Especially with such a high number of notable and memorable film releases happening all at once, it’s impossible for general audiences and esteemed critics to agree on the quality of every single film. It can be difficult for a film to be able to appeal to the tendencies and tastes of both the average audience member and a meticulous critic, with general audiences usually being more easily placed by a film’s output. However, there are a number of exceptions to the rule of films that in their execution manage to impress and delight critics, while completely alienating audiences.
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2023 was no stranger to a number of these divisive movies, as there were many films that, while they may have done a great job at getting a high critics’ score, failed to justifiably please general audiences. It’s a sentiment that can be hard to quantifiably grasp through a single metric, such as with Rotten Tomatoes. It is all-encompassing of several factors surrounding the film as a whole, such as discussion surrounding the film and box office performance.
15 ‘The Sacrifice Game’ (2023)
Critics Score: 90%, Audience Score: 50%
Image via Shudder
The Sacrifice Game is a Christmastime horror film that sees college students Samantha and Clara spend their Christmas break stuck at their boarding school campus for the holidays. Their situation proves to become much worse when they’re chosen as the latest victims of a deadly group of Christmas killers, who have only grown in prominence throughout the season. Now captured and held captive by this killer group, the duo are forced to fight back and do anything they can in order to survive the night.
Horror movies are always hit or miss both for critics and audiences, yet The Sacrifice Game was able to strike a chord with critics thanks to its exciting kills, entertaining villains, and clear inspiration from films like The Strangers and Funny Games. However, audiences weren’t nearly as receptive to the film, thanks in part to its strange and shocking twist ending, which left audiences more confused and annoyed at the film than charmed.
The Sacrifice Game
Release Date December 8, 2023
Director Jenn Wexler
Cast Mena Massoud , Olivia Scott Welch , Chloe Levine , Gus Kenworthy
Runtime 90 minutes
Watch on Shudder
14 ‘There’s Something in the Barn’ (2023)
Critics Score: 78%, Audience Score: 51%
Image via XYZ Films
There’s Something in the Barn is a holiday horror-comedy that sees a run-of-the-mill American family fulfilling their dreams of being able to return to their roots and move their lives into a remote Norwegian cabin. However, just as they start to get accustomed to their new surroundings, they realize that they are not alone in their new locale, as their home’s barn is infested with a “barn elf.” As the family begins setting up for the holiday season, they accidentally invoke the rage of their barn elf, leading to a terrifying night that soon becomes a fight for survival.
While the strange mixture of holiday family comedy and horror elements made for a joyful and chaotic mixture that critics were able to enjoy, audiences simply didn’t appreciate this offputting mixture of genres. It didn’t help matters that the primary source of danger in the film comes from a Christmas elf, a creature that may be the furthest thing from intimidating. The style of comedy that There’s Something in the Barn provided simply wasn’t able to connect with audiences, especially with how long it takes to set up its premise.
There’s Something in the Barn
Release Date November 10, 2023
Director Magnus Martens
Cast Amrita Acharia , Townes Bunner , Martin Starr , Kiran Shah
Runtime 100 minutes
Rent on Amazon
13 ‘Inside’ (2023)
Critics Score: 62%, Audience Score: 40%
Image via Focus Features
Inside is a meticulous one-man show thriller that follows the story of Nemo (played by Willem Dafoe), an art thief who, during a heist gone wrong, finds himself trapped alone in a New York penthouse. With the owner away for who knows how long, Nemo is forced to stick it out and find a way to survive in the penthouse, with nearly no food or water at his disposal and surrounded by nothing but priceless art pieces. His sanity slowly begins to wane away as the days turn into weeks and months, with seemingly no hope of escaping in sight.
Inside is a simple premise that is built upon the benefit of allowing one of the greatest actors of a generation to let loose and make the entire film a sprawling canvas for his acting abilities. Critics loved just how much Dafoe brings it his all in this film, yet audiences found themselves bored and unsatisfied by the film’s one-note plot that rarely evolves and excites as the runtime continues. The film’s increased focus and subtext about isolation and the pandemic certainly didn’t help things, as it only lessened the focus on its core interesting premise, waning audience interest even more.
