The Rockefellers were so hated in the early 1900s that they had to hire multiple guards to protect them in their residences. As one newspaper reported, “The extra caution is wise. Mr. Rockefeller has every reason to fear assassins. Assassins are the natural sons of Mr. Rockefeller’s business policies.”

People had plenty of reasons to hate the Rockefellers. They were called thieves, murderers of women and children, manipulators, and outright liars. If the people were allowed to have their way, the Rockefellers would have been strung up for all the ill they caused.

10Stole A Railroad

The Rockefellers did not get rich by being nice guys. In fact, they were practically villains who took every opportunity they had to steal from other people. That is how the Rockefellers acquired the Duluth, Mesaba, and Northern Railroad.

As it was reported in the newspaper in 1911, the original owners of the railroad had just finished laying the track. They wanted to build terminals, but they needed the cash to do it.

In comes Reverend Gates, a man hired by the Rockefellers to take charge of their charities. Rev. Gates explains to the owners that John D. Rockefeller has been keeping track of the building of their railroad and that he would lend them the money out of charity. The men accepted the loan for $420,000.

Two months later, Rockefeller pretended that he needed the money back right away because of some “financial embarrassment.” The men received 24 hours to repay the loan.

They scrambled to get a bank loan to repay Rockefeller, but Rockefeller already told the banks that the men’s credit “wasn’t worth a whoop.”

Since they were unable to repay the loan, Rockefeller was able to take control of the railroad for a tiny fraction of what it was worth.

9Workers Get What They Are Worth

John D. Rockefeller did not think much of the men who worked for him, and he wasn’t afraid to let the public know about it.

In one instance in 1913, Harvey Pratt Judson, an educational man owned by Rockefeller, made it clear that he and Rockefeller did not believe there should be a minimum wage. They believed that “every man and woman, boy and girl gets just the wages they are worth.” It did not matter that these workers were not able to live on these wages.

8The Ludlow Massacre

In 1914, the coal miners in Ludlow had had enough. The mines were beyond dangerous. The pay was impossible to live on, and to make it worse, the miners were not paid in US cash. They received “money” that could only be used in the mining camp’s stores. Anything the miners made could only be used to purchase goods and food from the owner of the mine, who happened to be Rockefeller Jr.

The men went on strike. Jr. hired a militia to force the men back into the mine, and things got ugly. The miners and their families were forced out of their shacks and had to live in tents. The militia machine gunned the tent colony and lit it on fire. Two women and 11 children died in the assault, along with several the men.

The incident caused outrage across the US, and Jr. was branded a murderer of women and children.

7Women And Children Terrified

After the Ludlow massacre, the wives and children of the coal miners in Colorado were in absolute fear of being murdered by Rockefeller Jr.’s men.

Don MacGregor, a strong supporter of the miners, reported on his visit to a mining camp in Walsenburg, Colorado, that as soon as he pulled up, he saw a group of small children “with wide and reddened eyes, run from my approach because I was a stranger and the Ludlow massacre of the innocents had taught them fear of all strangers.”

Next, a pregnant woman ran out to MacGregor. She begged and pleaded that he take her away from the mining camp. “I don’t want my baby born here within reach of the machine guns. There was a woman going to have a baby at Ludlow and they burned them both.”

6Printed Fake News

If you can control the presses, then you can control the hearts and minds of Americans. Sound familiar?

After the Ludlow massacre, the Rockefellers needed all the good publicity money could buy. They hired a publicist and started up a trade magazine. They used their money to publish their own pamphlets to sing high praise on the “good” they brought to America.

The Rockefellers also joined forces with Hearst Press in 1915, publishing only positive articles on the Rockefellers and demonizing anyone who spoke out against them. They were publicly accused of printing fake news and providing the public with false information about the salaries of their enemies, the union Leaders.

5Kept The Mine Workers In Poverty

A report in 1915 announced that John D. Rockefeller Jr. went to visit one of his coal mines in Colorado. His objective was to show the workers that he was just one of the guys, but he failed miserably.

