Most Overrated Movies

Taken
Titanic
Top Gun
The Crow
The Purge
The Game
Terminator 2
The Godfather
The Big Lebowski

I don't like the term "overrated". It's too haughty of a word. Who are you to decide that you're the only one that's right about a film's quality?

Anyway, there are a lot of popular films I strongly dislike. I dislike Godfather I and II, Goodfellas, Fight Club, Dark Knight, Inception, Dark Knight Rises, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, every Lord of the Rings film, Terminator I and II, Memento, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Clockwork Orange, Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Dr Strangelove, Departed, Deer Hunter, and others I'm probably forgetting.

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An interesting comment in that IMO, Casablanca (which I've seen a bunch of times) is iconic (mainly because of Bogart, who is an icon), Warner Brothers, the song, As Time Goes By, Ingrid Bergman (quite a looker), the anxieties and horrors of WW II, etc. As a movie script, however, it's fairly pedestrian B stuff, nice monochrome cinematography notwithstanding.

Nevertheless, it's hard to even think of a movie more iconic than Casablanca. Does that make it great however? Does it belong in a top 100?

Having spent some career years in the so-called "science" of ratings (we at least tried to do good ratings), at this point in life I have no idea what is a great movie. I guess, I'd just stick with the ones that get remembered and re-watched. As for science, objective factors, such as cost, box office, tickets sold, streams, etc, seem to be about the best we can do. I have little faith in the ratings of academia and/or experts.

for me its Reservoir Dogs, Vertigo and 1917 that come to mind.

So, you think the word overrated is... ....overrated?

There's no escaping it so long we as genuinely feel as if films have been heaped with more praise than they deserve. If being honest means being honest, that's just how it is. Who are you to tell that we don't have the right to share our opinion where the pack has gone astray?

There is something about 1917 that seems to be missing. I watch it and it has all these great elements and some nice sequences, but... ...I don't know it seems to be missing a certain something.

And the circle goes and goes. I get what you mean though. It's all a semantical thing. Yeah I don't like the term "overrated" though I can't really stop anyone from using it. I just don't like it for my own sake. I can only control myself, so that's all I'll worry about doing. I think that's fair.

I love 1917 as a technical marvel and as something intense to watch but I'll still say this; there's not a lot of story. Two runners are to deliver orders to a division that's over there. That's about it. 1917 isn't about the story; it's about the style. Is that a good or bad thing? That depends on whom you ask. I, for one, think it's fine as is. I get what you mean though.

I agree that its a language thing. Language is assertoric. Even when we share our opinion, we are offering account of how it (allegedly) is. I agree that we tend to be rather casual in using terms like this to share our hot takes. If you don't have a coordinated set of reasons supporting your hot take, you're just being especially expressive in saying "I didn't like that."

There are a lot of phrases people use that are just common parlance that they aren't noticed for what they actually mean by most people. I pay attention to stuff like that from time to time because I don't have anything better to do, and I've been more or less conditioned to pay attention to how I word what I say.

Like I don't say, "I don't care," I say, "I don't mind." The meaning is almost completely the same, but the latter one sounds much more compassionate. Sometimes I don't care. However when someone asks, "Is it okay if I go to this movie with my friend?" I'll say "I don't mind," because that's much friendlier. Using "accept" instead of "tolerate". "Sure that's fine," versus, "I guess I can." "Would you be willing..." versus "Could you help me do..." and et cetera. My friend said someone told him the difference between "react" and "respond". The former is negative, the latter is positive. Similar meaning, different connotation.

Language is weird. Even wording something with different words with both a shared meaning and a different meaning can change the meaning of a sentence that gives an entirely new answer and then opens a whole new avenue to explore. I usually say, when it's a popular film I don't like, that I simply didn't like it. I don't tell the populace I got it right and they didn't. I've learned I have eclectic taste so my opinions are weird. And they're mine.

Anyway I'm straying off topic and getting a little too philosophical.

Yeah, I think that may capture it. I love the formal premise of the film. I'm a sucker for a oner. But is a formal conceit enough to sustain a film? I guess it can be, but it's probably harder to pull off. I can only really say that this one doesn't hit me in the same way that Private Ryan does and it feels like should.

That's perfectly fine. You don't have to

Is it. Got to say I find that very opinion stated like that a whole lot more haughty.

Who said they were? I think you're reading more into the word than what most other people are. If I say "Drive is overrated"(which it absolutely is), it's not necessary to underline that it is my own very personal and highly subjective opinion interpreted through my own private reality tunnel. It's implied.

I haven't seen Raging Bull or the Dark Knight stuff but will have to agree about Inception. Partly agree about Dr Strangelove. I wouldn't say I strongly disliked it but I didn't find it the least bit amusing or entertaining. Other than that I'd say most of these are hmm.. what's the word.. Overrated!

The Game overrated? How so? What's its average score? I mean if it was praised as a true classic or anything similar I would agree but I don't think it is(?)

I quite liked it because it worked and was one of a few in its genre(of which I'm admittedly a fan) when it came out. Certainly not Oscar material but top notch entertainment IMO.

General comment across the years of threads: Instead of just posting a title, please please explain why you feel that way. The spirit of these forums is discussion among fellow movie addicts.

In general I don't hold Citizen Kane in high regard. I do admire the craft and innovative camera work and montage that went into producing it. But I find it cold. I just can't empathize with the main characters or care much about the life of Charles Foster Kane. The framing is intensely self-conscious and I feel that keeps you constantly distracted from the human drama. Much to admire, not much to experience.

