# "Great" films that you didn't like **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 14, 2007, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210 "2007-09-14T18:23:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/41 "2007-09-15T09:50:34Z")
This one is really going to get me nailed to the cross, but I never liked Christopher Guest’s “mockumentaries.” This Is _Spinal Tap_, _A Mighty Wind_ and _Best In Show_ all left me unentertained. There were good moments, but I didn’t think these movies were just that funny. ---
**Author:** ![Phantom\_Dennis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/51bf81/32.png) [@Phantom\_Dennis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phantom_Dennis)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/42 "2007-09-15T10:02:41Z")
American Beauty. Most people would consider it a modern classic, but it rubbed me the wrong way. I’m still not sure why. ---
**Author:** ![Tinkertoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f19dbf/32.png) [@Tinkertoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tinkertoy)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/43 "2007-09-15T10:14:36Z")
As good as it gets Out of Africa Fargo Titanic Platoon Unforgiven Saving private Ryan Born on the fourth of July Dances with wolves The wonderful wizard of Oz The ten commandments From here to Eternity Each and every movie in which Mickey Rooney or Judy Garland ever appeared. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/44 "2007-09-15T10:56:37Z")
Adding to my list: Apocalypse Now Bram Stoker’s Dracula Unforgiven The Silence of the Lambs Forrest Gump Children of Men [QUOTE=Zoggie] Sorry, had to nitpick this. I’m listening to the _Scarface_ soundtrack, so I figure I have to make the correction–Brian DePalma directed _Scarface_, not Stone. ETA: Just checked. Oliver Stone did indeed write the screenplay…Not sure if that’s what you meant. [/QUOTE] He also didn’t direct Conan. But yes I was aware and that is what I meant. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/45 "2007-09-15T12:01:55Z")
I couldn’t stand Forrest Gump. I tried watching it a couple of times, and gave up in disgust. In general, I don’t like idiot plots, I don’t like mentally challenged main characters, and I don’t like movies that insult my intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/46 "2007-09-15T14:50:02Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] Everything by Oliver Stone (Conan, Platoon, Salvador, Scarface, etc.) [/QUOTE] I find it curious that you would label **Conan** as “by” Oliver Stone. I’d have thought that directing, editing and acting all come much higher on the list of faults of the **Conan** franchise than the writing. ---
**Author:** ![MadTheSwine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MadTheSwine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadTheSwine)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/47 "2007-09-15T15:23:43Z")
_The Godfather_ _Titanic_ ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/48 "2007-09-15T17:52:46Z")
**Gone with the Wind** --I hate everyone in it, the melodrama, the screeching, Prissy, etc. **It’s a Wonderful Life** is just plain depressing. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/49 "2007-09-15T17:59:53Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] Vastly overrated, by a vastly overrated director. Mike Nichols is the blandest, least interesting director this side of Jerry Paris. [/QUOTE] He’s a lot of things. But can you seriously say that the guy who directed _Angels in America_, _Carnal Knowledge_ and _Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf_ is bland? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/50 "2007-09-15T18:31:56Z")
ralph124c writes: \> -HEAVEN’S GATE-thought it was stupid! You’d have to look awful far to find anyone who ever considered it a great film. It’s generally considered to be a terrible film by a director who was at least thought at the time to be first-rate. ---
**Author:** ![Licentious\_Ectomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5e9695/32.png) [@Licentious\_Ectomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Licentious_Ectomorph)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/51 "2007-09-15T19:13:49Z")
The first one that comes to mind for me is _Gladiator._ Sitting through that was the longest six months of my life. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/52 "2007-09-15T22:41:08Z")
[QUOTE=Cerowyn] I find it curious that you would label **Conan** as “by” Oliver Stone. I’d have thought that directing, editing and acting all come much higher on the list of faults of the **Conan** franchise than the writing. [/QUOTE] I haven’t seen anything else from the director of Conan, but I’ve seen several of Brian DePalma’s films. From that I would deduce that the problem with Conan and Scarface was the screenwriter not the director. Just watching a few DePalma films, you’ll pick up his style and his taste in characters. And sometimes that leads him to good scripts and sometimes to rather vacuous ones. Nothing about his quirks that makes him Brian DePalma puts me off to his films. While as Oliver Stone, with the exception of Every Other Sunday, has consistently always tried to produce something that seems to be seeking to show how _deep and meaningful_ it is, while really not being very deep at all–and often stinking of propoganda. And that feeling comes through from his scripts that were directed by other people. So it seems fair to say that the issue is him, not the other people. (And I’ll admit that its rather impressive that he can get his stench into things even when they have so little happening as Conan or The Hand.) ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/53 "2007-09-15T22:55:18Z")
Another vote for **Citizen Kane**. I saw it and remember just saying, “So?”. ---
**Author:** ![Paladud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Paladud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paladud)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/54 "2007-09-15T23:01:11Z")
Deer Hunter 2001 Spartacus The Shining Apocalypse Now Star Wars (if any are in fact considered great) Godfather LOTR All Indiana Jones movies The Matrix The Pianist (not an objectively bad movie - I just couldn’t sympathize with the lead character after he escaped instead of joining the ghetto uprising) Ran Blade Runner All things James Bond ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/55 "2007-09-16T14:41:54Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] This one is really going to get me nailed to the cross, but I never liked Christopher Guest’s “mockumentaries.” This Is _Spinal Tap_, _A Mighty Wind_ and _Best In Show_ all left me unentertained. There were good moments, but I didn’t think these movies were just that funny. [/QUOTE] I enjoyed Spinal Tap, but I didn’t think it was side-splittingly funny. I just don’t think comedy works as well in film as it does on TV. Spinal Tap is one of the funnier films I’ve seen, but it’s miles behind a lot of episodes of my favourite TV comedies. Perhaps because TV shows’ long-running nature means that they don’t have to spend time setting up the basic situation and characters? ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/56 "2007-09-16T15:34:28Z")
Shane Titanic Cleopatra ---
**Author:** ![teemingONE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b4bc9f/32.png) [@teemingONE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teemingONE)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/57 "2007-09-16T16:26:48Z")
American Graffiti. Maybe I’m too young to appreciate it. But I watched it around the age that the main characters were, and went through the same problems they went through (minus the car wreck), and it still didn’t do anything for me. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/58 "2007-09-16T23:18:01Z")
**Last Year at Marienbad**. Supposedly a great film, but I think Michael Medved’s viscious dissection of it (In **The Fifty Worst Films of All Time** ) hits the nail on the head. And the guy who thinks he can play Nim really well in the movie is acually an incompetant hack. This might be intentional on the Director’s part, but I doubt it. Neither Pepper Mill nor I can STAND **The English Patient**. Or **The Crying Game**. ---
**Author:** ![poetwarlord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@poetwarlord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/poetwarlord)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/59 "2007-09-16T23:59:54Z")
[QUOTE=drm] I will grant that Citizen Kane is a very important film (Camera, sound design, etc), but man is it boring. QUOTE] I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thought Citizen Kane was a snore fest. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210/60 "2007-09-17T00:02:29Z")
[QUOTE=Licentious Ectomorph] The first one that comes to mind for me is _Gladiator._ Sitting through that was the longest six months of my life. [/QUOTE] I was astonished that a movie about gladitorial combat could be so goddamned boring. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-films-that-you-didnt-like/419210.md?page=4)