After watching The Disaster Artist recently, which is based off a book describing the making of the 2003 cult favorite The Room, I was impressed with how this one film that’s said to be one of the worst of all time inspired the creation of a great movie this year. There’s something to be said about the peripheries of fan reception that incites memorability from the audience, whether it be from the greatest or worst movies of all time. This had me thinking about what kind of movies we value as a society and where we would rank them on the totem pole of memorability. That’s what I’ll attempt to do with the following list:
1. Greatest Movies of All Time
I believe this category goes without saying. Movies like Citizen Kane, Pulp Fiction, Amadeus, The Godfather and many of Stanley Kubrick’s films are praised by critics and have withstood the passage of time as people remember and watch them even to this day. There’s usually a combination of beneficial qualities that bring these sorts of movies into the pantheon of cinematic history like innovative film techniques, great performances, skilled direction, and a sense of representing the eras they were produced in while still remaining timeless to future generations. When it comes to filmmaking, these are the sorts of movies that set the standard for others to follow.
2. Good Mainstream Movies
The next category belongs to the movies that are usually very popular with the general audience and can receive plaudits from critics as well. Many superhero, fantasy and sci-fi movies, typically those from established franchises like Marvel and Star Wars (minus the prequels), fall under this category along with others that cater to the interests of the wider public at the time but do so in a way that’s successful. There’s not much ground being broken that’s evolving cinema as an art form, though movies like Deadpool can push the envelope and give us something new within something mostly familiar.
3. “Worst” Movies Of All Time
Now this is where things get interesting. When it comes to movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space, Troll 2, The Room, Reefer Madness and Battlefield Earth, there is the cult-following factor to consider. A lot of these films were meant to be recognized as serious works by their creators but completely fell apart due to a number of reasons like bad direction, incoherent plots, wooden/bizarre acting, and numerous technical problems. The results end up becoming unintentionally hilarious comedies rather than being doomed to eventual obscurity. Many people (myself included) enjoy these films not for what they’re setting out to be but for the pure schadenfreude of seeing them completely miss the mark. It may sound cruel but I consider it a backhanded compliment that people enjoy watching these movies over and over, even if the final products weren’t what the filmmakers anticipated or even desired.
4. Average, Forgettable Movies
Remember this movie in the image above? Yeah, me neither. These are the movies that come and go with the changing seasons without much of a second glance. They encompass a wide variety of genres, usually disaster movies, action thrillers, romantic comedies and more. There’s nothing particularly bad but there’s nothing particularly good either, everything is just a haze of lackluster averageness where nothing stands out. This to me is perhaps a worse crime than making a movie like The Room where everything stands out for the wrong reasons and provides the audience with unintentional hilarity. When you have a movie where nothing sticks with you, then you just wasted your money for nothing.
5. Truly Bad/Polarizing Movies
And finally we get to what I consider the worst category of all. These are the movies that fail to do well with fans or critics and are genuinely hated (Super Mario Bros., Star Wars Prequels, Dragonball Evolution, The Last Airbender, etc.) or receive a polarizing reception where the fans are split between those who love or hate it, such as the Female Ghostbusters movie and most of the DCEU (minus Wonder Woman). A lot of these movies are part of established franchises and unlike the “worst movies of all time” category don’t have their own cult followings because the audiences of the already popular franchises are angry that the filmmakers botched the source material in their eyes. Ultimately these types of films will be forgotten or looked back at with scorn by most people because of how they broke something that didn’t need fixing.
Colby's Thoughts 