The worst critically acclaimed film you’ve ever seen

The Favourite is a recent head scratcher for me.

I’ve also never understood the Citizen Kane hype.

The English Patient.

I adore you r1

I love you r1!!! I forgot to sign r3

Avengers: Infinity War. I found it to be a confusing mess.

The new film better tie things up and be a lot better!!

P.S. And the villain was so generic.

[quote]I’ve also never understood the Citizen Kane hype.

Understanding Citizen Kane does require some knowledge of film history and film theory.

Wow. The Designated Mourner. I'd forgotten that movie even exists.

CMBYN

Chocolat Chicago The English Patient

R7, it was painful to sit through. All about telling and not showing.

"The Designated Mourner" was based on a play by Wallace Shawn, the co-star of "My Dinner With Andre," another critically acclaimed film that I thought was a piece of shit.

The Master.

Another vote for The English Patient.

Schindler’s List

(Sorry)

Forrest Gump.

All That Jazz

"Once."

And its subsequent musical I have avoided like the plague.

12 Years A Slave. The book was much better. The movie was a calculating sob-fest of material that has been covered many times before. Should never have won the Oscar - the Academy was almost bullied and blackmailed into it.

Brokeback Mountain. What a piece of shit! Why is it so popular?

That movie with Sissy Spacek where she slaps Marisa Tomei. Dreadful.

R19 It was Brokeback Mountain that should have won the Oscar that year instead of the shit-filled Crash. Even the director said that he didn't know why it won.

In the Bedroom r20? That was instantly forgettable to me. A similar movie that same year was The Deep End with Tilda Swinton, but that one stayed with me much longer.

R18 Same thing happened with Moonlight, La La Land was a pretty piece of nothing and it was still much better than Moonlight plus people actually wanted to watch Emma Stone trying to sing. The american press was relentless in its petty manipulation of Oscar voters.

I hated Forrest Gump, first time (an last time) I watched it I couldn't believe my eyes, that such a cheesy, manipulative retelling of history could be lauded as a great film. One of the dumbest things I've seen, the worst part was that it was shown to me during history class...

Boyhood . So fucking dull.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

Anything by Paul Thomas Anderson.

R24 I had forgotten about Boyhood, to me it reas as too by the numbers and almost "After School Special" at times. I remember all my pretentious friends raving about it like it was the second coming, some other boy from that same group and me agreed it wasn't worth our time.

R25 don't forget The Draughtsman Contract, absurdly slow and building towards the most unsatisfying conclusion I've seen in film. They should have at least added a shot of the mother and the daughter laughing themselves to tears at the thought of having gotten away with everything so easily, with the Draughtsman head hanging above their fireplace.

Too hard to follow to thrill and too toothless to be satire.

R27 Exactly. It's awkward to dislike a movie that everyone else seems to adore, but what can you do.

Three Billboards whatever...

R30 At the time I liked it but I agree that the story is too riddled with absurdity to be believable. The deer scene was so cheesy I almosted laughed.

The Designated Mourner critically acclaimed? The play certainly (and it is great), but everyone knew the film sucked from the get go. I am sure there is possibly one positive review somewhere, but only the ever-deluded David Hare could ever consider it "critically acclaimed.'

I don’t even remember the deer scene.

Anything by Peter Greenaway, Robert Altman, or Greg Araki.

All three peddle pretentiousness in the guise of depth.

The paucity of Altman's talent was really shown up when he filmed Beyond Therapy (1987). That was one of the funniest plays ever to hit Broadway, and he turned it into humourless dreck beyond comprehension.

Once Upon a Time in America wins the thread.

A piece of garbage.

Greenaway has so much male nudity do we even care if the movie is good or not ?

Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Master as someone had already mentioned. Any film by Paul Thomas Anderson, yes, but more so when it comes to Lars von Trier. Will never understand critics love for his shitty movies.

I don't get the hate for Paul Thomas Anderson; he can be brilliant, as in Inherent Vice and The Phantom Thread. Perhaps he's an acquired taste? And Altman's Nashville is an all time great American film. Ditto Mash (not the awful TV show.

American Beauty. So much bullshit.

Almost any Wes Anderson film but I did enjoy The Grand Budapest Hotel movie although I hated the downbeat ending and it showing off the fantastic set design. I also thought his recent dog movie was charming.

Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge has a lot of haters. I love it but turn it off before Nicole dies.

12 Years A Slave, was just boring and too long.

Singin in the Rain

I will defend Altman's Gosford Park to my dying breath.

Um, everyone with good taste should like Gosford Park.

Gosford and Three Women are a couple of my favorites. But other Altman films including his most acclaimed, Nashville, are boring to me.

Kane is a disappointment. Technically brilliant but emotionally cold. Welles seems to have realized that so he made The Magnificent Ambersons even in it's truncated form America's greatest sound film.

Pollock

Avengers: Endgame.

The Piano, The English Patient , The Favorite ...a lot of movies that start with “the” tend to be ponderous and pretentious

Melancholia

Million Dollar Baby American Beauty Three Billboards Manchester by the Sea

I actually left the theater angry after watching these garbage films.

The Exorcist

All Terrence Malick's films: gorgeous but dull, like a 30-second commercial stretched to the max.

American Beauty was brilliant. Honestly some of you bitches only have taste in your mouths. I do agree about Brokeback though,what a yawn fest.The English Patient should have passed out razors at the beginning so we could all slit our throats about halfway through. Id like to throw Jacobs Ladder and any Daniel Day Lewis movie in .

The movie Floppy Poopy Turds is a sequel to. Talk about a triumph of hype over substance.

R46, me too. That’s one I can watch over and over and over again. Love it.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Spielberg tried to find a middle ground between Stanley Kubrick and Walt Disney and failed miserably.

[quote] Kane is a disappointment. Technically brilliant but emotionally cold.

Kane is not just technically brilliant (whatever that means). It's a great film because it pushed film language (visual and narrative) further than any film before, which is why the film needs to be understood in the context of film theory and film history.

[quote]Honestly some of you bitches only have taste in your mouths.

As opposed to the ones whose tastes are in their asses?

Love that film, r60. My favorite Spielberg film after Raiders.

R62 are you that dim witted? A troll?

Rainman. I don't know if it was critically acclaimed but this piece of crap won an Oscar.

Gravity

I couldn't stop laughing at how dumb it was.

R64, he who smelt it dealt it.

The best review of GRAVITY was written by this DL-er.

LOOKIT IS RUSSIAN ICON IN RUSSIAN SHUTTLE AND BUDDHA IN CHINESE SHUTTLE. IS SYMBOLISM OF MAN.S UNVIERSAL NEED FOR GOD. BECAUSE SANDRA BULLCKS HAS LOST HER FAITH IN GOD BECAUSE HER BABBY DIED. SHE LEFT EARTHS BECAUSE SHE WANTED TO FIND GOD IN SPACE BUT GOD LIVES IN PEOPLE. SHE REALIZES THIS WHEN SHE HEARS THE FRENCHMAN TALKING TO HIS BABBY ON THE RADIO. ONCE SHE REALIZES THIS SHE CAN RETURN HOME TO EARTHS AND IS REBORN!

—Alfonso Cuaron

"LOOKIT IS FROG. IS SYMBOL OF SANDRA BLALOCK'S REBIRTHS AND ALSO EVOLUTIONS JURNEY FROM THE OCEAN TO THE LAND. SANDRA EMMERGES FROM PRIMORDIAL WATERS TO PRIMEVAL FOREST LIKE OUR ANCESTORS, THE MIGHTY AMPHIBIANS. WE HAVE COME FULL CIRCLE, FROM THE STARS TO THE SEA TO THE LAND. LIKE A GRAND AND MIRACULOUS SPACESHIP, OUR PLANET HAS SAILED THROUGH THE UNIVERSE OF TIME. YOUR VEHICLE DOORS WILL OPEN AUTOMATICALLY. PLEASE TAKE YOUR BELONGINGS AND WATCH YOUR STEP ON THE MOVING PLATFORM.

—Alfonso Cuaron

While I understand you need to appreciate Citizen Kane for its artful originality, I still don't like it. I've tried and tried.

Always thought "Silence of the Lambs" was creepy garbage.

John Cassevetes' Faces. The NYT went wild and intimidated the Academy for two supporting nominations.

