25 Movies Everybody Loves That Are Actually Bad

We often talk about movies that fly under the radar, movies that are so bad they're actually good, and classic movies that don't hold up to today's standards. But I'm going to get a little controversial with this list. These are movies that people still think are good. These are the classic films that are on every list of classic films for being classic. But me, personally? I hate them. I think they're trash. And you need to know what they are.

Sorry to Tom Hanks, but Forrest Gump is terrible. Did you know it's almost two-and-a-half hours long? No movie in the history of movies should be that long, especially Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump is like a box of chocolates — never as good as you think it's going to be at the beginning and downright tragically boring by the end.

Don't you dare come near me with that "E.T. is cute" malarkey. He's an oversized scrotum obsessed with candy that we're tricked into feeling sorry for because humans are xenophobic. Nothing about E.T. makes me feel good. Also, now that we have Baby Yoda, it's like...we could have had that the whole time?! E.T., go home. Forever.

I love Halloween and I love spooky movies, but I am sorry to say that Hocus Pocus doesn't cut it. I will say that Kathy Najimy, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Bette Midler are extremely...committed to their roles. But that's all I got for compliments. It could have been actually spooky, like The Witches, or full-on goofy, but instead, Hocus Pocus languishes in an off-tone purgatory. I'll watch something else on Halloween, thank you very much.

I saw Top Gun for the first time a few summers ago at an outdoor movie screening, and I've come to realize that the only thing people like about this movie are the sunglasses. It's extremely boring, except for the volleyball scene, which is interesting in a way I'm not sure filmmakers intended.

I'm not going to lie and say I haven't watched Love Actually in recent years. But I seem to find some new issue with it on every viewing, from the fat-shaming of Natalie to a cheating Alan Rickman to the fact that when it was filmed, Keira Knightley was 18 years old, making her only five years older than the tiny boy who played Sam! It's time to cancel Love Actually, actually.

Robin Williams is a legend and I adore watching him on screen. That being said, you cannot — cannot — tell me that makeup, as well as the whole premise of the movie, didn't give you nightmares. A divorced father disguising himself as an old woman to infiltrate his ex's house? That's grounds for a restraining order. 

I'm sorry, OK?! I'm sorry. A League of Their Own is beloved by so many, and I understand why. It's got a near-perfect cast, and maybe if I sat down to watch it today, I would enjoy it more. But back in the day, when I was a middle school softball player who petitioned the town to make the girls' softball as competitive as boys' baseball, this movie made me so angry because the sports play looked terrible. It didn't look like they were really athletes playing a sport, and I couldn't get over it. I'm still not. 

Amélie, or as I like to call it, Manic Pixie Dream Girl: The Movie, had its moment of cultural relevance, and boy oh boy has that moment passed. Ah, 2001. What a time to be twee. 

James Cameron has a couple entries on this list, but first up is the award-winning, highest-grossing movie ever for a while there, Avatar. Avatar was a gigantic cultural moment, but tell me, do you remember what the movie is actually about? Any of the characters? What did you like about it? It's like we all have amnesia about Avatar. Know why? Because it's not that memorable! It was just cool-looking at the time. Don't worry though; I'm sure our memories will be refreshed when the sequels come out in 2021 and 2023...and 2025 and 2027. 

If it's a comedy from the '80s and your dad loves it, it's probably not that good. Sorry fathers everywhere, but Caddyshack just doesn't hold up today. I have fallen asleep every single time I've tried to watch it. I like a lot of the actors in it, and the Baby Ruth in the pool scene is memorable, but that's it. Dads talk a big game about Caddyshack, but it's painfully unfunny.

Animal House is the same deal. Sure, John Belushi was a force, and "frat boy" humor endured for years after this movie came out, but this movie doesn't translate to the 21st century. It's probably always going to be held up as a classic, but that's because I don't think anyone has sat down to actually watch it in the last 30 years.

.I recently saw a tweet that sums up my feelings about Inception perfectly: "Inception is the funniest movie ever made. Even when presented with the infinite imagination of the human subconscious, Nolan could still only see men in suits explaining things. A room turns around for a bit." So many men in so many suits explaining so many things. No thanks! We have enough of that in the real world.

Maybe it's the outdoor movie thing, but the last time I watched Rocky, it was again at an outdoor screening, and I could barely keep my head from hitting the grass. The fight scene is brutal and exciting, but hard to watch. The rest of the movie is quite slow and boring. Sorry! I think the franchise overall is fine!

