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

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  (#7) It's a Wonderful Life

  • James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Ward Bond, Gloria Grahame, Thomas Mitchell, Carl Switzer, Sheldon Leonard, Ellen Corby, H.B. Warner, Charles Lane, Frank Faylen, Beulah Bondi, Dick Elliott, Stanley Andrews, Johnny Indrisano, Charles Halton, Frank Albertson, Frank Hagney, Lillian Randolph, Adriana Caselotti, Lew Davis, Moroni Olsen, J. Farrell MacDonald, Mark Roberts, Argentina Brunetti, Lane Chandler, Samuel S. Hinds, Jack Bailey, Ernie Adams, Harry Cheshire, Brooks Benedict, Henry Travers, Mary Treen, Jimmy Hawkins, Cy Schindell, Max Wagner, Eddie Fetherston, Edward Clark, Charles Williams, Milton Kibbee, Karolyn Grimes, Meade Lux Lewis, Ray Walker, Sam Flint, Frank Fenton, Sarah Edwards, Eddie Kane, Harry Holman, Joseph E. Bernard, Jean Acker, Edward Keane, Wilbur Mack, Al Bridge, Mike Lally, Sam Ash, Charles Sullivan, Frank O'Connor, Constantine Romanoff, Bert Moorhouse, Almira Sessions, Tom Fadden, Tom Chatterton, Jack Lomas, Todd Karns, Bobby Anderson, Jack Gordon, Jack Cheatham, Brick Sullivan, Garry Owen, Philip Morris, Virginia Patton, William Edmunds, Charles C. Wilson, Effie Parnell, Dick Gordon, Tom Coleman, Suzanne Ridgeway, Herbert Heywood, Arthur Stuart Hull, Bert Howard, Georgie Nokes, Helen Dickson, Franklin Parker, Mary Bayless, Monya Andre, Marion Carr, Carol Coombs, Bob O'Connor, Larry Wheat, Art Howard, Charles Meakin, Netta Packer, Bryn Davis, Herschel Graham, Harold Landon, Michael Chapin, George Noisom, Danny Mummert, Larry Simms, Priscilla Montgomery, Jeanine Ann Roose, Ronnie Ralph, Carl Kent, Cedric Stevens, Harry Denny, Jean Gale, Buz Buckley, Carl Eric Hansen, Lee Frederick, Irene Mack, Beth Belden, Jimmy the raven

  When It's a Wonderful Life was first released in 1946, it received generally negative reviews. It was the next generation of the '60s and '70s that so loved the film that it became the classic that it is today.

  Bosley Crowther, writing for the New York Times, complimented some of the actors, including Stewart and Reed, but concluded that "the weakness of this picture, from this reviewer's point of view, is the sentimentality of it – its illusory concept of life. Mr. Capra's nice people are charming, his small town is a quite beguiling place and his pattern for solving problems is most optimistic and facile. But somehow they all resemble theatrical attitudes rather than average realities."
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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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  (#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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  (#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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  (#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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  (#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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