[quote][R18] Same thing happened with Moonlight, La La Land was a pretty piece of nothing and it was still much better than Moonlight plus people actually wanted to watch Emma Stone trying to sing. The american press was relentless in its petty manipulation of Oscar voters.

La La Land is dreadful. Especially the ending is manipulative bs. I wouldn't call Moonlight a perfect film by any means but there's something extrememly fragile and beautiful about it. La La Land is a total chick flick disguised as a semi-musical/art film. I totally get why Moonlight won over that exact film even if it would've lost against a stronger contender.

THE RAGING BULL

That movie is a piece of raw sewage.

Not a single sympathetic, likeable, decent character to be found.

Of all the athletes out there deserving of a movie about their life, Scorsese and De Niro thought Jake Lamotta was worth the effort?

R72, AGREED. I love Taxi Driver, King of Comedy, Goodfellas and Bringing Out the Dead far more than Raging Bull, probably the most overrated film of the last 40 years.

None of those are worse than [italic]Gangs of New York[/italic].

Moonlight is 2/3rds of a masterpiece; the last section is dull and cowardly.

Would it be racist to say they chickened out?

Yes I drive for hours to see the man I love so I can touch his face. Hollywood gave this movie Best Picture...

The Artist.

I did not care for The Raging Bull either.

Maybe I am just biased to films that are emotionally moving, so I thought Moonlight was terrific. If you are more into prettiness and films that take you away from strong emotion, then I can see how LaLa Land seems like a better film.

Moonlight was about the kind of people you meet in real life, but never see in movies.

La La Land was about the kind of people you see in movies, but never meet in real life.

LaLa Land is deeper than you think. People like to knock it down like they do Titanic....

r81 idk about that...

i've seen neither lalaland nor moonlight but read the synopsis just now for both.

i've never seen a crack dealer irl but have seen them in movies. i've known many aspiring singers/performers irl. so to me moonlight is about the sort of people i've never seen irl but have seen in movies and la la land appears to be about the sort of people i've seen irl as well as in movies.

My Dinner with Andre.

A Star Is Born. Lady Gaga can't act for shit.

Lost In Translation. I usually love Bill Murray but that movie sucked.

Hope Springs with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones. Anyone seen that piece of shit? They play a couple who are bored in their marriage so they go to a marriage retreat to get the passion back, which results in a frumpy Meryl trying to get her sexy back by putting on makeup, doing her hair, and asking TLJ to give her oral sex.

There's so many. I just watched one last night - ARRIVAL. Ridiculous in every fucking way. Profound poppycock, Amy Adams & Jeremy Renner & Forest Whitaker all fellating a big tapered poppycock until the audience is totally sprayed with drivel.

[quote]People like to knock it down like they do Titanic....

Titanic was just a few excellent special effects tied together with wretched dialogue.

Here's a scene where Amy & Forest & Jeremy have to stop marveling at black smoke rings for a minute and watch God take a shit on mankind:

Academy-fave "Life is Beautiful" was so over-hyped.

Agree with all the "Forrest Gump" haters.

[quote]LaLa Land is deeper than you think. People like to knock it down like they do Titanic....

Deepness can mean different things, I mean let's face it Bridesmaids probably holds deep values for some viewers, but I assume that with La La Land you're possibly talking about the weird mood change at the end. Yes, it was a clever emotional trick which seems to have worked for some. I was personally annoyed by it, especially because the film itself was just another non-engaging het romance I couldn't give a shit about. When the film ended I was angry at myself for having spent two hours watching that piece of crap. Yes, it's technically well made and the actors are fine even if the writing doesn't convince me. There's some weird emptiness to the whole experience, like the makers forgot something important. The film does try to have some artistic flair, I give it that, but honestly next to films like Paris, Texas (by Wim Wenders) La La Land seems total garbage. That's obviously my opinion since films tend to work differently for different people. The only thing I cared about in La La Land was trying to catch Gosling's bulge.

You can save two hours of your life and watch this SNL clip instead. It pretty much serves the same emotional purpose.

[quote]As opposed to the ones whose tastes are in their asses?

Don’t knock it — I can suck your dick as you’re plowing my ass.

Titanic

Forrest Gump

Pulp Fiction

Lala Land

Unwatchable dreck as far as I'm concerned...

Also, didnt really care for Black Panther or Bohemian Rhapsody - both were a letdown after all the hype.....

Brokeback Mountain.

R83, if you know early-career performers, than you will not know anyone like the characters in La La Land. They are what people in Iowa think LA singers, musicians, and actors are like. They wear expensive clothes and live in expensive apartments but bemoan how they are "struggling." Like chorus girls in an MGM musical, they fervently believe that they just need that one break to become rich and famous. (Or maybe richer is a better term since no one is suffering from poverty.)

It is a lot of fun but completely cardboard and meaningless.

La La Land is one of my favorite films of the past decade. I love what Damien Chazelle did and I never understood the fierce backlash against this film. It’s a very worthy successor to films like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

August: Osage County

Gravity

Three Billboards blah, blah, blah

Touch Of Evil was awful too. I just hate Orson Welles and other superman-artist types. He was emblematic of the bombast and delusion of the era, I guess.

Castaway. Hanks befriends a volleyball. 2h 23m of mind numbing tediousness.

I totally agree R54. M$B for Best Picture? Don't make me laugh.

Wise Black man's voiceover. ☑️

Father whose daughter hates him. ☑️

White trash family ☑️

Euthanasia. ☑️

All you needed was an orderly to sexually molest the paralyzed Hilary Swank and you've got a Lifetime movie.

WHat is good about seeing bad films is that they often tell you why great films are great.

I always thought Umbrellas of Cherbourg was great for its style. Seeing LaLa Land made me understand that it was the emotional depth seen through the style that made it great. It got me to explore Demy more so that now I get what he was doing as a filmmaker.

La La Land's failure gave me his films' greatness.

"A Star is Born" -- all of them. (Although the last one was the best.)

The one with Garland gets more love than the Streisand one, but they are both terrible. Garland is an ugly, old ham who shouldn't be trying to pull off ingenue.

"Inception" - the hype was such that would have you think you were there to witness the second coming. What I saw was an uninspired rehash of the ideas from movies such as "Last Year in Marienbad", only 40 years later.

Most of David Fincher's movies are in the same category for me. They are cinematographically nice but, other than that, there's not a single original idea or emotional or intellectual gravitas in any of them. They are kind of like watching gorgeously filmed snuff movies.

I also hated "American Beauty": a trite movie with hammy acting who middlebrow people found very "deep".

Moonlight

I thought Brokeback Mountain was great...how in the world could you hate that film? It made me hate Michelle Williams for life...actually I have always hated her.

I had some old guy sleep on me for the while of The English Patient. At least it had Naveen Andrews in it.

Any Weinstein Company/Miramax movie from the last 20 years

I don't get the praise for Clint Eastwood.

I like his spaghetti westerns as an actor best. But of the films he directs I enjoyed one or two maybe, but I have stayed away from them generally.

So I can't say if he's improved or has done better now and then. He's just not my type.

Fucking LA LA Land!!!!

FUCKING LA LA LAND!!!!

And that French piece of shit film from 2011-201 that won Best Picture?? IN black and white?? That one!!!!

WHAT GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I HATED Moonlight!!! What derivative and depressing garbage. Manipulative and depressing DRIVEL!!!!!

Rainman was awful because of Dustin Hoffman. That man needs to be directed well and kept under control. His egoism shows through when he's allowed to go all out.

What was that goddamned French musical film I am talking about!!!?? The ARTIST!!!

What a fucker of a film that was. Fuck the USA!

Requiem For A Dream

I hated The Artist.

But I sat through it because I thought my friend was enjoying it.

When it was over he turned to me and said, "Maybe if we were French. And corny."

Right, 113?? What the FUCK were academy voters thinking>>

WHAT were the other nominees that year?? I am scared to research!!

People who hate La La Land are racist SJW assholes who hate white people.

I'm getting really tired of trolling like R115 on every fucking thread.

R115- LA LA LAND was TRASH!!!!!!!!!!!

Eat my pussy!!!

You know who really didn't like Orson Welles. William Randolph Hearst.

And by the way, MOONLIGHT sucked dicks too!!!

I hated both Moonlight AND LA LA LAND!!!!

