There are plenty of bad films out there which could have been great, but what about the ones which were only ‘good’ but could have been great? There are many films out there which succeed in one area or another, but for the most part, fall short and end up squandering great opportunities.

These films had the potential to be great, iconic and cult classics. Instead, they simply ended up being a film you would enjoy, all the while you had a niggling thought that said: “I expected something more…” Without further ado, here is the list of the top ten films that were good, but could have been great.

10. The World’s End (2013)

As a big fan of Edgar Wright, it can be frustrating to see the pitfalls of The World’s End (2013). Although everyone had high hopes for his conclusion to the Cornetto Trilogy, the final outing ultimately felt like it could have been better.

One thing which felt very noticeable was how the film tried to do a number of things at once. While Wright often seems as though he is able to get the balancing act right in most of his films, he falls off the tight-rope here. A redemption story, a coming of age tale, a drama, a comedy, a horror, an homage to science-fiction films of the 1950s, an action film; it felt like a lot to squeeze into under two hours. This resulted in the film’s pacing coming across as hectic. You might say that all of Wright’s films feel a little hectic, but in World’s End it doesn’t even feel as though there is space for jokes to land because so much is trying to be done at once.

A distracting factor of the film was how Simon Pegg and Nick Frost swap character archetypes. While I’m not suggesting it is necessary to pigeon-hole actors into playing specific parts, it is clear that Pegg and Frost bounce off of each other better when they are leaning into a specific role. Pegg as the dysfunctional and destructive man-child didn’t click and while Frost performed brilliantly as the ascetic grown-up, it is a shame he was not able to steal the show and play the main character.

Five friends attempt to survive an alien invasion by doing a pub crawl in their home town – what could go wrong here? Placing Nick Frost in the lead role and giving Simon Pegg the task of being his supporting character would have benefitted the humour in that it would not have felt so forced. Better balancing of action, comedy and drama also would have. The World’s End could have been a great conclusion to a visually stunning and wildly hilarious trilogy. Ultimately, it felt more like it was a nostalgic rehash of Shaun of the Dead, swapping out a brainless mass of zombies for an invading force of insidious aliens.

9. Cube (1997)

Five people find themselves inside a giant cube with no means of escape. They don’t know how they got there and they don’t know how to get out. As they traverse a series of deadly traps in an attempt to escape, they come to learn more about their terrifying predicament, along with the reason why all of them have been brought together.

What prevented this film from being great? The acting for one thing. Though it is a low-budget film, the acting is really the only indicator of that. Maurice Dean Wint’s attempts to come across as suddenly insane makes for an anti-immersion experience: his character shift takes you right out of the film. This is also partly the fault of the writing which seemed to wane in quality towards the end of the film, which brings me to my next point…

Though the film starts brilliantly and even steadily builds tension and mystery as the story progresses, there is a clear moment when it feels as if Vincenzo Natali, the writer and director of the movie, realised he didn’t know what to do with the story he had created. Should he have revealed the origins of the cube? Should he have divulged the reason behind Wint’s sudden turn into a malicious maniac? All could have helped, but ultimately, we will never know. Cube (1997) will forever be a cult classic film, but not a great one.

8. Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

This is the first entry on this list that is a book to film adaptation, but it won’t be the last. As it turns out, quite a few book adaptations become somewhat lacklustre when they are finally put onto the screen. This classic children’s book is as charming as they come, but the film did not deliver to the same extent. Why?

Firstly, the film makes great efforts to set up character flaws and issues, but doesn’t assign much time to solving them. When Max first leaves home, he is violent and inconsiderate, though we have the feeling that he has a good heart deep-down. He meets the Wild Things, all of whom have their own problems which are touched upon, but never fleshed out in depth. Carol, played by James Gandolfini, touches upon themes of loneliness and regret which strike a real chord with the viewer, but then it isn’t really mentioned again. Max returns home at the end of the story without having truly addressed the issues he’s experiencing, so the sentimental ending feels somewhat hollow.

The film also doesn’t feel like it moves in a single direction, as though it meanders from one scene to the other, not quite sure how it is going to conclude the story. This could in part be due to the studio interference which Spike Jonze experienced upon completion. Though the film was completed, the studio disliked the finished product as it was not as family friendly as they imagined it would have been and forced Jonze to come back with a film more palatable to a younger audience. The result is a muddled film, sometimes melancholic, sometimes saccharine.

