I am overjoyed to be the first one to mention Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, an overhyped piece of crap if there ever was one! 
Kubrick made great looking movies that have no soul, and he gets my vote as the most overrated director in the history of cinema.
2001 and Blade runner were IMHO, vastly inferior to the print versions. Also, IIRC, wern’t they set on the west coast?
Those two were, IMHO, very bad films to be made into shining examples of Scifi as in a film medium.
There is a raging, never ending holy war about the voice-over v. director’s cut of Blade Runner.
I personally loved the VO version when I saw the movie in theaters as a youngster, but then I saw it as a carry-over from the old noir detective genre, which I’ve always loved. Of course, since the DC came out, which I don’t like nearly as much as I recall liking the original, I haven’t been able to FIND a copy of the IMHO good version to compare them.
No, I dont’ have DVD, just VHS for the time being. If anyone can find the original, voice over version, I’d LOVE to have a copy…
Gotta agree with you there. Clockwork Orange had me confused as hell, and bored to death. I was only 12 or so when I saw it though, so that may be why.
I think it would be interesting to know whether those who think BR is overrated saw it after (way after) its original release. Part of the appeal of BR (IMHO) upon first seeing it was its “new look”- scifi noir, broken down future, etc ( and I know those weren’t new concepts to science fiction, nor to moviemaking, but to science fiction FILMS I think it was pretty unusual). But that “new look” is old hat now… BR has been referenced to death (like 2001) and so I would NOT expect anyone watching it for the first time now to think it is as good as I thought it was in the theater.
(Slight Hijack)- In the same way that another post-er was disappointed in W. Gibsons Neuromancer now, but I thought it really seemed good when it first came out.
And don’t underestimate watching a film in the theater vice on vhs/dvd on your tv.
And I liked the music too…
All of the Star Wars are the most overrated movies of all time. Princess Bride isnt overrated, nor is As Good as it gets or American beauty.
I didn’t say it needed a happier ending, I said it needed an ending. Period. It didn’t have one at all. The film just stopped, and the audience is told to hold on to that thought for twelve months (ergo, the film, on its own, does not stand). If they have the next two films already shot, why couldn’t they have released all three films in one year, like three months apart? Wait a year? For a not-all-that-interesting-to-begin-with story? You know, I think I will wait for all three to come out on DVD.
Semp: Ok. I can see your point. Frankly, I thought that LOTR was unfilmable (as did JRR Tolkein, BTW). I was pleased by the results, but I must admit that I entered the theater with low expectations. LOTR was originally written as 1 complete work: it was the publisher who turned it into a trilogy. I think the director did a pretty good job with very difficult material. I might call it a technical success.
And I agree that closure is considered to be an extremely important criteria for an American movie, both in a commericial sense and a critical sense.
I would also argue that this criteria is vastly over-rated, however. Certain films (usually Japanese or European) have been known to excel on the basis of their atmosphere rather the curve of their story. But, hey, I’m a pretentious film-watcher.
LOTR: The Movie, might be thought of as one of those Big Epic (Commercial) Events. (No, it wasn’t one of those “atmosphere” movies.) For me, I already know the basic story; the fun lies in seeing what the filmmakers do with it.
I’m already looking forward to when all 3 are out on DVD and I can watch them back to back. Should take, what, 12 hours? (assuming a 4 hr directors cut for each :))
2001 showed us that space travel could be boring and routine. Unless, of course, you’re attacked by giant space babies.
As for Blade Runner and its’ influence, I get the film noir angle, but I can’t think of any other sci-fi examples in this genre prior to its release. After it, most sci-fi flicks went for the gloom & doom future, which I enjoy. Rutger Hauer’s over-the-top performance as Roy Batty is one of my favorites.
Hey, Silentgoldfish, invite me to that party!
I gotta chip in on LOTR and say that it was pretty bad. I read the books when I was a kid and enjoyed them, but the film was too pretentious for my taste (they should have trimmed some of the dialoge down), and quite frankly, when they showed the scene with dude in the crack of doom holding the ring and saying, “Nah, I think I’ll keep it.” And the other guy lets him walk out alive, I’m thinking, “Hello, McFly! You guys just barely won the war by a sheer stroke of luck and you’re letting the guy who’s holding the one thing that could start it all over again walk away with it? What are you, a moron?”
I’ll add Titanic to the list of over-rated films, along with Saving Private Ryan.
“The Princess Bride” could have been a good movie, but it comes off now as incredibly cheap. The idea is great, and if you read the book it’s a hoot, but the motion picture appears to have been made on a budget of about fifty bucks, and the direction and cinematography are amateurish. The scene where Diego and Wesley are having a swordfight at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity is a perfect example; what should be an awesome, thrilling swordfight looks like something in a high school production. The rocks they fight amongst look exactly like the styrofoam chunks they are.
I think the movie had the potential to be wonderful but was torpedoed by poor production.
To be fair, Star Wars IMO doesn’t deserve the “overrated” monicker – it was meant to be a fun popcorn movie, and in that regard, it succeeds perfectly. Granted, Lucas and the fanboys have been overloading the movie with assorted “mythic storytelling” bullstuff, but that’s all after-the-fact revisionist history.
I’ll agree with the folks who say 2001 was overrrated. Then again, I though the novel (which I read after the movie) was also a brick, so maybe the movie was just being faithful. 
It still wasn’t as bad as Gone With the Wind, though.
And anyone who speaks ill of The Princess Bride is in need of professional help.
I’m not an enormous fan of LOTR the movie, but it’s quite amusing that I didn’t like it because it lacks the background and solidity and portentousness (is that a word) of the book (and yes I do realise that perhaps that was inevitable) and here you are complaining that there was too much dialogue.
But anyway, what I really wanted to point out was that you may be being a bit hard on the movie makers for that made-up-for-the-movie scene where Elrond (it was Elrond wasn’t it?) and the king whose name escapes me were inside Mount Doom. I mean, having the young Elrond kill the king would have been a big call for Elrond to make, on the spot, not knowing that the ring was necessarilygoing to overpower him, and knowing perhaps rather less about the wily ways of the ring than is known at the time of the books.
What makes Roy over the top? I thought Hauer’s performance fit quite nicely into the overall film.
My picks:
A Thin Red Line
Eyes Wide Shut
Natural Born Killers
Three great examples of pretension winning out over good story telling.
As far as Blade Runner goes, I do believe it deserves the hype it’s gotten, but at the same time parts of it WERE really slow.
Phantom Menace isn’t overrated - no one’s out there claiming it’s a great movie. OverHYPED is correct, but that’s a huge difference.
I’d also add the Blair Witch Project to the list.
I remembering seeing Bladerunner in the theater when I was a kid, I thought it was cool. I saw it much later and was surprised at how slowly it moved. I think, like everyone else has said the director’s cut is an improvement.
I would take issue with it being the first grimy-the-future-may-not be-a-paradise-movie, I really think Outland would get that title.
Ghost was terribly overrated. Terribly, terribly overrated.