10 Movies That Hated You For Watching

Almost all movies, by their design, are amenable to the idea that you took the time, money and effort to watch them. But evidently, there are peculiar exceptions to this rule. And that is absolutely the case with these films, each of which failed to veil their contempt for the fact that you actually bothered to see them at all. So with that in mind, I'm Ellie for WhatCulture and here are the movies that hated you for watching. The Matrix Resurrections The Matrix Resurrections is a film that exists in spite of itself. Director Lana Wachowski made no qualms about voicing her disdain for the fact that Warner Brothers decided to dust off her long-dormant sci-fi IP, even straight up having characters vocalise the studio's desperation within the movie itself. Warner Brothers were going to make a new Matrix movie with or without the Wachowskis' involvement. And so Lana hatched an unhinged plan to make a scorched-earth sequel that's basically the furthest thing from what the bean counters, or indeed most fans, actually wanted. This sledgehammer-subtle meta-sequel feels like a quasi-parody of most legacy sequels, fully aware of its own redundancy and the creative bankruptcy which motivates its existence. Is it any good? Most fans seem to think not. Many feeling that the film is more of a cinematic protest against Warner Brothers than an earnest attempt to make a fourth Matrix. Which would be absolutely right. But audiences responded by rejecting the sequel outright, resulting in a massive box office flop, probably put a perverse smile on Wachowski's face. The Wolf of Wall Street The genius of Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street is that it's at once a deliciously entertaining biopic of fraudster Jordan Belfort and a searing indictment of our interest in this story. Scorsese has a history of depicting criminal life in a manner that's disconcertingly appealing to some, even while also condemning it, and The Wolf of Wall Street extends to more blatantly point its finger at the audience for being seduced by Belfort. This is best exemplified in the movie's final scene, where Belfort is released from prison and makes a living hosting seminars on sales techniques, where the doting audience is very clearly likened to us, the viewer, wrapped with fascination at this man and his admittedly magnetic powers of persuasion. That we can sit through three hours of this man's scumbaggery and still come away desiring the lifestyle indicated by the uptick of interest in stockbroker jobs after the film's release is a depressing indictment of human nature and Scorsese knows it. Natural Born Killers Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers was marketed as an edgier than edgy riff on the classic Bonnie and Clyde formula, luring bloodthirsty audiences in with the promise of a brutally violent crime yarn, only to force feed them one of the most sensorily disorientating experiences ever committed to film. Stone goes out of his way to make every scene in the movie abhorrent to mainstream taste, edited with all the chaotic verse of a music video, intentionally garish, confrontingly vulgar and frequently surreal. None of the violence here is entertaining, as Stone shoots it to be as unpleasant and unsexy as possible, focusing instead on human suffering through as ugly a lens as one can imagine. And even audiences eager to see protagonists Mickey and Mallory blown away at the end are spared that catharsis given that it concludes with them getting away. Natural Born Killers is a film with a loud disdain for the media's glorification of violence and our own complicity in it as viewers, amping said violence up to almost unbearably nasty levels just to make its point. Blonde To the casual movie fans scrolling through Netflix in late 2022, a Marilyn Monroe biopic starring Ana de Armas probably seemed like a must-watch, but anyone expecting a glossy, sexy, melodramatic encapsulation of Monroe's life and untimely death were firmly slapped around the face by director Andrew Dominick, who effectively made an anti-biopic which chides audiences for seeking entertainment in a troubled woman's deeply sad life story. Largely eschewing the glitz and glamour of Monroe's Hollywood career, Blonde is instead an extremely dark and upsetting character study which actively attacks the very idea that audiences knew anything about Monroe the human being at all. It is a film filled with imagery intended to turn off all but the most ardent cinephiles, especially a controversial sequence in which Monroe talks to her unborn CGI foetus. By the end of the gruelling 166-minute runtime, it couldn't be clearer what Dominick thinks of our collective desire to see Monroe's life story adapted into ephemeral content. Only God Forgives Only God Forgives was massively hyped as Nicholas Winding Refn's follow-up to the hugely acclaimed Drive, as Refn reunited with star Ryan Gosling for what seemed to be another deliriously stylish ultra-violent action flick. But audiences were left unfounded that Only God Forgives was basically the anti-Drive, with Gosling instead playing a not-remotely-badass character who gets his ass kicked numerous times throughout the film, and ultimately is defeated. More surreal and simply peculiar than Drive, it felt like Refn cackling at audiences who expected him to repeat his prior success, taking all the clout he earned from that film to make something deeply weird with one of the most recognisable actors on the planet. That's certainly one way to react to success, and while Refn clearly could have milked the Gosling partnership for a string of accessible genre films, he instead scoffed at the notion and made something for himself rather than