Polarized movies that you love and that you hate

I gave The Tree of Life 9.5 when I saw it for example.
For another example, I gave Pink Flamingos 2.5.

Moving pass silly stuff like Batman and Robin, The Room and Money Plane (which are meme classics and the lowest-rated movies I've "liked" on Letterboxd), it has to be Refn's Only God Forgives (2013); which might've been THE film to separate me from following the movie critics of the day. I couldn't believe their lack of recognition for this coolest-sounding, self-loathing trouble child of Lynch and Tarkovsky... re-watched it a while ago and found it more pretentious than ever, but still enjoyed it a good deal.



+ Kinds of Kindness gotta be a recent example of polarized that I disliked.

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Most recently, probably Andrew Dominik's Blonde, which got an absolute critical and social media mauling when it was released on Netflix in 2022.


I thought it was a fine film presented to the wrong audience. (Should have been released to Mubi or somewhere like that.)


Kind of reminded me of Fire Walk With Me in some ways and was greeted in much the same way -- with absolute venom. Whether it gets the same kind of critical reappraisal as FWWM remains to be seen.


Cronenberg's Crash is on the 'loved' pile; Gasper Noé's Enter the Void on the 'not so much' pile...


But I prefer a polarising film -- even if I hate it -- to one everyone shrugs at and says 'it was alright.' And think the world could do with more of that kind of divisive art thing.

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I just thought of one - JFK (1991) - It well made with a great cast. But I don't believe in crazy conspiracy theories. So my rating would be very low.

You're my new hero! I don't believe in crazy conspiracy theories either and yes JFK was a good movie with a great cast.

A great movie if it were fiction.

Well I don't believe in conspiracy theories I consider crazy either. Probably nobody does.

Plenty of people believe in crazy conspiracy theories esp. regarding the JFK assassination. The whole movie is based i=on these theories.

Sure but the people believing in them probably don't think the conspiracy theories are crazy. Otherwise they probably wouldn't believe in them.

Here's one: Jackie Kennedy shot JFK with a small gun while sitting next to him. Apparently, you can see it on the Zapruder film. You just have to know how to look at it.

Yeah that's a good one. Proper crazy

Waking Life apparently cleared out large chunks of the audience within the first half hour or so when shown in theaters. I suppose the same could easily be true for Bad Boy Bubby. I gave both 10/10.

The Blair Witch Project is another one. I saw it in the theater and was pleasantly surprised. I thought the manufactured mysticism around it actually had worked in its favor and was glad I hadn't researched/debunked the issue to death beforehand.

People also seem to fall in one camp or the other with The Lighthouse (2019). I wouldn't call it hate but I wasn't too fond of it.

I didn't really watch it for any actual realism, but rather in-world realism. An Oliver Stone classic IMO, but not Platoon.

On that subject, I'd like to add that I gave a 10/10 to Natural Born Killers. I didn't even know Stone COULD direct like that, let alone be willing to. His movies are always so serious, so this risky business of his was actually beautifully bold. Did everything it wanted to do very well and honestly shocked the hell out of me. And I LOVED Downey Jr. in it.

And since Heineken brought it up, 10 to Blair Witch Project.