Movies That Divided Audiences and Film Critics

It’s always disappointing to find out that critics consider one of your favorite movies to be an utter gaffe from beginning to end—and it’s just as strange to hear industry experts fawn over a flick that you thought was the snooze-fest of the century.

With the rise of online review aggregators that feature ratings from both professionals and the general public, it’s become only too easy to see just how giant those discrepancies can be. To discover which films are the most divisive, RAVE Reviews compiled Rotten Tomatoes's "Top 100" lists from 17 different genres into one massive collection of 967 films, and then ranked them in order of how large the difference was between the critic score and the audience score.

The top spot went to Knock Down the House, a 2019 Netflix documentary about four working-class women who ran for Congress, including New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. To critics, it was a flawless work of visual journalism worthy of a rare 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences disagreed with those critics by a full 82 percent, awarding it an abysmal 18 percent.

For 17 of the 20 films on the list, the story looks similar: Critics gave them a gold star, while audiences were unimpressed. The Rian Johnson-directed Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), for example, earned a glowing 91 percent rating from critics, but it apparently failed to live up to George Lucas’s legacy in the eyes of most moviegoers—its audience score is just 43 percent.

However, there are a few crowd-pleasers that critics didn’t embrace. Father-son duo Donald and Kiefer Sutherland teamed up for the 2016 Western Forsaken, which entertained audiences enough to receive an 87 percent rating. Professional reviewers found it unimaginative and forgettable, giving it a below-average grade of 42 percent.

If there’s an overall takeaway from this data, it’s that critical acclaim definitely doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to enjoy a film—and choosing a guilty pleasure over Citizen Kane (1941) is totally justified.

See the top 20 list below, and read more about the data here.

1. Knock Down the House (2019)

Audience score: 18 percent
Critic score: 100 percent

2. Hannah Gadsby: Nanette (2018)

Audience score: 22 percent
Critic score: 100 percent

3. Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018)

Audience score: 37 percent
Critic score: 97 percent

4. American Outlaws (2001)

Audience score: 68 percent
Critic score: 14 percent

5. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

Audience score: 43 percent
Critic score: 91 percent

6. Gloria Bell (2019)

Audience score: 44 percent
Critic score: 91 percent

7. Spy Kids (2001)

Audience score: 46 percent
Critic score: 93 percent

8. We Are Still Here (2015)

Audience score: 48 percent
Critic score: 95 percent

9. Forsaken (2016)

Audience score: 87 percent
Critic score: 42 percent

10. I Am (2011)

Audience score: 80 percent
Critic score: 36 percent

11. Starfish (2019)

Audience score: 46 percent
Critic score: 90 percent

12. Strong Island (2017)

Audience score: 57 percent
Critic score: 100 percent

13. It Comes at Night (2017)

Audience score: 44 percent
Critic score: 87 percent

14. Antz (1998)

Audience score: 52 percent
Critic score: 93 percent

15. Room 237 (2013)

Audience score: 55 percent
Critic score: 94 percent

16. About a Boy (2002)

Audience score: 55 percent
Critic score: 93 percent

17. Backcountry (2015)

Audience score: 54 percent
Critic score: 92 percent

18. Cam (2018)