Forrest Gump (1994)

Forrest Gump (1994) charmed audiences and the Academy, grossing $678 million worldwide, but its Best Picture win over Pulp Fiction (94% critic score) and The Shawshank Redemption (91%) now seems sentimental. The film's simplistic nostalgia and sanitized history have aged poorly, ranking it as the fourth most overrated winner in a 2022 poll, behind #1 Crash but ahead of #2 Green Book. With a 71% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, it is 15% lower than Shawshank's 98%, indicating a stark quality gap. Critics argue that its emotional manipulation and lack of depth make it 50% less culturally relevant than its contemporaries.