20+ most overrated movies
The September issue of Premiere runs its list of the 20 most overrated movies of all time. Their list, which they run in alphabetical order:
2001
A Beautiful Mind
American Beauty
An American in Paris
Chariots of Fire
Chicago
Clerks
Easy Rider
Fantasia
Forrest Gump
Field of Dreams
Gone with the Wind
Good Will Hunting
Jules and Jim
Monster’s Ball
Moonstruck
Mystic River
Nashville
The Red Shoes
The Wizard of Oz
Some I totally agree with (American Beauty). Others I’d forgotten were ever considered particularly good (Moonstruck). Some I think were put there just to be controversial. I mean, knocking The Wizard of Oz for “Technicolor at its most garish” sort of misses the historical perspective that a film magazine ought to provide, doesn’t it?
Anyway, here are some I’d add to my own personal list, in no particular order. ((bp= won Best Picture)
Animal House
Dances with Wolves (bp)
Titanic (bp)
The Usual Suspects
Fight Club
Barton Fink
Platoon (bp)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
It’s a Wonderful Life
Norma Rae
Braveheart (bp)
Young Frankenstein
The Piano
Seventh Seal
Being There
Gladiator (bp)
The English Patient (bp)
The Third Man
The Third Man’s zither music
This list was compiled at great expense, involving a team of white-coated researchers and the latest in nanotechnology. Thus, it cannot be wrong. [Tags: movies]
Categories: Uncategorized dw
I don’t think an Academy Award is a sign of being overrated. More often than not Oscars are a sign that a film is not particularly good (although a film can be good despite winning one, of course). But I couldn’t come up with another meaningful metric myself, I am afraid.
A recent film (series) I thought was overrated: LotR.
I was so pleased to see a list of movies and to realize that I’d seen almost none of them.
There are ethical problems with some of those movies–Field of Dreams and Gone With the Wind stand out–but I couldn’t claim any of them are really overrated esthetically.
But here’s a question for you:
I’ve never seen The Seventh Seal, but I have seen Shame. The friend I saw it with and I walked for nearly ten minutes before we could say anything. It hit us that hard.
That’s the only Bergman movie I’ve seen (well, that, and Woody Allen’s Interiors).
Ever seen it? Is it typical of his work?
Branko, but does getting Best Picture mean that the movie has been rated as good? If not, then what counts as being highly rated? And being highly rated is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for overrated. As for LoTR being overrated: You are hereby banished from the kingdom! :) (In truth, I am a huge fan of the LoTR movies, and I came into them highly skeptical. I’m not a big fan of the genre.)
Adamsj, what ethical problems are you referring to? You mean the plantation-owner’s pov in GWTW? But what about Field of Dreams? Is it just that it’s unethical to hire Kevin Costner?
“Shame” is an atypical Bergman movie, and I agree that it’s a powerful experience. “Shame” is more realistic and narrative-driven than the early movies for which Bergman is best known. “Virgin Spring” has a strong narrative too, but it’s more mythic in its feel. (It’s also a great movie.)
Overrated
The Untouchables
Rethink needed
The English Patient was a beautiful movie. Many good things unravel slowly.
David!
What’s your beef with The Usual Suspects???
The Best Pictures nominees in 96′:
Apollo 13, Babe, The Postman, Sense and Sensibility.
Usually Suspects is a better film than any of these by a factor of about 37. Great casting, script, directing, musical score, with one of the best–if not the best–climaxes for a suspense/action/mystery film. Perhaps its a generational thing.. when the movie came out I was graduating from high school and entering college. By my sophomore year, I didn’t know anyone who hadn’t seen the film, and was absolutely blown away by it. If this film is overrated, its overrated by a legion of fans. Didn’t get much love from the Academy beyond the Spacey nod!
Speaking of Spacey, I’m totally with you on American Beauty. That’s one of the most solipsistic time wastes of a “film” ever created.
Generally, I agree with your and Premiere’s pronouncements.
A few disagreements:
Besides being really funny (“Would you like a car, sir?” “Yes, I WOULD like a car?”) Being There had great acting plus a good postmodern take on TV (did you ever catch Carol Hamilton’s piece comparing Being There with George W. ?
With Titanic, I admired the script a lot. I just thought the Titanic was a great setting for the story (as a background for a story about social classes).
It’s probably not fair to put Capra films in the same category since they all have exaggerated moralizing, simple plots and stereotyped characters (and the ending of Wonderful Life is contrived). But if you watch it again, you notice a lot of things: interesting characters, great segues and set pieces (that swimming pool scene! the telephone call!). I watched it in Albania while they were having their banking problems of their own, and let’s just say the film struck a chord. (I wrote about it here .
English Patient is sort of there, but it was one of Walter Murch’s last films to edit, and it inspired a good book on the craft of film editing (which I’m reading now: The Conversations : Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film (Paperback)
by Michael Ondaatje).