He toured the mine and managed to handle one of their picks for about five minutes of half-hearted work. When all was said and done, Jr. was too tired to leave by nightfall. So he went back to the mine superintendent’s shack to spend the night. The family was living in extreme poverty, in spite of the long 12-hour work days, and had to double up on sleeping arrangements just so Jr could have a bed to himself.

The next day, Jr. returned to the mines only to get a very cold shoulder from the men working inside. At one point, Jr. tried to communicate with the poverty-stricken workers, but “the miners grinned their contempt. As the foremen began to introduce them one of them turned and walked away. Two others started to work.”

4Meddled In Education

John D. Rockefeller spent big money on higher education to “chloroform public thought.” Through his Rockefeller Foundation, he gave endowments to colleges that agreed to teach young men “safe and conservative doctrines.” He even boosted the salaries of certain professors who agreed to teach, or preach, ideas that benefited the Rockefeller empire.

The danger of organized labor to the Rockefeller empire was high on the list of ideas to stamp out. He did not want young businessmen graduating from college with the progressive beliefs that workers had rights.

3Refused To Give Out War Loan

It was World War I, and the Allies were trying to secure loans for the war. John D. Rockefeller was approached by the British and the Russians, but he refused to loan any money to the cause. In his own words, he said, “This war is awful! Don’t you think it is awful?”

J.P. Morgan also approached Rockefeller to do his part in the war effort, but it was no use talking to crazy. It was already being discussed that J.P. Morgan might become the next “richest man in the world,” and it was obvious that there was tension between the men.

When asked about J.P. Morgan’s involvement in war lending, Rockefeller answered

“A wise owl lived in an oak,
The more he saw the less he spoke;
The less he spoke, the more he heard,
Why can’t we all be like that bird?”

2Income Tax Evasion

In 1916, newspapers cried foul over the Rockefeller Foundation. At that time, the foundation had over $100 million in “income-yielding securities.” The money was earning an estimated extra $6 million dollars a year, none of it taxable.

All the money in the foundation was under the control of John D. Rockefeller. While the use of the money was supposed to go only to charitable purposes, Rockefeller was being accused of using hundreds of thousands of the charity money for his own personal interests.

It is hard to imagine having over a hundred million dollars tucked away into a foundation in today’s world. The fact that Rockefeller had this kind of money to put aside in 1916 is mind-blowing.

1Troubles Of A Sincere Man

Congress demanded that John D. Rockefeller explain why there was yet another rise in gasoline prices in the spring of 1916. Irritated at being questioned, Rockefeller said that it was an issue of supply and demand.

By this time, more and more unaffiliated newspapers were treating the Rockefellers with extreme sarcasm. One article, titled “Troubles of a Sincere Man” insisted that the government should lighten Rockefeller’s burden

“We do hate to see a sincere fellow citizen like Mr. Rockefeller struggling under conditions which he cannot control. To help Mr. Rockefeller keep his head above water the government can well afford to go to supplying the supply of gasoline.”

Elizabeth spends most of her time surrounded by dusty, smelly, old books in a room she refers to as her personal nirvana. She’s been writing about strange stuff since 1997 and enjoys traveling to historical places.

When you create something, no matter what it is, it’s natural to feel possessive of that thing. If it was something you thought up and brought to life, it’s literally yours. If that thing ends up in someone else’s hands, for whatever reason, it’s hard to watch that person make changes. Even the best-intentioned creator can fall victim to resentment or outright anger if their thing gets altered and adapted in a way they never intended. Once in a while they even hate what their work became.

10. Roald Dahl Hated the Willy Wonka Movie

Roald Dahl was what people in modern times might call “problematic.” The writer, most famous for his work Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was a known anti-Semite, given to racial stereotypes, and an adulterer. But he wrote some colorful prose, and that’s how most people remember him.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has been adapted to film more than once now but the most famous version, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, dates back to 1971 and Dahl was alive to see it happen.

