My list:
Books:
Anything by Shakespeare other than what I’ve read in school.
Moby Dick
War and Peace
Anything by Jane Austen
Ulysses
Movies:
Boogie Nights
Lethal Weapon
12 Angry Men
Mystic River
Chasing Amy
Highlander
Meet the Feebles
A Fish Named Wanda
Mr Deeds Goes to Town
Plays:
Any of them (and that includes musicals, too)
TV shows:
Any of the cowboy stuff
Diff’rent Strokes
Family Ties
Breaking Bad
Rushmore
Being John Malkovich
Perks of Being a Wallflower
Dracula (novel)
Frankenstein (novel)
Don’t everybody post all at once.
Meet the Feebles? How in the name of Henry did that get on to your list?
(It’s kinda fun, but in a ghastly way. It’s one of the most “Wrong!” movies I’ve ever seen.)
I haven’t read the Aeneid (hell, I can’t even spell it) or Paradise Lost.
I really want to see a performance some day of Aristophanes “The Frogs.” I’ve read it, and it’s funny, but I want to see it. The humor is actually somewhat Monty Pythonesque!
I’ve never seen “Sunset Blvd.” or “The Big Sleep,” and I like noir!
Being John Malkovich
The Big Lebowski
Rushmore
Lost in Translation
Pretty much any movie that has a boring non-ending.
Cujo: read the book, didn’t like it, never will watch the movie.
Any science fiction film before Kubrick’s 2001. The special effects are pretty bad.
I usually don’t play any first person shooter video games. I played the original doom and got motion sickness.
I have all the Harry Potter books and DVDs. I’m scared to start cause once I get into them, I suspect I’ll never get out of them.
I’ll probably never watch Fight Club, Saving Private Ryan, or the Exorcist.
Never say “never”. I once bought Moby Dick on a whim, and read it cover-to-cover. If you are not being forced to read it for a class, it’s a fun book.
Breaking Bad. I should. I know I’d likely enjoy it. I have no idea where I’d fit six (?) seasons of TV into my life right now.
Likewise for Game of Thrones.
There are plenty, but the one that comes to mind is Anna Karenina. I tried reading the book. Couldn’t do it. Then I tried listening to the audiobook. Ditto. Then I got the movie with Kiera Knightley and couldn’t make it through that either.
You might have just the opposite reaction.
I was riveted by the first couple of books and I saw the first movie (the BEST one!) several times. But then in the later movies and books, I got bogged down by all the characters and especially the fact that people were good guys in one book/movie and bad guys in the next and then flip-flopped again. Not that I think life is black and white or that novels should be black and white… but my interest faded due to the ever-expanding cast of characters with the main focus still being on the One Villain. I never read the last two books or saw the last three movies.
I can understand not wanting to get into long lived book series or TV shows since that can be like 50-100+ hours, but a movie? That’s like two hours. You can bang a bunch of those out easy.
It’s not just about how long it takes to do something, it’s also about lack of interest, the chore of watching/reading something complex, stubbornness, psychological blocks, emotional aversion, etc.