Which movies are ones that when you saw again made you think differently about it?

There are several old ones that, at the time, I thought were fantastic. Seeing them again, many, many years later, I think, wow, how cheesy. For example, Dog Day Afternoon and Midnight Cowboy.
I know they were really good movies during their time periods though.

Casablanca. I thought it was cheesy the first time I watched it as a child. I did not get it at all. Then I had some experience with being married and attraction to other people. And learning more about WW2. Then watching it again, it is a masterpiece.

The first time I saw the Exorcist, I laughed through most of the movie. I thought it was silly and obvious.
I saw the movie again years later, when I was a husband and a father. The movie hit me in ways it didn’t when I first saw it, and it terrified me.

When I don’t like a well reviewed movie, I will often see it several times to try and understand why others like it. I have repeatedly see The Deer Hunter, and I still stand by my take that it is a crappy, 3 hour version of the Paul Simon song My Little Town.
I watched Modern Times, and didn’t care for it, but it was so highly regarded that I went again. I then found it to be remarkable. I attribute my initial experience as my having a bad day, and sitting in the wrong place in the theater.

Raising Arizona. I rented the tape during the old VCR days and at the end thought “Man, I’m glad I didn’t pay to see that in the movies…”

After many viewings since, I friggin’ LOVE that movie.

“What did the pajamas look like?”

“I don’t know – they were jammies! They had Yodas and shit on ‘em !”

American History X
The first time I saw it, it made me want to study the Holocaust because I thought it was cool… Then after thoroughly studying the Holocaust, I saw it again and realized what the true message of the movie was. It made me see the world in a new light…

When I was a little kid, I saw Howard’s End on tv and thought, “what’s up with all these old people and their silly problems? Yawn.”

Years later I read the book, and the most striking part was Ruth Wilcox’s love for the place, the way the house was much more than a house, and that Margaret instinctively understood that. Later I saw the film again, and it was really well done! Especially Emma Thompson’s thoughtful performance and the way they captured the house.

Well, this works out well…when I was a kid, I saw Wayne’s World. Basically, I thought it was pretty boring. I didn’t get the humor, and I only laughed at Garth’s antics. You know man, I was born in the wrong fucking time. I should have been a teen in the 80’s or early 90’s, but instead I had to be one in the mid/late nineties. So when I first saw that movie, I didn’t understand much about the culture it based itself on, I didn’t understand the fashion or the styles and I didn’t care about the music that was popular then, and to this day, I can’t appreciate a man humping a mummy in his underwear. That is just not hot.
I mean seriously, if I had a boyfriend and he did that, I’d be like, dude, get out of my room. why the hell does anyone keep a mummy in their room is beyond me

But today it’s a movie I really love. Saw it again just a few years ago, and it’s been in my collection ever since. It’s like satire of the late 80’s/early 90’s culture, and it makes fun of society in a very intelligent way. For example, it shows Wayne and Garth not so subtly advertising for popular products such as Pizza Hut or Pepsi when after being sellouts, they’re stating that sellouts are some sad shit.

It’s like people only do things because they get paid. It’s really sad. -Garth, decked out in Reebok gear

There’s all types of humor in this. Silly stuff, deeper stuff, satire, references to 90’s pop culture. I only wish I understood English back when I first saw it. That may have been the problem. The whole damn movie manages to be a collection of references, while being a perfectly good classic movie with all the elements it needs to smoothly proceed.
Two reasons I’m choosing this is because I decided to watch it tonight, and because there’s so much in this that I didn’t appreciate years ago, but that I find so brilliant now. gotta appreciate that sparkling white wine, no? The ending clash between Wayne and Benjamin as they fight over Cassandra needs work if I’m gonna be a critic, but maybe that was also part of the movie’s way of making fun of everything…seeing as they didn’t fight, it was Wayne and Cassandra working it out. and that never happens in movies I love this shit. This was a bold movie for its time. Seems tame now for sure, but somehow over the years, I learned to appreciate something that, sadly, just didn’t reach to me when I first saw it.

Besides Garth. Because Garth totally rocks, man.

Fuckin’ party on!

First time I wanked through Deep Throat I saw it as just another seedy porn flick.
On second view my eyes were opened, it is in fact a work of genius.
A stunning social commentary, giving the viewer genuine pause for thought, a masterpiece in masturbation.