Dahl had a laundry list of issues with the movie adaptation, starting with the change of name. He also notoriously disliked Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, despite most modern audiences finding it to be a perfect performance. Dahl hated Charlie in the movie, he hated the film’s score, and he hated pretty much all the changes to the original test. 

9. Legendary Animator Chuck Jones Hated Space Jam

For a certain group of people, the 1996 movie Space Jam is considered a classic. The melding of real life and classic Warner Brothers animation captured a lot of imaginations even if it wasn’t a critical favorite. It also wasn’t a favorite of animation icon Chuck Jones.

Jones was one of the founders of Warner’s cartoon empire and he along with a team of others, created Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and all the rest. He wrote and directed many of those classic cartoons over his 30 years working with Warner from 1933 to the 1960s.

Jones was once asked his opinion of Space Jam, something he’d never talked about publicly before, and his answer was unequivocal. “I thought it was terrible,” was the direct quote attributed to him. He felt the story was completely wrong and pointed out that Porky Pig would never claim to have wet himself. 

Jones also stated that Bugs Bunny would have never needed help to win a basketball game against aliens, either from other Looney Tunes or from Michal Jordan. And he would have ended it in under seven minutes.

8. Charles Schulz Hated the Name Peanuts

You may not think of the Peanuts franchise as a big deal these days, but it is. Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the gang have been around for decades and they have made a lasting cultural impact. The estimated worth of the property is over $17 billion. That’ll buy more than a few peanuts. 

The first Peanuts cartoon ran all the way back in 1950 but the creator, Charles Schulz, never planned it to be known as such. He didn’t pick the name Peanuts, had no input in using the name, and notoriously hated it.

Schulz named his comic strip Li’l Folks. He ran an older strip by that name and wanted to keep it. He thought it had some dignity which was his intention. The word “peanuts” implied something that lacked worth in his mind, and it’s true that we use the term in that way.

There already was a comic called Li’l Abner when the Peanuts debuted, and in the ‘30s there had been a different strip called Little Folks. Not wanting to deal with potential legal issues, a newspaper editor just picked the name Peanuts and ran with it before the first of Schulz’ strips was ever published. 

Schulz hated the name, but they refused to change it, so Schulz simply rolled with it, writing and drawing thousands of them under that name for the rest of his life.

7. TMNT Co-Creator Peter Laird Hated the 5th Turtle, Venus de Milo

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a part of pop culture for over 30 years now. Much of that time has been spent as a goofy children’s cartoon, even though the franchise was born from a violent comic book parody of the superhero comic universe. 

Along the various iterations and evolutions of the characters, several feature films have been made, various cartoon series’, video games and more. And somewhere along the way they even introduced another turtle.

In the late ’90s, one of the TV series introduced a fifth turtle, a female character named Venus de Milo. The character was short-lived, and no one was more relieved than Ninja Turtles co-creator Peter Laird who hated Venus. 

Laird did not have creative control of the characters or for most of what came from the turtles, so he could only offer opinions. His opinion on Venus was that having a female turtle was “creatively bankrupt.” He especially hated the idea that they could introduce a new turtle that just happened to have been created along with the other four, we just never saw it before.

When Laird worked on Turtle properties after the creation of Venus, no one could speak of her. It was actually a rule on set and director Kevin Munroe said in an interview once that they could not even joke about her around Laird; he hated the character just that much. 

6. The Live Action Dragonball Movie Was So Bad It Forced the Creator Out of Retirement

Critics and fans alike really hated Dragonball: Evolution, the live action movie based on popular anime Dragonball Z. That hate was felt especially strongly by original series creator Akira Toriyama who had stopped his series years earlier. After seeing the live action movie he was inspired to return to the franchise and start writing new Dragonball content because it made him so angry.

The terrible film is therefore seen as a good thing because it saved the franchise, which otherwise might have ended years earlier. The terrible live action film forced new content and gave fans what they really wanted. 

