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 Grimskul wrote:
I would say Saving Private Ryan, Green Mile, the first Toy Story, Terminator 2, and personally Kung Fu Hustle.

I despise Toy Story. I hate that it has sequels. The main characters are all SOOOOOO irritating. I'd probably hate Kung Fu Hustle, but I've only seen trailers.

Last of the Mohicans is a good call. I can imagine some "White Man Saviour" issues if it came out today though.

Spirited Away is wonderful. I can imagine someone not liking it, but to actively dislike it would make you the worst human being who ever lived.

Similarly, anyone who does not love the original Karate Kid is dead inside. To actually dislike it I think you'd need to be pure evil. The sequels, not so great, sure. The remake was cringe, agreed. But the original ruled. And Cobra Kai is cheesy as hell, but I love that too.

Paddington, a once and future classic and no mistake

Elf, some folks may tell you chrimbly begins when Gruber falls off Nakatomi but really its when you watch this film in season

Hold on, lets throw original Blues Brothers into this as well.

There are too many different people in the world for there to be a "Universally" loved film. Some people hate things simply because other people like them!

I know, I know...... hot take!


Edited: Made it sound less harsh.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
Paddington, a once and future classic and no mistake

Elf, some folks may tell you chrimbly begins when Gruber falls off Nakatomi but really its when you watch this film in season

I hate Will Ferrell with a fiery passion. Any movie where he is the lead is a dumpster fire in my eyes. Elf received the same hate only because of the actor.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Hold on, lets throw original Blues Brothers into this as well.

My wife made us turn off Blues Brothers before the halfway mark. She has no patience for musical comedies like that or This Is Spinal Tap. She walked out of A Mighty Wind.

Tough one.
It's easy just to pick your favourite films but I think finding films immune to dislike is pretty much impossible - especially today.

Jaws
Psycho (not the remake lol)
JC's The Thing
The Goonies
Silence of the Lambs
LOTR
Dredd???

Ultramarines

 Fifty wrote:


Similarly, anyone who does not love the original Karate Kid is dead inside. To actually dislike it I think you'd need to be pure evil. The sequels, not so great, sure. The remake was cringe, agreed. But the original ruled. And Cobra Kai is cheesy as hell, but I love that too.

You're the first person I've seen praise that movie in any regard. Even as a kid I could see the ordered list of Hollywood tropes and cliches that made up every single aspect of that movie. It was a insipid, unimaginative checklist, with a dull cast of characters.

The Koala Kai Quickbooks commercials are possibly the only amusing thing to spawn out of that film, and it isn't that amusing;

warspawned wrote:LOTR

I'd make an exception for Two Towers, for the absurdist melodrama of fake character 'deaths' and completely missing the point of Faramir.

Jurassic Park.

Impossible to not like this movie unless you just don't like dinosaurs. In which case...there is just no pleasing you is there?

How about Event Horizon? It's almost a 40K prequel

 Xenomancers wrote:
Jurassic Park.

Impossible to not like this movie unless you just don't like dinosaurs. In which case...there is just no pleasing you is there?

This was a book before it was a movie...so there is actually quite a strong contingent of hatred out there.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Jurassic Park.

Impossible to not like this movie unless you just don't like dinosaurs. In which case...there is just no pleasing you is there?

This was a book before it was a movie...so there is actually quite a strong contingent of hatred out there.

Dang those book readers! Ehh - they probably changed a bunch of stuff around so they didn't get their nostalgic feels out of it. As a piece of cinema though how could you not actually like it? The scenes are stunning - even compared to what we can do today with CGI. The music is spectacular. Even the comedic relief is perfect.

Maybe Back To The Future? I can't imagine someone disliking that one!

 Xenomancers wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Jurassic Park.

Impossible to not like this movie unless you just don't like dinosaurs. In which case...there is just no pleasing you is there?

This was a book before it was a movie...so there is actually quite a strong contingent of hatred out there.

Dang those book readers! Ehh - they probably changed a bunch of stuff around so they didn't get their nostalgic feels out of it. As a piece of cinema though how could you not actually like it? The scenes are stunning - even compared to what we can do today with CGI. The music is spectacular. Even the comedic relief is perfect.

They are indeed quite different. I loved the book when I was a child, but like a lot of Crichton’s works it aged pretty poorly in my opinion. The movie, on the other hand, didn’t wow me when it came out, yet aged very well. It is one of the movies I find batter than the book it’s based on, but I doubt that is a common opinion.

I'm going to restate the OP's premise to be clearer. Movies that are both widely enjoyed, and have very few vocal detractors, based on the specifics of the movie. So, no whole scale elimination of genres or tropes.

Princess Bride: I don't get why people love it, but it's a fine movie with appeal to both kids and adults. There are some quite good aspects.

Jurassic Park: It's aged well (even the CGI), while action packed, it's not too intense.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kroem wrote:
Maybe Back To The Future? I can't imagine someone disliking that one!

It's been cited as one of the greatest screenplays ever written, for what it's worth. I'm sure there are people that aren't wild about it, but the actual haters have to be pretty few.

