10 Huge Oscar-Winning Movies That Nobody Really Likes

2. Gandhi (1982)

Oscar Wins: Best Picture, Best Actor In A Leading Role, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing (8)

Does the mark of a truly great motion picture lie in the notion that you'd at least sit through it twice? For all its technical achievements, can you imagine doing such a thing with the longer than three hours biopic that is Richard Attenborough's Gandhi?

Gandhi is, after all, the sort of film you admire from afar; one of those prestige pictures that you don't actively rally against, but loathe secretly. But perhaps loathe is too strong a word for this particular film? What Gandhi really is is a slog - you admire its subject, so you feel like you must admire the movie itself. Ben Kingsley's performance is good, sure, but it's the only bit you remember; the rest of the picture kind of fades into nothing around him.

Worst of all, Gandhi is episodic in nature; it doesn't have the feel of an accomplished, singular work as much as it does a flat chapter-by-chapter review of the man's "best bits." That's fine when you see it the first time, maybe, but it loses traction in further viewings.

Who sits down and says: "Time to pop on Gandhi"? It never happens. And if anyone actually liked this film, such a thing would occur. You know, from time to time.