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

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  (#11) Apocalypse Now

  • Marlon Brando, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, R. Lee Ermey, Scott Glenn, Colleen Camp, Cynthia Wood, Bill Graham, Frederic Forrest, G. D. Spradlin, Sam Bottoms, Roman Coppola, James Keane, Vittorio Storaro, Albert Hall, Christian Marquand, Tom Mason, Aurore Clément, Jim Gaines, Marc Coppola, Gian-Carlo Coppola, Evan A. Lottman, Jerry Ziesmer, Jack Thibeau, Damien Leake, Kerry Rossall, Jerry Ross, Franck Villard, Henry Strzalkowski, Nick Nicholson, Glenn Walken, Herb Rice, Linda Carpenter, Don Gordon Bell, George Cantero, Linn Phillips, Bo Byers, Ron McQueen, David Olivier, Pierre Segui, William Upton, Larry Carney, Dick White, Gilbert Renkens, Chrystel Le Pelletier, Robert Julian, Lonnie 'Lono' Woodley, Henri Sadardeil, Hattie James, Father Elias, Daniel Kiewit, Michel Pitton, Yvon LeSeaux

  This one got mixed reviews. While some praised it, Frank Rich in Time said, "While much of the footage is breathtaking, Apocalypse Now is emotionally obtuse and intellectually empty."
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  (#17) 2001: A Space Odyssey

  • Arthur C. Clarke, Leonard Rossiter, Ed Bishop, Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Margaret Tyzack, Ann Gillis, Robert Beatty, Kenneth Kendall, Glenn Beck, Douglas Rain, Sean Sullivan, Bill Weston, Vivian Kubrick, Burnell Tucker, William Sylvester, Alan Gifford, Terry Duggan, Daniel Richter, S. Newton Anderson, Frank A. Miller, Marcella Markham, Simon Davis, John Ashley, John Swindells, Penny Brahms, Péter Delmár, Danny Grover, Heather Downham, Brian Hawley, Bob Wilyman, Andy Wallace, Jimmy Bell, Joe Refalo, Sheraton Blount, Jonathan Daw, Edwina Carroll, Scott MacKee, Richard Woods, John Jordan, Krystyna Marr, Irena Marr, Tony Jackson, David Hines, Laurence Marchant, David Charkham, Martin Amor, Penny Francis, Jane Pearl, Ann Bormann, Jane Hayward, Penny Pearl, John Clifford, Kevin Scott, Julie Croft, Mike Lovell, David Fleetwood, Darryl Paes, Kim Neil

  It is easy to see why 2001: A Space Odyssey drew such a negative reaction from critics when it premiered. It ran almost three hours, and was filled with special effects and a confusing story.

  The movie slowly began to build a cult following over the next few years and began influencing other sci-fi films. Since then, 2001: A Space Odyssey has appeared in several lists detailing the greatest films of all time and is widely seen as one of the most influential movies in cinema history.
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  (#13) Bonnie and Clyde

  • Gene Hackman, Faye Dunaway, Gene Wilder, Warren Beatty, Estelle Parsons, Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor, Michael J. Pollard, Patrick Cranshaw, Owen Bush, Evans Evans, Ken Mayer, Ann Palmer, Mabel Cavitt, Martha Adcock, Frances Fisher, Harry Appling, Russ Marker, Clyde Howdy, Ken Miller, Garry Goodgion, Stuart Spates, James Stiver, Ada Waugh, Sadie French

  “It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cutups in Thoroughly Modern Millie… This blending of farce with brutal [slayings] is as pointless as it is lacking in taste, since it makes no valid commentary upon the already travestied truth. And it leaves an astonished critic wondering just what purpose Mr. Penn and Mr. Beatty think they serve with this strangely antique, sentimental claptrap.” – Bosley Crowther, the New York Times
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  (#23) The Third Man

  • Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Joseph Cotten, Carol Reed, Alida Valli, Lee Strasberg, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Geoffrey Keen, Bernard Lee, Robert Brown, Eric Pohlmann, Ernst Deutsch, Erich Ponto, Karel Štěpánek, Paul Hörbiger, Martin Miller, Paul Birch, Paul Carpenter, Charles Irwin, Lily Kann, Martin Boddey, Madge Brindley, Siegfried Breuer, Gordon Tanner, Paul Hardtmuth, Harold Ayer, Vernon Greeves, Annie Rosar, Ernst Ulman, Reed De Rouen, Hannah Norbert, Leo Bieber, Peter Fontaine, Alexis Chesnakov, Hedwig Bleibtreu, Hugo Schuster, Frederick Schreicker, Ray Browne, Guy De Monceau, Brookes Kyle, Harry Belcher, Nelly Arno, Jack Arrow, Helga Wahlrow, Herbert Halbik, Jenny Werner, Walter Hertner, Jack Faint, Thomas Gallagher, Marie-Louise Charlier

  “The Third Man's murky, familiar mood springs chiefly from Graham Greene’s script, which proves again that he is an uncinematic snob who has robbed the early Hitchcock of everything but his genius. Living off tension maneuvers which Hitchcock wore out, Greene crosses each event with one bothersome nonentity (a Crisco-hipped porter; schmoo-faced child) tossed in without insight, so that the script crawls with annoying bugs.” – Manny Farber, The Nation
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  (#1) The Shining

  • Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Barry Dennen, Barry Nelson, Anne Jackson, Danny Lloyd, Joe Turkel, Tony Burton, Philip Stone, Robin Pappas, David Baxt, Louise Burns, Lisa Burns, Lia Beldam

  Stanley Kubrick is good at making movies that everyone dislikes, realizes that they were chumps for disliking it, and then pretends to have liked all along. For example, Roger Ebert gave The Shining a bad review, only to go back on it later.

  Variety regarded the film as a destruction of everything that made the Stephen King book terrifying, and said that Shelley Duvall “transforms the warm sympathetic wife of the book into a simpering, semi-retarded hysteric.” In fact, Shelley was nominated for a Razzie for worst actress for the role, along with, no joke, Kubrick for worst director.

  In fairness, the movie wasn't exactly loyal to the source material. Jack doesn’t even have an axe in the book, but rather a mallet. But hey — can you imagine if Kubrick kept that in?
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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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