5. Paul Newman Paid for Ads to Keep People Away From One of His Movies

Some artists let their hate end with emotion. They’ll answer interview questions about how they didn’t like this or that and we get an amusing story about it. Not so for Paul Newman. The man was a go-getter and when it came to things he hated; he put in the effort to make them go away.

In 1954, Newman made his acting debut in a movie called The Silver Chalice. In later years he referred to it as the worst movie made in the entirety of the 1950s. He disliked it so much he went out of his way to get people to not watch it which arguably backfired poorly on him.

In 1963, the movie was going to be played on TV and Newman paid $1,200 to place ads in the local paper telling people to not watch it. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $12,000. The ads read “Paul Newman apologizes every night this week.” He also apparently screened the move at his home once for friends, but he handed out pots and wooden spoons so people could make noise to drown it out. It’s safe to say his dislike was a little tongue in cheek, but he really was unhappy with the movie. 

4. Don Henley Hates People Covering His Music

Don Henley, frontman of the Eagles, may not be well known to the younger generation but his influence certainly is. He’s behind some of the biggest songs in rock, and has been sampled by several more current artists including Frank Ocean. And it was Frank Ocean in particular Henley had a problem with.

Ocean’s mixtape track American Wedding sampled the Eagles hit Hotel California and Henley threatened to sue. He compared Ocean and artists like him to vandals who go into a museum to paint mustaches on other people’s art. 

Henley’s threats aren’t idle, either. He forced Okkervil River to take down a cover, one they had posted for free, of his track The End of Innocence. 

3. William Friedkin Hated The Exorcist Sequel

Legendary Exorcist director William Friedkin passed away in 2023 and he left behind a legacy of memorable films and equally memorable opinions. Friedkin never minced words and would often tell interviews about how much he disliked certain actors and films. He was also vocal about his dislike for the sequels to The Exorcist.

The first sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic, featured original actress Linda Blair, but it was received poorly by both audiences and critics for being an all around awful movie. Friedkin was quoted as calling the movie “an abomination” and an “f-ing disgrace.”

He said he thought the movie was the equivalent of someone taking a novel by Dickens and then turning it into a porno musical, which is a colorful critique if nothing else.  It wasn’t just the first sequel, either. In 2020, when rumors of a new Exorcist were circulating, he took to Twitter to say there wasn’t “enough money or motivation in the world” to get him to go back to the franchise. 

2. Writer Michael Ende Hated What They Did to The Neverending Story 

Michael Ende wrote The Neverending Story in 1979. It became the basis for one of the most popular fantasy films of the ‘80s, and a movie that is still beloved today. Beloved by many but definitely not Ende.

Ende was clearly very attached to his work and agreed to a deal with a filmmaker after working out a vision for the movie. He was even promised a high level of control over casting and production. 

Things fell apart for Ende soon after the deal began. The movie rights were sold to someone else. One day he received a message asking if he liked the new script, something he had never even heard about. 

The new script was something Ende hated but the production company threatened to sue him if he hampered production. He was left with little recourse. He tried to sue the filmmakers and felt they had changed the entire story in their new version. He demanded they either stop making the movie or change the name. Neither thing happened, so he had his own name removed from the credits.

1. Clive Barker Disowned Hellraiser: Revelations in No Uncertain Terms

Hellraiser has been one of the most enduring horror movie franchises, right up there with Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street. The first film, written and directed by author Clive Barker, was based on his own short story The Hellbound Heart and introduced the character of Pinhead to audiences, though Barker never called him Pinhead in his own work.

After part one, the movies were no longer in Barker’s hands, and the franchise grew. It also grew notoriously bad. Towards the end of the franchise’s run with the original actor playing Pinhead, the sequels were heavily derided. 

It became common knowledge that the studio was producing terrible movies on purpose because they needed to make movies to legally retain the rights. If they didn’t make a movie within so many years of the previous film, the rights would switch to someone else. 

The strategy of churning out films resulted in several notoriously bad movies. The awfulness really seemed to culminate with 2011’s Hellraiser: Revelations, which was allegedly filmed in only a matter of weeks and didn’t include Pinhead actor Doug Bradley at all.

