Some notes about films mentioned on this thread:
The Last Picture Show is one of my favorite films, but I probably wouldn’t call it an underappreciated film since it seems to be moderately well-known. It takes place not in 1955, but in 1951 and 1952.
The short called The Wizard of Speed and Time came out in 1979. The full-length feature by that name came out in 1988. The feature is a fictionalized version of Jittlov’s life. I wouldn’t quite put it into a list of my favorite films. It’s hard to understand unless you’ve seen Jittlov’s shorts.
Here’s a few more of my favorite lesser known films:
Black Moon Rising (1986, U.S., dir. Harley Cokliss)
Freaks (1932, U.S., dir. Tod Browning)
Seven Beauties (1976, Italy, dir. Lina Wertmuller)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983, U.S., dir. Jack Clayton)