I shot this one down. See above.
I have to shoot down Mary Poppins for making light of the Suffragette movement, and Tolkein, because, OMG… the Unbearable Length of the Movie.
If we’re going to pick The Empire Strikes Back, then we might as well pick the original Star Wars.
Any love for the old screwball comedies? The Awful Truth is one of my favorites, and it seems funny enough the most people could sit through it even if they weren’t fans of the actors, or found the plot too far-fetched.
Then, there’s the so-quotable Ninotchka. “We will have fewer, but better Russians.”
If those don’t fly, then what about the Ingrid Bergman Gaslight, or a Hitchcock film?
If I mention The Godfather, will someone obligingly say that the sequel is even better?
I do prefer the original. I know Family Guy did this, but I suppose someone could not like The Godfather.
Toy Story 1, 2, or 3?
And every film is a genre film.
And I think I’d avoid sequels, in general, in this thread. While you’ll sometimes hear people say that a sequel is even better than the original, I don’t think you’ll ever hear people say that the sequel was good while the original was actually bad.
Wait, I sort of take that back: Star Trek: The Motion Picture was bad, but some of the sequels were good. But that’s only a partial counterexample, because there, the real original was the TV show.
Seconding What_Exit, who shot down Spirited Away. Too dark. Too rambling. Unresolved conflicts. Too much unexplained.
But may I offer Galaxy Quest for consideration? Probably most people knew this, but I only learned yesterday evening that David Mamet said he had seen only four perfect movies, and he included Galaxy Quest in the list.
From the suggested I would like to strike some out:
Casablanca
The Godfather
Back to the Future
Mary Poppins
Groundhog Day
Sound of Music
Toy Story
Ratatouille
Wall-E
Spirited Away (never saw it, I abstain)
Apollo 13 (never saw it, I abstain)
and would like to add
To Be or Not To Be
The Great Dictator
even if they are black&white.
That and Treasure of The Sierra Madre.
Some of the movies mentioned I can only offer a null response. The Sound of Music, Miracle on 34th Street, Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz? Never seen any of them. What I can say is that what I know of them from cultural osmisis doesn’t make them look like something I would care to bother with.
Back to the Future
Groundhog Day
Ratatoulle
Apollo 13
Star Wars - A New Hope
The Awful Truth
The Godfather
To Be and Not Be
The Great Dictator
Galaxy Quest
I scratched:
Ninotchka - saw long ago but found boring/excessively dated/stilted as I perceive many old films
Gaslight - saw recently. Same as above
This is intended to be somewhat lighthearted fun, but comments like these are not what I hoped for:
Doesn’t matter if another film is better. The only standard is if we ALL agree film x is “a good film” (admittedly imperfect standard."). SO feel free to nominate either/both Godfather 1 and 2.
Again, feel free to express your personal disfavor for a film in any specific genre. I said that I tend not to LOVE most old films, but I offered Casablanca and Wizard. And I tend to dislike most animation, but Toy Story is IMO a good flick.
I’m expressing no opinion WRT films I have not seen - even if I strongly suspect I would not like them. I really disliked City Lights, so I suspect I would dislike Great Dictator. But not having seen it…
I’m not trying to be a jerk - just trying to keep this exercise manageable.
1 vote is enough to scotch a film. So if someone already nixed a movie, you don’t need to chime in and say whether you like or dislike the film. I acknowledge that we will have the issue of folk not reading the entire thread.
I’m limited in how much effort I’m going to exert to oversee this. Feel free to chime in and update the list of valid candidates. What Pardel-Lux offered is perfect IMO.
I decided I’m not going to exert the effort to maintain a list of nixed nominations. If anyone wishes to do so, feel free. I also welcome others who are enjoying this exercise to inform subsequent posters if their nomination had been rejected before.
The problem is getting “everyone” to like a movie. No matter the genre, there will always be some subset of people who just don’t like it. No matter how well-made a fantasy or science fiction movie may be, some people just don’t like them. I’m sure most people have at least one type of movie they just aren’t into.
Of course, there’s a huge selection bias here, in that you were surveying people who went out of their way to attend a “retrospective film festival”. I’d lay good odds their opinions are significantly different from the average of the general population.
I’ve also shown Jaws, Back to the Future, and The Wizard of OZ, but Casablanca outsold them all by 3 to 1. If there is a bias here, I don’t see it.
People thinking it’s just “okay” meets the criteria of the title, i think.
Here’s a list of movies with a 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, though I think the audience score would be more relevant here, and I’m not easily finding that list.
Also of note is that a lot of them don’t have very many reviews, which could be a sign that the sort of people who just don’t like that kind of movie (whatever it is) might not have bothered to see it.
The largest number of reviews on the list is Leave No Trace, from 2018, with 248 reviews. But it’s only 78% on the Popcorn-Meter, which I think is what they’re calling the audience reviews, nowadays.
Jaws looks good too, and I firmly oppose the Wizzard of Oz. I think it is weird for non US-Americans. I saw it as a child and was badly repelled.
On the one hand, the question wasn’t which movie is universally liked; it was which movie is universally considered good. It’s possible to hold the opinion, “That’s an objectively good movie of that genre, but I don’t personally like it because I don’t like that genre.”
On the other hand, at least some of those haters would probably say that it’s impossible for a movie to be a good movie if it’s a genre movie in their hated genre.
Include me among the fanatics who think Casablanca is obviously and by far the greatest movie ever! May I ask how old you two are, and what movies from the 1930’s or '40’s you do like?
I don’t particularly like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; I find it boring, especially as a re-watch.
Can’t think of a single one. In fact I believe the aforementioned Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is the oldest movie I like. ETA: I’m 47.
I’ve never heard of most of those, and some of them clearly have a niche audience (Woodstock, for instance. I liked it, but I’m sure lots of people have zero interest.)
But toy story is on the list. And fewer than 4% of all its ratings on IMDb are less than “6”. That may be about as good as it gets.