Inside
Release Date March 17, 2023
Director Vasilis Katsoupis
Cast Willem Dafoe , Gene Bervoets , Eliza Stuyck , Andrew Blumenthal
Runtime 105 minutes
Main Genre Drama
Watch on Amazon Prime
12 ‘The Inventor’ (2023)
Critics Score: 77%, Audience Score: 59%
Image via Blue Fox Entertainment
The Inventor is a stop-motion animated film that follows the story of Leonardo da Vinci, telling a colorful and highly emphasized retelling of how the legendary Renaissance artist became an icon. The headstrong inventor leaves Italy in order to join the French court in pursuit of the freedom to create wild and world-changing inventions, as well as gain further insight into the truths of the human body. In his journey for knowledge, he is accompanied by Princess Marguerite, in his deep and never-ending pursuit to find the meaning of life as we know it.
Critics found themselves floored by the beautiful animation style of The Inventor, not just with its stop-motion animation, but its frequent mesmerizing 2D animated segments also made a massive impact. However, the main divide between critics and audiences comes from The Inventor’s primary story and content, which, for the most part, acts as a more approachable history lesson. This style of storytelling made for a unique and worthwhile experience for esteemed critics, yet general audiences simply found themselves bored or uninterested in the film’s content and story.
The Inventor
Release Date September 15, 2023
Director Jim Capobianco , Pierre-Luc Granjon
Runtime 92 minutes
Watch on Hoopla
11 ‘No One Will Save You’ (2023)
Critics Score: 81%, Audience Score: 56%
Image via 20th Century Studios
No One Will Save You provides a unique sci-fi twist on the classic home invasion premise, seeing an anxiety-ridden shut-in facing an invading alien who has found its way into her home. Completely alone in her house and facing the mysterious extra-terrestrial, Brynn must find the courage within herself to take on the alien face-on, not only to preserve her own life, but the lives of her community and possibly the entire world.
Critics immediately fell in love with No One Will Save You’s twist on the classic thriller archetype, creating massive amounts of tension and fear entirely through masterful filmmaking and with very little dialogue. However, what was able to conjure fear for the critics was not able to create the same sense of dread and scares for audiences, who found the silent home invasion to be mostly dull and uneventful. Combined with No One Will Save You’s complicated ending, audiences finished the film more confused and uninterested than scared.
No One Will Save You
Release Date September 22, 2023
Director Brian Duffield
Cast Kaitlyn Dever , Ginger Cressman , Zack Duhame , Geraldine Singer
Runtime 93 minutes
Watch on Hulu
10 ‘Butcher’s Crossing’ (2022)
Critics Score: 75%, Audience Score: 47%
Butcher’s Crossing follows the story of Will Andrews, a Harvard dropout in the 1870s who, in order to find a sense of purpose in his life and fulfill a self-appointed destiny, travels West for opportunity. While there, he enlists a team of buffalo hunters to his side, led by the mysterious Miller (Nicolas Cage), wanting to join them on one of their legendary buffalo hunts. The journey across the countryside proves to be much more dangerous and precarious than expected, placing the entire crew’s lives at stake.
Butcher’s Crossing’s biggest benefit in the eyes of critics came from the lead performance from Cage, whose more somber, cold, and calculated performance elevated nearly the entire film around him. However, when such a notably film-improving performance is much more subtle and slow in its execution, it makes it more difficult for a general audience to connect and appreciate the material at hand. This resulted in Butcher’s Crossing being seen as nothing more than a dull and generic Western in the eyes of audiences, wishing the film to be more energetic like Cage’s previous work.
Rent on Amazon
9 ‘The Teachers’ Lounge’ (2023)
Critics Score: 98%, Audience Score: 53%
Image via Sony Pictures Classics
The Teachers’ Lounge is a German drama film that follows the story of teacher Carla Nowak, who has an idealistic and optimistic viewpoint of the world and her job as a school teacher. However, her limits are soon brought to their breaking point when one of her students is suspected of theft, causing Nowak to begin delving deeper into the matter to find the truth. This quest for the truth proves itself to be much more difficult than imagined, as it pushes her ideals to their limits, with her actions having massive consequences that threaten her livelihood.
A big reason critics fell in love with The Teachers’ Lounge is the film’s subtle yet powerful messaging about the complacency and destabilization that can occur within smaller, seemingly innocuous communities. The film’s primary premise acts as only the backdrop and jumping-off point for these poignant themes, a fact that has made it both a massive hit with critics and a miss with audiences. The increased focus on the subtext and inner meaning that the actual core story at the center wasn’t as engaging or uplifting as audiences hoped.