for audiences. Only God Forgives does admittedly have its defenders, but for most it was a crushing, bewildering disappointment, following the brilliance of Drive. The Dead Don't Die The Dead Don't Die was sold as a quirky indie zombie film starring Adam Driver, Bill Murray and Chloe Sevigny, with the great Jim Jarmusch directing. What's not to like here? Well, there's the fact that Jarmusch actually hates zombie movies and straight up omitted as much in an interview with Rolling Stone released the very same day that the movie came out. Jarmusch said he was quote sick of zombie films and described The Dead Don't Die as a quote angry piece of work in that respect. Which makes sense given that the movie is an aggressively deadpan stab at the zombie genre, an almost intentionally boring effort which offers its charismatic leads little to sink their teeth into. You wanted a kooky zombie movie with a bunch of beloved actors in it? Well here you go, seemed to be Jarmusch's sentiment while making this film. Which baffled critics and general audiences alike upon release. Wanted Comic book writers don't come much edgier than Mark Millar, and the big screen adaptation of his hit comic series Wanted certainly stayed true to his provocative ethos. The slick action thriller revolves around Wesley Allen Gibson, a timid 20-something loser working a dead-end job while his girlfriend cheats on him with his best friend. Over the course of the film, Wesley transforms into a badass action hero after learning that his recently murdered father was an assassin, and by film's end Wesley triumphantly murders the man attempting to kill him, Mr. Sloan. But in the movie's final moments, after Wesley shoots Sloan, he turns to the camera, breaks the fourth wall and asks us quote this is me taking back control of my life. What the F have you done lately? It's as though the movie is basically calling all of us losers for living ordinary, even boring lives, perversely encouraging each of us to turn the movie off to get the hell out of the house and seek some gosh darn adventure for ourselves. The End of Evangelion The End of Evangelion served as an alternate ending to the beloved anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, after the series' ambiguous abstract conclusion left most of the fanbase confused. And fans being fans, of course, they directed their ire at Hideaki Anno, in wholly unreasonable ways, even sending death threats to the filmmaker for how he chose to end the TV show. As a result of this, Anno was persuaded to make a film to give fans a more satisfying ending, but he decided instead to double down and make the movie just as heady and perplexing, albeit at least visually gorgeous. It's a great film, yet one clearly made with a red hot contempt for every fan who raged at Anno for how he chose to end the original series, adopting a bleaker tone and only offering up answers which invite more audience debate. And to top it off, Anno even included replicas of some of the threatening mail he received in the movie's live action sequence. Anno basically got to have his cake and eat it too here, flipping the bird at his overzealous, even entitled fanbase, while delivering one of the most acclaimed anime movies of all time. Joker Foliadur. Joker Foliadur is one of the most fascinatingly contemptuous sequels ever made. After Todd Phillips' gritty, original 2019 take on The Clown Prince of Crime grossed over $1 billion at the box office and won Joaquin Phoenix a well-earned Best Actor Oscar, it was only inevitable that Warner Bros would be hungry for a sequel. While Joker felt like a stand-alone, one-off project, money talks, and it's fair to assume that both Phillips and Phoenix were enticed to return with enormously fat paydays. All the same, just as he transitioned the Hangover sequels into a more mean-spirited brand of crime comedy, Phillips decided to get very, very weird with Joker Foliadur, crafting a film that takes unsubtle aim at the very fans who propelled the original to such success. Beyond the strangeness of mounting the film as a musical, the Joker sequel refuses to simply depict Arthur Fleck as the Joker he's seen to become at the end of the first movie, instead flatly rejecting this notion, and making great pains to depict him as pathetic and pitiable. Lady Gaga's Lee is, meanwhile, a stand-in for sections of the fandom who appreciate only the shallowest aspects of the Joker, rather than Fleck as a human being, culminating in a nose-thumbing ending that categorically slams the door on any prospect of a third film. Phillips clearly wanted to do anything but make a movie which glorified Fleck's alter ego any further, and spent 138 minutes flipping off the great many who expected that. Agro Drift Gummo and Spring Breakers director Harmony Korine's new film, Agro Drift, is basically a visual approximation of a cluster migraine, an intentional attempt to deliver an aesthetically garish experience because Korine, by his own admission, is bored with movies. An experimental action crime film starring rapper Travis Scott, Agro Drift was shot entirely with infrared cameras, lending it a wholly unique otherworldly aesthetic, albeit one that also becomes exhausting to watch after a short while. Korine further admitted that he didn't actually intend to make a film when he started shooting, and it shows, because even beyond its gaudy, predator-o-vision visuals, as a narrative experience it's dangerously close to incoherent. This is a movie, quite literally, produced by an edgelord, Korine's production company is indeed called Edgelord, and so it's fitting that Agro Drift seems not merely indifferent to the fact that people might try to watch it, but even hostile to the very notion.