Mention one of these films at a party and somebody will immediately begin explaining why you “didn’t understand it.” Their reputations have grown so enormous that criticism now feels less like film discussion and more like vandalizing a monument. Beneath the awards, glowing retrospectives, and endlessly recycled quotes, however, sit movies that are uneven, exhausting, shallow, or simply nowhere near as brilliant as advertised. We have heard the speeches, survived the director’s cuts, and politely nodded for long enough.
