We’ve all felt the soul-crushing heartbreak of throwing on a movie we used to love, only to sit there in increasing embarrassment as you realize what was once beloved to you has now become cringe. The times are always changing, as times are wont to do, and things that we used to laugh at or find romantic or exciting or cool are often revealed to be the exact opposite once they’ve lost their nostalgic sheen.
Maybe it’s juvenile humor in a buddy comedy that made a movie’s jokes unfunny, or outdated sexual politics in a rom-com that seem unromantic and skeevy when looked at with more mature eyes. The same things we thought were exciting or poignant when we saw them ten or twenty years ago are boring and naive in retrospect.
For this list, we trawled the depths of our most embarrassing favorites from decades past and drew out 12 of the most inexcusable films we used to love and now can’t possibly rewatch without a bad taste in our mouths. There are some on here that tend to show up whenever anyone makes a retrospective list like this (John Hughes’ depictions of teen romance have not aged well), with a few of our own special hot takes sprinkled in just to make everyone mad. Maybe cringing is a sign of maturity, of progress. Our tastes have evolved, but these movies haven’t. At least we can all collectively roll our eyes at Garden State.
Classic Movies That Are Cringe Now
If you’d rather preserve the memory of how much you loved these movies, just don’t rewatch them.
Gallery Credit: Emma Stefansky
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