10 Most Underrated Lord and Miller Projects
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have worked across animation, live-action comedy and television, but some of their most interesting projects do not receive the same attention as The Lego Movie, Jump Street or Spider-Verse. This list revisits ten films and shows from their wider creative circle, including titles they directed, created, wrote or produced. The credits vary, so each entry clarifies the main connection rather than treating every project as a co-directed film. “Underrated” is an editorial judgment here: it means a work that is easy to miss beside the biggest hits, not one that no audience has ever appreciated.
The ranking follows your requested order, from Connected—released as The Mitchells vs. the Machines—at #10 to Clone High at #1. It weighs distinctive ideas, execution, influence and how rewarding each title is to revisit. The countdown begins at #10 and works toward the project that most deserves a fresh audience. Every entry opens with a premise, then offers an assessment, reason for its place, viewing note and UK availability link. Lord and Miller’s roles are noted carefully: Will Forte created The Last Man on Earth, Chris Miller created The Afterparty, and several animated films were directed by other filmmakers.
An underrated title does not need to be perfect or obscure. It may have a strong idea that was overshadowed by a more famous release, a short run that left people wanting more, or a modest scale that sits outside the usual conversation about blockbuster comedy. Some of these projects have loyal fans already; the point is to make their specific strengths easier to see. A series like Clone High can have a cult following and still be under-discussed by viewers who know Lord and Miller only from their feature films. A gentle indie comedy like Brigsby Bear can be easy to miss because it looks so different from a studio animation franchise.
This ranking balances craft with rediscovery value. We look at what makes each project distinctive, where it falls short, and which viewers might connect with it now. Animation fans will find several entry points, while television viewers can explore sitcoms that experiment with format and tone. The viewing links point to JustWatch UK so you can check current availability before choosing a rental or subscription.
The word “underrated” can be used too casually, so the countdown explains the argument for every title instead of treating the label as a fact. A project can be well-liked and still deserve a wider audience; a strong idea may be remembered less often than a later hit, or its formal experiment may look unusual next to conventional franchise work. This list also separates critical reception from personal taste. Some viewers may prefer the accessible animation of Storks, while others will be drawn to the more offbeat tone of Son of Zorn or The Afterparty.
A viewer who is new to this catalogue can move from an animated family film to a short comedy series and see how the same creative team works in different settings. The goal is to make the next choice easier by describing each project’s strongest qualities and the kind of viewer most likely to value it.
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10. The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Katie Mitchell is an aspiring filmmaker whose excitement about leaving for college is complicated by tension with her father, Rick. On the family’s road trip to campus, a robot uprising interrupts their plans and leaves the Mitchells among the few people able to resist the machines. The animated adventure was directed by Mike Rianda and produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Its story turns a technology catastrophe into a family road movie, using Katie’s handmade videos and doodles to show how she sees the people she loves.
The film’s wild visual texture feels connected to Lord and Miller’s taste for animation that can shift its own rules, but its emotional centre belongs to Katie and Rick. Their conflict is specific: each cares deeply, yet each has trouble recognizing the other’s way of communicating. Abbi Jacobson and Danny McBride make that friction funny and affectionate, while the rapid edits, screen graphics and dog jokes give the robot battle a personal point of view. It ranks fifth because its ensemble warmth is strong, even if its comic density sometimes competes with the quieter family scenes.
It is often grouped with newer animation rather than the pair’s best-known films, but its visual personality and family story deserve another look.
Who should watch: Pick it for an inventive family adventure about creativity, technology and imperfect communication.
Where to watch: Check JustWatch UK for current options.
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9. Smallfoot
Migo is a young yeti who lives in a mountain community that believes the world ends at the clouds. After he encounters a human, the discovery challenges the rules and stories that hold his village together. The animated musical comedy was directed by Karey Kirkpatrick and produced with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller among its executive producers. Its adventure asks whether a community should protect comforting beliefs or explore evidence, while Migo tries to persuade his neighbours that the supposedly mythical smallfoot is real.
