I’ll admit it: when a friend pitched Hereditary to me, a horror-hating rom-com lover, I baulked. It’s hard to float “unspeakably gory demon film” to someone who couldn’t watch the fight scenes in Divergent.

Now, it’s one of my favourite movies; sometimes, I think going into a movie with zero expectations actually makes a good film seem great by comparison. 

It seems I’m not alone. In a post shared to Reddit’s r/movies, site user u/poweley asked: “Which movie did you expect to be mid but ended up loving?”. 

Here are some of the most-upvoted replies: 

1) Palm Springs (2020)

“I thought it was gonna just be a bland Groundhog Day rip-off. Ended up loving it.”

Credit: u/Flimsy_Fisherman_862

2) Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (2023)

Credit:u/poopoopirate

Redditor u/MrRedef added: “You could tell that Hugh Grant had a blast playing his character.” 

3) Paddington 2 (2017)

“My son asked me to take him to see it. I had not seen the first movie but I did not have high expectations for this movie. I expected to take a nap.

“Paddington 2 now easily resides in my top 10 favourite movies of all time.”

Credit:u/Dontneedanything

4) Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

“I had no expectations. Never heard of the comic [books they’re based on], wasn’t familiar with any of the actors involved save Samuel L Jackson, and I think I saw like one commercial beforehand.

Total, fuck yeah surprise of an experience.” 

Credit: u/PleaseMisterFlair

5) Game Night (2018) 

“I saw it for the first time yesterday and it was super fun. It’s made by the same people that did the Dungeons and Dragons movie.” 

Credit:u/cicamonteiro

6) The Cabin In The Woods (2011)

“I went in completely blind and expected a run-of-the-mill horror. It was definitely not that.”

Credit: u/TurquoiseLady

7) Edge Of Tomorrow (2014)

“It was marketed poorly and ended up being great.”

Credit:u/AyyDelta

8) The Matrix (1999)

“Honestly, The Matrix, mostly based on the inclusion of Keanu [Reeves] at the time.” 

Credit:u/zudoplex

Site user u/Majestic-Lake-5602 said, “Yeah, it’s easy to forget 26 years later that everyone saw him as a liability rather than an asset.”

9) The Mummy (1999)

“Absolute legend of a movie.” 

Credit: u/Snackromancer

u/-dakpluto- added, “It was supposed to be a bad overblown old-school mummy ripoff and Indiana Jones ripoff at the same time.

What we got was a perfect blend of Mummy and Indiana Jones with its own unique style. Brendan Fraser is so drastically underrated for how good he was in this.” 

Do you agree with these or have anything to add?