Which Movies Do People Love to Hate? A Statistical Analysis (statsignificant.com) 81
A new statistical analysis has identified the films audiences "love to hate," with Battlefield Earth, Morbius, Grease 2, and Cats topping the list of cinema's most detested productions. The study, published by data analyst Daniel Parris, examined review data from MovieLens to calculate both the percentage of one-star reviews and total disapproval magnitude for each release.
A common thread among these widely derided titles: many were adaptations of popular books or shows, or attempted to capitalize on once-beloved franchises. Adam Sandler leads the actors most frequently appearing in widely disliked films, followed by comedians and action stars who have starred in productions with high one-star review rates.
The research also reveals an industry trend toward increasing one-star reviews over time, with family-oriented fare and horror films receiving disproportionately negative ratings despite consistent box office profitability - suggesting studios have prioritized risk-averse, commercially viable projects over critical acclaim.
A common thread among these widely derided titles: many were adaptations of popular books or shows, or attempted to capitalize on once-beloved franchises. Adam Sandler leads the actors most frequently appearing in widely disliked films, followed by comedians and action stars who have starred in productions with high one-star review rates.
The research also reveals an industry trend toward increasing one-star reviews over time, with family-oriented fare and horror films receiving disproportionately negative ratings despite consistent box office profitability - suggesting studios have prioritized risk-averse, commercially viable projects over critical acclaim.
Manos (Score:3)
The hands of fate
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Ah, who can ever forget the "Haunting Torgo Theme."
ThE mAsTeR wOuLd NoT aPpRoVe.
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- Torgo was supposed to be a satyr, which is why his legs are monstrous
- John Reynolds, cinema hero and the actor who played Torgo, was constantly dropping acid during production. Whenever you see him, know he was tripping. Hard.
- Sadly, he died of a heroin overdose one week after production wrapped.
Re:Manos (Score:4, Funny)
"Every frame of this movie looks like someone's last know location photo"
-Crow
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SERVO: So, uh... Manos.
CROW: The Hands of Fate?
SERVO: Yes.
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Suggesting..? (Score:2)
suggesting studios have prioritized risk-averse, commercially viable projects over critical acclaim.
Aren't we well past this being an established fact?
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Re: Suggesting..? (Score:2)
"Companies are interested in making money, don't care about culture" is a pretty 'duh' revelation of this exercise. They only seek critical acclaim as far as it might influence people to see their film, leading to the quotes used in the movie trailers and award nominations.
You could say that the "cult classic" is the movie that was art and the critics didn't realize it.
Re: Suggesting..? (Score:2)
Cult classics are art, even if not recognized by professional film critics, because we live in a post-modern world. The interpretation of the audience experience often exceeds the film maker's original vision.
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critics as a class are unable to recognize great works of art. They have different goals.
Being what, exactly?
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critics [...] have different goals.
Being what, exactly?
I would assume for a lot of them the goal is mutual recognition and admiration within small cliques where people get extra snobbery points when their opinions are as far from popular sentiment as possible.
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I would presume their own careers and recognition would benefit from being able to tell the difference between an artist with real talent and a poseur.
I disagree that critics as a class are unable to recognize great art. Most of them have some kind of background in the art they critique. I have discovered new interests through the opinions of critics. I have no doubt others have as well.
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I have discovered new interests through the opinions of critics.
Yeah, but your interests are mundane.
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I have discovered new interests through the opinions of critics.
Yeah, but your interests are mundane.
How would you know, phantomfive?
I have many interests, none of them "mundane." They include mathematics, physics, data science, and music, to name a few. I have been exposed to some new composers and musicians through reviews from critics. And the opinions of these critics were shared by other critics, concertgoers, and historians. That is why I do not consider them "as a class" to be unable to recognize great art.
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The English Patient (Score:1)
(mic drop)
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How about a more controversial choice: ANCHORMAN. Will Ferrell is in two decent movies, and Anchorman is not one of them. He's so annoying.
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I actually hated The English Patient years *before* I saw the Seinfeld episode about it :)
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I thought he was kind of a big deal (?)
Anything (Score:2)
Re:Anything (Score:5, Funny)
Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups. He lifts the world.
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Earth Downs
Mixed Bag (Score:4, Interesting)
Films like Battlefield Earth and Morbious work because they veer into the "so-bad-its-good" territory where as I have never, ever heard of people saying the same about M.Night's The Last Airbender because that movie is just so-bad-it's-bad.
It's a tricky place to land but a huge portion of it is if the filmmakers at the time were genuinely trying to make something good and failed. The audience can feel that earnestness as opposed to a soulless cash-grab which fails or worse, when the filmmakers are "in-on-the-joke".
Re: Mixed Bag (Score:3)
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See now we're talking about "bad movies" to enjoy.
