Most Overrated Classic/Acclaimed Movies

In your opinion, what is the most overrated movies that are considered classics or universally acclaimed by critics and audiences alike?

For me, Blader Runner, Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Pulp Fiction, The Seventh Seal, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Star Wars, On the Waterfront, and The Deer Hunter to be extremely overrated.

Remember that this is your opinion. No need to get personal. We all have our reasons for not particularly liking a movie or agreeing with the general consensus.

What's the point of the thread if it's just opinion and there's no need to discuss why you're silly for thinking Rashomon or Seventh Seal is overrated are we robots that make lists of things instead of talking

I never said you couldn't discuss. I just meant that there is no need to get personal or attack each other. Feel free to discuss.

Then let's start off by talking about your own reasons and we can have a party I'll bring smores and Citizen Kane

S'mores has a "'" in it. How's that for debate?

I'm not going to name any because someone started a thread like this in another forum that I chum around in and I called it the thread that would make me facepalm over and over again.

Plus, you can't properly call it overrated because that word I think implies that you are right and the acclaim is wrong. The thread really should be about classic films that you don't get or don't resonate with you. I think it's kind of arrogant to claim that a highly acclaimed film is overrated.

Debate that!

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From your other previous point I will explain my reasoning for the two mentioned movies.

The Seventh Seal is overrated because it's pretentious, boring, and absurdly contemplative without any reasoning. The dialogue has no substance. The questions are all blunt and not thought provoking at all. The pacing and transition is horrible, jumping from one scene to another, making no sense at all. I didn't feel the acting was good either. There was no emotion when they spoke making it very hard to connect to them. The characters are never developed, but its probably because Bergman focuses more on the theme. Overall, the movie is just ridiculously boring that ponders and tries to be philosophical. Although, I do admit that I was impressed by the beginning and ending scenes.

Rashomon is overrated because it's boring, poorly-acted, repetitive, and slow-moving. Toshiro Mifune overacts and laughs hysterically like a childish bandit. The fight scenes were drawn out, with each other slipping and falling, brandishing their swords at thin air. The choreography was not good. The story was too drawn out and could've been condensed. Overall, I do respect the innovative directing techniques, but I don't find it to match up to the universal hype.

Overrated merely means that the movie is rated too highly or given too much credit. It doesn't mean the movie is bad; the contrary, in fact. The movie can still be great or good, but merely undeserving of such high praise. Calling a movie overrated is subjective and opinionated. I'm not saying anyone's wrong, I'm just saying on my accounts on why I believe it isn't as deserving of its status.

Seventh Seal
People said/say that about Space Odyssey. No substance?

Jöns: Who will take care of that child. God, the devil, the nothingness? The nothingness, perhaps?
Antonius Block: It can't be so!

Death: Don't you ever stop asking?
Antonius Block: No. I never stop.
Death: But you're not getting an answer.

The concept of Jhva Eloheim Meth first enters the art circuit, provoking audiences to question their faith at least so that they have a true understanding of what they believe. Nah, that's shallow and unimportant.

Jöns: Love is the blackest of all plagues... if one could die of it, there would be some pleasure in love, but you don't die of it.

If you don't understand that, then you've never loved.

Antonius Block: Nothing escapes you!
Death: Nothing escapes me. No one escapes me.

Yet people fear him. More discussion to be had in tandem with the religious theme of the tale, which also ties into this:

Antonius Block: I shall remember this moment: the silence, the twilight, the bowl of strawberries, the bowl of milk. Your faces in the evening light. Mikael asleep, Jof with his lyre. I shall try to remember our talk. I shall carry this memory carefully in my hands as if it were a bowl brimful of fresh milk. It will be a sign to me, and a great sufficiency.

The glimmer of light are those around you, not the thoughts of death or gods, but the importance of conversation and togetherness with your fellow travelers. But that's pretty lame too I guess.

There's loads more, the film is filled with great dialogue, and the best part about it is that half of the film is a comedy yet not many realize it.

Again, people said that about Space Odyssey. There is emotion, that being emptiness. These people have just come from the Crusades, and there's no way you can sympathize with that, how are they supposed to act? You connect with them on the basis that you can relate to their follies and questions and moments of vindication from the horrors of their time.


Rashomon
/Space Odyssey He's a maniac. I see it as entertaining, which is interesting to enjoy the bad guy back then. Neither party truly was unafraid of the circumstances, hence their sloppiness, they didn't really want to fight, which is why the woman was given up on by both of them because they were merely adhering to blind concepts of honor (those of which were dismantled in Hara-Kiri)
Then read the book instead.

Yes, but those people are right.

