Overrated and underrated films

Overrated? Sure. But it's still great!

There were plenty of people who felt that way at the time. I was desperate to see it and when a mate got me a copy he handed it to me with the words, "don't blame me. You wanted it." Now I knew it was made up when I saw it (the most revolutionary thing about it was the marketing online which is what led some to think it was real) but I still really enjoyed it. It was (I don't know it still is) a real Marmite film which really polarised most who saw it.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Star Wars most overrated. The acting, plot and writing aren't great. The visuals are dated.

It was incredibly innovative at its time, but it has aged poorly because many of the sci-fi movies/tv shows influenced by it have done it better.

Great Topic....Going to break this up into 5 top ten lists from different generations....

Recent films (2009-2023)

Avatar The Way of the Water (2023)
Black Panther (2018)
Paddington 2 (2017)
Ghostbusters (2016)
Moonlight (2016)
Green Room (2015)
The Worlds End (2013)
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
Precious (2009)
Avatar (2009)


-Avatar films are fine but they aren't the films at the all-time top of the box office quality wise. Ghostbuser 2016 is unwatchable and poorly paced. Paddington 2 is good, the best of the films on that list but it's universal praise is silly. Moonlight everyone hates the third act yet it's considered a classic. Precious is just a Passolini film without subtlety. It's Such a Beautiful Day is fine for an experimental film but it gets too much praise. Green Room is a good horror film that is poorly shot and blocked could have been better. The Worlds End is a pathetic end of one of the best trilogies of the modern era. Black Panther is fine for what it was but the FX at points of the film are already dated and a sign of Marvel's phase four sloppiness.

Everyone's Childhood (2002-1980)
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
The Bourne Identity (2002)
Yi Yi (2000)
The Piano (1993)
A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
Close Up (1990)
The Monster Squad (1987)
Down by Law (1986)
Red Dawn (1984)
Stripes (1981)

The only film I actively hate on this list is Down by Law an annoying silly stupid film. The arthouse films from this generation are long boring and forgettable. The Bourne Idenity is the most annoying spy work in the entire genre. Monster Squad and Red Dawn are great concepts with poor execution. Stripes and Napoleon Dynamite and generational comedies that really aren't all that great.



The "auteur" generation

Star Wars (1977)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Nashville (1975)
Amarcord (1973)
First Blood (1972)
The Last House on the Left (1972)
The Leopard (1963)
Journey to Italy (1954)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Tokyo Story (1953)

Tokyo Story isn't bad but it's not a top ten film of all-time, Ozu's films are fairly dull and if one film should have become the classic it should be Good Morning. Rebel Without a Cause is Deans worst film by far but seems to be the most popular one. Some films are offensively boring. I could put a lot of Altman films on this list...but Nashville is his classic so that's the one I hate the most. I could put a lot of horror films on this list but Last House on the Left is the worst of all the bad rape films. First Blood is pretentious and dumb and looks even worse compared to the later fun Rambo films. Star Wars is a good film but it is to science fiction flms what Bond films are to spy films but Star Wars gets singled out as a great version of the film and it's just okay.


The First Generation
The Wolf Man (1941)
How Green was My Valley (1941)
Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Stagecoach (1939)
The Ghoul (1933)
Wings (1927)
Kurosawa's first couple films
Hitchcock's Silents (minus The Lodger)

Hitch and Kurosawa both started off with some of the most unwatchable films you'll ever see. For horror The Wolf Man might get better as the series progressed but the first one is a clunker. Some terrible BP winners came out that year but Fords Valley is no Citizen Kane and feels like a punch line. Wings and Stagecoach are spectacles with horrible scripts they were the Avatar's of their days. Capra is make or miss for me but Mr Deeds and Mr Smith are not good films

Most recent ventures in this vein are Casualties of War and The Deer Hunter, both war movies that draw their characters, themes and plot out too long.

Now let's move onto the underrated films...


Babylon (2022)
The Last Jedi (2017)
42 (2013)
Cloud Atlas (2012)
Prometheus (2012)
Undercover Brother (2002)
Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
My Dog Skip (2000)
Con Air (1997)
Event Horizon (1997)
Starship Troopers (1997)
Batman Returns(1992)
Halloween IV (1988)
Caligula (1979)
Myra Breckinridge (1970)
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
Shadows (1959)
Raintree County (1957)
Marilyn Monroes films from 1953-1956

• Niagara (1953)
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
• How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
• There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)
• The Seven Year Itch (1955)
• Bus Stop (1956)

The Good Earth (1937)
Anthony Adverse (1936)

"If you look straight into the sun and lose your sight don't blame the sun, but your eyes."

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San Franciscan lesbian dwarves and their tomato orgies.

It was a great twist at the time and a very well written film. I agree it is very slightly on the overrated side but overall I think it gets the respect it deserves. I reckon if you make yourself a cup of tea lay back and watch it by yourself you may appreciate it more. Who knows

Overrated:
Fight Club
American Psycho
The Machinist

Underrated:
Das Boot
The Gentlemen
Insomnia

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Anyway, I generally dislike both terms, and I feel more often than not they are used by some people to elevate their personal feelings about certain films to "absolutes", as in "nobody likes this, but ME" = underrated, or "why does everybody likes this when *I* don't like it?" = overrated. Whoever wants to use the terms, more power to ya, especially if it leads to fruitful and insightful discussions. Personally, I try to avoid using them.

I think fight club really speaks to today's young men and how masculinity is often labeled as being toxic when it should be embraced. Obviously fight club takes it to the extreme but I think it's natural that more young men relate to fight club today than ever before. So I would say fight club deserves it's popularity.


Christian Bails performance in The Machinist and the way the film was directed in a very Gothic lighting really made the film stand out to me. So I think The Machinist deserves its popularity as well. Personally I find Christian Bails weight transformation really inspirational and it shows the insane depths that you can go if your disciplined enough.


Das Boot... I definitely agree on that one


Insomnia... I agree too

Hey, buddy. We have different views on Fight Club. I think the male/female relationship there is purely symbolic. I mean, there's no such woman, we're talking about a character inside a schizophrenic man, but I agree with you that it criticizes toxic relationships today. Should the events in the background of a movie affect the quality of the movie? I don't know. I think it's Bale's outstanding performance rather than the movie.

Isn't Fight Club a parody of this kind of lame-o chest thumping masculinity?


Yes, it's also critiquing consumer culture where we have suppressed our more instinctual impulses in the pursuit of acquiring pointless garbage.


But it isn't embracing the behavior of those in the fight club. It's criticizing it. It has more than one target for ridicule.

Overrated
Gladiator (2000)
American Pie (1999)
Top Gun (1986)
Free Guy (2021)
Ralph breaks the internet (2018)
Forrest Gump (1994)

underrated
Magnolia (1999)
Trainspotting (1996)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
Memento (2000)
Election (1999)
Panic Room (2002)

Free Guy (2021) is overrated? I've never heard of it before?

Magnolia (1999), Trainspotting (1996), Memento (2000) Underrated? Not here there's a lot of love for those movies.

Just IMO and for including the years of the movies.