I have not seen Slotherhouse but it's reminding me of Llamageddon [imdb.com] which was a fun watch so am always down for a "innocuous animals start murdering everyone"
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See now we're talking about "bad movies" to enjoy.
I have not seen Slotherhouse but it's reminding me of Llamageddon [imdb.com] which was a fun watch so am always down for a "innocuous animals start murdering everyone"
Drop everything and go see Rubber right now. A tire goes full rampage. It's awesome in every bad way.
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I watched this with my wife, it's an alright "bad movie".
The best ones, though, are those that are earnestly trying to be good movies but fail.
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I watched this with my wife, it's an alright "bad movie".
The best ones, though, are those that are earnestly trying to be good movies but fail.
My DVD copy of The Room just fell off my bookshelf.
Re: Mixed Bag (Score:2)
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"YOURE TEARING ME APART!" said my copy of Samurai Cop
My copy of Amittyville screamed in unison.
Re:Mixed Bag (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with The Last Airbender was it was a mediocre movie for people not familiar with the franchise and a bad movie for existing fans. If it were a great or bad movie then it might have something
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Yeah to be fair I have only seen clips of it but anyone I have come across discussing it says the same: if you were a fan already it was annoying in the liberties it took. If you were coming in fresh it's just boring and ugly to look at, both a couple of the worst things a movie can really be.
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The problem with The Last Airbender was it was a mediocre movie for people not familiar with the franchise and a bad movie for existing fans. If it were a great or bad movie then it might have something
I wasn't familiar with the franchise and thought the movie was absolutely trash-level terrible with zero redeeming qualities. It didn't even have "bad movie, but entertaining" energy. M. Night at his worst.
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It's interesting which movies *aren't* on the list. While very, very vocal, it seems that the people who hate the new Star Wars movies are a minority. Same with the recent Marvel stuff.
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Yeah I would definitely class those into that realm of closer to the soulless cash-grab in the sense that if you liked those movies, great, no issues but if you didn't enjoy them they are far from the type of film one would go back and watch "for fun".
For me I can't even have enough emotion to hate the Sequel Trilogy, I just don't often think about them and that is really the worst thing you can say about a movie.
At the same time while I still wouldn't call the Prequels "good movies" I think we all remember
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Same with the recent Marvel stuff.
Really bad films are at least memorable. Personally I struggle to remember much from Marvel films.
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That's possible (though did anyone like RoS?), one of the weird aspects of the whole Disney SW mess was that when TLJ came out, the post-cinema-watching audience was polled and they clearly loved it. It was when the online discussions started that the view that TLJ was universally loathed (it wasn't! I for one loved it!) started to become the consensus.
I wonder if ultimately it boils down to the fact Star Wars "fans" are defined practically by the fact they hate the series, with the exceptions of ANH and ES
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Star Wars seems to have become a focal point for the culture wars. I agree that TLJ was a great movie and could have saved the franchise from a mediocre future. Andor is proof of that.
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( What is this? I don't understand your acronym. Yes, I'm being silly)
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Which acronym? (Hint though, the only initialisms I used (acronym or otherwise) were the names of Star Wars films, plus Star Wars itself.)
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Films like Battlefield Earth and Morbious work because they veer into the "so-bad-its-good" territory
Battlefield Earth is not "so-bad-it's-good." It's just bad. Irredeemably bad.
It's a tricky place to land but a huge portion of it is if the filmmakers at the time were genuinely trying to make something good and failed.
For a movie to ascend to the plateau of "so-bad-it's-good" it has to be more than bad. The badness has to have a campy ineptness that goes beyond merely trying hard. Look at the pinnacle of such movies -- Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space -- and you'll see what I mean.
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Plan 9 from Outer Space
Yeah that's a perfect example of what I am talking about and it's kinda what Ed Wood revolves around as a biopic; the man was really, really trying to execute his vision and the failure of that through being so genuine about it makes it an interesting thing to watch. An Ed Wood who is trying to make a bad movie would have made a boring film, not one we talk about today for it's badness.
Battlefield Earth is a movie that rides that line, I think what tips over the line is Travolta's just... somewhat insane p
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I clearly remember being in 7th grade and sitting in the lunch room discussing this "saga". there's a plot point where they teleport a bunch of nukes at the evil alien's - The Psychos - home world and destroy it because while they have a shield, the nukes tunnel to the center of the planet.
Most of us, even in 7th grade, thought that was a supremely weak rationalization to move the plot along. Why would you have a shield with no bottom?
One of my classmates kept emphati
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Mobius wasn't "so-bad-its-good", it was just mediocre.
Adaptations of books? (Score:2)
What a useless statement that is. Most cinema is an adaptations of books. It's like saying "many used video cameras in production".
