The 20 Most Boring Films of All Time

By The Pajiba Readership | Lists | September 11, 2009 |

By The Pajiba Readership | Lists | September 11, 2009 |

Earlier this week, we ran a comment diversion on the most boring films of all time, which turned out to be more popular than I’d anticipated (I’d originally planned on running an SRL on the five best movies where nothing ever happens, e.g., Before Sunrise, Lost in Translation, until I’d seen that it’d been done quite a few times). When a diversion strikes a chord like that, I like to go back, pore through the comments, and assess them. In doing so, based on the number of mentions and general vitriol, I’ve come up with the 20 Most Boring Films of All Time, as compiled by our readers. I don’t personally agree with all of them (Lost in Translation and No Country for Old Men) but I was taken by just how many of these movies were critically well received. In fact, with one or three exceptions, all of these movies are generally considered to be good films, and yet our mostly high-minded readership concluded that they were the most boring. Interesting.

Many of you have already noted your most boring film; curiously, I’d like to see how many folks would defend any of the following movies, many of which I would put on my own personal list of dullest films.

1. 2001: Space Odyssey

2. The English Patient

3. The Thin Red Line

4. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

5. Broken Flowers

6. New World

7. There Will be Blood

8. The Age of Innocence

9. Atonement

10. Meet Joe Black

11. Eraserhead

12. The Hours

13. Lost in Translation

14. Eyes Wide Shut

15. No Country for Old Men

16. Breakfast at Tiffanys

17. Titanic

18. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

19. Barry Lyndon

20. Legends of the Fall