 Kroem wrote:
Maybe Back To The Future? I can't imagine someone disliking that one!

Ooh, pick me!

I never liked Michael J Fox. Not sure why, I just found him intensely irritating, up until his appearance in Boston Legal, where I was surprised by quite liking his character.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 timetowaste85 wrote:

I hate Will Ferrell with a fiery passion. Any movie where he is the lead is a dumpster fire in my eyes. Elf received the same hate only because of the actor.

I think Elf was the reason I thought I disliked Will Farrell, but then I enjoyed the hell out of Anchorman.

Who framed Roger Rabbit?

I think we can discount people who rationally or irrationally dislike a movie because of a specific actor. That's obviously not a fair judgment of an actual film.

I think again, we need to consider only the "target" audience. I can imagine any number of 60-70 year olds hating everything that's released today because they're not the target audience, etc. I do think this is an issue with people reviewing films in general. There's the constant assumption that if you don't like a film, it's a bad film - which is erroneous.

See any amazon review of a violent movie, and you'll see one and two star reviews "This movie was too bloody and gory!". It's essentially poor form to rate the film a one or a two because of something you dislike subjectively. I can watch a film, dislike it, but appreciate that it was beautifully filmed, well written, had a consistent plot, excellent character arcs, etc. Likewise I can thoroughly enjoy a film which is a friggin' mess...containing none of those elements because it simply brings me joy on another level. Conflating the two is often the issue..."I like this weird, quirky, poorly filmed movie...thus it is an excellent movie". No. An honest appraisal of a film would take into account more than a simple opinion. It's why I generally ignore movie rating numbers when I pick a movie to watch.

insaniak wrote:I think Elf was the reason I thought I disliked Will Farrell, but then I enjoyed the hell out of Anchorman.

whereas I really don't like Anchorman, maybe due to besides maybe Sir Trevor we don't have news celebs this side of the pond so maybe I didn't quite get the parody

 Elbows wrote:
I think we can discount people who rationally or irrationally dislike a movie because of a specific actor. That's obviously not a fair judgment of an actual film..

Given how big an impact the choice of actor can have on a film, I'm not sure that's true. How much better would Michael Bay's decision to focus on the 'human' story in Transformers have worked if Shia LaBeouf's character wasn't so intensely irritating? In that particular case, the draw of the titular characters was still big enough for those movies to succeed despite the flaws, but a movie can be made or broken on how well the protagonist connects with the audience.

Then again, maybe 'Movies that could have been better with a different cast' would be a good topic for a different thread...

Nothing is going to be universally liked. Somewhere out there is somebody who thinks three day weekends are a bummer.

So far in this thread people have expressed a dislike for Whoopi Goldberg (an EGOT winner) and Michael J Fox (a widely love actor with plenty of hardware). I think that it’s fine not to care for them, but it’s also getting into the sort of weeds that this exercise needs to avoid.

 Polonius wrote:
Nothing is going to be universally liked. Somewhere out there is somebody who thinks three day weekends are a bummer.

So far in this thread people have expressed a dislike for Whoopi Goldberg (an EGOT winner) and Michael J Fox (a widely love actor with plenty of hardware). I think that it’s fine not to care for them, but it’s also getting into the sort of weeds that this exercise needs to avoid.

There is a very definite difference between 'Is it good?' and 'Do you like it?'

I can acknowledge that someone is a fantastic actor without personally liking their work. But yes, I'll take my odd actor quibbles over here instead...

 insaniak wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
Maybe Back To The Future? I can't imagine someone disliking that one!

Ooh, pick me!

I never liked Michael J Fox. Not sure why, I just found him intensely irritating, up until his appearance in Boston Legal, where I was surprised by quite liking his character.

Damn, I thought I had a winner with that one
I get it though, I have an irrational dislike for Eddie Redmayne and David Tennant because I disliked the first characters I saw them portray!

OK what about The Brave Little Toaster? That's imune to people disliking the actors because it's a cartoon!

If we're including animation, My Neighbour Totoro is difficult to find anything to dislike. And that opinion holds after having watched it at least 47 billion times with my eldest daughter...

Yeah, I'd throw Disney films out there, as a whole. They have a formula that is squarely targeted at the lowest common denominator, and it is hard to deny their appeal. If the threshold for actively dislike is changing the channel when it comes on, most will just shrug, ignore it and sing along to the hit when it comes. Ironically, of course! But they still know the words.

The great escape. the actors, the story, the action, the comedy, the theme tune... the list is endless. go on, disagree.



ooh and singing in the rain. any girl who says she doesnt want a gene kelly, or a guy who doesnt want to be gene kelly, is lying.

I've never been able to finish a Studio Ghibli film.

I just loathe the animation style.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

ooh and singing in the rain. any girl who says she doesnt want a gene kelly, or a guy who doesnt want to be gene kelly, is lying.

I always aspired more towards Donald O'Connor or Fred Astaire, personally.

I do love Singin' In The Rain, though.

Um, original godzilla? The american version with raymond burr. Who hates that?

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Fellowship of the Ring

Except by the crowd to whom dropping of Bombadil is huge crime and sin ;-)