Movies never change. (Unless they were directed George Lucas. Then they might change.) Once a director locks their movie and releases it into the theaters, it’s incredibly rare (again, unless the director is named George Walton Lucas Jr.) for the film to evolve with the times. Sometimes, as new generations of viewers discover a film, the consensus opinion might change. The movie itself does not.
That’s also true of individual movie reviews. A website like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic might add new takes on an old film, but the original ones from the initial release sit in their archive forever. So you can go look back at how a film was first received, and compare that to a film’s reputation today. And nowhere is that contrast more stark than on comedies, where even some of the most beloved examples in recent history got negative reviews, and often continue to hold very low scores on sites like Rotten Tomatoes.
Below, you’ll find 20 striking examples of just this phenomenon. They’re all comedies of the last 50 years that have gone down in history as classics of their form. Many of them were huge box-office hits, although a few flopped in theaters (the bad reviews probably didn’t help in that regard) before finding a cult audience on home video. Just don’t go looking for George Lucas’ Radioland Murders. That’s not on there. (Come to think of it, Lucas never recut that film for DVD release … coincidence?!?)
Great Comedies That Got Bad Reviews
These comedies are audience favorites — but critics disagreed.
READ MORE: The 10 Best Comedies of the Last 10 Years
The Best Comedy Movie Posters Ever