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Seems as though they are drawing a correlation that adaptations of books tend to end up in the hated category more often than original screenplays, which if you actually think about it makes sense as you have an entire cohort of your audience with predetermined expectations that will trend them to be extra critical.
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Sure but there are two ways to judge adaptations both of them valid; As a film in and of itself and as an adaptation of the novel. A bad adaptation can be a good movie and the reverse of that.
My easiest example would be Jurassic Park. As an adaptation it's not great, a lot of the plot and characters and their motivations were changed (Book Hammond is a lot more viciously capitalist and unlikable which is tied to the park's downfall, spoilers; he also get eaten by the end) but as a film the first JP is pre
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Oh, I don't know. (Score:3)
What, you've never heard of it, let alone seen it?
What ? Wait, I loved it! The direction, the lighting !
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Ah, an Asterix and The Goths fan.
I liked Cats (Score:2)
* Yes, am aware the stage production was 81 not 70s, but by then it would have been in development a while and honestly it
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Agreed - I haven't seen the film but I saw the play at the Wintergarden Theater in the 80's.
It was mostly spectacle in the theatrical sense. Not much energy or emotion.
Definitely a 70's vibe. Mama Mia would be in the same category. Discrete songs with little connective tissue.
Les Mis pulled off both spectacle and a good story with a score with a through-line. But that came later and everything evolves including theatre.
Even so ALW scores are very popular, though they bore me to sleep.
I can't imagine spe
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I totally agree. It got caught between two opposing groups: people who hate musicals, and people who love the stage version of Cats and objected to the changes in the movie. Take it on its own terms and it's a lot of fun.
Disagree - Wrong metrics (Score:3)
People have a higher affinity for music, movies, TV that they experience during their teenager years. Later in life, they benchmark new music, movies and TV to the "memory" of experiencing entertainment in their teenage years.
It's why movie and music online reviews skew towards 5 star fanatics reviews since they are most engaged with the entertainment.
If you were 15 when 2001 came out, would you rate it a 5 star amazing and the progressively rate successive movies lower due to benchmarking newer moves versus you teenage memories?
2001 A Space Odyssey (1960s) ...
Star Wars - 1976
Close Encounters - 1979
The Terminator - 1984
Cube - 1997
The Matrix - 1999
Cloud Atlas - 2012
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You are probably right, but you forgot one important word:
"People generally have a higher affinity for music, movies, TV that they experience during their teenager years"
Because from the short list you posted, the only movie I didn't really like was Cloud Atlas.
My Cousin Vinny (Score:2)
Re: My Cousin Vinny (Score:2)
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I hate every frame of that friggin film.
How typical of the yutes of today.
Re: My Cousin Vinny (Score:2)
Armashitten (Score:2)
My kids dragged me to see it. I managed to wait for it to be over, and out to the parking lot, before I started ranting and cursing.
Unfuck Bruce Willis.
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Having Liv Tyler's dad singing the love theme was the highlight of that stinker. And yes, I know that's confusing. So, confusing is the best it gets. Michael Bay and M. Night should both be prevented from making movies, but someone keeps handing them properties to fuck up.
Could have just asked me (Score:2)
And asked this question 20 years ago. You'd still have the same answer. Good luck getting a different idea green-lit in Hollywood. The business model is broken. You don't see epic productions with a big scope and a large cast much anymore because it's too expensive to produce in the first place and then everybody and their mother wants residuals. It's almost as though they have to produce mediocre sequels to cover the cost of the original. Plus, Hollywood is no longer the taste-maker. People are sick
Ernest goes to Kick The Author's Butt! (Score:3)
Oh come now (Score:2)
Not sure I agree (Score:2)
The rise in one-star reviews probably correspond to social media making opinions more extreme.
As for Adam Sandler, Comedy films, much like jokes, sometimes bomb, and when they do it's painful. A Drama film will rarely fail that badly.
As for Family Films and Horror. With Family films you have a good chance of at least one family member who does NOT want to be there. And for Horror, if you don't like Horror you really won't like a Horror film.
Cats! Too Funny (Score:2)
Cats topping the list of cinema's most detested productions.
I absolutely love how a film production of Cats was one of the running jokes in John Guare's 1993 movie Six Degrees Of Separation , being used to highlight the simple minded gullibilities of the Upper East Side marks who fall victim to a charming con-man.
Love Forbin Project, Andromeda Strain (Score:2)
Cats had no assholes (Score:2)
Battlefield Earth had lots.
Home Alone (Score:1)
Space Odyssey 2001 (Score:2)
Either you love it, or you HATE it. I'm in the latter group.
This is a category of movies that might have been missed--movies that strongly divide people into the love or hate camp.