Entertainment
50 ’90s Movies With Low Rotten Tomatoes Scores That Aren’t Half Bad
Walt Disney Motion Pictures
The idea behind Rotten Tomatoes is that by offering the viewer an aggregated and balanced critical assessment of a film, you'll have a decent idea of where it stands among the pantheon of its kind. Unfortunately, critics are fallible human beings, swayed by public opinion and blind bias far more than they might like to admit, and plenty of movies get a bad rap without due cause. So here are 50 '90s movies with low Rotten Tomatoes scores that aren't half bad. They aren't the best of the best either — you won't see Kubrick on the list. But they're far better than the Tomatometer would lead you to believe.
There's a noticeable bias against films made by and/or for women. Artist Cindy Sherman's Office Killer, teen witch tale The Craft, beauty pageant murder-mystery Drop Dead Gorgeous, the rebellious ladies of Foxfire, and the cannibal tale Ravenous all got less-than-stellar reviews, but became cult classics with slowly growing audiences. This might be because 78% of critics are white and male, creating a gigantic blind spot in the form of underrepresentation of any alternate views.
Still, some movies designed for that very group — Tommy Boy, So I Married An Axe Murderer, Con Air, Event Horizon — fared little better. Sometimes, like with Johnny Mnemonic and Waterworld, outsize budgets dampened critics' impressions, but aren't as big of an issue now.
Hopefully this list will encourage you to consider that these movies are (at least slightly) better than critical reckoning would have you believe, if only to make for a solid movie night.