Fuck them both, but I would give the Oscar to Moonlight if a rifle was to my head

I absolutely love The English Patient and The Artist. Have never understood the hate for these films, given there are far worse “critically acclaimed” movies like Boyhood and La La Land.

Birdman.

Moonlight. Boring and the pot was completely farfetched.

Lick me! Lick me!!!!!

ROMA. Or as I call it, COMA. The first hour and twenty minutes are like watching paint dry -- no, worse. It is literally watching someone hang laundry and pick up after little kids. BOOOOOOORRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGG.

Another vote for Boyhood. It was as if Linklater tried to stuff the themes of Dazed and Confused into a gimmicky piece of high art, killing them dead. Given the film's development it's a mystery how devoid it was of spontaneity.

La La Land is a TERRIBLE musical. Something its fans don't want to face. Forgettable music, unmemorable songs (when was the last time you found yourself humming a song from that overrated movie), singing and dancing that only occasionally rises to the level of mediocrity (sorry Ryan, you don't get points for trying). Chazelle is a young director who I try to support and wish the best for, but he makes the mistake that a lot of young directors make in that he choreographs the camera rather than focusing on what's in the frame. In all the best musicals, whether it's Singing in the Rain or anything by Astaire and Rogers, the camera is where it's supposed to be to capture what the dancer is doing but it doesn't bring attention to itself getting there. Chazelle's camera does nothing BUT bring attention to itself. It's flying over here and zipping through cars and swish panning back and forth. You remember all the camera movements but none of the dancing. Moonlight was slight but at least it showed me a character that I'll never forget. It made me think about the many young people like that living in that situation and finding it dangerous to come out and just be their real selves. I'll never forget that character. La La Land is deservedly forgettable.

Ex Machina was pretty bad. It's essentially some "good old" straight "bro" regarding women like they're commodities and fellating himself the entire time.

R122, "The pot?" If you mean the plot, what was farfetched about it?

The Lobster. What the fuck?

I thought what’s her name Arquette was just awful in Boyhood.

Lo and behold she wins an Oscar for it

R127, did you miss the ending?

I agree R66!

Mrs Patrick Campbell's "Daddy's Big Dump."

I know it's considered a high-water-mark in scat pornography, but the acting was wretched and the looping careless. And that orange shag rug!

Closer. Although Clive Owen was hot. The story was stupid and Julia Roberts was annoying as usual.

Call Me By Your Name - everyone was terrible in it except the father

The Blind Side - racist Christian feel good crap

The Age of Innocence- Scorsese can’t do period films

Pulp Fiction - violent with no substance or intelligence; overrated style (ie. dance like Uma Thurman!?)

I still do not believe that Moonlight won. Why did it win? I thought Denzel should have won that year.

I really love Pulp Fiction. In my lifetime, Tarantino is without a doubt, the best director and writer.

137 replies and no one has mentioned that big steaming pile of Monster's Ball?

R137, if you think Tarantino is the best director and writer of your lifetime you must either be 2 years old and never seen the work of any other writer/director or you're mentally challenged. Tarantino is the most overrated, derivative hack to emerge in movies in the last 25 years. His movies are puerile, racist and disgracefully rip off the works and ideas of other writers and directors. His fans are among the most juvenile, cinematically uninformed dullards attending movies today.

I remember critics going nuts over You Can Count on Me and Moonlight Mile. I was young and I would get so excited about seeing important movies but wow,were these two duds.

R125 I was just trying to think what was it that made Boyhood so insufferable for me and I came to the same conclusion as you did: despite being shot in such a naturalistic manner the plot is terribly contrived.

R126 I did hear the soundtrack when it came out but the only song I remember liking was the opening number, other than that it was very by the numbers and meh. With a classical musical you always had at least one iconic number but I didn't find the dancing nor setting memorable enough to merit such distinction. I hated the cheesy "dancing on the clouds" scene, tacky as hell, I also hated Stone's costumes which weren't particularly pretty and looked like they were bought at Walmart. The only good thing to come out of it was having DL fave Faye putting her career to rest in the most humilliating fashion and the renewed interest in Jacques Demy and Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, which is an amazing and hearbreaking film.

R97, I watched Orson Welles's Othello and I hated it. Watching Orson Welles act is like watching William Shatner--no thanks!

R139 I've always said to myself that Tarantino makes art films for peple with no interest or understanding of art, ie. philistines. I haven't watched much of his work but other than Pulp Fiction, I find most of his work to be terribly inmature and shallow. A movie like Kill Bill looks so puerile compared to other art house revenge films: Lady Vengeance, a korean film I saw recently, is everything Kill Bill could have been if it wasn't just another piece of fluff meant to appeal to literal and figurative teenagers.

Kane was an amazing technical tour de force but if it's not in the service of an emotionally moving story and it's just an exercise using everything Welles had seen in movies for many years what's the point?

There are many movies that came before that used many of the elements Welles used in the service of emotionally moving a story forward. I saw both Kane and Ambersons on a double bill many years ago both for the first time. After Kane was over my attitude was well that was a nice way to pass a couple of hours. Then we watched Ambersons and it was if the world had suddenly altered. I was stunned by it in a way I hadn't been before that I can remember.

After seeing Kane a few times I find the most wonderful thing about it is Dorothy Comingore's performance. Probably one of the greatest American performances that is underated. She alone in that film is incredibly moving.

Orson Welles was a passionate and ambitious filmmaker and artist. A fascinating character who exceeded movie star confines of the period with his outlandishness and vision.

Tarantino is a uniquely American director, also passionate and given to excess. He has a talent for creating suspense and visceral thrill in scenarios that often resemble all the influences that he openly embraces and promotes.

Shit directors for me include the unbearably precious and whimsical Wes Anderson, the hollow-at-heart Steven Soderbergh, and the empty Sophia Coppola.

If I had to watch the lauded Royal Tenenbaums, Traffic, or Marie Antoinette again, I think I’d have to drop acid first to experience them in another dimension.

I like Marie Antoinette in the way you like very expensive music video but I find the story or lack thereof tiresome. The costumes by Nina Canonero are some of the best I've seen though, they're so accurate and detailed, that Oscar was totally deserved.

I also think Xavier Dolan would be better off directing music videos, the one he did for Indochine is mesmerizing albeit over-indulgent. Mommy was nice but overlong, you can only do so much scremaing and bitter recriminating till it start feeling empty and redundant, Steve's character feels very unrealistic (A cherubic thug with the emotional control of a 5 year-old and a heart of gold), you quickly realize he's just a stand-in for Dolan's fucked up side and how he wishes people would be forgiving towards his asshole self. I will say the art direction and photography was outstanding albeit the 1:1 aspect was gimmicky, it worked. That one slow-mo sequence of Steve landing on his bed took my breath away (MARY!).

If he actually used the casting couch on Antoine Olivier Pilon he's a creep, one with taste but a creep regardless.

Mildred Pierce.

Dangerous. Even Bette Davis thought that she didn't deserve the Oscar for it. And she didn't.

Marty

Pretty unwatchable. When do they make it a musical?

[quote]I absolutely love The English Patient and The Artist. Have never understood the hate for these films, given there are far worse “critically acclaimed” movies like Boyhood and La La Land.

I actually liked The English Patient as well, but that was partly because I'd read the book some time before and it was a truly magical experience. That feeling carried to the film. And I was totally in love with Ralph Fiennes at the time. I thought he was the sexiest man in the world.

I watched the film later with my straight cuddle buddy and he absolutely hated it. That was when I realized some people really don't like it. (He almost killed me when I dragged him into theater to see Talented Mr. Ripley; at least we watched The English Patient cudding on a sofa at home). It obviously is one of those blockbuster dramas à la Out of Africa which gets tons of Oscars and people are supposed to see them. I haven't seen the film in like 15 years, ever since watching it with my ex-cuddle buddy, but I still think I'd like the story. That said I remember it being tediously long and the ending was way too melodramatic.

Someone mentioned The Unbearable Lightness of Being earlier. I was deeply touched by it when I saw it in my late teens. I really felt the terrible loss in the end which is a sign the movie really worked, at least for me. That film totally deserved all the accolades it got.

I loathed the English Patient.

"The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" was pure torture.

Moonlight. And I was looking forward to seeing it.

My partner is currently watching "2001" on TCM, going on about its amazing artistry. I'm busy scanning DL, not paying attention. It sounds super boring. I'm old, and have never seen it.

