Movies that made a big pop culture splash but are now disporportionately forgotten

Cafe Society
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Well, the sequels are in production. Their success (or lack thereof) will be a big indicator of the premise’s staying power.

As a thought experiment, I reviewed a list of Oscar winners and nominees for Best Picture going back to 1960 (arbitrary benchmark), to see if there were any cases where one of the nominees had more cultural staying power than the winner. I’m not trying to assess if I think the nominated film was better than the winner, just if it would be more broadly familiar to a modern audience:

1963: Winner: Tom Jones. Culturally outshone by Cleopatra, though I think largely because of the tabloidish antics of its stars.

1967: Winner: In the Heat of the Night. Culturally rivalled by Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate.

1970: Winner: Patton. Culturally outshone by MASH*, though I’m sure entirely on the strength of the TV series.

1977: Winner: Annie Hall. Culturally outshone by Star Wars.

1980: Winner: Ordinary People. Culturally outshone by Raging Bull.

1981: Winner: Chariots of Fire. Outshone by Raiders of the Lost Ark.

1982: Winner: Gandhi. Outshone at the time by E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, but I propose E.T. as being a classic example of a film with a massive following in its day but which largely culturally disappeared afterward.

1992: Winner: Unforgiven. Edged, I think, by A Few Good Men, though mostly on the performance of Jack Nicholson. At the very least, “You can’t handle the truth!” is still familiar, but I can’t think of a single quote from Unforgiven.

1994: Winner: Forrest Gump. Rivalled by Pulp Fiction, possibly by The Shawshank Redemption.

1996: Winner: The English Patient. Outshone by Fargo. Jerry Maguire made quite the splash in its day, but aside from “Show me the money!”, I don’t think it had much cultural staying power.

1998: Winner: Shakespeare in Love. Outshone by Saving Private Ryan, not least for the idea that SPR has become a defacto standard by which the realism of epic war movies is often compared.

I’ll stop there, since the movies are getting too recent to judge cultural staying power. I figure 15 years is minimum.

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In & Out

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Pretty Woman seemed to have a decent cultural footprint for a few years after it came out, but has faded since.

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Tootsie

Kramer vs. Kramer

Top Gun

The China Syndrome

Flashdance

Sophie’s Choice

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Are those two movies still considered great by all that many people though?

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Bryan Ekers, I think that’s a good analysis!

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Except for all the girls names Madison celebrating their 30th birthdays.

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Grease was the top-grossing movie of 1978, beating out Superman and Animal House (not to mention Every Which Way But Loose).

I guess people still sing “Summer Lovin’” in karaoke bars, so it’s not totally forgotten.

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Helped along by the fact that Tarantino, who wrote both but directed only the latter, more or less disowns the former.

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I don’t think either of those two movie (Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut) had major cultural impact at the time. They were art house films that got a lot of love from the critics and recognition during awards season but they weren’t popular favorites.

Magnolia was only seen by people inclined to check out quirky art house films + people who make a point of seeing the major award nominees after the nominations have been announced.

Eyes Wide Shut got a bit more of an audience because of the huge stars in the lead roles, but people who tended to favor “popcorn movies” felt like they were duped into seeing this film and they hated it.
Both movies still hold up amongst film buffs, film historians, and critics but they never had a wide audience to begin with.

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I agree with Freudian Slit - still culturally relevant. It just had a go at a Broadway production, I believe.

Bryan Ekers - I agree: nice analysis. My quibbles are:

  • **Jerry Maguire ** - still relevant. Show me the money. You had me at Hello. You complete me. Help me…help you. Holds up very well.

  • Forrest Gump vs. Pulp Fiction and Shawshank? No contest - Forrest has faded and Pulp Fiction and Shawshank have risen. My teenage son and his cohort accept Pulp Fiction as an essential badass classic (Die Hard, too). Shawshank, IIRC, may be shown in my kids’ schools on movie nights. Forrest Gump pandered to Boomers with Tom Hanks, special effects and a bit of narcissism. I don’t believe it is held in as high regard at this point, is it?

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When I think of ‘important’ films that have now been forgotten, the first one that always comes to mind is Wag The Dog (1997).

At the time, the film seemed to take a swipe at Bill Clinton. The situation seemed much more sinister during the George W. Bush years. Remember how the ‘terror alerts’ always seemed to be heightened when Bush was doing poorly in the poles? Not to mention his administration’s feebly linking Iraq to Al Qaeda.

Wag The Dog is satire. But the best satire has a kernel of truth.

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Plus (maybe even more so) it was Stanley Kubrick’s last film.

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Popped in to post this. Huge splash with the slightly aging '60s crowd; I have refused to rewatch it for years because I suspect (and have been told) it doesn’t hold up. I can think of some really cringe-worthy scenes and plot turns.

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Now that you mention it, what Wag the Dog and The China Syndrome have in common is that they had the mixed blessing of coming out at around the same time as comparable real-life events, with the result being that presidential distraction-politics became known as “wagging the dog” and nuclear mishaps (well, until Chernobyl) became know as “China syndromes” but the films themselves were largely forgotten.

Similarly, one might associate the name “Silkwood” with “whistle-blower who gets murdered” but how many details from the actual movie Silkwood can one recall, assuming one saw it in the first place?

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Related, how familiar a touchstone is A.I. Artificial Intelligence these days?

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I just watched the Nostalgia Critic’s review of it…though he pulls back on his snark of it toward the end, it doesn’t sound as though it’s aged all that well. I do remember people hating on the ending. Now it doesn’t seem like anyone thinks of it at all.

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I vote for early-90s Kevin Costner - The Bodyguard with Whitney Houston, and especially Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which had massive cross-demographic appeal (even the goons at my school would brag about how many times they saw it) and had that ubiquitous Bryan Adams theme song.

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Oh, OP, good call on Something About Mary. I was in about middle/high school when it came out (so among the peak audience), and though I didn’t see it, I remember it was huge. But I can’t remember the last time I really heard about it.

What about I Know What You Did Last Summer? I know it’s going to be remade, and I remember the original because I was a teen when it came out (and it had huge–at the time–stars). But does anyone really remember it now? It seems a bit overshadowed by the far more clever Scream.

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I disagree about the declining influence of the movie Splash, but agree that its major contribution to popular culture has been largely forgotten to have come from the movie. If that makes sense…

Check out the following chart:

Popularity of the female name “Madison” by the Social Security Administration:

1879-1984: unranked
1985: 627
1986: 366
1987: 326
1988: 301
1989: 222
1990: 203
1991: 129
1992: 108
1993: 78
1994: 51
1995: 30
1996: 15
1997: 10
1998: 9
1999: 7
2000: 3
2001: 2
2002: 2
2003: 3
2004: 3
2005: 3
2006: 3
2007: 5
2008: 6
2009: 7
2010: 8
2011: 8
2012: 9
2013: 9

The name itself was a joke in the movie - Hannah’s character gave herself the name “Madison” because of “Madison Ave” in NYC. The name itself means “Son of a soldier.”

So there’s a lot of girls going around who given a masculine name that itself was used as a joke in the movie Splash. That seems significant, though, like I said, most people don’t seem to be aware of this.