10 Classic Movies People Wrongly Call Overrated

7. Brokeback Mountain

It’s been dismissed as both a gay cowboy films and a straight love story masquerading as something more progressive, but as one of the most visible, acclaimed depictions of homosexuality in recent years, Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain is an important rather than overrated contribution to mainstream cinema.

Indeed, the bigoted and immature reactions of conservative America – from threatened boycotts and being pulled from certain cinemas to commentary like ‘if John Wayne were still alive, he’d be rolling in his grave’ – are proof alone it’s an important and impactful movie.

And though critiques of it being a typically tame and heteronormative tale of forbidden love do hold some weight (it is, after all, a film made by a heterosexual director featuring heterosexual actors for a largely heterosexual audience), looking at Brokeback Mountain’s restraint in the context of its historical and geographical setting – a time and place where men were supposed to be men and openly gay men were often subjected to brutal, sometimes fatal, beatings – its straight-washing makes a lot more artistic sense.