As Good as It Gets, Moonlight, CMBYN, Boyhood, def Forrest Gump, Shakespeare in Love, King’s Speech, Erin Brockovich, Blind Side, The Hours, Bohemian Rhapsody, Black Panther (good but so overrated), Birdman.

If I may add to my post at R154, from what I can now see, "Altered States" was a complete ripoff of 2001. Both seem like druggy movies.

How can you be old and never have see 2001? How old is old? Tell me in straight years not gay. I hated it as a boy. Saw it at a packed matinee with a bunch of other boys who were expecting a Star Wars kind of film. This was years before Star Wars. Boy were we disappointed. Saw it again at the great old Rivoli on Broadway and loved it. I can't imagine watching it on TV.

[quote] There are many movies that came before (that used many of the elements Welles used in the service of emotionally moving a story forward.)

No, there weren't "many movies that came before" that used film language in the same way, which is why the film is so important.

Well, yes there were films who used some of the same language that Welles invented, but that's the nature of invention. It gets replicated.

Put it this way, R157, it came out when I was in grade school. Our hip teacher talked about taking us all on a field trip to see it in the theater, but that never panned out. I dunno, I just never saw it. But I'm sort of semi-watching it now.

[quote]If I may add to my post at [R154], from what I can now see, "Altered States" was a complete ripoff of 2001. Both seem like druggy movies.

Those films have almost nothing in common. 2001 really is a quite spectacular film, although to appreciate it you must be able to sit down and just watch it without doing anything else. I wouldn't say it's on my favorite movie list, none of Kubrick's films are, but I do think it's absolutely one of the greatest films ever made.

Well I've seen a number of earlier films as I said which used those elements. I guess I just see Kane as an enormously talented man experimenting but not really concerned with telling an emotional story. That came later.

A revelation to me was seeing the film The Sin of Nora Moran at FF during their '33 festival. It was part of a triple bill. I sat through two films and was going to leave but decided to stay for it. I read later that it was an influence on Welles and Kane and I certainly can believe it. People see it as just another melodrama but I thought it was astounding.

[quote]were films who used

Oh, dear me.

"there were films THAT"

Films nominated the year The Artist won Best Picture:

The Artist – Thomas Langmann, producer The Descendants – Jim Burke, Jim Taylor, and Alexander Payne, producers Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Scott Rudin, producer The Help – Brunson Green, Chris Columbus, and Michael Barnathan, producers Hugo – Graham King and Martin Scorsese, producers Midnight in Paris – Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, producers Moneyball – Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz, and Brad Pitt, producers The Tree of Life – Dede Gardner, Sarah Green, Grant Hill, and Bill Pohlad, producers War Horse – Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, producers

Films nominated the year The Artist won Best Picture:

The Artist – Thomas Langmann, producer The Descendants – Jim Burke, Jim Taylor, and Alexander Payne, producers Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Scott Rudin, producer The Help – Brunson Green, Chris Columbus, and Michael Barnathan, producers Hugo – Graham King and Martin Scorsese, producers Midnight in Paris – Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, producers Moneyball – Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz, and Brad Pitt, producers The Tree of Life – Dede Gardner, Sarah Green, Grant Hill, and Bill Pohlad, producers War Horse – Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, producers

Being There. I had never seen it and thought I should. Watched an hour before I gave up, knowing what was about to happen on screen.

R155 Yes to Birdman ! What a foul smelling turd. I would rather sit through every Adam Sandler movie ever made than watch that shit again.

It's amazing how some of these films get so hyped. I agree with 90% of the posters on here, especially Birdman. WTF was that. And all that talk about the longest shot without a break

I can't wrap my head around the idea that a person between the ages of 40 and 80 never having seen 2001. It is one of the cultural touchstones of the latter part of the 20th century.

But then I've never see The Godfather and people are incredulous. I read the book when it was a huge bestseller and felt I had gotten through it once with no need to do it again. It's not that I didn't enjoy it, I found it a page turner,I just didn't have any desire to experience it a second time.

Never heard of 2001

I completely agree about The Artist, which I was expecting to love because I think Jean Dujardin is a major hunk. Hated it.

John Cassavettes' films have now reached this exalted place in cinema where they are pretty much untouchable and venerated, but the two I have watched, Faces and A Woman Under the Influence were real tests just to sit through. Nothing revelatory to me about them, just thoroughly unpleasant people being infuriating and wasting hours of my life.

R168 I've never seen The Godfather either, nor The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I don't get how people don't understand Citizen Kane. It's one of the most relatable stories ever. About the corruption of wealth and a mans slow decline into isolation and paranoia. It's obviously ahead of our time as well as its own. The narrative techniques are beyond most of the masses. I love it it is so atmospheric and Welles is magnetic.

I would never use the word "worst" about Citizen Kane, though I can understand people feeling it is overrated. It's a cold film, though a revelation for it's time. I loved The Magnificent Ambersons and feel Touch of Evil is a sleaze masterpiece. I'd rather watch either of those again, or Chimes at Midnight, before having to sit through Kane again.

Inception! Vastly overrated garbage. Flat characters no emotion and ridiculously convoluted. It's hailed as a cerebral masterpiece however. Please someone explain ?

The Natural, it was on tv today, ughhhh

STAR IS BORN.... all versions

poor me, ima co dependent bitch

All the avenger movies, specially Downey's ones.

R173 it is not a cold film at all its full of humour and pathos. That scene where Suzan tries to kill herself and you see Kane slowly realise what he's done is heart breaking. I think the films problem is it's reputation as the "best film ever" I think any film saddled with that is going to find it hard to live up to that accolade. People go into it seeing it as a textbook movie, like Shakespeare or some school text. Just watch it and forget it's reputation and you'll enjoy it more.

The Magnificent Ambersons IS more overrated than Kane. A total mess. Way overrated by Tim Holt and narratively choppy. It was butchered by the studio and it shows. Terrible movie.

Dies anyone else notic how fake the blood looks in The Godfather? It's that ketchup orange stuff they also use in Taxi Driver. It's like water.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It made no sense at all. And what was all that tiptoeing across the treetops? It didn’t even work as an artsy-fartsy exercise. It’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

R161 you people are nuts. Kane was emotional. The dialogue was beautifully human alone. You just expect whooping and wailing, you have no sense of understated emotion. The scene where Kane meets Susan and she says "my mother wanted me to be a singer, well you know what mothers are like?" Then it cuts to Kanes face, and you see he understands and this girl is someone he relate to. Omg what a beautiful moment. Welles acted so sensitively in this scene.

I am convinced that if Citizen Kane was not celebrated and lauded, you would all be saying what a gem it is.

The thing about Boyhood is that it was just a big gimmick. I saw the movie and it was tedious and exhausting to sit through. The critics loved it but it has slipped from memory 5 years or so later. Not a classic and overrated. Just like most films these days.

R139 I agree wholeheartedly. His movies are overstylised trash. Also he ripped off To Be or not to be (1942) when he made inglorious bastards

I must have terrible taste because I loved many of the movies listed here. It seems like several of them are the first of their kind so they seem unique at the time only to have other films do it better later. Especially in the area of special effects. It's like a big Broadway musical that is known more for its set than its book.

INCEPTION

Inception is a male nerds film. Totally cold and all focused on effects and technical details. Even the wife's suicide is cold and unmoving. I think chris Nolan is a sociopath. All his movies are like this.

Slumdog Millionaire.

Tacky. Bad acting. No chemistry between the supposedly soul mate main characters. Bombastic soundtrack and visuals. Ridiculous.

I think most of the love came from white people wanting to show they weren't racist or 'Islamaphobic' by saying they 'loved' a movie about a Muslim Indian.

R189 right. Which is so patronising too. I hate Slumdog millionaire it sucks

The Blair With Project........greatest crock of shit ever, filmed in a forest plantation......

Sometimes I forget how many Philistines haunt Datalounge. While a few of the films listed on this thread are overrated, hardly any are terrible and in fact most are great films.

Breaking the Waves.

Oh, and fuck you OP, you asked.

Eyes Wide Shut.

2 hours of my life that I'll never get back.

Eyes Wide Shut was poorly reviewed. If you had read the critics, you probably would not have gone.

Silver Linings Playbook OWNS this thread.

