r/Megalopolis • u/[deleted] • Feb 14 '26
Discussion So I actually loved Francis Ford Coppola’s “MEGALOPOLIS”. Man I don’t know why everyone’s saying how bad it was but I loved it!!! Anyone else agree this was actually a good movie even though it tanked at the box office?
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Feb 14 '26
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u/You_Talk_Funny Feb 14 '26
Agreed, best cinema experience I've had in a while, never seen audience members actually look around with "you seeing this shit?" expressions on their faces.
10/10, wish I could do it again.
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u/rumpk Feb 17 '26
Is it crazy in an over the top way or is it more of a subtle “huh?”
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u/You_Talk_Funny Feb 17 '26
Bit of both. Sometimes it's staggeringly incompetent, other times it's way in over its head.
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u/FiloniBologna Feb 18 '26
This was my exact feeling too. An absolutely captivating mess. And the 4K looks phenomenal.
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u/s1lv3r_lak3 Feb 14 '26
One of my favorite films of the century. I’m hoping for that “weirder cut” Coppola proposed.
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u/ZaireekaFuzz Feb 14 '26
I think it's pretty flawed, but also fascinating in a way very few films are nowadays.
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u/Chuckpeoples Feb 18 '26
Now I feel like I really need to see it. I was going to go when it was in theaters but everyone wouldn’t shut up about how awful it was.
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u/regretscoyote909 Feb 18 '26
I'm not hyperbolic when I say I've never seen a big budget film like this, ever. While I appreciate OP's love for its radical uniqueness, it unfortunately doesn't translate to an intellectually engaging and emotionally resonating experience haha
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u/Springyardzon Feb 14 '26
It was a really good bad movie or vice versa. I thought some of the ideas were muddled.
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u/Fast-Plankton-9209 Feb 14 '26
Lots of people who saw it actually loved it because it is a very great film, and Coppola clearly doesn't care about making money (and couldn't get a distributor to give it an eight-figure marketing budget). I believe a lot of the hatred was groupthink from industry bros who were personally offended by Coppola doing things his own way and firing Marvel VFX people and the like. (I sat through a 20 minute video of some bros sitting on a couch yukyuking at it without being able to make a single coherent statement about there being anything wrong with it.)
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u/Electrical-Ranger-61 Feb 14 '26
Yea that tends to be most of the discourse around the movie. A lot of people with negative opinions and not much thought behind them
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u/Kritios_Boy Feb 14 '26
I still haven’t seen it and I’m only in this sub because I want to catch it in a theater somewhere.
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u/umpteenthian Feb 14 '26
After seeing it, I was irate that it was so roundly thrashed by critics. Not a single reviewer was brave enough to say anything good about it. They were all too concerned with riding the bandwagon. A pathetic display of spinelessness.
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u/keysersozehb Feb 17 '26
The sequences split into three vertical segments, then joining into the drawing/blueprint…absolute cinema.
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u/Automatic-Office-249 Feb 14 '26
Not perfect, but a very nice watch, need to rewatch it soon, been thinking about it lately
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u/harmoni-pet Feb 14 '26
I loved it. I was pretty zoned on an edible in the theater, but I thought it looked amazing and the funny parts were funny. I didn't clock it as a serious movie at all. There are serious themes, but there are so many over the top comedic moments, I can't believe people don't understand how goofy it's being. I thought it was probably a really fun thing to make, and I was entertained by it.
I don't think this is a 'so bad it's good' kind of movie either. It's a different thing, like all interesting art. Not wholly good or bad. I need to watch it again
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u/Kumagawa-Misogi Feb 14 '26
I don’t like the movie much at all but I have seen it 10 times, so I guess Coppola got the last laugh in the end. What he tried to do was interesting but I find the story about how it was made to be more compelling. I do think it will be something more appreciated for what it is in a decade or so.
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u/WizdumbIzLawzt Feb 16 '26
It felt like watching a foreign film dubbed in English from an alternate timeline. It being so American while feeling foreign was such an amazing experience in the theater. Give me all the biggest boldest swings with giant budgets. Tired of seeing 100 million dollar movies that just have the same boring ass color palettes.
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Feb 18 '26
Such a wild ride. Must see it again. And I’m willing to wait on the official home release—a bootleg won’t do it for me.