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If something is widely held as great then it's wrong to admit that you think this is somehow not deserved because it would indicate that someone is wrong for liking something? Sounds pretty totalitarian.

I don't understand what's wrong with thinking people are wrong for liking or disliking something in the first place. If I loved a movie you despised with all your heart then how could you honestly in your own private mind not think I was wrong, misguided or have something backwards in some sense? While you don't have to shout about it, can choose not to dwell on how someone could think such crazy things, who's to say you're somehow wrong or bad for thinking my opinion is wrong or misguided, shake your head go about your day?

The word "overrated" doesn't make sense in the uncompromising situation of disliking a film (or something else). The dislike indicates that the film shouldn't be rated at all, therefore any rating equals overrating.
But there are many examples that show us clearly why this-or-that film is considered a "great one", especially in a particular point in time.

And it's that continuous praise in the context of more great films being released since then that could warrant a re-evaluation of the film's greatness. Because "they did it first" only means exactly that.
It certainly doesn't mean that all the beloved classics should be knocked off their pedestal. If anything, it only shows which ones have stood the test of time.

Moviegoers will no longer need medical attention after watching The Exorcist, and since horror and comedy are so closely connected I can honestly believe it will make modern audiences laugh (the parodies that followed certainly didn't help).
But when I consider all the aspects of that film I'm convinced it is still one of the best horror films ever made.
Black Christmas is another one as it delivers so much more creepiness than the slasher part itself. On the other hand it's possible that a more bloodthirsty slasher-fan isn't interested in atmosphere and creepiness and character-driven performances.
But even if it isn't the best slasher - and since it's one of the first I don't think it was marketed as a slasher - then it's still a terrific horror film.

And then I read on wiki (not necessarily the most trustworthy source) that The War Of The Worlds (1953), a film so excruciatingly bad in every single aspect, "was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress, who deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". And it just makes me howl with laughter.
That's not overrated, that's over-the-top-overrated.

i really dislike the oner gimmick in general (outside of Russian Ark) and i think the gimmick is especially a mismatch with the war genre.

I don't know what the average score is, but I have (anecdotally) over the decades repeatedly conversed with the people face-to-face who have discovered the film (watching the original release, later renting it from a video store, later finding it online) and commenting to me (personally) that the film is deep and makes you think. It seems to, in some otherwise intelligent people, prime conspiratorial thinking/Cartesian Skepticism regarding the social realm ("OMG, what if!?"). This is how I feel it is overrated. Decades of anecdotes in which I have spoken with dear and intelligent people who rate it higher than I think it deserves relative to this central conceit.

I recall seeing the film at its original release and feeling ambivalent about it and a fellow viewer put his finger on the problem (or at least my problem) with the Rube-Goldberg premise of the film. He commented as we left, "I'm supposed to believe all that, I can't even send two guys to the store to get a pack of cigarettes without someone screwing it up." The movie demands a lot of store credit from the viewer as a loan to invest in the infrastructure of building the bridge by which we suspend belief.

If a film is surrealist or whimsical I can roll with it (e.g., The Dark Backward, 1991). If the style of the film is "realistic" and not already in a genre which has struck a bargain with me (e.g., OK, in a vampire film, there will be vampires, I accept that), then I am not turning my brain off in terms of simple verisimilitude. And too much has to happen just perfectly for The Game to produce the manipulative causal sequence that we watch.

There is a similar twist in

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April Fools Day,

April Fools Day,

, but as that film is a slasher with a comedic edge (pun intended?), I accept a similar scenario as a heightened/hyperbolic reality. Moreover, this film does not ask me or invite me (as The Game has prompted so many of its viewers to do) to consider that my own life might the result of a deep conspiracy. The Truman Show pulls it off, because it is a comedy, a comedy with a bit of tragedy and dystopic commentary, but a comedy nevertheless. That and it is set in a future application of technology, which primes me to accept the coupon I honor for "science fiction" (e.g., "OK, faster than light is impossible, but I am going to accept that your spaceship goes faster-than-light, let's just get on with the rest of it).

I think The Game is OK, but for me it asks too much and I cannot rate it so highly on the basis of the question it appears to invite, because it never really "paid" for the question with a fictional warrant (a realistic world in which I believe all the stars might align in this way). And if the reason you rated it highly was because of this warrant, then I believe you have overrated the film.

I think it has something in common with J.J. Abrams films generally running one step ahead of their plot holes. If you don't think about it and are just dazzled by all the lens flares, then it works. But if you bring the same logic you would bring to a typical episode of Star Trek, then it all falls apart.

Probably more than you asked for, but there it is.

While the situation is not exactly the same, I have a similar feeling about Inception.
The concept is fabulous, but even though it explains ad nauseam how it works, it never explains why it works - and consequently only emphasises why it doesn't work.
The new "realistic" has been decided from the get-go and asks the viewer to accept it without any questions asked.
Inception plays it completely straight, there's nothing quirky about it that could make it easier to buy into its nonsense (like, for example, the way Black Mirror does).

Again; I don't disparage the usage of the word. I just don't use the word myself. I learned a long time ago I can't control other people, so I just worry about my own actions and let other people's take care of themselves. I don't have to agree with anyone on anything, whether it be vocabulary usage or perceived quality or any else. My main thing is to be consistent with what I present and how I present it.