The film gives its yeti community a distinct comic culture, then uses songs and physical humour to make Migo’s discovery feel both exciting and unsettling. Channing Tatum’s enthusiastic lead performance helps sell the idea of a character who cannot keep a secret even when his entire world depends on it. Its story takes a familiar route through misunderstanding, but the village setting and belief debate are worth a fresh look. Lord and Miller’s role is producing rather than directing. Still, its brisk family adventure and curious attitude make it a fitting entry in the wider group of animated films they helped bring to audiences.
Its musical fantasy premise and ideas about truth make it an interesting, overlooked part of their producing catalogue.
Who should watch: Watch it with children or viewers who like musical animation and gentle adventure.
Where to watch: Check JustWatch UK for current options.
8. The Last Man on Earth
Phil Miller believes he is the last human alive after a global virus wipes out the population. He travels across an empty United States searching for survivors, then discovers that other people remain and that rebuilding society is harder than he expected. Will Forte created the Fox comedy and starred as Phil, with Lord and Miller among the executive producers. The series turns an apocalypse into an awkward social comedy, following a small group as they negotiate loneliness, romance, conflict and the everyday rules of starting over.
The show’s comic hook is its willingness to make survival problems ridiculous without pretending the characters are admirable. Phil’s selfishness and need for attention create friction even after the world has ended, and the ensemble gradually becomes the real engine of the series. Its long arcs and shifting cast make it an unusual sitcom, while the premise gives ordinary misunderstandings unusually high stakes. It deserves more attention from viewers who know Lord and Miller mainly through films, though its uneven characters and episodic shifts may not suit everyone. The series rewards patience with escalating commitment to its strange social experiment.
Its lonely-apocalypse premise becomes a character-driven comedy that is stranger and more ambitious than its title suggests.
Who should watch: Try it if you like awkward ensemble sitcoms, post-apocalyptic settings and escalating social chaos.
Where to watch: Check JustWatch UK for current options.
7. Storks
Junior is a top delivery stork at a company that has shifted from delivering babies to shipping consumer packages. When an old baby-making machine unexpectedly produces a child, Junior and human colleague Tulip must deliver her to a family before their boss finds out. Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland directed the animated comedy, with Lord and Miller among its producers. Its premise lets the film mix workplace satire, slapstick travel and a story about people who are searching for connection even when they do not know how to ask for it.
Storks turns a familiar childhood myth into a brisk office comedy, full of conveyor belts, deadlines and corporate language. The funniest scenes often come from the film committing to a visual bit long after an adult audience expects it to stop, while the wolf pack sequence supplies a standout transformation gag. The story’s emotional point is simple but sincere: families are made through care and attention, not perfect timing. Its jokes are broad, but the office setting and creature gags make the film more playful than its reputation suggests. Lord and Miller were producers.
Its broad package-film reputation can hide the inventive office satire and playful creature gags inside.
Who should watch: It is a good pick for family movie night and viewers who like fast slapstick.
Where to watch: Check JustWatch UK for current options.
6. Brigsby Bear
James has spent his life watching Brigsby Bear, a children’s television show made for an audience of one by the people who raised him. When he discovers the truth about the world outside, he returns to society with an unusual goal: finish the story of his favourite show by making a movie. Dave McCary directed the indie comedy, with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller among the producers. The premise could invite mockery, but the film treats James’s attachment to the show as a real creative language and a first step toward connection.
Brigsby Bear is a quieter, more tender project than the big studio comedies associated with Lord and Miller. Its humour grows from James’s sincere understanding of a strange show, while the people around him gradually choose to help him create something. Kyle Mooney plays the character with vulnerability, and the film’s handmade production details make the act of filmmaking feel accessible rather than grand. It has remained less widely seen than the duo’s franchise work, which is why it fits an underrated list. The small scale is a strength, though viewers looking for fast jokes or a conventional comedy may need to adjust expectations.
It is a warm, low-key story about fandom, filmmaking and making a place for yourself after isolation.
Who should watch: Best for viewers who enjoy gentle indie comedies, creative communities and stories about recovery.
Where to watch: Check JustWatch UK for current options.
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5. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
Five years after the events of The Lego Movie, Bricksburg has become a rougher place, and Emmet’s optimism looks out of step with the new reality. When visitors from the Systar System take Lucy and their friends away, Emmet travels to rescue them and meets the confident Rex Dangervest. Mike Mitchell directed the sequel, which Lord and Miller wrote and produced. The story brings the characters into a new setting, then uses the contrast between imaginative play and growing up to give its comedy a more reflective tone.