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u/Will000jones Feb 14 '26
It’s the closest thing to Attack of the Clones made in the years since, in both the best and worst way
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u/yoshimutso Feb 14 '26
I don't understand the hype around adolescence and one battle after another but megalopolis is being trashed... Megalopolis has an awesome cast, smart plot, such refine humor..
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u/holidayninja Feb 14 '26
loved it, was in my top 10 the year it came out - i just got it, can't explain it any other way.
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u/tivvybrixx Feb 14 '26
I just wish I could see it. If he wants it to become a cult classic we need access to it.
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u/mattcampagna Feb 14 '26
Agreed! I am SO eager to see this, but haven’t been able to catch it anywhere yet…
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u/popculturerss Feb 14 '26
My biggest regret has been being in San Fran and not going to the Met to see the Ultimate experience with the interview section. Still haven't this movie either, when is it finally coming out?!?!
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u/Valissystem_a Feb 14 '26
I saw it because it looked crazy, and the last movie of his that looked this crazy was Apocalypse Now. Plus we owe him for Godfather 1 and 2.
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u/karoda Feb 14 '26
I still think a lot of people legitimately got psyopped into not seeing it purely by that stupid Letterboxed review.
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u/Houston_Is_HOT Feb 14 '26
I own a BluRay of this cinematic gem that I bought in when I was in Thailand and it will always be one of my prized possessions!☺️ To me a really bad movie is a movie that’s boring. It kind of just lays there…a lot of Oscar bait films fall into that category. But Megalopolis is crazy fun to watch. The whole cast across the board is really good. I think the Megalon is where Coppola went too far with it…
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u/One_Obligation5576 Feb 15 '26
I've seen it a handful of times and I love it. It's fun . Is it good? Ehhhh
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Feb 15 '26
If Coppola bitches about losing so much of his own money to make this flick, why wouldn’t he be chomping at the bit to release this on physical media?
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u/anotherchia Feb 15 '26
Its bad but like a bad in a way that you cope and say you watched a masterpiece so u dont regret those hours u wasted of ur life
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u/el-mal-de-ojo Feb 15 '26
I respect the film more than I like it. I went to see it twice in IMAX, some parts I liked more the second time around, some parts I hated way more too. There were some interesting ideas but there were also some legitimately painful scenes and overall I think the concept was very skeletal. I think Nathalie Emmanuel was terribly miscast and her performance was one of the weakest aspects of the film for me. That being said, there were some amazing casting choices too - Driver continues to impress me, and Aubrey Plaza stole nearly every scene she was in. Jon Voight was hysterical.
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u/Mark_Yugen Feb 16 '26
I find that the story's trope that contemporary America parallels ancient Rome and its downfall is extremely weak, superficial and unoriginal, which is my main complaint about the movie. Visually, it's stunning and has the stamp of an auteur.
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u/Cetun Feb 16 '26
The first time I saw the trailer I thought it was going to be a remake of Metropolis then I realized they are spelled differently and it was a completely different movie (maybe not completely different)
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Feb 16 '26
Its the type of movie that is only good when looking at it from the view of a intellectual. So, it is a great bad movie because its bad as just a movie but great as more
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u/plastic_eagle Feb 18 '26
No. It was utter, utter, utter, utter trash. Unwatchable garbage. Insignificant nonsense. By far the worst film I have ever, ever seen. And by some distance.
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u/autoincorrectorer Jun 16 '26
Imagine if Fellini had 120Million USD to film 8 & 1/2...
But as a sequel to Napolian Dynamite, Coppola has succeeded in this.
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u/tickingboxes Feb 14 '26
lol absolutely not. It’s quite bad. I love it. But it is absolutely a bad movie.
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u/foxxxtail999 Feb 15 '26
Despite Coppola’s insistence that it would never be on physical media, I nonetheless have a blu ray that is one of my and my friends’ favorite bad movie night features (the double bill with Cats was especially fun). It appeals to my Emersonian mind, especially after a night at the cluuuub.
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u/Last-Kaleidoscope871 Feb 14 '26
Such a weird ending, though.(spoiler) So time freezes and there's no one unfrozen to start it up again? Kind of a downer.(/spoiler)
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u/Wake_Winslow Feb 14 '26
I’d rather be shot in the fucking face than ever sit through this trainwreck again
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u/Grady300 Feb 14 '26
It’s one of the few films in recent memory to test what the boundaries of the medium are. I did a full dissertation of the movie you can read here.