Because we all know how easy it is for complete amateurs to infiltrate a professional dance competition.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of stupidity in that movie.

This will give you queens anuerisms, but All About Eve? A peice of shit movie that is sooo stagey and boring. Sharp dialogue yes, but underwhelming.

R1, A friend gave me a copy of his "The Favourite" screener. I was bored to distraction and bailed after 20 minutes.

I cannot believe a majority of Academy members sat through it.

Glenn was robbed.

Some anti-social hags just named the movies so that they could have a laugh with their mobiles on their deathbeds.

The Bostonian -what a snooze!

12 years as a slave

Deliverance. Apart from the only scene it's famous for it is tedious and nothing happens. It could have been so much better, but did I say it was slow?

Crash was a poor variation of the superior 1991 film Grand Canyon starring Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, Alfre Woodard. The fact that it won best picture over Bareback Mountain is absurd.

"Three Men and a Baby"

Casablanca. So corny I cannot watch it. BUT Ingrid Bergman is so understated and good in it. She acts rings around Bogart who's his usual robotic self.

The French Lt. Woman (1981) M deserves better than that piece of shit.

Pulp Fiction owns this thread. No bigger jack on Hollywood than Tarantino.

Toss up between Pulp Fiction and Sideways.

I wish there is one movie we all can agree on. Some people just hate everything or they are look at me I hate a movie that is considered a classic. No one has mentioned any Hitchcock films including Vertigo which made a new list as number one.

A Woman Under The Influence is a CLASSIC and Gena Rowlands is a goddess. And Mr. Sideways was WONDERFUL- Disagree!! The English Patient- Solid film. Cannot agree-

Slumdog- Agreed- sucked- Moonlight- Truly overrated- The Artist- Already stated above- worst winner of all time Crash-TV Movie of The Week

++If I could pick a film the year The Artist won, I would pick The Descendants- I truly enjoyed that film!! It is largely forgotten and it is NEVER on cable or any of the Amazon Prime/Netflix types sites. And I enjoyed The Help far more than I expected. Good old fashioned film with heartfelt performances, laughs, tears. Nothing special, but a good, solid film!

Sideways. Not Mr. Sideways. Jesus.

R168, it's true, I have not seen 2001. Remember, back when, you saw movies when they came out in the theater, and then they were gone for years. I don't recall 2001 being on "Monday Night at the Movies" all that much. With the advent of VCR etc, I just never had the urge to rent it it.

I think not seeing "The Godfather" is more remarkable. Not only does it consistently vie with Kane as #1 on greatest films list, but it's constantly on TV.

[quote] The fact that it won best picture over Bareback Mountain is absurd.

The real travesty is that "Bareback Mountain" wasn't even nominated!

R160 Agree that I need to watch it in a quiet setting and give it my full attention, and maybe now I will.

But respectfully disagree that "Altered States" had nothing in common with 2001. As one movie fan online put it:

"Altered States verbalizes what 2001 left unsaid. Altered States visualizes the symbiotic relationship between our ancestor apes and ourselves, and that this link, this memory, is embedded in our DNA and can be extracted and reconstituted. And in this reconstitution is the answer to the meaning of life."

As I semi-watched the trippy scenes toward the end, and my partner was waxing on, I immediately said, "like Altered States," and he said, "Exactly."

It's funny to remember "Altered States," which I remember going to see when it came out in 1980 or whenever. We had smoked some pot first, of course.

Blue Velvet---David Lynch is so criminally overrated.

Taxi Driver----I hate this movie with every fiber of my being. This shitty flick has a lot to answer for as far as the million creepy white guy anti-hero protagonists that followed in other terrible films goes. The biggest problem is that even though this movie is horrendous, RDN is at his peak and is kinda hot as a stalky psycho killer! If he'd only just STFU! Ambivalence dilemma!

Altered States---Oh, fuck, I forgot how much I HATED this movie when I saw it at one of those super LOUD dolby (or whatever the big audio feature of the time was) theaters. Blerg. R215 reminded me.

Gravity---So fucking boring with Sandra Bullock muttering to herself like Olive Oyl as she fiddled with knobs and pushed buttons to resolve one crisis after another and save herself. I wish she floated away like Clooney. So glad my friend who wanted to see this paid for my ticket.

Argo.

Dancer In The Dark with Bjork - after the film was over, I went to the drug store, bought razor blades and then went home and cut my wrists. A perfect example of "It just can't get any worse than this for the character"....and then it does.

I like many of the films others have posted here as their worst. It makes me wonder what films do they actually LIKE.

August Osage County

R218- I LOVED Dancer In The Dark. But my god, if anyone is contemplating suicide, or just having a great day- This film will cause you to reconsider all aspects of life, death, and whether you want to go on. I strongly caution against having any sharp knives, guns, or pieces of glass within a 10 mile radius for 30 days upon viewing.

Vertigo is awful. Hitchcock had the advantage of being he only noir-light director to use color and exquisitely beautiful leading ladies, which I swear are why his films are "popular". The leading men(except for Cary Grant) are always Hollywood leading-man cliches - Jimmy Stewart, a pure caricature but the American film audience thought of his as family. Hitchcock was very calculating, like Tarantino in a way. They should both have put this extra effort into their films instead of their "calculating"..

R216 are you black? Why state race all the time in tjethe negative regarding white people. I hope yr black at least I could understand yr prejudice a bit more

221 why is Stewart a characature? He was a better and more convincing actor than many if his peers including james cagney, Humphrey fucking Bogart and Henry Fonda. His emotional scenes are usually very natural. I agree that Vertigo is crap though.

Boyhood. That shit was basically "I take a picture every day while growing a beard over a year" Youtube video but as a movie about some ugly kid instead starring the loathsome Patricia Arquette and set in ugly ass Texas.

Jimmy Stewart just grinds my gears, he seems like such a sap. Sort of like Reagan and other airheaded actors like Gary Cooper whose past characters function as their real life personality. I agree with your other examples - I can't watch Fonda or Cagney - Bogart is the same in everything but at least he's occasionally watchable.

And also r223, Bogart reminds me of an ex - not sure I'd give him attention if not for this.

2001 has good and bad elements. What is bad is what it shares with Altered States.

I understand Kane but find it unmoving. And I in no way find it a worst film just overrated. The problem for me as well is as Welles ages and they start putting on the make up with a trowel his performance becomes worse. They do nothing to Comingore yet she transforms herself through the experiences of the character. In fact in her final scene she becomes the most powerful character in the film.

And Welles himself thought the final reveal a cheap trick. I haven't seen it in so long but isn't he completely alone when he says Rosebud so no one possibly could have heard it?

Thalberg cut 6 hours (maybe an overstatement?) out 8 of Greed so you get only fragments of this epic and I still think it is one of the greatest films I've seen. People you see as extras have entire story lines. Irene Selznik in her auto bio says she went to the press preview where the complete 8 hours was shown. One of the few people to have seen it. She was ready to champion Stroheim but thought it was a long tedious mess.

The witch, the banadook, hereditary, mullholland drive

Oh shit some people don't listen to the dialogue. This always comes up. The butler heard him say it in the room. He says so when interviewed. Just cause you don't see him doesn't mean he's not there. Also the make up and Welles performance are great. Remember Susan is at least 20 years younger than Kane so they didn't apply so much make up. Jesus you guys are so dumb.

I was expecting to like it, but I thought Rocky Horror Picture Show was amateurish rubbish.

His make up is terrible. Also he looks very alone in the room and you only see the nurse coming in. And no his performance is not great. It's a void in the film. Everyone else is better.

R232 up yours I don't agree.

Welles was a great actor one of the golden ages best along with Spencer Tracy.

I don't agree with you but I wouldn't say up yours. Only that you have no idea what you are talking about and clearly haven't seen many pre-Kane films.

R234 interesting you don't say Cagney who Welles said was the greatest actor and I agree with him.

I see all of my most hated mentioned upthread:

Boyhood The Master Inherent Vice Melancholia Gravity

Interstellar and The Dark knight

James cagney was too hammy. His performance in White Heat alone is cringingly bad.

i want to see Welcome to Marwen just to see how bad it is. Should I ?

Apocalypse Now. It's very slow and tedious. Well acted but kind of boring.