Clive Barker made a very brief statement about the movie on his Twitter account after it was advertised as having come from the mind of Clive Barker. Barker said, and this is a direct albeit censored quote, “I have NOTHING to do with the f***** thing. If they claim it’s from the mind of Clive Barker, it’s a lie. It’s not even from my butt-hole.”

Despite people traveling thousands of miles across the world to set eyes on a monument, there might be some locals who would gladly travel thousands of miles just to escape it. While you view a building or structure as a work of art, many locals may see it as a blight on their landscape or a cruel reminder of their history.

Here are ten landmarks originally hated by locals. Quite often, the reason for his enmity is the constructions in question being seen as eyesores. In some cases, they were also seen as egregiously expensive eyesores.

10 The Shard
London, England

The Shard, formerly called London Bridge Tower, is the tallest building in the UK, standing at an incredible 310 meters (1,016 ft) and offering 72 floors and an observation deck. Since its construction in 2009, it has become one of the most famous landmarks in the English capital; however, it wasn’t always loved by the public.

The building was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, after he was inspired by the adjacent railway lines and the masts of sailing ships. However, it faced much criticism before it was even constructed, with the English Heritage organization stating it would be like “a spike through the heart of historic London.”^[1]

9 The Gate To The East
Suzhou, China

The Gate to the East (aka Gate of the Orient) is the largest conjoined skyscraper in the world and has received multiple awards and accolades since its completion in 2016, as it uses the most steel products and has been deemed the tallest gate on the planet. If all this wasn’t enough, it offers the deepest private wine cellar and tallest swimming pool in China.

It has, however, received much criticism. Locals reportedly described the building as “humiliating” and that walking through the arch was “like being forced to crawl between someone else’s legs.”^[2] The media also referred to the landmark as “a climactic icon on the 21st century architecture of spectacle.”

8 The Eiffel Tower
Paris, France

The Eiffel Tower is one of the most famous landmarks in the world and is often associated with elegance and romance. It might, therefore, be hard to believe that it wasn’t always so popular with Parisians. The iconic building was erected to serve as an entrance into the 1889 World’s Fair, which was celebrating the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.

However, the steel structure looked out of place with the French capital’s classic architecture. Parisian academics and artists were not afraid to express their dislike for the landmark, stating: “We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects, passionate lovers of the beauty, until now intact, of Paris, hereby protest with all our might, with all our indignation, in the name of French taste gone unrecognized, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the construction, in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower.”

Despite the outcry and the threat of demolition, it now serves as an international symbol of love and romance.^[3]

7 Vittorio Emanuele II Monument
Rome, Italy

Construction began on the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument in Rome, Italy, in 1885 in honor of Victor Emmanuel II, who served as the first king of a unified Italy. The dominant building is flanked by Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill and is largely made from white marble.

However, despite the building’s grandeur and opulence, many locals disliked the architecture, giving it a variety of nicknames, such as “false teeth,” “wedding cake” and “the typewriter.” They also believed it was created from the wrong marble color and was far too large.^[4]

6 Sagrada Familia
Barcelona, Spain

Sagrada Familia is an unfinished Roman Catholic church and the most famous edifice in Spain. Construction began on the church in 1882, and it is expected to be completed in 2026. It is one of many architectural designs by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona, who also designed Park Guell and Casa Mila. There were, however, many people who would have preferred for the church to have been torn down.

Pablo Picasso once stated he wished for those responsible for the design to be “sent to Hell,” and George Orwell went as far as to say it was “one of the most hideous buildings in the world.”^[5]

5 Empire State Building
New York City, US

It is hard to imagine the Big Apple without the Empire State Building, which provides both locals and tourists with breathtaking views of the New York skyline. However, the 102-story skyscraper was not an instant hit with locals, who viewed its construction as a waste of money that was located too far away from public transport.

