The 32 greatest movies that critics hated (and audiences loved)
May. 22, 2024Critics hate these movies, but audiences can’t get enough of them
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Professional movie critics and regular moviegoers don’t always see eye to eye. Sometimes, however, the disparity is so wide it feels like critics and audiences live on different planets. That’s evidenced by these movies that critics hated, but audiences actually loved.
While the art and craft of professional film criticism is, at least in theory, informed by scholarly expertise (including regular exposure to films made outside Hollywood), regular moviegoers can have a different palette for what defines a “good movie.” It’s not simply that audiences prefer dumber movies, with simpler stories and extravagant explosions. Although that mightseemto be the case, the truth is that audiences and critics can simply have different standards.
Thanks to Rotten Tomatoes and CinemaScore, it’s quite easy to see what kind of movies resonate with audiences while leaving critics feeling less than thrilled. Here are 32 legitimately great movies that critics hated but audiences loved.
Critics were not taken by Venom, but audiences latched onto it like sticky goo. Starring Tom Hardy and directed by Zombieland’s Reuben Fleischer, this Marvel-adjacent hit centered on Spider-Man’s archenemy from the comic books. A hard-hitting TV journalist, Eddie Brock (Hardy) comes in contact with an alien entity that uses his body as a host. Together, the two fight as Venom to stop an evil tech billionaire from destroying the world. While critics panned Venom – Variety called it “a textbook case of a comic-book film that’s unexciting in its ho-hum competence” – it still tongue-wagged its way to a massive $850 million gross worldwide.
31. Harlem Nights (1989)
When Eddie Murphy was at the height of his superstardom, he leveraged his Hollywood clout to bring to life a passion project: Harlem Nights. An homage to 1930s crime noir, Eddie Murphy wrote, directed, and starred in this film about a nightclub owner in 1938 Harlem who struggles to keep his business running in the face of rival gangsters and corrupt cops. Despite the movie’s stacked talent including Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, Danny Aiello, and more, Harlem Nights failed to jazz up critics; both Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert panned the movie, dubbing it one of the worst movies of 1989. However, the movie has been embraced by audiences. Today, it maintains a strong 80% approval rating by audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
The summer of 2007 was ruled by two movies: the raunchy R-rated comedy Superbad, and the epic blockbuster Transformers from director Michael Bay. The latter movie, which became the first in a billion-dollar hit series, was dismissed outright by critics as a noisy, senseless CGI extravaganza aimed at teenage boys. (That it was also based on the nostalgic ’80s franchise worried critics about the state of originality in cinema.) CNN’s Tom Charity wrote Transformers would effortlessly “buzz its youthful demographic” yet “leave the rest of us wondering if Hollywood could possibly aim lower.” But where critics saw a clunker, audiences saw a winner, with the movie sitting at a strong 85% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Based on an unbelievable true story (and adapted from a documentary), The Greatest Beer Run Ever from director Peter Farelly stars Zac Efron as real-life U.S. Marine veteran John “Chickie” Donohue, who in 1967 sailed all the way to Vietnam to deliver beer to his childhood buddies serving overseas. The Greatest Beer Run Ever didn’t have critics clinking their glasses - “Commits itself to regurgitating every Vietnam cliche with the laziest possible visual diction, led by an emotionally overextended Zac Efron” wrote Guardian’s Charles Bramesco - but audiences have been more than happy to crack open a cold one for Farrelly’s film. It boasts a mighty 91% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Essentially a Saturday Night Fever or Dirty Dancing for the MySpace generation, Step Up stars Channing Tatum (in his first major Hollywood leading man role) as a young man from a troubled background who, ahem, steps up to help a beautiful dance student (Jenna Dewan). Inevitably, the two fall in love. While critics weren’t in sync with Step Up - it has a paltry 21% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes - the movie had audiences dancing in their seats. The film not only launched the career of director Anne Fletcher, who later directed other hit comedies like 27 Dresses, The Proposal, and The Guilt Trip, but also the career of Channing Tatum.
