The Awards Season Runway
Summer is for blockbusters, but fall is for prestige. From September through December, studios strategically release the films they believe are their most artistically significant. This period, often called “Oscar season,” is a calculated effort to ensure
these movies are fresh in the minds of awards voters and critics when nomination ballots go out. Films deemed “Oscar worthy” are rolled out to generate buzz and media attention, transforming the last quarter of the year into a high-stakes gauntlet for serious dramas, ambitious biopics, and auteur-driven projects. This concentration of “important” cinema sets a very different tone than the popcorn fun of July.
The Festival Hype Machine
The season kicks off with a trifecta of influential film festivals: Venice, Telluride, and Toronto. Here, a handful of films receive their world premieres in front of a concentrated audience of critics and industry insiders. A rapturous reception or a lengthy standing ovation can instantly anoint a movie as a must-see masterpiece. This generates a massive wave of hype before the general public has even seen a trailer. This initial burst of consensus praise is a powerful marketing tool, but it also creates a precarious pedestal. When a film is labeled a generational classic in September, it's almost begging for a backlash by the time it reaches wide release in November.
The Psychology of Hype and Backlash
Human nature plays a crucial role in the “overrated” phenomenon. When something is intensely hyped, our expectations are raised to nearly impossible levels. For some, this constant praise can trigger what psychologists call reactance—a feeling that our freedom of choice is being threatened, leading to an urge to reject the popular thing simply to assert individuality. Calling a consensus favorite “overrated” becomes an act of defining one’s own taste against the perceived mainstream. Conversely, championing a lesser-known fall release as “underrated” is a way to claim cultural discovery, to feel like you spotted the true gem everyone else missed. It’s less about the film itself and more about our relationship to its reputation.
Social Media Is the Perfect Arena
Modern movie discourse lives and dies on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Letterboxd. These digital spaces are tailor-made for the kind of brief, declarative, and often polarizing takes that the “overrated/underrated” binary thrives on. The nuanced, 1,500-word review is replaced by a punchy, 280-character hot take. This environment accelerates the hype-backlash cycle, allowing arguments to form, spread, and dominate the conversation before many have even bought a ticket. A film can go from universally loved to fiercely debated in a matter of hours, with every opinion solidifying into one of two camps and fueling the passionate, often messy, debate that now defines the season.