The building’s construction came in $19 million under budget and was completed ahead of schedule, with the building officially opening on May 1, 1931. However, as the opening overlapped with the Great Depression, only 23 percent of the office space was rented in its first year, which led to it being dubbed the “Empty State Building.”^[6] However, new life was breathed into the landmark when the building was purchased, renovated, and aggressively marketed as the world’s tallest building. It was later selected as one of the greatest engineering achievements in US history by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

4 Centre Pompidou
Paris, France

It is easy to see why locals might not be too fond of Centre Pompidou, as the building looks as if it’s covered in scaffolding. The Centre was completed in 1977 and offered the first collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe.

The exoskeleton design is not only unsightly, but it clashes with the capital’s historic architecture, as it is surrounded by beautiful, old buildings, including the oldest surviving house in the city, which was built in 1407. The brains behind the building were Englishman Richard Rodgers and Italian Renzo Piano. Rodgers once commented that a Parisian woman was so infuriated by the building that she hit him on the head with her umbrella.^[7]

3 Valley Of The Fallen
Madrid, Spain

It is hard to believe locals could possibly hate a monument that commemorates those killed in Spain’s 1936–1939 civil war. That’s because it also serves as the grave site of General Francisco Franco, a brutal dictator who reportedly forced thousands of political prisoners to build the monument. Many believe Franco stated he would reduce a convict’s sentence if they volunteered to join the work detail; however, there have been allegations that he enforced labor. In fact, Jaume Basch, a Catalan politician, described the landmark as “something like a Nazi Concentration Camp” in 2017. The site reportedly holds 40,000 bodies, but only Franco and Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the National Chief of the Falange Espanola de las JONS, are buried inside the church.

Security was tightened after the site was bombed by anti-fascists in 1999. While many people would happily pay the €9 admission fee to either lay flowers or spit on Franco’s grave, both actions are no longer permitted. It now serves as one of Spain’s most hated landmarks, which you can spot miles away on the A-6 motorway, as the large granite cross can be seen above the rock of the Sierra de Guadarrama.^[8]

2 Palace Of Parliament
Bucharest, Romania

Bucharest’s Palace of Parliament is the most hated building in the city. Thanks to its opulent architecture, which glows gold at night, it is now the most popular tourist attraction in Bucharest, attracting tourists from all over the world. However, locals despise the building, as it was originally built for Nicolae Ceausescu, a communist dictator. While the nation was forced to endure extreme poverty, Ceausescu was plunging the country’s wealth into building his palace. During this time, parents were unable to feed their children and were forced to place them in the state’s care.

Despite the country’s communist regime falling in 1989, residents across the city are reminded of their nation’s history every time they set eyes on the ostentatious house of Romania’s parliament.^[9]

1 Christ The King Statue
Swiebodzin, Poland

The Christ the King statue is the tallest statue of Jesus on the planet, standing at 33 meters (108 ft) and rivaling Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer. Despite being crowdfunded for $1.4 million by locals and other towns, it has become one of the most controversial landmarks in Poland.

The erection of the monument caused arguments between both Christians and atheists. It was also heavily criticized for its location, as it is situated near the German border by the Berlin-Warsaw motorway, near a large supermarket. However, one of the latest controversies is the recent installation of antennas within Jesus’s crown to broadcast an Internet signal for Divine Mercy Parish.^[10]

They say there’s no accounting for taste, and sometimes the divide between the critic and the common person is quite extensive. There is a kind of elitism associated with any kind of criticism whether it’s for art or food or film. People who make a living criticizing other things are often derided when they have an opinion we disagree with but lauded when they have an opinion that we do agree with. It makes it a curious kind of job overall.

No kind of  criticism is more popular than film criticism. Back in the day there were only a handful of film critics that rose to prominence, people like Siskel and Ebert. In the age of the internet you could spend a week or more looking through every site dedicated to nothing but film criticism. For all of those critics, there is still a big divide between the movies that they love and the movie the rest of us love. Sometimes critics go crazy over a movie that audiences absolutely hate. Based on Rotten Tomato critic scores versus audience scores, there are some significant gaps over there.

