning fantasy films of the 21st century.

Before he was or Bane, turned in one of his best performances as real-life British criminal Michael Peterson, known for a time under the name Charles Bronson. The arthouse biopic , by Danish director , presents the criminal's time in prison with surreal interludes and unflinching violence while Hardy transforms himself physically into the brutish brawler.

Despite rave reviews for his performance, Hardy was completely overlooked by awards and critics groups, a trend that would continue for years. Indeed, the actor put in incredible work before he was finally nominated for his supporting role in . Bronson is, and the film built around it is a noteworthy addition to the prison drama subgenre thanks to Refn's typically gritty and stylized direction.

Clint Eastwood had a major resurgence in his directorial career in the 2000s, winning his second Academy Award for Million Dollar Baby. In 2008, he released two of his most underrated films: the elegiac thriller Gran Torino and the terrifying tale of true-life gaslighting in Changeling. The latter garnered a decent critical reception and a well-deserved Oscar nod for Angelina Jolie, but its quiet and reserved depiction of real-life mystery and murder is just as powerful as any of the other films of the year.

Jolie plays Christine Collins, a woman whose son Walter went missing in 1928, only for the police to find and return the boy to her months later, except that the boy wasn't Walter. Collins would attempt to fight the word of the LAPD, who were under pressure due to being publicly lambasted for corruption, but she would be silenced and sent to a psychiatric hospital where she was subjected to horrific abuse. It's an astonishing true crime story told with a feminist focus in J. Michael Straczynski's script, which is matched by Eastwood's economic direction. Jolie's performance forgoes any histrionics in favor of deep, emotional honesty. Changeling isn't just an underrated film of 2008 but one of the year's absolute best.

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