8 Animated Movies Critics Hated That Audiences Would Fight For. Don't Even Try Me.

Critics wrote the reviews. Audiences bought the tickets, the popcorn and the rewatch. Today the crowd wins every argument, and the reviews can file a complaint.

Number one is the remake everyone loves to hate. The ticket stubs disagree, loudly.

1. 8
   Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024)4.1

   Harold is clumsy, but critics drew him way too small.

   Rotten Tomatoes said 28%, Metacritic said 34. IMDb voters said 5.8 across 11,029 votes. Not a great movie. Not a 28 either.
2. 7
   The Garfield Movie (2024)3.8

   Critics skipped the lasagna. Families ate $257 million of it.

   Metacritic gave it a 31, the lowest grade here. Worldwide it pulled $257.2 million on a reported $60M budget. Chris Pratt as a cat still sounds made up.
3. 6
   Mufasa: The Lion King (2024)6.2

   Barry Jenkins made a lion prequel, and crowds actually showed up.

   Critics parked it at 56% on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences pushed it to $722.6 million worldwide. The songs fade fast, the brotherhood story doesn't.
4. 5
   Despicable Me 4 (2024)5.8

   Fourth Minion lap, still funnier than critics will admit.

   Metacritic 52, CinemaScore A, $972 million worldwide. The plot is a pile of sketches. The crowd laughed at every sketch anyway, and so did you.
5. 4
   Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle (2024)8.8

   The best sports movie on this list is a volleyball anime.

   Its audience score tops 97% of movies, its critics score only 56%. It made $7.07 million domestic and $100 million worldwide. The rest of the planet figured it out first.
6. 3
   The King of Kings (2025)6.8

   An A+ CinemaScore outranks a Metacritic 42. Every single time.

   Made for a reported $25.2M, it grossed $60.3 million domestic. Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman and Mark Hamill voiced a bedtime story, and families showed up in their Sunday best.
7. 2
   The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026)5.1

   Critics gave it a 37. Kids gave it a billion dollars.

   Metacritic 37, Rotten Tomatoes 42%, CinemaScore A minus, $1.01 billion worldwide. The plot is a speedrun with no checkpoints. Jack Black alone is worth the ticket.
8. 1
   The Lion King (2019)6.7

   The photoreal Lion King was right, and $1.66 billion agrees.

   Rotten Tomatoes 52%, CinemaScore A. Yes, the lions can't make faces. Audiences still paid $1.66 billion worldwide to watch them try, and 296,483 IMDb voters stuck around to argue.

$1,317 says the first angry comment is about number one, and the second is someone asking what Haikyu is.

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Current mood: ready to fight about it