Some movies live on forever. But some movies, like old toys, are loved passionately—and then abandoned entirely. Sometimes that’s by design; movies made to catch hold of a cultural moment aren’t likely to endure. A star or a style that’s big today isn’t necessarily going to make money tomorrow. Sometimes we were convincingly sold on a movie that turned out to be disappointing, and once was decidedly enough. And sometimes, it’s just that our tastes change.
Forgotten blockbusters aren’t necessarily bad (they’re not necessarily good, either). Every movie is somebody’s favorite, and they’re sometimes forgotten unjustly. Of course, just as often, it’s hard not to wonder why they were ever successful to begin with.
Here are some of the biggest blockbuster movies you may have forgotten ever existed at all.
2012 (2009)
Worldwide box office: $791.2 million
Legacy clearly wasn’t in anyone’s calculations when developing this movie, based on some misguided ideas about a (then) coming Mayan apocalypse. Any movie positing the end of the world in a specific year is going to age fairly poorly, but it’s doubtful that anyone was too disappointed. The movie cleaned up when it counted.
Where to stream: Fubo TV, Peacock, Sling TV
Hancock (2008)
Worldwide box office: $629.4 million
Hitting just a few months after Iron Man, Hancock actually made a bit more money than that Ur-Marvel Studios film. Still, more than a decade’s worth of superhero movies have left Will Smith’s interesting but uneven effort behind.
Where to stream: TNT, TBS, Tru TV
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Worldwide box office: $1.025 billion
Tim Burton’s Wonderland was a sensation when it was released, and a reminder that the once-niche director was still more than capable of producing a blockbuster. A more-of-the-same sequel, however, lost a tremendous amount of money, and it seems that our fascination with the freaky film faded rather quickly.
Where to stream: Disney+
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
Worldwide box office: $493.3 million
With decent box office but middling reviews, our cultural falling-out-of-love with James Franco has ensured that Oz’s glory days remain in the past.
Where to stream: Digital rental
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)
Worldwide box office: $375.7 million
Either of the first two live-action G.I. Joe movies could fill this spot: Each did respectable box office, but neither made a ton of money given their large budgets. This sequel, though, was slightly cheaper and made a bit more money. Narrowing the focus and losing some of the cartoon-ish elements that Rise of Cobra was criticized for, Retaliation has some fun moments and impressive action, but in losing some of the goofiness, it loses any distinctive flavor.
Where to stream: Hulu, Paramount+, Epix
Due Date
Worldwide box office: $211.8 million
Thanks to Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis, director Todd Phillips’ road trip comedy made a fair bit of money.
Where to stream: HBO Max
What Lies Beneath (2000)
Worldwide box office: $291.4 million
A Robert Zemeckis movie with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer (with a script by Agent Coulson himself, Clark Gregg), this might have been a slam-dunk. And it did quite well given its budget, but the Hitchcock-in overtones fall flat. (I know that I’ve seen this movie, but I have absolutely no idea what lies beneath.)
Where to stream: Starz
S.W.A.T. (2003)
Worldwide box office: $207.2 million
Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez, LL Cool J, Jeremy Renner, and other big-ish names put butts in theater seats for an otherwise stock police action thriller.
Where to stream: Fubo TV, Sling TV
Wild Hogs (2007)
Worldwide box office: $253.6 million
You know: The wildly popular Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, John Travolta, and William H. Macy biker comedy that entranced the nation back in 2007.
Where to stream: Prime Video
Runaway Bride (1999)
Worldwide box office: $309.5 million
A throwback to a time when a rom-com could make over $300 million (and back when $300 million was real money), Runaway Bride always felt too heavily calculated to remind viewers of Pretty Woman...over time, it’s become clear that we’d rather just watch Pretty Woman.
Where to stream: Peacock
What Women Want (2000)
Worldwide box office: $374.1 million
If only, this movie asks, there were some way to understand women! It would probably take some sort of weird psychic superpowers, amirite, fellas?
Where to stream: HBO Max
San Andreas (2015)
Worldwide box office: $474 million
An earthquake impacts Los Angeles and San Francisco, bringing with it plenty of standard disaster movie tropes.
Where to stream: HBO Max
Troy (2004)
Worldwide box office: $497.4 million
Though the works ascribed to the poet Homer may be immortal, this nearly three-hour Brad Pitt/Eric Bana/Orlando Bloom joint isn’t anyone’s favorite adaptation. Though there are some fine performances and competent action set pieces, The Iliad has never been quite so bland.
Where to stream: Tubi
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Worldwide box office: $552.6 million
Disaster movies are very often of their times, designed to be enjoyed and discarded in favor of the next star-studded catastrophe to come out of Hollywood. Roland Emmerich’s climate-change disaster movie is unique, at least, in its source material: a part-fiction, part-fact (-ish) book by paranormal radio host Art Bell and alleged alien abductee Whitley Strieber.
Where to stream: HBO Max
Earthquake (1974)
Worldwide box office: $79.7 million
Just for comparison, one of the more forgettable star-powered disaster movies from a decade that produced classics like The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and Airport, still made $80 million on a $7 million budget. Adjusted for inflation, that’s nearly half a billion dollars.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Crash (2004)
Worldwide box office: $98.4 million
Crash wasn’t a box office smash by any means, though it did very well over its $6 million budget. It also won Best Picture at the Academy Awards for the year it was released, and has, ever since, been viewed as a particularly glaring example of the Oscar going to a film that, perhaps, didn’t deserve it—all that aside, its view of racial harmony looks more shallow and problematic with age (we’re meant to feel, for example, that the police officer who had earlier terrified and sexually assaulted Thandie Newton’s character during a traffic stop is deserving of some kind of redemption when he does his job and pulls her from a burning car).
Where to stream: Fubo TV, Showtime
Green Book (2018)
Worldwide box office: $321.8 million
Set this Best Picture Oscar-winner next to Crash among other movies in which white filmmakers center a white perspective in discussing the Black American experience.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Clash of the Titans (2010)
Worldwide box office: $493.2 million
Though it did well enough to earn a sequel, neither one of them has really eclipsed the 1981, Ray Harryhausen-powered original.
Where to stream: Fubo TV, Showtime
We’re the Millers (2013)
Worldwide box office: $270 million
I’ve never heard of this movie in my life.
Where to stream: HBO Max
Made in America (1993)
Worldwide box office: $104 million
This movie about a Black woman who discovers that her sperm donor was white coasted on the charms of Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson, but didn’t have enough going for it otherwise to earn it a spot in anyone’s movie pantheon.
Where to stream: Starz
Avatar (2009)
Worldwide box office: $2.847 billion
In other circumstances, I’d be perfectly happy to defend Avatar as spectacle and as a piece of filmmaking. And, though it doesn’t qualify as “forgotten,” exactly (certainly given the multiple sequels that are forthcoming, it’s very much the case that the film lacks the passion and fan recognition that its nearly $3 billion box office take would suggest. Its legacy remains a work in progress, but it’s certainly an interesting case of a movie that we all loved (it’s still the highest unadjusted box office earner in history)...and then collectively decided to ignore.
Where to stream: Disney+, Fubo TV