The 20 Most Overrated Movies of All Time

[SweMozArt]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 1:44pm

I guess some of the movies that regularly feature on "best of all time lists" are logical targets, as well as films who are highly rated during an era but won't or haven't stood the test of time. Being "overrated" is not the same thing as being "bad" in my book. Even a great movie can be overrated. I will personally have to think this over and perhaps see some movies before i post my full list but here are some spontaneous suggestions, which I might greatly regret after having seen the m again. They are all good or great movies by the way:

Citizen Kane

Since it is regarly put forward as the best movie of all time it should be practically faultless and I feel it isn't. I felt for instance that the mock documentary start in the beginning wore thin after some minutes and it lasted much to long. Having seen the documentary about William Randolph Hearst and Orson Welles i felt that both mens lifes were more intersting than the film.


Million Dollar Baby

This one is not as highly rated as the others but having won the Oscar for both best picture and director it belongs to an exclusive group of very highly rated movies. Now the perspective with a female boxer and a sad ending, was refreshing for a boxing movie, but hardly genius. However the characters felt stereotypical in many cases, which is a problem if the movie is intended as a drama. The most extreme stereotypes were the relatives to the boxer, the mother in particular.

Apocalypse Now

In many ways a great movie with individual scenes that have become part of cultural history (especially the wagner scene). But the individual scenes sometimes feel as they don't fit together as they should and it doesn't really feel as the serious comment on the Vietnam war that it pretends to be.

Ok two movies with a Swedish connection:

Casablanca

This movie is also often in the top ten on best of all time lists and therefore should be practically faultless in order to not be overrated. I think the best with this movie is the icons in it: Bogart, Bergman and Armstrong together with the famous tune, the scene were it is played and the "we will always have Paris" ending scene. But the manuscript is hardly among the best of all time. Now granted a movie consist of several parts and having icons in it at their prime is a great plus.

The seventh seal

Ok, i don't think it's considered as one of Bergmans best films today but it's still higly rated. To me it feels a bit satirical and cliche ridden which i don't think was the intention of Ingmar Bergman (at least not to the present degree).

A final thought. It might be unfair to judge old movies with todays standards. Often it is the popularity of a groundbreaking directing method that makes it a cliché. Comedy is probably aging particularly fast. If a movie comedy made everyone laugh in the 20's but few today, should it then be considered a good or a bad movie, or something in between? I can't say I laugh that much at Chaplins silent movies for instance. Some say that the sign of a great piece of art is that it ages well but is that obviously so? Think of a movie which contains a very advanced commentary on today's society with several subtle messages which only very knowledgable people of today can appreciate. These subtle meanings will not be understood to the same degree by knowledgable people in a hundred years and not at all by ordinary people and the movie will therefore not work as well as it dit in it's time. However a movie from today that deals with the so called eternal subjects of love, aging and the meaning life, will probably age better. I suspect that many critics rate movies from the 30's and 40's highly, partly with this in mind and because they covered new ground in those days and were highly influential, while still being good or great movies today, but perhaps not the all-time best with todays standards.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 2:06pm

Similar thread

[SweMozArt]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 2:09pm

Well this thread was not about the selection that Premiere Magazine made but a general discussion.

[peach]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 2:19pm

I agree about Casablanca. I'm in the minority here, and I've taken a lashing on these boards for this opinion in the past, but I find Casablanca a bore. I like the one-liners and the cast, and the music, but the movie overall drags. Just my humble opinion.

Million Dollar Baby - a good movie, but I agree with what you said obove.

Now, I do think Apocalypse Now is brilliant.

What else is overrated? Well, Crash was a great movie, but I would have given the Oscar to Munich.

[SweMozArt]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 2:39pm

I have to admit that it was a long time since I saw many of these movies and i haven't seen the directors cut version of Apocalypse now from start to finish. I have seen the cut french plantation scene though which definetely adds an interesting and often neglected dimension to the conflict although it lengthens an already long movie. The "egg metaphor" during the dinner is spot on. Actually i think it is a great movie but it's open for critique since it also is considered one of the best movies of all time.

[glimpseofstocking]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 8:09pm

I agree about Casablanca. Several people had reccomended it to me and when I finally got around to renting it I was very excited to see what all the fuss was about. I enjoyed it, but I was initally dissapointed. I was expecting more from a movie that is nearly always on the list of Top 10 films. The performances in it are excellent though.