The sequel’s biggest strength is how it revisits the first film’s toys and characters from a changed emotional perspective. Emmet’s cheerful outlook is still funny, but the story now asks whether optimism can listen to people who are worried. The Systar System’s bright musical numbers and Rex’s exaggerated action-hero persona supply lively comic contrasts. The original’s surprise is difficult to repeat, and the sequel’s ideas take time to click together; its emotional view of change makes a rewatch worthwhile. Still, it gives Lucy and Emmet more room to grow and extends the franchise’s interest in how people share the act of making things.
The sequel’s change-of-tone ideas deserve more credit than its reputation as a follow-up to a hit often allows.
Who should watch: Watch it after the original if you enjoy Lego comedy with themes about change and growing up.
Where to watch: Check JustWatch UK for current options.
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4. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Flint Lockwood is an aspiring inventor in a town whose sardine industry has collapsed. He builds a machine that turns water into food, and the invention initially makes Swallow Falls famous as meals rain from the sky. When the weather system begins producing enormous, dangerous food, Flint must work with weather presenter Sam Sparks, his father and his friends to stop it. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller directed the animated feature, adapting the picture-book idea into a story about ambition, family and unintended consequences.
The film’s comic engine is visual and verbal at once: a town’s daily life becomes a string of escalating food-based absurdities, while Flint’s need for approval gives the invention an emotional purpose. Bill Hader and Anna Faris make the central pairing buoyant, and James Caan gives Flint’s relationship with his father a quiet tenderness. Some jokes pile up so quickly that the plot feels secondary, but the animation turns silliness into clear action. This early feature shows their taste for escalating a simple premise and is often overlooked beside their later hits.
The first feature already shows the inventive visual comedy that later became a signature, and it still feels under-celebrated beside their bigger hits.
Who should watch: Watch it with families or anyone who enjoys physical comedy, imaginative animation and a warm parent-child thread.
Where to watch: Check JustWatch UK for current options.
3. Son of Zorn
Zorn is a legendary warrior from a fantasy island who returns to suburban Orange County after years away. He wants to reconnect with his ex-wife Edie and teenage son Alan, but the ordinary rhythms of work, school and co-parenting are foreign to him. The series combines a live-action family sitcom with an animated barbarian hero, letting Zorn’s violent instincts collide with office etiquette and domestic compromise. Lord and Miller were executive producers on the single-season comedy, whose central joke is the mismatch between epic fantasy and mundane modern life.
The visual contrast does much of the work: a sword-wielding animated warrior stands beside live-action neighbours who have to treat him like a difficult but recognizable family member. Jason Sudeikis gives Zorn grand confidence, while the suburban setting makes his every attempt at ordinary behaviour feel ridiculous. The series can be broad and its one-season run leaves some ideas underdeveloped, but the hybrid premise remains unusual. Still, its hybrid form is a memorable comic gamble and a good example of Lord and Miller’s interest in taking a strange premise literally enough to find the joke inside it.
Its animated-live-action format was a bold sitcom experiment that still stands apart from more famous Lord and Miller titles.
Who should watch: Try it if you enjoy fantasy parody, workplace sitcoms and surreal visual contrasts.
Where to watch: Check JustWatch UK for current options.
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2. The Afterparty
At a high school reunion hosted at a glamorous mansion, pop star Xavier is found dead, and every guest becomes a suspect. Detective Danner questions the attendees, but the series turns each account into a different film or television genre, reflecting the storyteller’s personality and memory. Aniq, a former classmate with a crush on Zoe, wants to clear his name and understand what happened. The first season’s self-contained mystery makes it a playful showcase for Chris Miller’s comic instincts. before the situation spirals further.
Chris Miller created The Afterparty, while Phil Lord was among the executive producers; that distinction matters because this is a Lord and Miller production connection rather than a film they co-directed. The shifting visual grammar is the hook: one character remembers a broad comedy, another a thriller, and another a musical. It lets the show parody genres while keeping its central puzzle legible. Sam Richardson gives Aniq warmth and nervous momentum, and Tiffany Haddish anchors the investigation with dry confidence. Its pleasures are narrower than the duo’s defining movies, but its format is an inventive fit for structural jokes.
