Great ’80s Movies That Got Bad Reviews

Some movies become consensus favorites almost instantly after their initial release in theaters. They gross hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, or they’re hailed by critics around the globe, or they win Academy Awards that cement their legacy for all of time. Kids buy their merchandise, or wear their T-shirts, or eat their elaborately themed tie-in menus.

Other films take a more circuitous route to legendary status. Sometimes it takes critics — and, let’s be fair, audiences — years or even decades to get on a movie’s wavelength. And anecdotally and generally speaking, it seems like certain genres tend to fare worse with critics than others. Back in the 1980s, for instance, horror sequels, fantasy adventures, comic-book adaptations, broad comedies, and erotic thrillers were largely considered guilty until proven innocent, as far as many critics were concerned.

Thanks to review aggregation websites like Rotten Tomatoes, it’s now possible to look back at some of those contemporary reviews, and to see where critics pointed their collective thumbs down on a movie that, over time, gradually became a popular favorite. The 12 movies listed below were all came out in the 1980s, and all earned “rotten” ratings — a score of 59 out of 100 or less — by critics on Rotten Tomatoes. They are all widely regarded nowadays as cult hits, if not outright ’80s classics. Critics: What do they know? (Honestly? They know a lot! But nobody’s perfect.)

READ MORE: 10 ’80s Movies That Could Never Get Made Today