forgotten movie – From Nicolas Winding Refn’s crime-soaked Pusher films to Satyajit Ray’s Apu life cycle, these seven movie trilogies are largely missing from mainstream conversation—yet each one delivers on craft, emotion, and lasting impact.
The argument for watching a trilogy isn’t just about convenience—it’s about momentum. The best ones feel like a filmmaker’s full sentence: three films that keep revealing new meaning, rather than repeating the same point with a different title card.
But while audiences have been trained to chase the biggest mainstream sagas. a quieter set of trilogies has been building its own legacy—often underseen. sometimes misunderstood. and consistently praised by critics for doing something braver than playing it safe. Here are seven forgotten (or at least widely ignored) trilogies where every entry earns its place.
The Pusher Trilogy (1996–2005) starts with Pusher (1996), which marked the film debuts of Mads Mikkelsen and Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn. Starring Kim Bodnia. the story follows a low-level drug dealer trying desperately to pay back a powerful Serb drug lord (Zlatko Burić) after losing his money in a deal gone wrong. Refn initially didn’t plan a sequel. but after suffering financial troubles in the early 2000s. he returned to the world and expanded it with two follow-ups.
Pusher II (2004) focuses on Mikkelsen’s character from the first film. while Pusher 3 (2005) shifts attention to Burić’s crime boss character. Milo. Even with the trilogy living in an interconnected world, each film plays like its own standalone story. All three dig into Copenhagen’s criminal underworld with gruesome realism. and what critics and fans often point to is how the violence is rooted in psychological struggle. The debut mattered too: the first film effectively launched Refn’s, Bodnia’s, and Mikkelsen’s careers.
The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959) follows a very different kind of rise—one shaped by time. place. and the slow weight of growing up. Directed by Satyajit Ray. the collection is adapted from two celebrated Bengali novels and unfolds across three Bengali-language dramas centered on the titular protagonist. Apu.
The series begins with Pather Panchali (1955). starring Subir Banerjee as the young Apurba “Apu” Roy. a boy growing up in the countryside in late-1910s Bengal. Aparajito (1956) stars Pinaki Sengupta and Smaran Ghosal and continues Apu’s story as an adolescent living in Varanasi. The final film. The World of Apu (1959). stars Soumitra Chatterjee as an adult Apu and Sharmila Tagore as his wife. Aparna. as their life plays out in Calcutta.
Outside film circles. the Apu Trilogy isn’t always as widely known today. but scholars and cinephiles treat it like essential cinema history. Each film has earned universal acclaim and won accolades. and the series has been cited as an important influence on works by prominent contemporary filmmakers. including Martin Scorsese. Wes Anderson. Barry Jenkins. and more.
Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours Trilogy (1993–1994) is built from the idea that emotion can be structured like philosophy. Directed and co-written by Kieślowski. the trilogy consists of psychological dramas named for a color from the Flag of France—and each one examines the revolutionary ideal the color represents.
The films are an international co-production between France, Poland, and Switzerland. They’re not directly linked, but they share a world through cameo appearances. Three Colours: Blue stars Juliette Binoche and Benoît Régent. Three Colours: White stars Zbigniew Zamachowski and Julie Delpy. Three Colours: Red stars Irène Jacob and Jean-Louis Trintignant.
These weren’t just respected entries; they became a capstone. The Three Colours trilogy is Kieślowski’s final masterpiece. closing a career that kicked off with the 1993 release of Blue. White and Red arrived the next year. and each film earned universal praise for grounded exploration of human interactions. introspection about political ideals. and subversion of established narrative tropes.
Accolades followed. Three Colours: Red, in particular, received Academy Award nominations for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography.
If the trilogies above are about worlds shaped by character, The Death Trilogy (2000–2006) is about worlds shaped by connection. Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga. the thematic and stylistic collection begins with Iñárritu’s feature directorial debut. Amores Perros (2000). The film also marked the film debut of actor Gael García Bernal and follows three interconnected stories exploring life in Mexico City.
The success of Amores Perros led to 21 Grams (2003), starring Benicio del Toro, Naomi Watts, and Sean Penn, and to Babel (2006). Babel stars Bernal, Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, and more, and both later films also use intertwining stories. Critically, the trilogy landed hard. It brought Iñárritu international fame and established him as one of the brightest minds in the industry.