I saw something in the early 80's called "Sophias Decision" or something like that. The lead actress got lots of attention for about a minute but seems to have vanished

I love Lars Von Trier and I wasn't aware that his movies were so hated. I really liked Dancer in the Dark, Nymphomaniac and Breaking the Waves. I would watch the last two again but not the first one. His sharp black humour is hardly surpassed by anyone.

Then again I also liked The Favourite, I thought it was a smart movie with fun dialogue.

Breaking the Waves is one of the most moving films ever made; it's up there with Au Hasard Balthazar.

US sucked.

Most highly-rated films of the 70's are now talky snoozefests.

But the all-time champ is VERTIGO. SOOOOO overrated, and ruined by Novak and those horrible "special" effects.

Oh dear. You will never get over what happened on this year's Oscars , Glennie.. The delightful Olivia Colman gave a better performance in a better film. Move on. I just saw Hilary Swank in a 2018 movie and even she was better than you...

There are lots of films that haven’t stood the test of time. They were revered in their day because of being different or stylish and now look very dated and bland. My issue with a lot of the “critically acclaimed” films the last decade is that many of them are overly pretentious artsy films that simply don’t tell a good story. Far too many films these days try to punch you in the face with the issue of the day instead of relying on good character development and story telling.

R244 It's heartbreaking and such an honest depiction of the hell of small towns and communities. It almost reads like a myth with the fearless heroine making the ultimate sacrifice to save her lover, of course he isn't worthy of said sacrificie but it makes for quite the tear-jerker.

I did hate Antichrist, silly plot and hideous special effects. Charlotte Gainsbourg should put a bag over her head for that one. Terrible acting.

Ordinary People, which beat out Raging Bull, because actors vote for other actors-turned-directors.

Dancer in the Dark is basically a Joan Crawford movie but for some reason they cast Minnie Mouse instead.

pulp fiction - John revolta and uma thurman received Oscar nominations for that vapid, incoherent, unoriginal piece of Tarantino crap. Remember Bruce Willis had a cameo too? Exactly, no!

[quote] Most highly-rated films of the 70's are now talky snoozefests.

Stick with Marvel universe and Greg Berlanti, Mr. Shopbottom.

Dogville is so much better than Breaking the Waves. The ending to Breaking the Waves is a fucking joke.

[quote]Oh dear. You will never get over what happened on this year's Oscars , Glennie.. The delightful Olivia Colman gave a better performance in a better film. Move on. I just saw Hilary Swank in a 2018 movie and even she was better than you... —M

You weren't even nominated in a year when the girl from [italic]227[/italic] won. Even I could manage a nomination. You couldn't even manage a Razzie nomination. You would have gotten my vote there for sure.

The Aviator. It's hard for me to watch Leo Di Crap in every frame.

The same with Shutter Island.

I went and saw Gravity because of all the hype it was getting. If you can stomach Sandra Bullock with her whacked off butch haircut and her basically unimpressive silly role for an hour and a half then this is just the movie for you.

[quote] I haven't seen it in so long but isn't he completely alone when he says Rosebud so no one possibly could have heard it?

Is it true that in the original script his final word was "Coinslot?"

that black super hero movie that made a zillion

unreal bad

I loved the English Patient. However my husband worked at a movie theater that was playing My Dinner with Andre. He literally had to watch it about 100 times. He was sitting in the dark with the projector before cell phones so he had no choice. When he starts to tell people this I can't help but roll laughing. The look he gets on his face. It was a form of torture. I think it traumatized him.

Out Of Africa - it was a nicely filmed piece of nothingness and I say that as someone who actually likes the fare such as, say, "L'Avventura". Meryl was doing her usual schtick, while Robert Redford sucked all the air out whenever he was in a scene, like a black hole. Not to mention that Isak Dinesen wasn't a particularly interesting person to make a movie about.

Thanks R261 for reminding me of Antonioni. I liked Blow-Up (mainly the setting), La Notte and L'Eclisse but L'Avventura was torture to sit trough and I wanted to slap Monica Vitti senseless when I watched Il Desserto Rosso.

In 1987 when it was released, I thought "Moonstruck" was a piece of shit and I still do.

R262, I liked all of the films of the trilogy but I loved L'avventura and L'Eclisse. I don't like any of Antonioni's color movies. Something makes his black-and-white films more interesting to watch (and just plain better looking).

R264 I think color detracts a bit from his flawless composition, I recall one scene in L'Eclisse where both main characters are shot from the back while they walk though a zebra crossing that was kind of mesmerizing. The rest of the movie is no less beautiful. Blow-Up has its moments, like the fashion shoots, but it isn't half as pretty as La Notte's opening sequence.

Funny Girl. Its awful, also I don't get the love for Now Voyager, terribly dated and hammy acting all round.

these

The Husband.. I mean The Wife. Not that I actually seen it.

I love Breathless, Band of Outsiders, Contempt, etc. but Godard's Alphaville was the most annoying movie I've ever seen. Had a terrible headache after sitting through it.

Godard is awfully overrated, just like Welles. Breathless is watchable I guess. All the rest of them just blend together for me.

I guess Contempt is a nice little slice of something too...I just dislike Godard.

[quote]Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It made no sense at all. And what was all that tiptoeing across the treetops? It didn’t even work as an artsy-fartsy exercise. It’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

It's a beautiful film. You have to watch it realizing it belongs to the wuxia genre where people's fighting abilities can be exaggerated to an almost absurd level.

[quote]I love Breathless, Band of Outsiders, Contempt, etc. but Godard's Alphaville was the most annoying movie I've ever seen. Had a terrible headache after sitting through it.

I usually say Alphaville is in my top 10 of all time favorite films because I fell totally in love with it in my teens. It's tedious, pretentious, angry, fast, slow, exhilerating and most of all it's art. I haven't watched it in years since I'm sure I'd be disappointed seeing it now. I'd rather have great memories of it.

Rocky Horror is a good bad movie.

R265, exactly! In L'eclisse, the streets are so dark at night, you'd swear the characters would completely disappear if they walked passed the camera lens's edge. It is one of the most unique looking films that I have ever seen. It takes the fear and loneliness of L'avventura and amplifies it. Have you seen L'Avventura on Blu-ray? It is a 4k restoration. Watching it in 4k on my OLED tv was one of the best movie experiences ever. I wish L'eclisse had a 4k restoration but it's "only" 2k. Still looks great, just not as much as the other movie. Also, another reason I don't like Antonioni's color movies is because Monica Vitti is not in most of them--although I don't like Red Desert either.

All these people who are posting things like Boyhood and Blank Panther and Breaking the Waves and Pulp Fiction (!) have clearly never seen OP's nomination: The Designated Mourner.

The Designated Mourner is almost pleasure-less. All the other films I listed have their merits, some more than others.

I would like to add Godard's Contempt to this list. And another French film: A Man and a Woman. Little is worse than some of the foreign films by auteurs that critics couldn't stop salivating over. But you gotta see a lot of stuff beyond the multiplexes to feel the full effect of critical indulgence and pretentiousness.

I've never seen My Dinner with Andre. Now I might need to.

R275, French films in general should be flooding this thread. Japanese film >>>>French film.

R274 Haven't had the opportunity yet but it does sound nice.

'The Designated Mourner' is an accomplished filming of a fascinating play. No one intelligent would expect a three-person talkfest based on a stage play to contain routine cinematic diversions. TDM never remotely promises car chases or explosions.

I'm very glad David Hare captured the play on film, I watch it again every so often. It's fascinating to see 'actors' director' Mike Nichols at work - a performance Meryl Streep rates very highly. Entirely pointless to compare such a niche film with multiplex crowd-pleasers.

Breathless from 1960. I tried watching it a few weeks back and only got half way. Ground-breaking photography, but, unlike Kane it had no strong narrative and I got bored watching these two annoyingly "chic" young people just doing nothing.

Titanic

Birdman

The Revenant

Mad Max

Guardians of the Galaxy

PINK

FLAMINGOS

2001: A Space Odyssey

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why Inception is considered a masterpeice. Anyone?

THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND, with gay Robert wagner and natalie wood

that movie with joan Collins and john erik hexum, the most hot bosom on a man bak in the day...

hush hush sweet charlotte

madge's opus TRUTH OR DARE

r285 Were those movies "critically acclaimed?" I doubt it.

R229 There is wrong and then there is fucking stupid. You are both! Honestly, none of the movies mentioned in this thread are the worst ever or awful (watch more movies).

