Everyone Loved It. We Didn’t.
Films the world agreed on, and we did not.
Going against the crowd is easy when the crowd is wrong about something bad. It is harder when the film is genuinely good and it still did not work for you.
Everything on this shelf is well made. The photography, the performances, the ideas – we are not arguing with any of that. What we are saying is that somewhere between the craft and the ending, each of these lost us, and we would rather tell you where than pretend we were on board.
You may love every one of them. Plenty of people did.
Skip
Poor Things (2023)
Stunning to look at, and the acting is genuinely incredible. Nobody is arguing about the craft here. The story is the part that never connected for us. It is artsy and bold and it is not quite our style, and being told a film is a masterpiece does not make it click. A unique experience, just not one we would go back to.
Skip
Civil War (2024)
Visually striking, with strong work from Kirsten Dunst. The buildup is compelling and the realism is gritty. Then the story falls flat and the characters get resolutions that do not pay off any of it. Subverting the Hollywood ending is a fine instinct, but you still have to land somewhere.
Skip
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
We finally watched it, and yes, we get the cult appeal. It also felt like showing up to a party twenty years late. We chuckled here and there, but the most memorable thing about this one is that everyone else loved it. If you were there in 2004 this probably reads as heresy, and that is fair.
Skip
Dream Scenario (2023)
Smart, unique and incredibly well acted. The unsettling tone is the entire point of it and it just was not for us. It plays more like a Black Mirror episode than a film built to land emotionally, and by the end we admired it more than we felt it.
Skip
Monkey Man (2024)
There is a lot to like. Dev Patel delivers but the action was only okay compared to a John Wick. The plot is where it comes apart. It feels forced, and the lore never quite connects to the fights it is supposed to be powering. Some very cool moments in a film that does not add up.
Skip
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
The comic book look is great and the teen energy is exactly right. It just never hit the emotional notes we were waiting for. A fun ride, and not the Spider-Verse level that everybody seemed to be putting it at.
Skip
Sisu: Road to Revenge (2025)
A revenge story has one job, which is to hit hard. This one is beautifully shot and well acted, and then the action goes full Fast and Furious at exactly the moments it should be tightening. The emotional punch never lands.
Skip
Leo (2023)
A fun premise, and a classroom lizard is a really unique idea for a narrator. The musical numbers fall flat and it lost our interest well before the end. Younger kids may be perfectly happy with it. We would not go back.
Skip
World’s Greatest Dad (2009)
Robin Williams is genuinely great here, vulnerable and powerful in a role a long way from the comedy he was known for, and the film has no interest in tying itself up neatly. For some people that is exactly the appeal. This is a tough story with little redemption, and that is not usually our cup of tea.
Skip
Jules (2023)
Ben Kingsley brings real quiet charm to this, and the setup is lovely: an ageing man alone in a small town, an alien in his back garden, and a slow burn about connection and loneliness. Sometimes these small offbeat films sneak up on you in the best way. This one never quite got there for us.
The full shelf is at everyone loved it, we didn’t, and it grows as we watch. If you would rather read the argument running the other way, we keep one of those too: Better Than You Heard