It’s a story about a troubled boy who runs away into the woods where he meets and bonds with a society of wild monsters. Sounds great, no? Not quite. It’s good, that much is true. Ultimately, however, it feels as though the film is going to open up more, but then it doesn’t. Instead of developing on some of the issues the Wild Things discuss, the narrative moves into a different (and rather arbitrary) direction. The result is a film which feels as though it didn’t fulfil its potential, as though there was something instrumental lost on the cutting room floor. In the end, Where the Wild Things Are (2009) was good, but not quite charming and not quite great.

7. Goon (2011)

Goon (2011) is somewhat of a guilty pleasure watch. The issue here is that it didn’t have to be. The film had a great cast and Sean William Scott’s performance as Doug Glatt gave the story the emotional heft it needed to go beyond a silly sports comedy. It could have been a great film, but it resigned itself to just being a good silly sports comedy. So what was the biggest issue with this film then?

The writing. Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg were the screenwriters behind this project and they never appear to go beyond the surface level. The characters – Doug Glatt and Xavier Laflamme in particular – are not given much depth and so are reduced to being one-dimensional, both in their motivations and their relationship with one another.
The growth which they both experience throughout the film feels a little undeserved as moments of great epiphany were not built up to accordingly. For this reason, the connection that the two main characters create throughout the film feels cheapened. A longer film than ninety minutes with more time given to exploring the two developing with each other could have helped this problem.

Beyond this, the film indulges in humour that is a little too vulgar to be funny and detracts from the heart that is inherent in the film’s premise. Risqué jokes are great, but watching Jay Baruchel doing lewd slapstick like pretending that the camera is giving him a blowjob or running after a train imitating cunnilingus makes me think that he and Goldberg weren’t trying very hard when they wrote this film. Instead of attaching the humour to Glatt’s simple-minded and sweet-hearted barbarism, the film is filled with jokes that will only appeal to twelve year olds. The film is good and has a terrific final sequence which makes it memorable, but this silly, course sports comedy could have been much more than that.

6. A Time to Kill (1996)

John Grisham’s books have had a number of adaptations done for the silver screen. A Time to Kill (1996) was not the best. Set in 1984, the story is about the vengeance a man takes upon the men who raped his ten year old daughter. It tackles important themes about life, race and the way our society and our courts treat both. The film, however, could have been reminded about that on a few occasions.

A plotline which detracts from the film’s key theme is the incessant flirtation that goes on between Sandra Bullock and (the very much married) Matthew McConaughey. Instead of a tense legal thriller that follows McConaughey and the team trying to find a way to save Samuel L. Jackson’s life, we get McConaughey and Bullock in the bar throwing back shots, getting blasted and resisting the urge to sleep with one another. It actually feels a tad inappropriate; a child has been raped and her father’s life is at stake because of white prejudice, but instead of focusing on this, every second scene we see McConaughey in is of him pounding beers and eyeing-up Bullock.

Themes such as racial injustice, murder, capital punishment, and the dehumanising effects of racism should have been explored more fully. The eye-candy distracts us from what the story is really about and this irrevocably damages the finished product. With such little time being put into solving the case and treating the issue of race like an afterthought, it feels like a cheaper version of Mississippi Burning (1988).

Besides all of this, at two and a half hours, the film is unnecessarily long (probably because of all the coquetry between McConaughey and Bullock) and leaves the story feeling longwinded. The final speech from McConaughey is dynamite and Samuel L. Jackson’s performance is brilliant, but the film ultimately lacks the fertile ground needed to allow true seeds of thought to grow.

It is easy to denounce a film from the comfort of home with the modern-day weapons: smartphone and tablet. Even a baby can do that, open an IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes page and rate it bad. But our readers are not like that, they are genuine film lovers who would never do that.

Making a film with the blood and sweat, is not an easy task, certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. In that regard, We should respect the filmmakers’ effort and think thoroughly before announcing a film as the worst. Majority of the film viewers know that, but this millennium has also seen a fair number of underserving backlashes to good films. They are rarely objectively discussed or examined, being a result of overtly hurt sentiment and nostalgia.