The Teachers’ Lounge
Release Date May 4, 2023
Director Ilker Çatak
Cast Leonie Benesch , Leonard Stettnisch , Eva Löbau , Michael Klammer
Runtime 98 minutes
Main Genre Drama
Watch in Cinemas
8 ‘Fair Play’ (2023)
Critics Score: 85%, Audience Score: 54%
Image via Netflix
Fair Play is an erotic thriller that follows the story of a young couple, Emily and Luke, who have to keep their intense love life a secret because they both work at the same cutthroat hedge fund. However, after Emily receives a surprise promotion, the competitive nature of their workplace slowly finds itself seeping into their love life, putting their recent engagement in complete disarray. The anger and slow destruction of their relationship prove to have massive ramifications on their entire lives that neither of them could have predicted.
Fair Play scratched a powerful itch among critics who were missing an exciting and unexpected erotic thriller, as the film’s signature style and execution harkened back to the genre’s heyday. Combined with the notions and themes of greed and gender politics, the film acted as a great modern evolution of the genre in the eyes of critics. However, audiences simply couldn’t find themselves getting interested in this return to form for the genre, seeing the plot as predictable and the ending to be highly disappointing.
Fair Play
Release Date October 13, 2023
Director Chloe Domont
Runtime 113 minutes
Watch on Netflix
7 ‘Eileen’ (2023)
Critics Score: 83%, Audience Score: 53%
Image via NEON
Eileen follows the story of Eileen Dunlop (played by Thomasin McKenzie), a young woman living in 1960s Massachusetts working as a prison secretary who is completely sick and tired of her job. However, her boring and uneventful life soon begins to find a new spark of excitement when she is convinced by co-worker Rebecca (played by Anne Hathaway) to get involved with a serious crime. The intrigue and thrill behind the crime prove themselves to be worth all the possible downsides for Eileen, yet it soon becomes apparent that the crime is much more than she bargained for.
Critics found themselves enamored by the core dynamic and performances of McKenzie and Hathaway in Eileen, who prove themselves to massively elevate and give justice to the psychological thriller source material. However, audiences were not a fan of Eileen’s more vague and unanswered questions throughout its runtime, leaving for a plot that to a great number of audiences was uninteresting with a lackluster ending.
Eileen
Release Date December 8, 2023
Director William Oldroyd
Runtime 97 minutes
6 ‘Infinity Pool’ (2023)
Critics Score: 87%, Audience Score: 52%
Image via Neon
Infinity Pool follows the story of a well-off couple James and Em, who are enjoying a seemingly perfect vacation at a high-luxury resort on the beaches. However, the resort is hiding a dark and sinister underbelly underneath the surface, one that begins slowly enticing James to give in to his dark desires of power and lust. As he begins to explore the truth behind this strange community, James finds himself trapped in a group surrounded by violent and hedonistic peers, with seemingly no way to escape, if he wants to, that is.
Especially in an era of horror so greatly changed and defined by more experimental and artsy auteurist efforts, there are bound to be horror films that toe the line too far and completely alienate general audiences in the process. Infinity Pool is the perfect example of such, as its more adult and hypersexual themes and messaging make for a strange, philosophical viewing experience that has no true answer to the meaning behind it all. This style of experimental filmmaking in horror usually always results in critical praise, it also results in complete confusion and annoyance from general audiences.
Infinity Pool
Release Date January 27, 2023
Director Brandon Cronenberg
Runtime 117 minutes
5 ‘Skinamarink’ (2023)
Critics Score: 72%, Audience Score: 44%
Image via Shudder
Drawing inspiration from the trend of analog horror on the internet, Skinamarink may be about as experimental and as minimalist as one can get in the realm of horror filmmaking. The film follows the premise of two children having woken up in the middle of the night to realize that their father is missing, as well as the terrifying fact that all the windows and doors in the home have disappeared. The strange and paranormal occurrences only continue to arise, as a strange and disturbing voice begins luring the children to their doom.
Skinamarink’s unique and experimental approach to horror makes it unlike any other feature-length horror film out there, being able to create unheard-of levels of dread and disturbing implications for critics. However, this approach proved itself to only work for the critics who had never seen anything like it before, as the vast majority of audiences found it to be much more dull and uninteresting than actually scary.