Your basic problems with both The Seventh Seal and Rashomon appear to be that you find them boring and poorly-acted. Since I agree that The Seventh Seal is often a comedy, your discussion of it lacking emotion seems to imply that you don't understand it for some kind of cultural/historical reason. Bergman used the same actors in his films because they were part of his theatrical group. Bergman would shoot films when it was warm and direct plays when it was cooler, but the actors he used were the same for both. Therefore, if you don't like the acting in The Seventh Seal, I'm not really sure you could ever like the acting in any Bergman film, so this is obviously a strong personal opinion because even people who don't like Bergman tend to agree that his actors are topnotch. Also, The Seventh Seal is just over 90 minutes long.

Rashomon is even shorter, and I agree that the entire point of the Mifune character is to show that he's a wild man, or maybe even closer to reality, he's a crazed boy with adult yearnings. He has to act like a spoiled brat who gets his way and thinks that everybody else is wrong and stupid. That's the kind of perspective his character calls for.

I agree that it's OK for people to feel they don't understand why certain films are lionized while others aren't and it's also fine to discuss it. It's just that when it's organized and all the films get placed in a list, it doesn't seem to enlighten anything. If anything, the films from different eras, countries, genres, etrc. just seem to muddy the opinion more than it enlightens them. In your original post, you do use the phrase "extremely overrated". To me that would mean a film worth getting a or a getting . But feel free to ignore what I say because it's often considered overrated too.

EDIT - Bergman liked to bash overrated films and directors too, so check out some of his personal quotes and you may find interesting comments about Welles, Kurosawa, Godard, Spielberg, Antonioni and Tarkovsky, among others.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Star Wars,Pulp Fiction,Inception,Shawshank Redemption,Memento,Dark Knight.

2001: Space Odyssey, Psycho. Only my opinion. And I agree with Seven Samurai, Star Wars too.

Am I really that old that those are considered classic's........

I have to agree with 2001, 2010 was much better IMO.

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Space Odyssey is pure art...sci-fi movies without stupid action and ,,thats so awesome,, moments are very rare...every sci-fi movie should be like Space Odyssey...that is no movie for everyone,which do not give you the right to say those things...you called that movie boring and stuff because other people say so,and because user that open this threat called movie Seventh Seal that you like with thous words...that is so childish...from your post i see that you do not have your own opinion about movies,and you cant recognize art...i don't think that about people that say that Space Odyssey is overrated or something,but about people that literally insult that masterpiece like you just did,just because user that open this threat like that movie.

I can certainly see why people find 2001 overrated, but I have to disagree. It's one of the three or four greatest movies ever, IMO. And I've never seen Seventh Seal, nor do I have any great desire to do so. Anyways, classics that I think are overrated:

Citizen Kane: As a textbook guide to directing a movie, it's perfect. As motion picture entertainment, it sucks.

The Conversation: I'm actually very surprised I disliked this film, but I just thought it was dull, uninteresting, and poorly paced.

The Bride of Frankenstein: Basically a rehash of the original. And you don't even see the bride until the last 5 minutes.

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"Puns are the highest form of literature." -Alfred Hitchcock

I will admit that 2001: ASO is not everyone's cup of tea. To each their own.

The film ponders and ponders with questions. The dialogue rambles like a soliloquy. Maybe a play should've been more fitting?

Space Odyssey is not a linear film, as that was Kubrick's intention. Space Odyssey is in a series of episodes or vignettes. Therefore you cannot badger the pacing/transition. On the other hand, The Seventh Seal is portrayed as a linear film in accordance with the chess game but tries to link episodic events together. It doesn't work like that. You either have a linear film or a non-linear film. Bergman tries to do both, which is detrimental to the transition and pacing.

And what about the minor characters? How do you justify their acting?

Toshiro Mifune acts the same way in Seven Samurai. I would say that is overacting.

I'm well aware of that. I'm critiquing the choreography.

@HitchFan97

I agree with what you stated about The Conversation. I read the preview and thought it would be great, but it was quite the contrary. The themes and messages that the film explored and tackled were interesting though.

I bet that half of thous people cannot understand any movie that is a little more complicated than Star Wars...

So many ellipses, is butchering the written word a hobby of yours?

Anyway, So. Many. Facepalms.

Star Wars is a really tricky one. From my perspective, having seen them only relatively recently and with my experience of modern big-budget films, yes, to me they'd be overrated if that was the whole story, but it's not.

Star Wars is one of only a handful of films or film franchises that in my mind need to be looked at very much within their historical and cultural contexts to be fully understood. To flippantly say they're overrated without a second thought would be wrong, I think, because the series is one of the biggest cultural phenomenons of recent history, if not the biggest. You could say it's almost transcended ratings. It just is Star Wars.

That's true. In comparison to modern day, Star Wars isn't considered great. In a historical context, it revived cinema and introduced rare imagery in those days.

@Mark

Yes, I thought that both were poorly acted. I compare it to American acting in the same age and to me, the difference is vast.

Organizing? Lists? Who said? As I said, feel free to discuss. I'm not limiting your privileges. Wintertriangles wanted my explanation on The Seventh Seal and Rashomon, and so I gave one.