Whether it’s plots and characters that have aged as well as warm milk, an overrated “masterpiece” that gets more credit than it deserves, or images that exist as products of their time and absolutely do not stand up to modern scrutiny, some titles are better left unseen.

The next five films grossed huge amounts of money, garnered enthusiastic reception from critics and/or audiences, and in many cases competed for the industry’s most prestigious awards. Still, for anyone who hasn’t seen them, maybe it should stay that way.

Five Classic Movies No One Needs to See:

Love in fact (Richard Curtis, 2003)

It is undoubtedly considered sacrilege in many homes around the world when Love in fact has become a staple of the festive viewing calendar that warms the cockles of its many fans, but it’s also a film full of terrible people who turn out to be terrible people.

It grossed a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office and continues to prove its longevity with repeat viewings every time the holiday season rolls around, but anyone who hasn’t been subjected to Love in fact It’s best to keep it that way because it’s impossible to get involved with such a reprehensible group.

Colin Firth? Projects his emotions onto a much younger colleague. Alan Rickman? Cheating on Emma Thompson. Andrew Lincoln? Tracker equipment. Hugh Grant? Inappropriate conduct in the workplace and complicity in body shaming. Heike Makatsch? Actively pursuing a married father. These are not fanciful character traits, so it’s best for the uninitiated to avoid Love in fact.

Driving Miss Daisy (Bruce Beresford, 1989)

The Broadway adaptation won four Oscars of nine nominations, including “Best Picture” and “Best Actress” for Jessica Tandy, but even the people who made the film don’t like it much, which speaks volumes about its misplaced position as an acclaimed classic.

Morgan Freeman received his first nomination in the “Best Actor” category and called the film a mistakewhile director Bruce Beresford could never bring himself to watch it again. To be honest, it was already controversial at the time, especially when Kim Basinger made a point of pointing out on stage during the ceremony that Spike Lee’s character Do the right thing wasn’t even nominated.

Even seen through the prism of the late 1980s, Driving Miss Daisy was a cloying, saccharine, simplified exploration of race relations in the United States. Fast forward three decades and change, and he is remembered as one of the worst “Best Picture” winners of all time. It was a very black and white view of a complex issue that remains as relevant as ever, unlike the film itself.

Saturday night fever (John Badham, 1977)

Less than one movie and more of a cultural sensation, John Badham’s film Saturday night fever was a phenomenon that did much more than just strap a rocket to the back of its new star, John Travolta.

He became one of the youngest nominees for the Best Actor award in history. The film spawned one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time, brought disco into the mainstream like never before, and spawned a series of musical earworms and iconic scenes that have infiltrated pop culture.

However, it’s also horribly misogynistic and causally homophobic, and that’s not intentional. Saturday night fever intentionally explores aspects of toxic masculinitybut other moments are products of their era that have dated the picture as much as Bee Gees tunes and flared pants. It was influential in its own way, but riding in the cold today wouldn’t give the same experience.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Blake Edwards, 1961)

Hollywood has a long and unsavory history of casting white actors for non-white characters, but none of these caricatures have been as overly offensive as Mickey Rooney playing Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The romantic film won two Academy Awards and starred Aubrey Hepburn on sparkling form as Holly Golightly, and the character became a big screen icon in her own right. However, try encouraging someone who has never seen it to give Breakfast at Tiffany’s a watch and see how it goes.

Rooney became the overshadowing elephant in the room the path Breakfast at Tiffany’s has been appreciated by modern viewers, and few of them will be interested in watching a film in which a New York-born man buries himself under prosthetics and adopts a cartoonish accent to play a Japanese landlord.

The birth of a nation (D. W. Griffith, 1915)

Is it because of racism? Yes, it’s because of racism. DW Griffith directed one of the most important and influential films of all time. The birth of a nationbut the content of the film is precisely why no one should feel obligated to see it.

A milestone in cinema history that pioneered a number of techniques that would quickly become industry standards, it is no exaggeration to say that the future of the medium could have turned out significantly different if Griffith had not brought his pioneering virtuosity to the forefront.

Trying to convince anyone of the importance of The Birth of the Nation as a work of cinema will always be a daunting task. undermined by its content and representationsIt is therefore better to take the words of academics and historians at face value rather than delving into a three-hour openly racist epic.

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