Among my list of recent overrated classics: Lost in Translation (although that’s a bit of a dispute; Ebert mentions that it received lots of praise from people who saw it onscreen, lots of condemnation from those who watched it onscreen; sorry, I can’t find the recent link), Napolean Dynamite and (save me!) Million Dollar Baby. And oh, yes, Kill Bill (also did a blogcritic post about that).
Among the real classics that are overrated, I would throw out Andrei Rublev, Russian Ark and a lot of the Woody Allen middle Comedies and perhaps Renoir as well. Last Picture Show (though it had great moments, and loved the overall look). I’m a bit of a Bergman fanatic, but his stuff gets rather raw or sentimental after a while. Fanny & Alexander is much overrated too, though I like Seventh Seal. Check out his first feature, Torment…wow!
A lot of times, when we say a film is overrated, we are experiencing a backlash against media hype , lavish production values and formula plots (although the ones you mention aren’t always formulas). Our expectations become higher when we know the budget is high, so the potential for disappointment remains greater.
BTW, when we talk about “overrated,” we should also talk about underrated as well. One of my guilty pleasures is channel surfing Sunday afternoon and watching unknown B comedies and horror. Maybe if I had made the effort to buy these movies or see them at the theatre, I would be more critical.
David,
My problem with Field of Dreams is that, while Shoeless Joe Jackson wasn’t a cheat, the other Black Sox were, and the movie plays fast and loose with that historical fact.
Gone With the Wind…well, maybe you have to be from the South to really deeply hate it.
Robert,
I’ll go further–underrated is more interesting than overrated.
Your list is dead on, except for one thing:
The Third Man
The Third Man’s zither music
HAVE YOU NO SOUL?!
No love for Holly Martins? No love for Harry Lime? No love for Anton Karas? What on earth is wrong with you, man?! THE THIRD MAN is a major piece of work. If anything, it is criminally underrated.
Citizen Kane, on the other hand, is grossly overrated.
“Branko, but does getting Best Picture mean that the movie has been rated as good? If not, then what counts as being highly rated? And being highly rated is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for overrated.”
What if the picture also got a Worst Pigsure award from the Hicksville Bugle? Do these awards cancel each other out?
“As for LoTR being overrated: You are hereby banished from the kingdom!”
I’ll just go sit in Valinor. So there!
“(In truth, I am a huge fan of the LoTR movies, and I came into them highly skeptical. I’m not a big fan of the genre.)”
Oh, it is certainly ably made, but it rushes through the story at a breakneck pace, and at times it has a artsy feel to it for artsy-feel’s sake, I feel.
If Jackson had wanted to make an exciting adventure romp, he should have started at Rivendell, or perhaps even later, and he should have left most of the Frodo + Sam story out. Sure, Gollem is one of the most interesting characters in the film, but having an interesting character does not justify burning through the story.
And I am not saying it is not a good (trio of) film(s), because it is, but I think it is overrated.
Good grief! I’m glad I don’t go to movies with any of you. I am a total sucker when it comes to movies; it has to be pretty bad for me to not suffer it out to the ending. But I am quite harsh about which movies I will see more than once.
Dr. D, I am relieved to know that there is finally an area in life that we do not agree upon… it was getting a bit eery, having you give voice and structure to my silent thoughts. WHEW!
I loved American Beauty, apparently for very much the same reasons you (DW) hated it – a bit less of that silly Orient Express plotting and it would have been a major work, comparable with Toto the Hero. But then, I’d also salvage The Piano, The Third Man, It’s a wonderful life, 2001 and Kane, so call me Mr Conventional.
I find it hard to single out overrated films – I work on the basis that very nearly everything that’s come out of Hollywood since about Chinatown is overrated, & the occasional good film is a nice surprise. Anything with Kevin Costner, for sure; anything with Tom Cruise; pretty much anything with Tom Hanks (although I did like Big). Anything by Scorsese after Goodfellas. Anything with de Niro since (and including) Cape Fear. Most of the Coens’ output. Barton Fink was a silly, pretentious mess held together by some actors having fun; they do that a lot (starting with Blood Simple), and it only really works when they play it for laughs (with the possible exception of Fargo). I could go on…
There were a couple of movies with Robert deNiro I liked – Midnight Run and Brazil being two I can think of at the minute. And Taxi Driver was pretty good in a disturbing sort of way.
Noel – I did specify Cape Fear (1991) and after. Mind you, The Deer Hunter certainly belongs on the list; equally, you could argue that most of the dreck de Niro’s done in the last decade isn’t rated highly enough by anyone to qualify as over-rated. Harder than it looks, this stuff.
Okay, Phil, keep your knickers on. : )
You’re right, since 1991 I can’t think of anything great de Niro’s done either.
