The 59% Club: An Ode to the Almost-Fresh Movie

So close, yet so far.

Oh, we don’t mean like close to perfection, as seen in our other guide, The 99% Club: An Ode to the Almost-Perfect Movie. Here, “close” means a movie that was in striking distance of being marked Fresh on the Tomatometer. A 60% score is what you need to be Fresh, and all the movies featured in this list are exactly one percentage point away: They are the members of The 59% Club.

What makes up the bones of a 59% movie? Take a look through this guide and you’ll find they’re mostly well-intentioned, mostly efficient, but lacking the spark (or several of them) to be fully endorsed by critics. They’re comedies with some great jokes, and maybe not enough laughs. They’re serious movies with lots to say, and maybe without the technical filmmaking to back it up. They’re remakes that manage to not totally suck, but which couldn’t quite convince audiences they needed to exist in the first place. They’re even movies that are ahead of their time, waiting for the rest of us to catch up.

One thing for certain is that, hey, a majority of critics actually did like the movie. So why not give some a chance?

Because Tomatometer scores are a living thing, subject to change as reviews come in throughout the years, we’ll be checking in from now on with new entries, and even removals. Watch ’em while they’re still Rotten! —Alex Vo