10 Criminally Low IMDb Movie Ratings You Won’t Believe

6. The Master

IMDb Rating: 7.1

Inherent Vice has been rightly described as Paul Thomas Anderson's most divisive movie. The auteur has clearly found the true heart of Thomas Pynchon's novel, but doesn't put in any effort into enlightening anyone else. But, as this is Anderson, things aren't that simple. The discussion of Inherent Vice stretches beyond a mere argument of "understanding" the often divergent story; the point of the film is that it's purposely meandering, but is that a point Anderson should be making?

As has already been seen, movies that split the audience can rarely get out of six-point-something purgatory, which makes the film sitting pretty on 7.0 rather surprising (although, by all reckoning, it should be higher, its weirdness made that intrinsically impossible).

What's even more surprising, however, is that Anderson's previous and best movie, The Master, sits only one decimal point higher. The showdown between Joaquin Phoenix's Word War II vet and Phillip Seymour Hoffman's L. Ron Hubbard avatar challenges societal power figures and the broader role of masculinity with such slow-burn confidence that it doesn't even need a show-stopping pay-off to make its point (instead of Daniel Day-Lewis growling "MILKSHAKE" you get Amy Adams standing up). It's a weighty film for sure, but did people really fail to connect with it to the same score as Inherent Vice?