Skinamarink
Release Date January 13, 2023
Director Kyle Edward Ball
Cast Jaime Hill , Dali Rose Tetreault , Ross Paul , Lucas Paul
Runtime 100 minutes
Watch on Hulu
4 ‘Leave the World Behind’ (2023)
Critics Score: 75%, Audience Score: 35%
Image via Netflix
Leave the World Behind is a sci-fi thriller that follows a family’s attempted getaway to a luxurious rental home on the outskirts of the city, taking a massive turn when a cyberattack knocks out all electronic devices. In the midst of all the confusion and chaos, a collection of strangers find themselves at their door looking for safety and shelter, claiming to be the rental home’s original owners. However, things prove themselves to not be all that it seems, as the mystery behind the cyberattack continues to grow more nightmarish as time goes on.
Critics greatly enjoyed Leave the World Behind’s uncanny ability to suck in the viewer with its simple premise yet precise execution that slowly drip-feeds the audience information and high-stakes tension. However, as is the case with the majority of thrillers that revolve around a mystery and core twist, if the twist doesn’t land, it can sour the entire experience, which is exactly what happened in the eyes of audiences. Leave the World Behind’s ending and shift in the second half of the film managed to bring down the entire experience in the eyes of audiences, even souring aspects such as the performances and dialogue.
3 ‘Satanic Hispanics’ (2022)
Critics Score: 91%, Audience Score: 45%
Image via DREAD
Satanic Hispanics is a horror anthology film featuring five distinct shorts helmed by different Latino directors, with each story finding a connection through a primary story at its center. The film sees the police raiding a house in El Paso, only to find a mysterious singular survivor known as The Traveler, who, when taken in for questioning, relays numerous terrifying stories of his time on Earth. Each story tells its own mythical and terrifying tale that finds inspiration from the legends of Latin America, and the horrors from them are rarely adapted to the big screen.
Horror anthology films have always made for a great entryway for up-and-coming horror directors to show their chops and provide a wide variety of interesting and unique scares, with Satanic Hispanics being no different. Critics loved the infectious blend of top not scares and genuine humor throughout the film, yet many audiences simply couldn’t get behind the more graphic and gruesome nature of the stories in Satanic Hispanics. This combined with notable tonal shifts between the stories themselves made this a difficult sell for many audiences looking to get scared.
Watch on Amazon Prime
2 ‘Maestro’ (2023)
Critics Score: 80%, Audience Score: 59%
Image via Netflix
One of 2024’s Best Picture nominees, the Bradley Cooper-directed Maestro sees the actor as legendary American composer Leonard Bernstein, as the film chronicles his life and relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). The film goes from the terrific highs and soaring romance from when they first meet and fall in love up until the final years of their relationship, where the love has taken a massive toll as a result of Bernstein’s secretive gay life.
Maestro was easily one of the most hyped and well-regarded movies to come out of film festivals throughout the year critically, with massive praise going to the performances of Cooper and Mulligan. While the critical praise was enough to earn the film seven Oscar nominations, this same level of love was not shared by audiences, who found the stale and uninteresting biopic format to limit the potential of Bernstein’s story. Maestro simply expected audiences to already know all about Bernstein’s legacy and cultural impact going into the film, leaving audiences who weren’t aware of the figure to be completely lost.
Maestro
Release Date December 20, 2023
Runtime 129 minutes
Watch on Netflix
1 ‘The Rat Catcher’ (2023)
Critics Score: 100%, Audience Score: 60%
Netflix
One of the four short film Roald Dahl adaptations made by legendary filmmaker Wes Anderson, The Rat Catcher follows the story of a reporter who has made his way to an English village in search of a story. In his short time there, he is joined by a mechanic as he experiences a firsthand in-depth explanation of how to weed out the village rat infestation from the infamous ratcatcher. As his methods reveal themselves, it becomes more and more apparent that the ratcatcher is no ordinary exterminator, yet something much more calculated and terrifying.
The Rat Catcher was a favorite among critics when it came to Anderson’s Roald Dahl adaptations, with its amazing central performance from Ralph Fiennes and terrifying rising tension. However, while audiences were much more accepting and praising the other three shorts, The Rat Catcher’s tendency to hide its most terrifying aspects, letting Dahl’s writing do all the work, made it a miss among audiences. It’s a case of being the most disappointing in a selection of fantastic films in the eyes of audiences, as the stellar execution of the other three shorts only makes The Rat Catcher’s flaws stick out that much more.
Watch on Netflix
NEXT: The Most Divisive Films of 2022