Its inventive storytelling format deserves more attention, especially from viewers who think of Chris Miller mainly as a film director.
Who should watch: Choose it if you enjoy ensemble mysteries, unreliable memories and episodes that change style with each witness.
Where to watch: Check JustWatch UK for current options.
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1. Clone High
In a high school populated by cloned versions of historical figures, Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra and Gandhi try to manage friendship, romance and teenage status. The students have famous names, but the series treats them as awkward adolescents caught in familiar school problems. Lord and Miller co-created the animated comedy with Bill Lawrence, and its short episodes use parody, melodrama and deliberately exaggerated character types. A revival later brought the school back, but the original run established the show’s strange combination of smart references and intentionally silly teen humour.
Clone High feels like a sketch of Lord and Miller’s later strengths in miniature: a strong high-concept premise, quick visual jokes and characters whose emotional needs remain recognizable under the absurdity. Its mock-serious narration and cliffhangers lovingly imitate teen television while making the historical-clone idea feel even more ridiculous. The show is also a useful reminder that their collaboration has included television, animation and writing, not only theatrical films. The original run is brief and some jokes reflect their era, yet the central concept remains fresh and the comic voice is unmistakable.
It is the most overlooked foundational project in their catalogue: a strange, influential animated comedy that still feels unlike anything else.
Who should watch: Try it if you like animated satire, high-school melodrama and rapid-fire absurdity.
Where to watch: Check JustWatch UK for current options.
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Conclusion
The projects on this list show how varied Lord and Miller’s creative circle can be. Clone High and The Afterparty turn a strong format into a steady source of comedy, while The Last Man on Earth and Son of Zorn take sitcom premises into strange territory. Brigsby Bear shifts to gentle indie storytelling, and the animated films range from broad family comedy to a more reflective sequel. The credits differ, but each project adds something distinct to the broader picture of their work.
Clone High tops the ranking because its concept remains instantly funny and its short episodes give the satire room to move. The Afterparty is the best pick for a modern mystery, Brigsby Bear suits a quieter mood, and Mitchells is an energetic family adventure that deserves a rewatch. If one of these titles passed you by, use the viewing links to see whether it is available in the UK and choose the kind of story you want. An overlooked project can be a particularly satisfying next watch when it reveals a side of a familiar creative team you have not seen before.
These projects are also a reminder that a creative catalogue is larger than its biggest box-office successes. A short-lived series, a smaller independent film or a supporting production credit can reveal a different interest or a new comic risk. If one title catches your attention, it is worth exploring the work around it.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most underrated Lord and Miller project?
This ranking names Clone High first because its historical-clone premise, fast satire and distinctive style remain rewarding, while the duo’s feature films receive more attention.
Did Lord and Miller create The Last Man on Earth?
No. Will Forte created and starred in the series. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were among its executive producers.
Who created The Afterparty?
Chris Miller created The Afterparty, and Phil Lord was an executive producer. Its genre-changing mystery format is one of the show’s defining ideas.
What does Connected refer to?
Connected was the original title of the animated film later released as The Mitchells vs. the Machines.
Did Lord and Miller direct Brigsby Bear?
No. Dave McCary directed Brigsby Bear. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were among the producers.
Are the Lord and Miller animated films all directed by them?
No. They co-directed films such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The Lego Movie, while other projects were directed by filmmakers including Mike Rianda, Karey Kirkpatrick and others.
Is Clone High still worth watching?
Its short original run has a distinct comedic voice and remains interesting for viewers who enjoy animation, school satire and high-concept parody.
What is Brigsby Bear about?
It follows a young man who grew up watching a children’s show made for him and later tries to complete its story by making a film with new friends.
Why is Smallfoot on an underrated list?
It offers an animated musical about a yeti community questioning what it believes. Lord and Miller were executive producers, though they did not direct it.
Where can I check availability for these titles in the UK?
The JustWatch UK links in each entry show current streaming, rental and purchase options, which may change over time.
More Places to Find Great Movies and TV Shows
The Lord and Miller filmmaker profile and Sony Pictures Animation’s Spider-Verse page provide official project information. IMDb is useful for cast and release details, while Rotten Tomatoes gathers reviews and JustWatch UK checks current viewing options.
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