30 Critically Acclaimed Movies That “Everyone” Seems To Hate Now
“I think in 7 to 10 years Oppenheimer will be considered grossly overrated.”
Out of curiosity, we recently asked the members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about which critically acclaimed movie they think “everyone” seems to hate now. Here are their very passionate responses:
1. Oppenheimer (2023) — “I think in 7 to 10 years Oppenheimer will be considered grossly overrated.”
Universal Pictures / Everett
2. Forrest Gump (1994) — “I put Forrest Gump at the top. Friends and I have argued over this movie for years. Specifically, it’s all of my friends vs. one holdout who thinks we’re being harsh. We’re not! I’m not sure how widespread the dislike is, but I don’t know anyone (but the one friend) who can stomach this movie.”
Paramount / ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
3. Juno (2007) — “Wildly popular when it came out, now widely seen as a bit crap, full of cringeworthy, dated dialogue, and casual homophobia.”
Fox Searchlight / ©Fox Searchlight/Courtesy Everett Collection
4. Dances with Wolves (1990) — “It should definitely be on this list. It’s a white savior depiction, and it winning Best Picture over Goodfellas is ridiculous.”
Ben Glass / ©Orion Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
5. American Beauty (1999) — “Not just because of Kevin Spacey (though he doesn’t help). It is an Oscar winner and box office hit that just feels terrible in retrospect. Does anyone like this movie now?”
Dreamworks / ©DreamWorks/Courtesy Everett Collection
6. As Good as it Gets (1997) — “It was never any good.”
Sony Pictures / ©Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
7. Titanic (1997) — “It’s way too long. One VHS tape was enough; back then, when it came out, it was still VHS, AND I HATED having to switch tapes!!! LOL”
Fox Studios / Courtesy Everett
“My friends all said, ‘Wait until the end, it’s so worth it,’ but I wasn’t willing to sit through two and a half hours of cheese to watch ten minutes of a boat sinking, regardless of how impressive it looks. I walked out after 20 minutes or so.”
—Anonymous
8. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) — “My parents loved this movie when I was a kid, so I sat through it when I was a kid. I liked the concept but always hated the part with their maid, Annie, and Henry. Now that I am an adult and have a child, my child will never see this movie because of the serious racism and anti-Blackness in this movie that was not talked about when I was a kid (and still not talked about). George’s 18-year-old brother literally chases a Black woman (that is working for the family) up the stairs and smacks her on the ass. It’s horrific. Stop glorifying this movie, folks. It is FUCKED UP!”
Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection / Everett Collection
9. Braveheart (1995) — “Every other middle-aged white dude LOVES it. I just couldn’t get into it, even though I still enjoy Gibson movies. I just didn’t care or was interested in being inspired like everyone else was. Fake historical drivel.”
20th Century Fox Film Corp. / Courtesy: Everett Collection.
—Anonymous
10. The Shape of Water (2017) — “They should have killed the creature, any other film they would have.”
Photo Courtesy Of Fox Searchlight Pictures / Fox Searchlight / Everett Collection
“Stupidest waste of money. I only go to the movies about once a year, and we went to this. This is why I only go once a year.”
11. The Blind Side (2009) — “My dad is pretty good at keeping his mouth shut, but he couldn’t take it anymore during the scene when the Tuohy husband and wife were summing up how well things were going with their little charity case. He was like, ‘This is so fake and stupid!’ My mom was telling me later, ‘Your father is so cynical!’ and I remember thinking, He’s not wrong… Back then, we hadn’t heard the term ‘white savior’ yet, but I think that was what was bothering us.”
Warner Bros.
12. Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013) — “It was critically acclaimed for being a queer movie in an industry where there were very few. Then it turned out the director dude made it a nightmare for the leads to work in it. And this is not an unpopular opinion anymore, but the explicit scenes in the movie come across as porn, and tbh, it comes off as a more hyper-sexualized depiction of lesbians than a celebration of a lesbian love story.”
Wild Bunch
13. La La Land (2016) — “I’m a jazz musician, and Sebastian’s traditionalist attitude about jazz was absolutely infuriating, especially how they painted him to be in the right. Watching a white guy explain how jazz should be to a room of Black people was ridiculous. I’m a jazz musician and like classics as much as the next guy, but Sebastian was just…ugh.”
Lions Gate / ©Lions Gate/courtesy Everett Collecti / Everett Collection
—Anonymous
14. Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) — “I’m not sure where to even begin. A lot has been made about the editing, most famously when they first meet John Reid. But the actual story was so much more interesting than the existing Queen members would greenlight. The lead won an Oscar for doing what basically came off as an impression. It was worse than I had heard, and I heard it was terrible.”
