As long as there have been movies, critics and audiences have had differences of opinion. In some cases, there are large divides between movie critics’ reviews and public audience opinion.
Luckily, there are movie review aggregators online that show critics’ ratings, as well as those from the general viewing audience. These sites can make it easier to see what real people think versus professional movie critics.
For some movies, there is an especially great disparity between audience and critic reviews. At times there is such a wide divide between critics and the public it’s questionable as to whether or not they all watched the same film.
Lifestyle and review website Rave Reviews recently researched reviews of nearly 1,000 movies in 17 genres to find out which films had the greatest difference of opinion between public audiences and critics.
Mental Floss reviewed the final ranking of the most divisive movies and noted that 17 of the 20 movies on the most divisive of all time list received glowing reviews from critics while being panned by the public.
On the flip side, there are films like the 2016 Western Forsaken starring Donald and Kiefer Sutherland that audiences enjoyed quite a bit, but were given failing scores by professional movie reviewers.
Neatorama noted that professional movie critics are not like regular moviegoers. They look at different criteria and go beyond whether or not a movie is enjoyable and entertaining to watch, which is mainly what the public considers a good movie.
It’s also possible that internet trolls could skew movie reviews in some cases, causing data to be unclear. Another reason noted for large gaps between professional and public movie reviews is marketing of films in the wrong genre.
Rave Review ranked the following movies as the most divisive of all time:
- Knock Down the House
- Hannah Gadsby: Nanette
- Hale County This Morning, This Evening
- American Outlaws
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi
- Gloria Bell
- Spy Kids
- We Are Still Here
- Forsaken
- I Am
- Starfish
- Strong Island
- It Comes At Night
- Antz
- Room 237
- About A Boy
- Backcountry
- Cam
- Love & Friendship
- Harpoon
The most divisive ’80s movies were:
- E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
- Broadcast News
- Repo Man
- Hairspray
- The Color of Money
- Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
- The Dead Zone
- Bull Durham
- Big
- Near Dark
The most divisive ’90s movies were:
- Antz
- Daughters of the Dust
- The Blair Witch Project
- Babe
- Legends of the Fall
- The Sandlot
- James and the Giant Peach
- Dave
- Four Weddings and a Funeral
- Tombstone
The most divisive ’00s movies were:
- American Outlaw
- Spy Kids
- About A Boy
- Goal! The Dream Begins
- Beerfest
- September Dawn
- Chicken Run
- First Decent
- Pokemon 3: The Movie
- Surfwise
The most divisive ’10s movies were:
- Knock Down The House
- Hannah Gadsby: Nanette
- Hale County This Morning, This Evening
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi
- Gloria Bell
- We Are Still Here
- Forsaken
- I Am
- Starfish
- Strong Island
Most Divisive Movie Director
Rave Reviews also pinpointed the most divisive movie director. That award goes to Adam Shankman who directed such films as Hairspray, The Wedding Planner and Bringing Down the House. Typically, audiences score Shankman’s films higher than movie critics.