An objectively great movie? There’s no such thing. Give me a movie that “everyone” loves, and I’ll find you someone that hates it. Just look at IMDb at the ratings for any “classic” and sort for its lowest reviews. You’ll see someone calling The Godfather “the most inexplicably overrated piece of trash” ever, or another person referring to The Shawshank Redemption as “a sewage pump for every idiotic Prison Movie cliché ever made.” Yikes.
Or better yet: I’ll give you 20 movies I think are definitely overrated. None of the 20 titles below might not be on par with generational favorites The Godfather or The Shawshank Redemption, but they are all popular hits that got good-to-great reviews from film critics, and made millions (or, in at least one case, well over a billion dollars) at the worldwide box office. People love these movies! People, but not me.
Just to give you a sense of the overall wider consensus on these 20 movies, I’ve also provided each’s average Letterboxd score, all of which place them in positive territory. But I could have just as well included these films’ Rotten Tomatoes’ ratings (all but one are rated fresh there, and most qualify for the site’s “Certified Fresh” designation because they were so popular with critics). A few even won Oscars — and I’m not talking about Best Costume Design, I’m talking Academy Award Best Picture winners.
In other words, these movies could hardly be more popular. But not with me. Sorry!
Movies That Everyone Loves That Are Actually Bad
Sorry, guys. We just can’t get with the consensus on these popular but not-great movies.
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