GROUNDBREAKING, seminal and dull as f**k; these movies are so critically acclaimed you should never bore yourself rigid by actually watching them.
2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968
Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece is about a spaceship with a computer that’s broken. Dealing with HAL 9000 would be child’s play to anyone who’s tried to install a new printer driver. To beef it up into film length there’s a prologue about chimp fights and an ending that even ardent cineastes have to Google to explain.
Casablanca, 1942
A movie about a barman who meets an old flame in the middle of the Second World War and helps her escape the enemy, Casablanca has all the makings of a great war flick. But lets itself down badly by focusing on love, romance and cracklingly smart dialogue instead of tanks and rocket-propelled grenades.
The Piano, 1993
A love triangle between a mute woman, a grunting man and a piano in the wilds of New Zealand. It doesn’t go well, as you’d imagine, especially for the viewer. You have to be pretty damn grim for the Oscars to judge Schindler’s List more uplifting.
The Seventh Seal, 1957
The perfect storm of subtitles, black-and-white footage, a chess match and Scandinavia means The Seventh Seal is even duller than film critics droning about how marvellous it is. Did influence proper movies by inspiring the scene where Death plays Battleships in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.
The Godfather, 1972
All the Mafia cliches seemed fresh, back in 1972. The code of honour, the hits, the betrayals, ‘going to the mattresses’: all new. Now it’s all so tired it’s like when The Simpsons does a Mafia episode. The bits in Sicily, meanwhile, resemble an olive oil advert.
Brief Encounter, 1945
Married man meets a married woman at train station. They drink tea and go to the cinema before deciding not to have an affair. Fourteen-year-olds on badly misjudged first dates are less awkward. If it was remade today they’d get at least get one shag in.
