Premier's top 20 most-overrated movies

if they had picked Shawshank Redemption the cancelled subscrips woulda sunk em

(They're 100% wrong about a few of those, too: 2001? Wizard of Oz?)

I mean, really, who gives a crap about Forrest Gump?

If anyone thinks there aren't a lot of people out there who rate Forrest Gump, American Beauty, et al...try taking a look at people's favorite movies on, say, Match.com sometime. It's like a Gump/American Beauty/Chocolat lovefest there. And Gump is a permanent part of American popular culture.

And no, I really don't believe the public at large rates many of these movies very highly at all

Not Moonstruck or Jules and Jim, no. But American Beauty, Good Will Hunting, Forrest Gump, A Beautiful Mind, they're like the Four Horsemen of Mediocrity, and they hold sway over a lot of people out there (once you get outside of NYC and DC, anyway).

Person 1: ".....[blah blah blah] Moonstruck...."
Person 2: "Oh, Moonstruck! I love that movie, it's one of my alltime favorites!"

And I don't really remember too much about Moonstruck, so I'm always a little baffled by it, but I accept it's one of those movies that people really love that did nothing for me.

The other movie where this happens a lot: The Big Lebowski.

I finally saw Chicago last summer, and was positively surprised, it was actually better than its reviews suggested.

So what's your point -- that it's not true, or just that it's not interesting? If the latter, I can respect that, but if the former, then you're just wrong.

("Random lonely hearts", whatever -- what cross-section would work for you, then?)

and that somehow box office popularity is actually a qualifier for being "overrated"

From what I can tell, the list is a hodgepodge of critical and popular/box-office favorites, no? I mean, it's a mess, but it's certainly not calibrating solely on "box office popularity" (though I'm not sure that you were saying that).

And again, if you're arguing that there aren't a lot of people who rate Forrest Gump, A Beautiful Mind, etc. highly, then you're wrong. If you're arguing that those people are somehow irrelevant, then I might like to know who it is you would consider relevant.

But if you ask "who gives a crap about Forrest Gump?", then you kinda forfeit the right to wring your hands about it if you get a truthful answer to that question.

Results 1 - 10 of about 250,000 for american beauty.
Results 1 - 10 of about 199,000 for shawshank redemption.
Results 1 - 10 of about 197,000 for beautiful mind.
Results 1 - 10 of about 186,000 for pretty woman.
Results 1 - 10 of about 163,000 for clerks.
Results 1 - 10 of about 133,000 for forrest gump.
Results 1 - 10 of about 10,500 for moonstruck.