In Michael Bay’s sequel to his own 1995 hit action movie, Martin Lawrence and Will Smith reunite as hotshot cops looking to take down an illegal narcotics ring in Miami. Although critics were unfavorable towards Bad Boys 2 - the late, great Roger Ebert gave the movie just one out of four stars, writing negatively of its “needless cruelty” - the movie blew up the box office with a gross of $273 million worldwide. In retrospect, the movie enjoys its appreciators as an example of Michael Bay’s maximalist sensibilities getting cranked up to the highest level.
In this spy action thriller from Simon Kinberg, Jessica Chastain leads an all-star female ensemble, including Penelope Cruz, Bingbing Fan, Diane Kruger, and Lupita Nyong’o, all of whom play spies uniting to stop terrorists from igniting World War III. Although critics panned it as an uninspired girl-power action flick - The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee wrote it off as “generic” and “simply replacing male action heroes with women” that “[stands] back waiting for applause” - The 355 captured audiences in its target sights. The movie enjoys an audience rating of B+ on CinemaScore.
In this dadcore spy action thriller by Marvel directors Joe and Anthony Russo, Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans play enemy CIA agents in an adaptation of Mark Greaney’s 2009 novel. With a 44% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, The Gray Man didn’t exactly change the game; Metro UK’s Laurshka Ivan-Zadeh had the most succinct takedown of the movie, calling it “A $200,000,000 snooze fest.” Still, Netflix touted The Gray Man as a success, being the fifth most-streamed Netflix movie (although the specificity of those metrics are intentionally vague due to Netflix’s opacity about its data). The Gray Man enjoys a polarizing 45% critics' rating and a mighty 90% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The first of many gothic action movies starring Kate Beckinsale in the lead role of stylish werewolf hunter Selene, Underworld didn’t inspire many critics to howl at the moon. The film has just a 31% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a particularly nasty review by Roger Ebert who wrote it off as “so paltry in its characters and shallow in its story.” Audiences, however, are more down for Beckinsale in black leather hunting lycanthropes. It has a B+ audience rating on CinemaScore, a 79% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a handful of sequels and spin-offs that prove how bankable it is for beautiful movie stars to kick monster butt.
Judging by its cool 40% score on Rotten Tomatoes, critics didn’t find the treasure buried deep beneath Uncharted, directed by Ruben Fleischer. But audiences, by comparison, were more swept away by the movie’s magical charms, based on their 90% RT score. Tom Holland stars as treasure hunter Nathan Drake, who teams up with grizzled adventurer Sully (Mark Wahlberg) on a quest to find Magellan’s gold. While hardcore fans of the original Uncharted games on PlayStation were peeved over how much the movie strayed from the source material, the movie still struck gold at the box office to become one of the highest-grossing video game movies of all time.
From Kick-Ass and Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn came Argylle, a bombastic send-up of spy thrillers that audiences seemed to love more than professional critics. In this original production for Apple TV+, a successful novelist (Bryce Dallas Howard) gets swept up in a real-life game of espionage where she learns that the stories in her books are more factual than she believes. While critics disliked the movie’s length, tiresome plot twists, and meta-centric narrative - The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw panned it as “unbearably self-satisfied” - other moviegoers were more thrilled, allowing the movie to boast a more assured 72% Rotten Tomatoes audience score.
Warcraft may be unloved by critics who hadn’t logged endless hours traversing the virtual lands of Azeroth. But for audiences, it’s a whole different game. Based on the popular Warcraft franchise (including the landmark online MMORPG, World of Warcraft), Duncan Jones' Warcraft is a solid epic fantasy that leaps to life through gorgeously-rendered VFX craftsmanship. While critics had a hard time wrapping their heads around it - “Crowded and scattershot,” panned The New Yorker - audiences have spent years demanding a sequel. It boasts a B+ from CinemaScore.
Blurring the lines separating animation from live-action, Jon Favreau’s star-studded, photorealistic remake ofDisney’s seminal 1994 classic The Lion King didn’t get many critics roaring in reverence. “This isn’t the circle of life; it’s more like a creative dead end,” wrote Justin Chang for NPR. “It’s a lovingly envisioned, lavishly produced, and painstakingly crafted cash grab. And it’s not much more than that,” echoed Angie Han at Mashable. But audiences were more easily swept away by the movie’s technical sophistication and targeted nostalgia, with audience scores being rated “A” at CinemaScore and 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.