Photo Credit: Nick Delaney / 20th Century Fox Licensing/Merchandising / Everett Collection
—Anonymous
15. Crash (2004) — “‘Hey, lady! I know I sexually molested you a little while ago, but I saved your life! That means we’re cool, ain’t we?'”
Lions Gate Films
16. Gone With The Wind (1939) — “A movie that has so many unlikable characters, goes on for way too long, and paints an untrue image of Civil War history never deserved the reception it received for so many decades. Mediocre at best and an atrocious product of dated views at worst. Apparently, the book was even crueler, which makes it pretty baffling that this film was even made. Anything goes in the ’30s, I guess.”
Loew’s Inc. / Courtesy Everett
17. Song of the South (1946) — “Song of the South won two Oscars and had one of the most iconic Disney songs in the last half of the 20th Century. Now Disney has more or less scrubbed it completely from availability.”
Courtesy Everett Collection
18. Captain Phillips (2013) — “I haven’t seen anyone mention Captain Philips yet. Apparently, the real-life Captain Phillips was warned to take a much wider berth around the Horn of Africa specifically because of the threat of pirates, but he wanted to save time! Well, what do you know, there were pirates! Apparently, the crew was pissed the movie made him look like such a hero when the situation was basically his fault.”
Sony Pictures
19. Annie Hall (1977) — “It won the Academy Award for Best Picture the same year that Star Wars broke all the box office records. I lost my respect for the Academy that year.”
United Artists / Everett
20. Citizen Kane (1941) — “Yes it more or less was destroyed by critics when it came out, but that was only because William Randolph Hearst refused to let his reporters give it a positive review. It’s consistently voted as the best movie of all time but modern audiences consider it boring. The plot is excellent, the acting is phenomenal, and the filmmaking is perfect. The lighting, camera angles, and sets are still groundbreaking! But modern audiences just don’t care about that stuff anymore.”
Courtesy Everett Collection
—Anonymous
21. Last Tango in Paris (1972) — “Last Tango in Paris used to be hailed as a masterpiece until the actor, Maria Schneider, spilled the beans about how scummy Brando and the director were.”
United Artists
22. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) — “When it came out, the sentiment was overwhelmingly ‘Star Wars is back!’ but in hindsight, it really doesn’t hold up at all.”
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
23. Avatar (2009) — “It’s basically a Hallmark movie with an over-reliance on CGI that lacks emotional resonance and impact of FernGully. I felt nothing for every stock, dry, miserable character. They were all NPCs in what has become an industry NPC actors and actresses.”
20thcentfox / ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
—Anonymous
24. Super Size Me (2004) — “If you do the math, you discover that he was eating a LOT more calories than he was presenting in the show, therefore ruining his entire premise. Then, it turned out those extra calories came in the form of booze…”
Samuel Goldwyn Films
25. Out of Africa (1985) — “It was a big waste of time and money. Sure, the cinematography was great. But a person can only look at pretty landscape pictures for so long. Eventually, a film must have meaningful dialogue and a plausible plot. This film had neither!”
Mca / ©MCA/Courtesy Everett Collection
—Anonymous
26. Slumdog Millionaire (2008) — “It was not as good from the second viewing onward. Fantastic soundtrack, though.”
Searchlight Pictures
“It was such a strange movie for an Indian to watch. Like, so much of it was obvious poverty p*rn, but you could feel Danny Boyle’s genuine fascination with Mumbai, too. A worrying number of people took it extremely seriously. Something like watching Requiem for a Dream and thinking it represented all America is.”
27. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) — “It’s an entire dream sequence esq movie because they are tripping on acid, shrooms, and whatever else. I tried to watch this and read the book. I can’t get through it. I hate a dream sequence and anything that resembles it.”
Universal / ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
28. Traffic (2000) — “Watched it recently… It’s like a really preachy and flat episode of Narcos. IDK if it’s ‘hated’ today, but it seems pretty much forgotten. The other big acclaimed films that year (Gladiator, Almost Famous, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Erin Brockovich) had a lot more staying power.”
USA Films
29. The English Patient (1996) — “It won a lot of praise and awards but was a total bore from start to finish!”
Miramax / ©MIRAMAX
—Anonymous
“The English Patient never survived Seinfeld lighting it up for being long and boring.”
30. Finally, Dirty Dancing (1987) — “As much as I hate to say it, Dirty Dancing. I loved this film as a teenager and young adult. It wasn’t until I watched it with my daughter that I noticed how bad it really was. First, Baby…I mean, come on, her name was Baby? She was a minor, and what was Johnny? In his late twenties? I loved Patrick Swayze, but he was too old for the role, which made it even grosser. So, Johnny’s a pedophile, and they are lying and stealing to get their friend an abortion. Baby deserved to be in the corner.”
Vestron Pictures /Courtesy Everett Collection