10. Spy Kids

Robert Rodriguez is most known for his action films, things like Desperado and Machete. But Rodriguez is also a family man who has several kids and that inspired him to make a movie that they could enjoy as well. In 2001 he started the Spy Kids franchise, which proved to be incredibly popular. The first Spy Kids movie made over $147 million at the box office. Critics were also big fans of the movie, giving it a score on Rotten Tomatoes of 93% overall. That’s remarkably high for any movie, let alone a children’s action movie.

As popular as Spy Kids was, audiences we’re not quite as in love with it as critics have been. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes dropped considerably from that 93%, coming in at a much lower 46%. That’s another 47-point difference between audiences and critics.

9. Ad Astra

In 2019, Brad Pitt starred in the dramatic sci-fi film Ad Astra. It’s possible some audiences felt like they got duped by the movie, expecting maybe more of a sci-fi adventure than what they got. The movie ended up being something of a dramatic exploration of the bond between parent and child. 

While critics were on board with the human drama and the visuals, a lot of audiences didn’t seem to find the same appreciation for any of those aspects. In a nutshell most audiences just found this one boring. Critics gave the movie an 84% overall, compared to the audience score which was only 40%. That’s one of the largest gaps between audiences at critics you’ll find of any movie on the site.

8. It Comes At Night

It Comes at Night was a psychological horror movie that came out in 2017. The movie relied heavily on implied horror rather than any kind of explicit gore for the most part, and the tension was really what carried this film along for many critics. The result was a Rotten Tomatoes aggregate score of 88%. That’s remarkably high for a horror movie, and few others have managed to reach such heights. Unfortunately, audiences didn’t really feel the scares as much as critics did.

The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for It Comes at Night is only 44%, half of what the critics score ended up being. A lot of the complaints about this movie seemed to be with how it ended, and also how it was advertised. The ad campaign did lead you to believe that there was something with more teeth relating to the ‘it’ part of It Comes at Night. 

7. Hail, Caesar!

You can usually count on the Coen Brothers to deliver a movie that everyone’s going to enjoy. Critics absolutely love their filmography, and in fact they only have two movies that managed to sink to the rotten level in all of the films they’ve directed, which were The Hudsucker Proxy and The Ladykillers. Most of their films score well over 80%. Hail, Caesar! was no different, pulling in a critic score of 85%.

Unfortunately for the Coen brothers and the cast of the movie, audiences weren’t really feeling this one as much as they were on board with past Coen brothers movies like The Big Lebowski. The audience rating for Hail, Caesar! is only 44%. Many of the criticisms lobbed at the movie from audiences directly relate to how the movie kind of feels rushed and disjointed, as though there are a series of unrelated events happening with no consequences related to whatever happened before in the movie.

6. Antz

In the age of Pixar we have come to expect that big-budget animated movies are going to be huge spectacles that include incredible musical numbers, breathtaking artwork, moving voice performances, and a really great story. Animation has really come a long way. That said, sometimes an animated movie comes along that hits the mark with critics a lot more than it does with audiences. Such was the case with the movie Antz back in 1998.

The DreamWorks Studios movie features an all-star voice cast and critics ended up giving it 92% overall. Casual moviegoers were not as enamored with Woody Allen as a talking insect and the average rating for audience scores comes out 40 points lower at 52%.

A lot of audience  criticism related to the fact that they felt the movie was a little too advanced for kids, and not interesting enough to hold the attention of adults. It kind of fell in that gray zone where it was really appealing to no one, especially when compared to the film A Bug’s Life, which came out at the same time and was a clear competitor that appealed to audiences much better with a 73% audience score.

5. Nurse Betty

Not many people remember the 2000 movie Nurse Betty starring Renee Zellweger, Chris Rock, and Morgan Freeman. Despite the impressive cast, it seems to have flown under the radar for a lot of people. That said, critics really did take a shine to the movie giving it a rating of 83% overall. That might make you think it’s worth a watch, but keep in mind that the audience rating for this film is 45%. A 38-point disparity makes this one of the more suspect films on the critic aggregator site.