And I can't even say worst or awful, but i was dissapointed. The Disaster Artist. I was sooo looking forward to it. It was just ok.

I am still trying to figure out how anyone could describe the film of Designated Mourner as "acclaimed."

The Aviator= Care Blanchett crowing and cawing.

The English Patient= I thought I was going to be a patient.

Birdbox. I have no words.

[italics]Birdbox wasn’t acclaimed, it was much criticized for being a waste of multiple A-list talents

Patricia (her name is Patricia, not "what's her name") Arquette is terrific in "Boyhood." One does need an attention span to appreciate the film. Go pan something worth panning you Philistines.

Slumdog Fairytale

Yeah. That happened.

It's hard to think of a lauded "classic" that's aged as poorly as American Beauty in such a relatively short time frame (and that's without even mentioning Spacey's public downfall).

Everything about Lester's midlife crisis seems almost laughably trivial in a post-recession world. He's a whiny, spoiled manchild who mistakes his own narcissism for depth. He only worked as an "everyman" in the late 90s because it was a fleeting moment when there seemed to be no looming threats, more than enough money to go around, and nothing left to worry about besides navel-gazing (if you were white in America, anyway). The movie pretty much became a dated period piece from the minute the first plane hit the north tower.

Also, the way he suddenly decided not to have sex with his daughter's underage friend AFTER finding out she was a virgin (like that's what mattered?!) seemed disgustingly patriarchal, even in 1999. If he had any respect for his own daughter or for basic human decency, he never would have seriously considered fucking Angela, regardless of whoever she'd fucked previously. Jerking off to the fantasy in private is one thing, but actively trying to do it for months on end is quite another. At least his wife was screwing an age-appropriate guy, not creeping on jail bait from their daughter's high school.

The soundtrack remains incredible. I'll give it that.

Forrest Gump

What a piece of shit!

Almost 300 posts and no one has mentioned the all time poster child for over rated movies:

DANCES WITH WOLVES.

Even the title is inane.

Rocketman…….appallingly bad

[quote]Brokeback Mountain. What a piece of shit! Why is it so popular?

I agree. I thought it was incredibly boring. I laughed at “middle aged” Anne Hathaway’s big phone scene,

Another vote for Inception. Cold, pretentious, complicated.

The Phantom Thread…..hands down. Awful.

Synecdoche, New York

Overly-intellectual, pretentious, poseur crap

that black super hero movie. … ugh

GET OUT - a terrible offensive film on All levels.

R260, I wonder what would have happened if he worked in a theater that showed Jarman's Blue.

yea, rocketman for sure.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Out of Africa. Staid and dull. Robert Redford was horribly miscast as Karen Blixen’s English lover.

Sorry, r293, Boyhood WAS terrible and Arquette was merely competent in the film. They spent 12 years making a film that had no dramatic urgency in it whatsoever. That kid experienced the most uneventful adolescence in the history of cinema. There's a reason few people talk about it today.

Paris, Texas. It's not exactly a bad film but I stopped watching it about an hour in when it became obvious 22-year old Nastassja Kinski is supposed to be playing Harry Dean Stanton's wife. Sorry, but watching that film requires a dose of suspension of disbelief far too big for me.

R309- I disagree- I love that film..

Another "Citizen Kane" hater here. Also, "Gone With The Wind", Any of the new "Star Wars", anything with Mel Gibson in it, any movie with Will Farrell after "Zoolander" and all movies starring Tom Cruise.

The Phantom Thread. What a load of shit.

Harry Dean Stanton...I would've too at 22, or any age. I love him. He was always banging young starlets back then too iirc.

Anyway it's not "suspension of disbelief" when the relationship is shown to be doomed form the beginning, either. It also was never "critically acclaimed" until quite recently.

Zaddy

Anything Orson Welles touched(oh yes, they're now ALL "critically acclaimed"). The farfetched and overaccented characters he chose for himself were the worst. I keep seeing all of his lesser films being shown on TCM, and giving them a chance when I can. They are all the same. Garbage. There are always nazis, secret agents, and Orson playing some unbelievable character or other.

This was the latest one, and I only gave it a chance bc the wonderful Dolores Del Rio is in it, she's the only bright spot. Orson is of course overplaying his "evil foreign" character which I watched on screen for about two lines before leaving the room to make a drink.

Synecdoche, New York. Thread closed!

I'm casting my vote for "Out of Africa." It was literally the only movie where I fell asleep in the middle.

In the theater.

They didn't even have big, puffy, reclining seats back then.

Roma. I mean, seriously, it's like watching a long boring home movie about a family you don't know for an hour and a half.

Try two and a half hours, r318.

Nothing comes even close to beating La La Land for me. Hated it from the opening shot.

Anything by Terrence Malick. 3 hours of this....

R319, yeah, 2 hours and 15 minutes to be exact, but the last quarter or so of the movie something actually happens (SPOILER ALERT: the riot, the birth, the beach scene). It's the first 3/4 that are insufferable and feel interminable.

I agree about Synecdoche, New York. A friend gave me the dvd and said he loved it. I watched it and didn't know wtf was going on. I donated it to my local library.

Another vote for Inception. Awful.

R95 I HATE THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG. Truly one of the most boring, indulgent films of all time. I cannot even believe it was made. That anyone would care about this piece of drivel is beyond comprehension.

BOYHOOD and that piece of shit WHIPLASH.

R130 Agreed Arquette was terrible in Boyhood. Ethan Hawke was the only one that sort of understood or knew what to do with the concept of the movie. The rest was a big bowl of nothing.

Closer was a weird, unnecessary movie. What were they doing? There's some opera in it apparently. I could give it a listen but I won't.

R140 The only good thing about You Can Count On Me was that it had Laura Linney in it, and I like Matthew Broderick. The movie also introduced the studio-arthouse character-driven audiences to New Guy, who then proceeded to be in everything you wanted to watch for the following decade.

I could never get past the first few minutes of the Finzi-Contini, so have no idea if the rest of the movie is any good despite the leads being drop-dead gorgeous.

Tree of Life

Thin Red Line - was that it? Jim Caviezel and a bunch of military guys in WWII

My sister loved The English Patient maybe I’ll give it another go.

R262 Monica Vitti is a beautiful woman. At least there's that.

To the poster who mentioned A Man of a Woman (I've not seen that movie): any movie by Claude Lelouch. I saw another of his called Itineraire d'un enfant gate. Truly the worst movie of all time. In order to watch another movie of his I think I would ask for 10k in advance.

The trailer for THE POSTMAN. Although Costner had already lost his mojo with Waterworld, but still. To think this guy could make any picture he wanted only 5 years prior! Times change.

Anything by Xavier Dolan. He's sort of like Tarantino (a music video director), except with a gay aesthetic for Millenials.

This is not about an acclaimed movie of the best but TWO very well-reviewed movies (by critics) currently playing in my local art house theater (the Landmark) in LA. The Souvenir has a 97% on RT or something--so bad in the first half hour that we walked out and asked for our money back (only done that a couple of times before). Then we had time to try Booksmart, wihch is the high school girls movie. THAT one was so bad that we also walked out in a half-hour. I checked actual customer reviews after I got home and found out we were not alone. The critics must have been paid off big time for both those films (both directed by women--Booksmart is the actress Olivia Wilde's first directing job). I'm an older person, and this is the first time I have ever walked out TWICE. I'm just here to prevent waste of your money and time.

r337: Should read "This was not about an acclaimed movie of the past" (not best).

You lost me at Olivia Wilde. I'm a young-old person.

The only movies I've enjoyed at the cinema over recent years were TONI ERDMANN and CUSTODY. That's it. I don't really go to the movies anymore.

I really disliked There Will Be Blood (2007). I saw it in a theater with four friends. Two of my friends still say it's one of the ten best movies ever made. The rest of us where not so impressed. Another one I disliked was The Piano (1993).

r337, do you post on the political forum "Moon Of Alabama"? Someone there also walked out of Booksmart after the first half hour too. Anyway hi "james" if that's you lmao.

I think the main reason people don't like PT Andersen films is that they don't get what he's trying to expose, because it's never really been exposed before - There Will Be Blood was about how America was built not by stern or ruthless businessmen, but actual psychopaths. It plods on in order to force us inside the main character's head which we soon realize is full of rage and little else. It keeps us there. So of course it is hated by most due to how uncomfortable it made them on this one point, not to mention the overall critique which lingers just under the surface only hinting at its critical motive, to most viewers.

