10 One-Star Amazon Reviews Of Great American Films

These days, everybody's a critic. See what the discerning critics of Amazon have to say about AFI’s "Top Ten Greatest Movies of All Time."

1. Citizen Kane, “Almost as bad… as Annie Hall.”

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

Top critic review: Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly (May 1, 1991):

“Fifty years after its release, Citizen Kane still seems richer, bolder, more spectacularly alive than any other film of the studio-system era. Regardless of how many times you've seen Orson Welles' 1941 masterpiece, it always feels like the first time.”

2. The Godfather, “The only good thing about this film is the music.”

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

Top critic review: Vincent Canby, The New York Times (March 16, 1972):

“Francis Ford Coppola has made one of the most brutal and moving chronicles of American life ever designed within the limits of popular entertainment.”

3. Casablanca, “Corrupt movie used by seducing spirits (demons) to lead the world to hell.”

Rotten Tomatoes score: 97%

Top critic review: Bosley Crowther, The New York Times (Nov. 27, 1942):

“Yes, indeed, the Warners here have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap... They have used Mr. Bogart's personality, so well established in other brilliant films, to inject a cold point of tough resistance to evil forces afoot in Europe today. And they have so combined sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue that the result is a highly entertaining and even inspiring film.”

4. Raging Bull, “I found it very amateurish… sunk with the weight of its own pretensions.”

Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%

Top Critic review: Amy Taubin, The Village Voice (Aug. 1, 2000):

“The film's claim to greatness lies in Scorsese's devastating critique of the very codes of masculinity that shaped him as a filmmaker, and in Robert De Niro's performance, through which that critique is made flesh.”

5. Singin' in the Rain, “This must be the biggest conspiracy of all time… the plot is cheesy and uninteresting.”

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

Top Critic review: Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (Feb. 14, 1999):

“There is no movie musical more fun than Singin' in the Rain, and few that remain as fresh over the years…[the film] is a transcendent experience, and no one who loves movies can afford to miss it.”

6. Gone With the Wind, “The acting was terrible and the plot ridiculous.”

Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%

Top Critic review: Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times (March 2, 1989):

“Gone With the Wind endures and deepens with the passing of time because Scarlett and Rhett are as modern as its open ending.

[Clark] Gable and [Vivian] Leigh seem so born to play Rhett and Scarlett that it's easy to overlook how accomplished their performances are.”

7. Lawrence of Arabia, “WERE THERE NO OTHER MOTION PICTURES MADE IN 1962? HOW ON EARTH THIS WON BEST PICTURE IS BEYOND ME.”

Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%

Top Critic review: Kevin Thomas, Washington Post (Feb. 3, 1989):

“Like Gone With the Wind or Ben Hur, Lawrence is too emotionally overpowering for critical reservations. You're captivated from the start.”

8. Schindler's List, “Anyone who makes a feel good movie about the Holocaust is a total crackpot.”

Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%

Top Critic review: Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly (Dec. 17, 1993):

“Schindler's List is a film whose meanings are to be found less in its uplifting outline than in its harrowing flow of images — images of fear, hope, horror, compassion, degradation, chaos, and death.”

9. Vertigo, “Trite, hackneyed, banal – I could go on and on. I hardly blame Ms. Hedren, and I cry for Jimmy Stewart.” [For the record, I wouldn’t blame Tippi Hedren either, because she wasn’t in the movie.]

Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%

Top Critic review: Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle (Oct. 18, 1996):

“In its dark heart, the film is a sorrowful contemplation of love and the veils that manipulate sexual passions. It is a taste of romantic obsession, of flirtation and deceit.”

10. The Wizard of Oz, “The only reason to watch The Wizard of Oz is if you’re playing Dark Side of the Moon at the same time.”

Rotten Tomatoes score: 99%

Top Critic review: Todd McCarthy, Variety (Nov. 5, 1998):

“A work of almost staggering iconographic, mythological, creative and simple emotional meaning, at least for American audiences, this is one vintage film that fully lives up to its classic status.”