Nurse Betty actually won at the Cannes film festival for having the best screenplay the year that it came out. The mix of overly dark subject matter with comedy didn’t really strike a chord with audiences the same way it did with critics, and the result is kind of a mishmash of views across the board. 

4. Blockers 

It’s rather surprising that critics were as fond of the movie Blockers as they were. To start with, the movie isn’t technically called Blockers. For the sake of being able to advertise it correctly it was called Blockers but most posters and images also include the silhouette of a chicken in front of the word blockers. You can probably guess what popular term that they were attempting to recreate by using that imagery while keeping the name as inoffensive as possible as a result. 

As a sort of raunchy sex comedy, this isn’t the movie that most people typically think of critics enjoying. Still, it managed to pull in an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This kind of film usually plays much better with audiences than it does with critics, so you think the scores would be reversed. In fact, the audience rating for this movie was only 50%.

Critics seemed to really take a shine to the fact that this movie try to flip the sex comedy tropes on its head and focus more on high school girls rather than high school boys looking to get laid. Unfortunately, it used all the same tropes; it just put them on girls and then focused on the parents. Audiences didn’t really take a liking to the story or the acting particularly. 

3. The Witch

The Witch came out in 2016 and seemed to usher in what has become an era of more critically admired horror movies.  Films like Midsommar, Hereditary, A Quiet Place, and Us have all proven that horror can be intellectual and engaging as well as scary. Critics gave The Witch a 90% rating overall, taking a real liking to this atmospheric period piece that mixes a lot of dread with some very dark imagery.

Not as many audience members were on board with the ideas being presented in The Witch, and the audience score for this movie is only 58%. That’s not terrible, but when you compare it with the overall critic score we’re still looking at a 32-point disparity. Some audience members just found it too boring or too slow to keep their interest. 

2. Sausage Party 

The fact that critics like 2016’s Sausage Party is a bit of a curveball to the very idea of film criticism. This animated movie featured a great comedic voice cast and detailed the lives of sausages, among the other sentient residents of a supermarket, and what they do during their down time. Not a terrible idea for an animated movie by any means, but the fact that it was also a fairly filthy sex comedy was somewhat surprising. Still,  critics were on board with the movie and it’s currently sitting at an impressive 82% on Rotten Tomatoes.

For whatever reason, this movie did not resonate with audiences in nearly the same way. It only managed to pull in a 50% audience rating, which is unusual for a movie featuring the likes of Kristen Wiig and Seth Rogen. It seemed to be that the excessive vulgarity turned a lot of audiences off, perhaps because they just weren’t expecting an animated movie to go as far as this one does. 

1. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Star Wars fandom is a very weird place to tread into if you’re not already a part of it. Star Wars fans have been passionate about this film series since the 1970s. Forty years of fandom breeds an intense degree of passion. That passion isn’t always in support of their favorite franchise either.

No film in the entire Star Wars pantheon has been more divisive than Star Wars Episode VII: The Last Jedi from 2017. Critics absolutely loved the movie and it has a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the third highest rated Star Wars movie of all-time, just behind A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back.

Audiences did not respond with the same love. The audience score for The Last Jedi on Rotten Tomatoes is a paltry 43%. That makes a 47-point divide between how critics responded to the film and what the audience thought.

If you were on the internet at all after The Last Jedi hit theaters, you may have been aware of the absolute hate and vitriol lobbed at this film. Many fans took issue with what they felt was a liberal bias in the movie. In particular, some of the minority actors in the film were actually harassed so badly they ended up leaving social media altogether — in particular, Kelly Marie Tran was picked out and picked on.

The fact that many feel the criticism levied against The Last Jedi by this subset of so-called fans isn’t valid is another matter entirely. Their responses have forever skewed the way the movie is ranked on sites like Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the most notably skewed movies when you compare critics versus audience reactions.