These are the films that deserve a reevaluation, another chance to win hearts. Without further ado, here are some good films that saw undeserved backlash:

1. Ghostbusters (2016)

It is difficult to believe that we live in a world which is still riddled with sexual politics. The time it was announced that the new Ghostbusters reboot is going to be a gender reversal, the rants started coming in. No film lover should refute that before criticizing a film, one should watch it first. Unfortunately, the naysayers were not so idealistic.

The main problem with the fans was that the new film will have female protagonists, that it is going to be a film made only to hone the feminist agenda. There was another group of people who were hurt by the mere decision of rebooting their childhood nostalgia. But it was inevitable as we are living in the age of franchise reboots. It is the high time to grow up and acknowledge the world atrocities.

Honestly, the new reboot is nowhere near the original; the original was a classic film whose charm can not be recreated. But the new film is surprisingly good in its way which never tried to pretend like the original. Boasting amazing cinematography and an all-new female cast, it was a completely different movie. Kate McKinnon and Melissa McCarthy gave a good performance and the action set pieces were alluring to the eye in 3D. Regardless, if you despise the film, at least it has increased the view of the original film more than ever. It is time to believe in the positives of life.

2. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

Sorry haters, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” was a fantastic film. The cinematography by Steve Yedlin looked amazing in the big screen, the script successfully balanced drama and action set pieces, there were events specially designed to elicit a strong nostalgic reaction from the fans of the trilogy.

It also included some new players in the fandom, and most of them worked. It has to be admitted that the new film has its fair share of flaws: some of the jokes are extremely forced, parallel plot lines impose a distraction and major fan theories were discarded. But the Star Wars trilogy was never a highly intellectual discourse, rather a great spectacle and great fun in the movies.

This film managed to bring this to a dying franchise. The old players got a respectful farewell, new entries are successfully introduced, and it is the time to let the past die. Rain Johnson is an intelligent director and knows how to strike a balance. Attacking Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB with own prejudices will not take haters so far.

3. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

“Slumdog Millionaire” has often been described as one of the worst films to win an Oscar. Not delving in the argument about Academies choice in that year, it can be objectively said that “Slumdog Millionaire” was a great movie. In terms of the authentic portrayal of a Mumbai Slum, it is an epic fail; Boyle mush have researched further, but it was great entertainment.

“Slumdog Millionaire” was the perfect mix of tearjerker melodrama and Bollywood song-dance routine, with great cinematography that balanced murky and warm color tone in Indian slums. Suspension of disbelief is required to adjust that Jalmal’s whole life prepared him to win “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, but once you have done that the film presents a great old school melodrama. The accusations of poverty porn can be true, it may not be the best cinema of that year, but it is a good film indeed.

4. Argo (2012)

Now, The criticism about “Argo” was inevitable. It was badly marketed, not a winner of best pictures in any year by any miles and the historical authenticity was thin as a wafer. Cinematic portrayal can never be authentic because a film also has to manage a dramatic arc, but “Argo” played revisionist history game by diluting the role of international relations in the Iranian hostage game.

Oscar is presented in a social and political context, and it is entirely possible that for this sole reason of altering history “Argo” was presented the trophy. All the accusations and more doesn’t dismiss the quality of “Argo” though.

It was not a great film, but one made with care. Ben Affleck was successful maintaining an atmosphere of skepticism throughout the film, which was most important for a film that deals with hostages, the acting performances were believable and it brought back the feeling of yesterday political thrillers.

Another winner of that film is the script by Chris Terrio which helped to maintain dramatic tension, and the meeting scene in the heart of Iran looked splendid but was never easy to shoot.

5. Chicago (2002)

2002 was a tough year for cinema. It was difficult to be disheartened with the choice of “Chicago” as the best picture, even if there were better pictures than this, such a happy picture was this. “Chicago” rejuvenated feminism in Hollywood with its gender subversion and great technical mastery.

With careful choreography, “Chicago” was a blast from first to last. The trolly movement that exposed the dancers one by one is a masterclass in framing for commercial cinema. It is clear from the organic flow of the story and the happy performance from the actors, that the cast and crew had a great time shooting the film.

Among the ensemble cast, Richard Gere had a great time dancing and Catherine Zeta-Jones deserved a special mention for her excellent performance in the film. Rob Marshall successfully utilized the epic scope of jazz music in the film and the female convicts kicked ass with their dancing. “Chicago” is certainly one of the best modern-day musicals in ages.