While it’s celebrated now as a cult classic, Wet Hot American Summer was in fact a critical and commercial bomb. Despite its stacked cast including Paul Rudd, Molly Shannon, Elizabeth Banks, Christopher Meloni, Amy Poehler, and even Bradley Cooper in his film debut, Wet Hot American Summer left critics feeling dry as a bone; it was so bad in the eyes of Roger Ebert, he wrote his scathing review in song. Still, Wet Hot American Summer drew a passionate crowd to make it into a franchise. On Netflix, the movie inspired both a prequelanda sequel series, with virtually everyone in the cast playing younger and older versions of their characters.
Yes, believe it or not, Steven Spielberg’s Hook with Robin Williams was not loved among critics circa ‘91. On Rotten Tomatoes, only 29% of professional reviews wrote positively of the movie, which tells of an adult Peter Pan who has forgotten all about his magical childhood until he returns to Neverland. “The failure inHookis its inability to re-imagine the material, to find something new, fresh or urgent to do with the Peter Pan myth,” panned Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times. But audiences have loved Hook for generations, from Williams’ committed performance to John Williams' score to even Dante Basco as the charismatic rascal Rufio. On CinemaScore, Hook boasts a pixie dust-coated A-.
Even if hardcore fans of Twilight agree that it isn’t a cinematic masterpiece, Catherine Hardwicke’s movie adaptation of Stephanie YA best-seller - and the breakout movie for both Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson - still glitters in the sun for anyone who grew up with it. While critics weren’t enchanted by the movie’s moody story of star-crossed teen lovers, Twilight still launched the careers of its stars and successfully spawned a franchise for Lionsgate. On Rotten Tomatoes, Twilight scored 49% among critics and 72% among audiences.
Although John Carpenter’s 1982 creature feature The Thing is revered now as a technical and artistic marvel, critics in ‘82 were ice cold. Linda Gross of the Los Angeles Times criticized the movie for being “bereft, despairing, and nihilistic” whilst Starlog’s Alan Spencer called it “sterile.” Critics weren’t alone, as even audiences avoided The Thing at the box office. It wasn’t until it hit home video that The Thing found a more devoted audience who shivered at its chilling tale about an alien parasite terrorizing scientists at an Antarctica research facility. Today, The Thing is widely regarded as a classic of 1980s filmmaking.
One of many sketches from Saturday Night Live to spin off as a feature film was Peter Segal’s 1995 buddy comedy Tommy Boy. SNL castmates David Spade and Chris Farley star in this ridiculous comedy about a socially inept and physically disruptive Tommy (Farley) who desperately tries to save his late father’s auto parts factory with the help of straight-laced Richard (Spade). Critics were unkind towards Tommy Boy, but endless reruns on cable TV have made Tommy Boy a cult classic. It enjoys an A- CinemaScore and 90% audience approval on Rotten Tomatoes.
Critics saw only doom in Armageddon, Michael Bay’s sci-fi blockbuster from 1998 about blue collar drillers recruited by NASA to stop an Earthbound asteroid. “I must confess that at times I found myself rooting for the meteor to hit the Earth and put us all out of our misery,” wrote Andrew Sarris in his review for Observer. Still, Armageddon was an unstoppable pop culture juggernaut (Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” was EVERYWHERE) that endures even now as a relic of late ’90s tentpole filmmaking. The movie maintains a strong A- CinemaScore and a 73% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (versus 43% from critics).
Eric Francisco is a freelance entertainment journalist and graduate of Rutgers University. If a movie or TV show has superheroes, spaceships, kung fu, or John Cena, he’s your guy to make sense of it. A former senior writer at Inverse, his byline has also appeared at Vulture, The Daily Beast, Observer, and The Mary Sue. You can find him screaming at Devils hockey games or dodging enemy fire in Call of Duty: Warzone.
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