Rat Race is the funniest movie I have ever seen. I saw it in the cinema when it came out (I was about 11 years old) and have watched it countless times on DVD since. Oh god it is hilarious.
Rent, Spice World, Who’s That Girl? and Purple Rain are some others that were reviewed poorly/have a bad reputation but I love them.
My two favourite films are The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was savaged by critics when it came out but of course is now considered a classic, and Titanic, which obviously wasn’t considered a bad movie when it first appeared but it is very uncool to admit liking now.
Very Bad Things. Dark comedy, everything goes wrong…I just like it.
Boondock Saints. Pure vigilante porn with bad Irish accents and lots of scenery chewing by Willem Defoe. But I like it. The sequel tried too hard to capture what made the first so good, though, and failed. Or perhaps didn’t quite succeed.
Wild Things got a 64% (fresh) from critics at RT, but only a 53% (rotten) from viewers, so I guess it only partly fits the OP’s criteria, but is one of my go-to guilty pleasure movies.
K-19 (mentioned upthread) likewise comes in at 60% fresh, but I like it quite well, too. It’s a refreshing (and IMO, much more realistic) portrayal of professional military sailors (regardless of nationality) than most modern submarine films achieve, and it doesn’t try for a sappy, feel-good ending; just a sort of ambiguous, “Well, we survived it, and here we are” ending that, also IMO, is much more realistic.
I love cheesy movies!
Tremors – all four of them!
Independence Day
Starship Troopers
A Knight’s Tale
someone mentioned Run, Lola, Run above – I show that every year to my German classes, and they’re always open-mouthed as they watch this surreal masterpiece
Pootie Tang, which despite being written and directed by Louis C.K. and starring Chris Rock and Wanda Sykes, with a cameo by Bob Costas, currently has a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 27%.
It makes me happy to see some love here for Joe Versus The Volcano. Sadly underrated movie.
I, too, thought this movie was hilarious. I expected it to be terrible but it was one of the funnier movies I saw last year. (I didn’t see the British version either).
Surprised nobody’s mentioned “Glitter”. Yeah, it wasn’t “The Godfather”, but it wasn’t trying to be. It’s also my understanding that the movie strayed from what Mariah originally envisioned. It’s biggest problem? Released 2 weeks after 9/11.
Red Dawn, of course. Got awful reviews when it first came out, and it’s cheesy as hell, but I loved it. Since then, it seems to have developed a cult following.
D.C. Cab, for the cheeserific performances by Mr. T and Gary Busey.
Mars Attacks! also got bad reviews when it came out, but again, brings the sweet, smelly cheese!
Quite a lot of some of my fave films have been mentioned in this thread already, I’ll add some more to the pile:
Constantine - oh my god, the jaw dropping special effects! And I’m a complete atheist and it made ME want to go to church afterwards!
The time machine - with Guy Pearce. Even my own beloved Film Brain pissed on this movie and had virtually nothing good to say about it, but I really love it and (incidentally enough) so has everyone I’ve ever watched it with.
I’m at the point now where other people’s opinions of films (especially critics considering how much they dislike things that I enjoy) is pretty much entirely incidental to my enjoyment of a movie. If I’m in a cinema watching a film and every single person in there hates it except me, then so what?