Random Best Movies That Were Originally Panned by Critics (23 items)

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  (#8) The Exorcist

  • Max von Sydow, Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb, William Peter Blatty, Jason Miller, Mercedes McCambridge, Jack MacGowran, Barton Heyman, Peter Masterson, Titos Vandis, Donna Mitchell, William O'Malley, Eileen Dietz, Kitty Winn, Robert Symonds, Robert Gerringer, Mason Curry, Arthur Storch, Rudolf Schündler, John Mahon, Roy Cooper, Mary Boylan, Dick Callinan, Toni Darnay, Ron Faber, Wallace Rooney, Vasiliki Maliaros, Bernard Eismann, Joanne Dusseau, Gina Petrushka, Vincent Russell, Thomas Bermingham, Paul Bateson, Elinore Blair, John Nicola, Yvonne Jones, Don LaBonte, Beatrice Hunter

  "A chunk of elegant occultist claptrap... A practically impossible film to sit through... It establishes a new low for grotesque special effects..." – Vincent Canby, the New York Times

  "Friedkin's biggest weakness is his inability to provide enough visual information about his characters... whole passages of the movie's exposition were one long buzz of small talk and name droppings... The Exorcist succeeds on one level as an effectively excruciating entertainment, but on another, deeper level it is a thoroughly evil film." – Andrew Sarris, The Village Voice

  "Nothing more than a religious [adult pleasure] film, the gaudiest piece of schlock this side of Cecil B. DeMille (minus that gentleman's wit and ability to tell a story)." – Jon Landau, Rolling Stone
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  (#2) The Wizard of Oz

  • Judy Garland, Margaret Hamilton, Frank Morgan, Billie Burke, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Pinto Colvig, Rolfe Sedan, Ken Darby, Billy Curtis, Adriana Caselotti, Meinhardt Raabe, Jerry Maren, Jack Haley, Billy Bletcher, Charley Grapewin, Elly Annie Schneider, Clara Blandick, Candy Candido, Ruth Duccini, Mitchell Lewis, Margaret Pellegrini, Harry Wilson, Oliver Smith, Charles Irwin, Tyler Brooke, Lois January, Buster Brodie, Mickey Carroll, nm0467071, Ethelreda Leopold, Pat Walshe, Robert St. Angelo, Eleanor Keaton, 'Little Billy' Rhodes, Abe Dinovitch, Tommy Cottonaro, Daisy Earles, Dona Massin, Harry Earles, Charles Becker, Bud Linn, Terry, Olga C. Nardone, Lee Murray, Elvida Rizzo, Lorraine Bridges, Helen Seamon, Jackie Gerlich, Paul Dale, Sig Frohlich, Rad Robinson, Jon Dodson, George Noisom, Ambrose Schindler, George Ministeri, Fern Formica, August Clarence Swenson, Amelia Batchelor, Jack Paul, Gracie Doll, Nita Krebs, Harry Cogg, Parnell St. Aubin, Dorothy Barrett, Yvonne Moray, Phil Harron, Sid Dawson, Ralph Sudam, Freddie Retter, Jimmy the raven, Johnny Winters

  “I sat cringing before M-G-M’s Technicolor production of 'The Wizard of Oz,' which displays no trace of imagination, good taste, or ingenuity… I don’t like the Singer Midgets under any circumstances, but I found them especially bothersome in Technicolor… I say it’s a stinkeroo.” – Russell Maloney, The New Yorker
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  (#14) Scarface

  • Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Robert Loggia, F. Murray Abraham, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

  Scarface received a highly negative reception from critics when it premiered in 1983, thanks to its graphic violence and nonstop foul language. The New York Times described it as "a relentlessly bitter, satirical tale of greed, in which all supposedly decent emotions are sent up for the possible ways in which they can be perverted." Even its box office success did little to sway the minds of reviewers.

  Despite this, Scarface has been reexamined in a much more positive light since. It is regularly considered to be one of the best gangster films ever created.
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  (#6) Predator

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Peter Cullen, Kevin Peter Hall, R. G. Armstrong, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Shane Black, Elpidia Carrillo, Steve Boyum, Henry Kingi, Sonny Landham, William H. Burton, Richard Chaves

  "Predator is a slightly above-average actioner that tries to compensate for tissue-thin-plot with ever-more-grisly death sequences and impressive special effects." – Variety

  The New York Times called it “alternately grisly and dull, with few surprises,” and the Chicago Reader said, "despite the off-rhythm styling, there's not a lot going on."
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  (#21) Metropolis

  • Brigitte Helm, Gustav Fröhlich, Theodor Loos, Heinrich George, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Fritz Rasp, Alfred Abel, Erwin Biswanger, Fritz Alberti, Grete Berger, Olly Boeheim

  “It is a technical marvel with feet of clay, a picture as soulless as the manufactured woman of its story. Its scenes bristle with cinematic imagination, with hordes of men and women and astounding stage settings. It is hardly a film to be judged by its narrative, for despite the fantastic nature of the story, it is, on the whole, unconvincing, lacking in suspense and at times extravagantly theatric.” – Mordaunt Hall, the New York Times
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  (#22) The Night of the Hunter

  • Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, Peter Graves, James Gleason, John Hamilton, Gloria Pall, James Griffith, Kathy Garver, George D. Wallace, Corey Allen, Don Beddoe, Emmett Lynn, Paul Bryar, Evelyn Varden, Billy Chapin, Gloria Castillo, Sally Jane Bruce, Cheryl Callaway, Mary Ellen Clemons, Michael Chapin, Kay Lavelle

  This classic film, now widely studied as a masterpiece of horror by film students everywhere, was not a success with either audiences or critics at its initial release, and Laughton never directed another film.

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