Awards and momentum mattered across the trilogy. Amores Perros earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. 21 Grams competed for the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion. won Sean Penn the Volpi Cup. and earned del Toro and Watts Oscar nominations. Babel—the most celebrated of all—received seven Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe.
The Mexico Trilogy (1993–2003). also known as the Desperado Trilogy and El Mariachi Trilogy. swings into view with the kind of energy that doesn’t ask permission. Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. the series is made of American/Mexican westerns that earned a reputation for gunslinger thrills. music. and charismatic performances.
El Mariachi (1993) began as an ultra-low-budget film that Rodriguez self-produced, with Carlos Gallardo starring as the titular hero. Its unexpected success led to two sequels: Desperado (1995) and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), both starring Antonio Banderas. Rodriguez’s influence is part of the trilogy’s afterlife here—he’s credited with showing that a truly entertaining film can be made on a shoestring budget.
El Mariachi also made headlines beyond cinema: it set a Guinness World Record for being the lowest-budgeted film ever to gross $1 million at the box office. The later films had much bigger budgets. but they remained “relatively modest” compared with mainstream scales—and the trilogy’s entries are still treated like equally brilliant works of cinema.
Lucrecia Martel’s Salta Trilogy (2001–2008) is the kind of series that can feel hard to classify—until it starts to sink into your taste. Written and directed by Martel, the films explore stories of women in Salta, Argentina, her hometown.
La Ciénaga (2001) is Martel’s debut film. It stars Graciela Borges, Mercedes Morán, Martín Adjemián, and Daniel Valenzuela. The second film. The Holy Girl. stars Morán. María Alche. and Julieta Zylberberg and was executive produced by Pedro Almodóvar. The Headless Woman (2008). the final film of the trilogy. stars María Onetto and follows a psychological thriller story with an approach “vastly different” from other films in the genre.
All three films have been widely acclaimed for exploring gender, sexuality, and feminine identity. The Holy Girl and The Headless Woman each earned nominations for the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or award.
Martel’s work is far from mainstream. with a severe arthouse style and diffuse narratives that can be difficult for casual viewers. Still. the trilogy’s reputation is firm: it’s regularly hailed as among the greatest works of Argentine cinema and one of the best trilogies ever completed in cinematic history.
Masaki Kobayashi’s The Human Condition Trilogy (1959–1961) is the final entry, and it doesn’t let up. Directed and co-written by Kobayashi, The Human Condition is a single continuous story split between three films: No Greater Love (1959), Road to Eternity (1959), and A Soldier’s Prayer (1961).
Based on Junpei Gomikawa’s novel. the war drama trilogy stars Tatsuya Nakadai as Kaji. an idealistic and good-hearted man who suffers unending tragedies due to the clash between his ideals and the cruel realities of life under the Imperial Japanese government during World War II. Across the trilogy. Kaji moves through roles that strip away stability: he becomes a labor camp supervisor. an Imperial Army soldier. and a Soviet POW.
He keeps clinging to one hope—reuniting with his loving wife Michiko, played by Michiyo Aratama. Kobayashi’s anti-imperial narrative made the series highly controversial in Japan at the time of its release. but in the years since it has been widely acknowledged as an epic cycle on par with classical Greek tragedies.
Internationally. the series earned high critical acclaim. received multiple awards. and helped establish Kobayashi as one of Japan’s most important filmmakers. The Human Condition remains a highly emotional and extraordinarily compelling drama. exploring the human-made horrors of war and the undying resilience of the human spirit.
Across these seven trilogies, the common thread isn’t just quality—it’s commitment. Each collection takes its own risks, builds worlds that feel lived-in, and sustains attention film after film. They may not dominate conversations the way the biggest franchises do. But for viewers who want craft. daring. and lasting impact. this is the kind of cinema that keeps giving long after the credits roll.
movie trilogies underrated trilogies Pusher Trilogy Apu Trilogy Three Colours Trilogy The Death Trilogy The Mexico Trilogy Salta Trilogy The Human Condition Nicolas Winding Refn Satyajit Ray Krzysztof Kieslowski Alejandro González Iñárritu Robert Rodriguez Lucrecia Martel Masaki Kobayashi