There's a similar hate for The Master because honestly who gets an analysis of the power of personality cults in a nation still in relative infancy. No one even gets that most "American" religions started this same way. Scientology is no different(and less historically brutal) than Mormonism, or even Christian Science. Today the "Psychic" is back in favor. They don't get that behind every mover and shaker in any power structure are inchoate thugs. The Master came out several years after one of my two uncles who had been high ranking guys in Scientology since the 70s had escaped and had just mustered the courage to speak against it, in public. He had been terrified for years and most early activism was done online.

Anyway I find every one of his films to be a masterpiece in its own way. Perhaps it's a bit too soon to make these kind of criticisms to an American or western audience. They're too heavy, sort of like Kubrick's which also draw a lot of poorly explained vitriol from the masses. I keep seeing ppl trash 2001 lately. Some of it is shortened attention spans, but some of it is people feeling personally attacked by a filmmaker who clearly disdains "Americanism" and other types of elitism.

There Will Be Blood was a yawn fest of the highest order. In fact its The English Patient level of boring.

LOL there is literally nothing in common between the two but the length.

Cabaret Cabaret Cabaret did I mention Cabaret?

Minnelli is intolerably mannered and Fosse at his most narcissistic self indulgent. A good score watered down and weakened story line.

Look at the OBC Wilkommen from the '67 Tonys. The film is a joke compare to that. Broadway brilliance really did once exist.

Another vote for The English Patient.

And was La La Land supposed to honor classic musicals? Because I don't remember old musicals ending on such a down note.

R11, do you mean Wallace Yawn?

R342. I got what the film was about. I just found it slow and tedious to sit through. It was worse than 2001 a space odeysey because at least in that film there are stunning visuals etc.

You don't like Fosse's "Cabaret"???

I imagine you're more of a big Julia Roberts fan then, huh?

r344 That's what he said!

Off the top of my head, I'd say Zabriskie Point is the biggest head-scratcher for me. Talk about pretentiousness masquerading as depth!

I never liked The Deer Hunter. It bored me to tears. It was ugly, too long, and depressing as hell. I fell asleep every time I tried to watch it. A snoozefest!

The Deer Hunter is like Deliverance . Both are famous for one scene and the rest of both movies is drawn out and slow.

Its funny how people who hate citizen Kane usually love Cadablanca, which is a lesser film and with cheesy dialogue. I guess people like films more when they are simple to understand.

Pride and Prejudice, the 2005 version with Keira Can't Act Knightly, Matthew MacFadden playing like a wet cat, Judy Dench phoning in a performance, and the appalling director Joe Wright who thought portraying Regency gentry as working class pigs was cool and radical.

First time I've ever wanted to throw something at the screen before I walked out.

Chariots of Fire was a painfully slow and boring experience. I saw it in the theater and fell asleep during the final half hour. Given the choice of watching it again or being water boarded, I would gladly take the water boarding. What a slog!

Remember when Brokeback Mountain came out and on DL there were posts from Eldergays saying "And I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed" like it was 1970s Love Story mandatory. It was easy to imagine big sugared heaps of mother love waddling out of the cinema, and assuaging their grief with a second burger and shake and double helping of fries.

And then one went oneself, and it went on and on and on in its tedious worthy noble way, like some lumpen soul at the bar droning about their coming out story, or their long lost love, or the hot trade they pined for but never made a move on, and one tried to maintain interest, and also not to smirk at the end as the sunlight highlighted the worse aging makeup in modern movie history. and then one walked out having lost two hours of one's life.

I know everybody says Cabaret is brilliant. I'm just not a Liza fan, she does nothing for me and neither does Fosse after a certain point. His cheap cynicism leaching off of Sondheim and Prince is embarrassing. I saw their original productions so I know what Fosse is trying to to. I also saw Tom Horgan's stage production of Lenny and boy was Fosse's film bad.

[quote]The Deer Hunter is like Deliverance . Both are famous for one scene

'Deliverance' is famous for two scenes, 'Squeal like a piggy', and duelling banjos. Its reputation is justified far beyond those scenes. The film's mood of deepening plausible horror is gripping and unforgettable.

Because 'Deliverance' is more focused and less sprawling than 'Deer Hunter' it stays in the mind more sharply. Boorman did a fine job.

Boorman is a great director. I've enjoyed his films.

I would say AI—a pretentious schlockfest where the Kubrick-style coldness and reserve of the opening quickly yield to Spielbergian sap, with about five successive endings, each more mawkish than the last—but I'm not sure anyone's critically acclaiming it.

Regarding Boorman, Point Blank is by far his best film. It's one of my favorites, possibly the best reinvention of The Count of Monte Cristo ever. He is a good director when he has good scripts. When he doesn't have good scripts, you get The Exorcist II. Pauline Kael said it could have been a masterpiece if it was in a language other than English and that is a perfect summation.

R361, that reminds me. Most of Spielberg's "great" movies are very overrated. I would say his great films are ET, Jaws and Empire of the Sun. Everything else is pretty bad. Schindler's List is good, not great. I mean, the girl in red? That's pretty cliched.

I enjoyed Charley Boorman’s loincloth in The Emerald Forest.

R362, Point Blank is an amazing film. Plus, Lee Marvin was quite a sexy man.

I wanted desperately to love Empire of the Sun,but I just couldnt get over Bales chewing up the scenery . I remember thinking back then that he would never have much of a career. Guess I was wrong. I love the story,I love the scenery, but I still cant get into Bale.

R366 Christian Bale won an Outstanding Juvenile Performance award for his performance in Empire Of The Sun by the National Board of Review, which is the least political or popularity influenced of all the film institutions.

There have been a few critically acclaimed films that I just did care for. The movies with the huge media and Oscar-push behind them over the years that I just did not enjoy were Silver Linings Playbook, There Will Be Blood, The Deer Hunter, Out of Africa, Crash, The Piano, Chariots of Fire, The Wolf of Wall Street, American Hustle, Good Will Hunting, and Reds.

Every one of those movies bores me to tears. Nothing about them speaks to me at all.

BEACHES!!!!!! That Wind Beneath My Wings song just added insult to injury.

Breakfast at Tiffany's seems to be fairly well regarded and I didn't get it at all. Super dull.

I hate when people go on and on about the technical side of a film like "oh, the whole film is done in one unbroken shot" or "just wait until that scene where she falls down the stairs. I've never seen anything like it before." Technical stuff can be cool and all, but if it's used to cover up and bring a little passion to a fairly lifeless story, it's pretty uninteresting to me. I know film is all about visual storytelling, but if the characters are dull and the dialogue sounds like a first draft written by an 8 year old, all the camera tricks and set design in the world isn't going to win me over.

I just watched “The English Patient” yesterday. Ridiculous.

I did like it the first time, though.

Inception has no well written characters

R373, I'm sure the original Asian version is way better.

Oh man sitting through Roma was an absolute fucking drag.

That terrible Sean Penn movie where he went full-retard, I Am Sam. What tripe!

I have never understood the appeal of Sean Penn to begin with. He always seems like he's acting to me. I never believe his characters are real people. He always comes across as a talking head reciting lines.

I walked out of Whiplash because I didn’t believe a second of it.

I don't like over the top dramatic, sentimental stuff. The Color Purple Precious

Whiplash sucked.

Birdman

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The Color Purple

Saving Private Ryan

Moonrise Kingsom

Precious

Fargo

Pulp Fiction

Pretty Woman

Working Girl

The Hurt Locker

At least 70% of all the movies ever nominated for an Oscar.

Was the point of Inception to put me to sleep, because that's what happened.

Avatar was a piece of shit, too.

I also thought 'There Will be Blood" was OTT. That last scene, dear God. Death in a bowling alley?

I'm wondering what the average age of DLers posting here is.....15? Maybe even 18? 90% of the films mentioned here are classics. Some DLers would be better off going back to their phones to play Candy Crush or whatever the fuck that is.

There will be blood was awful. So long drawn out and dull. DDL is a good actor but he was so cartoony in this film.

R381 Is an Oscar a critical accolade, though? When your product gets selected for the supermarket, doesn't mean it's good.