Choose Life...

Two words, and you already know what's coming: grimy Edinburgh flats, a sprint through traffic and a needle-sharp soundtrack you could pick out of a lineup.

Yes, that's Trainspotting. Irvine Welsh's 1993 debut novel gave Scotland one of its best-known cultural exports, and when Danny Boyle brought it to the screen three years later, it became something else entirely - a cult classic that's still finding new fans decades on.

But Trainspotting is just one film. Scottish cinema has been quietly producing brilliant, bizarre and genuinely heartbreaking work for years, most of it overlooked. We think it's about time someone fixed that. So here are five underrated Scottish films that have absolutely nothing to do with Renton and his mates.

Calibre

2018

• Genre: Horror, Thriller, Suspense
• Where to watch: Netflix

Real friends help you bury a body, or so the joke goes. But Marcus and Vaughn are about to find out it's not that funny.

With Vaughn about to become a dad for the first time, Marcus plans one last hurrah before life changes forever - a hunting weekend in a remote Highland village, just the two of them. Then Vaughn pulls the trigger. Except it's not a deer he hits: it's a child. Confess, or cover it up? Whatever they choose, nothing will ever be normal again.

This movie is every bit as tense and devastating as it sounds. Oxygen tank advised - you'll be holding your breath the whole way through.

Neds

2010

• Genre: Drama
• Where to watch: Apple TV

Glasgow in the '70s wasn't a gentle place to grow up. Poverty and gang warfare had earned the city a grim nickname - Britain's gang capital - and the territorial "young teams" running the estates didn't care much whether you had other plans. To them, every kid was fair game. That's the world Peter Mullan drops us into with his gritty coming-of-age drama, Neds. Right in the middle of it is John McGill - clever, ambitious, with a real shot at making something of himself. But being brainy isn’t enough to keep him out of trouble, and it’s not long before he falls in with the wrong crowd. Though there's still time to turn things around, the question is: will he?

The Wee Man

2013

• Genre: Crime/Thriller
• Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Tubi

Small, bullied, nobody's idea of a threat - that was Paul Ferris as a kid. It didn't stay that way.

Under the mentorship of Glasgow crime boss Arthur Thompson, Ferris climbs fast through the city's underworld. Too fast, as it turns out. The higher he rises, the more people want him gone - including Thompson's own son. The Wee Man tells his true story, and none of it is sugarcoated.

The Angels’ Share

2012

• Genre: Comedy/Crime
• Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

Robbie's just dodged a jail sentence by the skin of his teeth, and with a baby on the way, he's determined to go straight this time. Community service at a whisky distillery seems like the dullest part of that plan - until a mentor discovers Robbie has a freakishly good nose for whisky, and suddenly he and his fellow offenders are plotting something bigger than litter-picking: a heist.

It's a feel-good watch, but underneath the laughs is a sharp look at escaping poverty against the odds.

Dog Soldiers

2002

• Genre: Action/Horror/Monster
• Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

The Scottish Highlands aren't short on wildlife. Deer, badgers, wildcats, you know. The usual suspects. But this film adds one more to the list: werewolves.

A British army squad on a routine night exercise gets caught out by a pack of them, and ends up barricaded in a falling-down farmhouse with a local zoologist and an arsenal of assault rifles as their only hope of making it to dawn. If you're into classic military action-horror, this one's for you. It's fun, a bit cheesy in places, and the effects haven't aged brilliantly, but it still manages to impress - mostly thanks to the witty one-liners, which genuinely make the film.