8 Filmmakers Who Were Pissed Off By Movie Critics

When filmmakers fight back.

Suicide Squad
Warner Bros.

Whether the end result is great, mediocre or terrible, most filmmakers pour their blood, sweat and tears into every single movie they make. After all, creating art usually requires passion for that art form.

But even if a particular director or writer doesn't really care about the project they're working on, it's not like they can just phone it in. Even to make an awful movie, it requires years of hard work and dedication, so it's little surprise that some filmmakers get offended when they discover that their projects have been trashed by critics.

For obvious PR reasons though, most filmmakers won't publicly respond to negative reviews of their movies in an equally negative manner, but on rare occasions, they'll say "screw it!" and unleash a tirade of insults, complaints, or even physical abuse at specific critics (or the entire movie critic industry) who have annoyed them.

Every film gets bad reviews, but instead of ignoring them and focusing on the positive side of the response (if there was one), these filmmakers got a bit pissed off with the critics who insulted their work.

8. James Gray Thinks That The Guardian Is Dumb

Suicide Squad
The Weinstein Company

While director James Gray's movies don't tend to set the box-office on fire (his most recent effort, Ad Astra, ended up losing money), they normally fare quite well with critics.

But as is the case with any film, there will always be a bunch of negative reviews dotted around the positive ones, and Gray's 2013 drama - The Immigrant - is no exception.

With an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes, the film was very much a critical hit, but despite this fact, Gray still took offence to some of the negative discourse surrounding his movie, and in particular, he singled out The Guardian's Cannes review of the film (and the man who wrote it, Peter Bradshaw) with some surprisingly candid criticisms.

Gray was so incensed by some of the details in the review that he ended up calling it "one of the dumbest reviews I've ever read". He then went on to accuse Bradshaw of getting his facts wrong, calling him "lazy" and saying that he failed "as a critic."

Gray also noted that he was originally intending to read as few reviews as possible, but when his publicist sent him some, he couldn't resist having a peek. Based on his reaction, he probably should've stuck to that initial intent.

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WhoCulture Channel Manager/Doctor Who Editor at WhatCulture. Can confirm that bow ties are cool.