You are an absolute clown. About 40% of those movies were absolute classics and you put them as over rated. Who in their right mind gave you money to set up a website like this. A child would make a better list. Eat it
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Possibly the most overrated movie of all time. It absolutely sucked. So boring! Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom……….are you telling me this is a strong cast??? No variety, just one long movie about preparing for battle. Endless talking in that over-dramatic tone. Boring dream sequences and love interests that you can’t and don’t want to keep track of. I tried to watch this movie twice, and fell asleep both times.
Jason – Minneapolis, MN
I disagree with Chicago and Forrest Gump. The other ones I agree with. Although, you missed a few, such as Pulp Fiction. Don’t get me wrong. I like it, its just not as good as its cracked up to be.
Recently overrated movies as of late, in my opinion, include Garden State, Sideways, A History of Violence, Little Miss Sunshine, and Mystic River. Don’t get me wrong. They are all good movies, just overrated. The problem is that movies, in general, have gotten so bad that any movie with a half a plot and a decent cast seems to become an “instant classic.” If a movie has a scintilla of charm and originality it becomes so highly lauded in the press that it can’t help but dissappoint. The most recent example of this phenomenon is Little Miss Sunshine. The critics and pretty much everyone I know who has seen it RAVED about it. To hear them gush I expected it to be the love child of Annie Hall and Harold and Maude. In truth, it was a quirky, entertaining road movie, with solid performances all around — just like Sideways (which was nominated for an Academy Award). We’ve become so accustomed to mediocrity, to vapid teen comedies and pointless mega-budget action flicks that anything that smacks of being remotely “indie” or edgy automatically dons the mantle of avant garde brilliance.
Regarding the Academny Awards — in general there is a good chance that if a movie won the best picture award in the last 15 years it is overrated: A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator, Shakespeare in Love, Titanic (over LA Confidential), The English Patient (over Fargo), Braveheart and Forrest Gump (over Pulp Fiction) are just a few examples.
Chicago is god awful!!! It’s based on the 1972 musical Cabaret. Not to mention, it features a HORRIBLE CAST and Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger did nothing but humiliate themselves more. Queen Latifah is just flat out terrible in her performance. The awful musical number at the end with Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta Jones came off as a complete FAKE!!! What a load of horse shit!!! Not one person in this film could sing. It’s nothing but an overlong music video with nothing but bad performances.
Thank you all for putting “The English Patient” on your list of most overated films. If one thought there was any merit in Academy Awards, it was lost the night TEP won over “Fargo”?????
It was like the night “Chariots of Fire” won what 25 years ago now. I tried to give “Chariots of Fire” another chance recently and it still is as bad as it was all those years ago. I will not give “The English Patient” a second chance because I felt tortured watching it and I am not a masochist. Thanks also to some of you for putting “Beautiful Mind” on the list. Another beauty…….
The Third Man and The Seventh Seal overrated! Are you out of your mind? Carol Reed and Ingmar Bergman are masters of cinema and when they were great it’s hard to say anyone was much better. Reed’s The Third Man is about as perfect as film can ever get. This movie is a mishmash of many different talents coming together in a way that seems magical. Perhaps, because it’s a uncommon and unusual film you think it’s overrated. The Third Man was made with an extraordinarily atmospheric look to it, using tilted (dutch angles) camera angles and the high-contrast climactic chase through Vienna’s sewers. A great deal of credit for this look goes to Robert Krasker who won an Oscar for his black-and-white cinematography. The great screenplay was by the famous critic-turned-crime-author Graham Greene. But perhaps the most important ingredient is Anton Karas’ Zither score. Audiences today may not be able to stomach the steely Zither sound, but back in 1949 and 1950 they were enthralled.
Bergman was a jerk! His taste in film wasn’t very good either, but The Seventh Seal is easily one of the greatest art films, not to mention, one of the greatest films ever made, even though much of it looks like a Carl Theodor Dreyer film, (who Bergman claims that Dreyer’s films has never touched him). Episodic in nature and peppered with numerous outstanding performances, this stunning allegory of man’s apocalyptic search for understanding remains a textbook on the art of filmmaking.
As far as overrated films are concerned I’d say The Godfather pt. I and II, In the Heat of the Night, An American in Paris, Psycho, Annie Hall, de Palma’s horrible remake of Scarface, The Wizard of Oz (which the best scenes were directed by King Vidor not Fleming), anything Werner Herzog ever made, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, Evil Dead II, Dead/Alive, The Usual Suspects, The Silence of the Lambs, Memento, Fight Club, The Matrix, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Apocalypse Now, Se7en, American History X, A Clockwork Orange, Das Boot, Saving Private Ryan, All About Eve, The Elephant Man, Blade Runner, Strangers on a Train, Donnie Darko, Platoon, Gandhi, The African Queen, Requiem for a Dream, Trainspotting, Ed Wood, Brazil, The Philadelphia Story, A Christmas Story, etc. are all overrated.