Another film I'd say is a bit overrated is Gone With the Wind. I think it's a brilliant film and I went through a time where I watched it at least once a week, but there is way too much hype surrounding it.

[jasonf]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 8:28pm

I agree completely about Citizen Kane - as I said in the other thread. I don't get what the big deal is.

However, I LOVE Casablanca and will always defend it. The first time I saw it I remember thinking "well, it was OK, but best movie ever?"
I saw it a couple more times, and I GOT it. The dialogue is snappy and, frankly, brilliant (Name another movie, other than perhaps The Wizard of Oz, especially of all things one not considered a comedy, that has as many quotable lines. You can't. The last ten minutes alone have more quotable lines than some entire YEARS of film). The performances are pitch perfect across the board. The story is exciting and engaging throughout. The end scene is as heart-breaking and moving as anything put on film. The camera work is gorgeous throughout. The movie moves at either a steady pace or barrelling - it never really drags at all. And finally, my true test of a classic, it's a movie that after I see it stays in my head for days. So many movies are of the moment time wasters - Casablanca is one I can watch and it'll stay with me for days, and I'll love it again every time I watch it.

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 8:28pm

While I'm still wincing about the "overrated" idea...


...I will say this about "Casablanca" for those of you who think "meh."

I was one of you until about 10 years ago. The first time I watched it, all I could think about were the spoofs and cliched dialogue. Everything felt like an old, bad cartoon. And it was boring... and uninvolving.

God knows why, but I decided to watch it again. And it liked it better... not LOVED it, but I began to see the film for what it was.

Casablanca was not made to be a "classic" or a Best Picture. It was one of the many studio releases put out by Warner Bros. that year. Nothing more. They thought it would be GOOD, don't get me wrong... but they didn't set out to make THE movie that it eventually became. It's a product of the studio system in the BEST sense of that process. Everything ended up right. The casting, the director, the script, and the entire production from start to finish. It is a pure "diamond" produced by a well-oiled machine.

I encourage all of you (like me) who thought this movie was merely "okay at best," to give it another try. You'll find more to like, and more to watch... and you'll begin to discover the millions of brilliant little details... tiny scenes... fragments of dialogue... subtle glances... etc. Not just the cliches and the stereotypical war-time drama that we digest today.

Then you'll discover the amazing film that I have grown to love, more with each viewing, over the years.

Casablanca is a masterpiece... and that's coming from someone who didn't see it at all, at first.

[jasonf]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 8:32pm

best12 - we agree again :)

I got so carried away by my description of why I love it, I forgot to mention the history that I intended to - came back, and saw your post. Nice job :)

[moulinrougehk]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 8:33pm

I think Shaun of the Dead is the most overated movie I've ever seen...

[EmieMarie]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 9:39pm

THe matrix -i just didn't get why everyone was so in love w/ it...

[mattnyc2]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 9:48pm

The English Patient.

I've attempted to watch this film three times, but have never made it an hour without turning away in shear udder boredom. I also tried twice to read the novel but gave up for the same reason. How this stinker won all those oscars will always be a mystery to me, especially when every other film in the category was far superior. I guess it goes to show you what a good ad campaign can do for a film.

[roquat]

Posted: 12/5/06 at 1:57am

With regard to "overrated"--

I think it is a waste of time to use this term for movies which you responded to and thought were good. The question of whether they've been praised "too much" or should be knocked down a few notches in some cosmic film competition seems like niggling to me--letting your own opinions and responses be modified by other people's.

I understand using it for films you absolutely hated which everyone else considers masterpieces. This happens all too often, is irritating AND alienating, and gets you branded a killjoy if you open your mouth about it. As I've said elsewhere, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, FIELD OF DREAMS, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, FORREST GUMP, ENGLISH PATIENT and (more than any other film in the world) MYSTIC RIVER have this effect on me.

[vmlinnie]

Posted: 12/5/06 at 7:33am

I just have to agree with b12b, as usual it seems.

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 12/5/06 at 7:38am

I hate Casablanca.

Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Rocky, Titanic, Forrest Gump, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blazing Saddles (although one of my favorite movies :) )

Many others.