GQ! I’ve always been fascinated by how some movies seem to change as we change over the years. For me, one such movie is “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” The first time I saw it in 1967 I was blown away by the theme of interracial marriage, which in Texas in those years was simply taboo. I had grown up in an extremely liberal household so it wasn’t so much that which impressed me but rather that it had gotten made at all and was so well received. I loved the dialogue and acting of most of the cast (except for one of the leads, Katharine Houghton, Katherine Hepburn’s niece, whose performance I thought amateurish).

Well, I’ve seen GWCTO at least once every decade since, and my feelings about it changed as I’ve grew older and more sentimental, as well as more knowledgeable about movie making. In the ’70s and ’80s, I thought it was far too preachy and even rather silly in parts, and of course interracial marriage and its depiction in movies and on TV was much more common by then. But then, from the ’90s on, I’ve found myself enjoying it more and more, on all levels. I’ve become re-impressed with its boldness for its time, how much I love the relationship between the Tracy and Hepburn as the Draytons and how it reminds me of my own parents, and even how much better I like Houghton’s performance. I also especially enjoy the sometimes brittle but loving relationship between Tracy’s character and his friend, the monsignor. There are still a couple of scenes I’d still like to take the knife to, but even those have gotten better for me through the years.

One thing that has never changed for me about the movie from 1967 to this minute is how well Spencer Tracy was cast and what an incredible performance he gave. This was his last film. Sadly, he died only weeks after it wrapped (he was only in his 60s). His illness is quite evident throughout, especially in the last scene, which was actually filmed before everything else because director Stanley Kramer feared Spence wouldn’t be up to doing this emotional scene as the shooting later. You can easily see he’s in pain as he delivers his best, longest speech, as well as how worried Hepburn was as she watched him.

I’m sure some younger jellies are scratching their heads as they read this and thinking, what a silly, painfully obvious movie! But for me, for how GWCTD first affected me as an impressionable young adult and later as an aging movie connoisseur, it’s high enough on my list of favorites that I could go downstairs and watch right this minute!

Forrest Gump made me cry the first time because the poor man was so naive, the second time I watched it, I realized there’s a lot of things we can be grateful for.
The third time I watched it I realized I should have bought shares in Apple when their shares were so low in 2000 and than I cried again because I could have been rich by now.

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room Hepburn and Tracy were so lucky to have been able to play married couples on film, since they couldn’t play one in real life. They were so lovely together.

Pachy, the most profound thing which I took from that movie was Sidney Portier’s father telling him something like, “You owe us nothing. We brought you up the best we could, and your only obligation now is to raise your children the very best that you can…”

I’ve told my kids this (but please don’t tell them where I got it from. I want them to think that The Old Man is….you know…..a deep thinker….)

P.S. I guess there’s a good reason that we never heard from Katharine Houghton again.

@glacial, so true. I think their performances in GWCTO revealed that more poignantly than in any other of their film. Watch that last scene and see how Hepburn tenderly looks at Spence with the tears of both a wonderful actress and a true-life friend and lover. Incredible.

@OneBadApple, yes indeed. That’s a brilliantly written and acted scene. Poitier is so good with the dialogue and the tough love he exhibits. During my “down on GWCTO” period in the ‘70s and ‘80s I dismissed the character of the dad, thinking it was the film’s most stereotypical. But when I started liking the film again, I realized what a tough, almost thankless, role it was, which greatly improved my opinion of the actor’s performance.

…....and of course, it is ‘Poitier’. Sorry.

@OneBadApple The same line that struck me the most too from GWTCO. : )

I only watch a movie once.

@ragingloli When you go to hell, they’ll make you watch Episode II: Attack of the Clones twice.

@filmfann But will it be a different experience each time?

@glacial Well, the second time will result in the dry heaves…

@filmfann My question stands. ;)

Blade Runner’s depiction of a dystopian future thirty years ago still resonates with me today.

@Bill1939 the fact that you can design a person still haunts me to this day.

Advances in genetic manipulation, increasing knowledge about the mechanics of the mind (how interconnected areas of the brain communicate), the creation of artificial intelligence in computers, developments in artificial body parts, and research in quantum computing, will lead to such a future.

The answer to the question of what is life is becoming more complicated.