In 2004, Crash won Best Picture at the Oscars and we were all like, "Yes, very good. Great film. Well deserved." Then, I think it was a few months later when we were all like, wait... is Crash actually...very bad? This is one movie on the list that now, we are mostly in agreement about. But boy did we have the wool pulled over our eyes at the time.

I might actually get hunted by Disney for this, but Frozen makes no sense. Sure, it's got "Let It Go" and an anti-classic Disney romance story, but plot-wise? It's confusing AF. Why are there trolls (you forgot about the tiny troll village in the forest, didn't you)? A talking snowman? In other magical Disney films, the out-of-place elements seem, at least, consistent to the world. The magic is explained by a witch's curse or a genie in a lamp. But Frozen is all over the place, y'all. 

Never has such a talented cast and cool-looking movie been so utterly bad. I remember seeing it in theaters and walking out with a headache, confused and feeling like I'd just seen the worst combination of a bunch of great things. Bradley Cooper's jheri curl is the least of that movie's worries, and that's saying something.

Again, I'm sorry but come on guys. Star Wars may be one of the biggest movie franchises in all of movie history, but you cannot make me agree that it is well-crafted or consistent storytelling. First, Luke and Leia were lovers. Then they were siblings. Every movie in this epic series seems to be in a tug of war with the movies that came before it. There's no consistency of vision. Even the most recent movie undid plot points from the movie before it. Star Wars is a messy B. Only a dude could have gotten away with what George Lucas has.

James Cameron strikes again! I wasn't allowed to see Titanic when it came out, which arguably skewed my perception of the movie. I think I saw it front to back for the first time when I was in college. And it's so silly, so stagey, so...saccharine. The dialogue! It's like the melodramatic stories I wrote in third grade. Not to mention, it's over three hours long, which is simply unacceptable, and, not to mention, literally longer than it took the actual Titanic to sink. We can't just live with that fact, can we?

This Jack Nicholson vehicle from James L. Brooks was generally reviewed extremely well when it came out, but it's one of those movies that I don't think anyone in the world has watched in the last 20 years. Nicholson's character is despicable. Racist, misogynistic, homophobic, you name it! The humor in that movie would never fly today, and it shouldn't.

We were told this movie won Best Picture, and for a second, we believed it! (If you'll recall, Moonlight actually won, thank goodness.) Look, I enjoyed La La Land. It's not complete trash. But the reaction to it was way outsized. It's a middling Hollywood musical, a fine homage to the era it was inspired by. But Ryan Gosling's character is super annoying, and as someone who has lived in LA with a bunch of struggling performers, this magical musical was not enough of an escape for me.

Rami Malek may have delivered a solid performance as Freddie Mercury in this Queen biopic (even though he didn't do his own singing!), but the movie itself is a disaster. It's edited poorly, too long, and a sanitized vision of the experience of this all-important band. Popcorn fuel for the holidays, maybe, but it wasn't much more than that, unfortunately.

For some time now, American Beauty has been in the running for the worst movie ever to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It's generally considered in the company of Shakespeare in Love and Crash. But while Shakespeare in Love was a pretty run-of-the-mill romance, it wasn't trying to be much more. American Beauty, on the other hand, was way too much. For so many reasons, the movie centering around Kevin Spacey's obsession with his teenage daughter's friend is gross and I never want to watch it or think about it again.

Much was made out of Adam McKay's movie about Dick Cheney. People loved it. But then my husband and I watched it, and we looked at each other like, "This? This is what people were excited about?" McKay's off-brand of satire doesn't really do it for me, I guess, because I thought the film was too sympathetic to Cheney, not to mention, completely all over the place and plotless. 

Scarface is legendary because of Pacino yelling, "Say hello to my little friend!" But according to most movie lists, it's a pretty generic crime / action movie whose poster doesn't really deserve to be hung up in the dorm rooms of every dude you met freshman year of college. It's just sort of meh. Fine. There are better movies (and TV shows — hello Breaking Bad!) about drug lords and the cartel out there.

Hugh Grant. Julia Roberts. British bookshops. Hollywood. What could go wrong? Unfortunately, Notting Hill doesn't live up to its many promising features. Julia Roberts is usually radiant, but she's just kind of...bland in this movie. Anna Scott is the most generic and honestly, not very nice, and it's just too unrealistic that Will would fall for her! We all deserve better.