The movie-going public, which purports to know everything about everything, is sometimes left with egg on its face when the verdict of history comes down. After all, the public initially turned up its nose at Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life, and was slow to respond to many early efforts by Jack Nicholson, Tommy Lee Jones, Marilyn Monroe and Robert DeNiro.

More recent examples of this inability to spot a lurking masterpiece include The Big Lebowski, a so-so performer at the box office that became a huge cult hit in the DVD aftermarket, and Austin Powers, which got a mediocre reception during its theatrical release, then took off when it came out in video. Also zipping straight by the general public before attaining richly deserved cult status is Office Space, a favourite among teens who have never had a job but suspect that the film is essentially a catalogue of all the horrors that await them in the workplace once they leave school. Which it is.

Nor should we overlook Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a loopy, erratic film that did nothing at the box office when it came out in 1998, but eventually garnered such cult appeal that it was re-released on DVD in a special 2003 collector's edition by the Criterion Collection. This puts it in the company of films by Godard, Renoir, Fellini and Bergman. Being included in the Criterion Collection is like receiving the imprimatur of the Vatican. It means that your film is not only wonderful; it is sacred. Nor was this a selection of the Criterion Collection for Stoners. It was the actual Criterion Collection.

This brings us to our central thesis: that the customer, in fact, is not always right. It is usually right – who wouldn't be with so many Vin Diesel movies going around? – but not always. It is a great mistake to believe that the public is so savvy that films inevitably rise or fall on their own merits. Sometimes, films fail because they are poorly marketed, or inadequately distributed, or because the public is otherwise occupied by war or cultural malaise or inclement weather. Quite often, high-quality films fall on their faces simply because they enter the marketplace at the worst possible moment for works with their message.

This was certainly the case with The Wizard of Oz, which opened the year the Nazis invaded Poland. The fanciful lark did not become the object of universal veneration it is today until much later when its regular screenings on American television throughout the 1960s won the hearts and minds of young people who had not been traumatised by the Great Depression and the second world war. Similarly, the public responded coolly to Frank Capra's ferociously heartwarming It's a Wonderful Life, released at the end of 1946. A life-affirming, populist, quasi-spiritual film about the financial havoc wrought on a small town fiduciary institution by a good-natured but incompetent bank manager was not what America was looking for in the years immediately following the Great Depression and the worst war in history. The public was not yet ready to lighten up on the banking industry.

The public's spotty record being what it is, is it not fair to wonder whether the same thing might be happening even as we speak? Isn't it possible that Terminator Salvation or The Ugly Truth or The Haunting in Connecticut or Cheri, all of which have under-performed at the box office this year, might one day build larger audiences and be viewed as classics? Or, at least, cult classics worthy of being included in the Criterion Collection? Is this not at least within the realm of possibility?

The answer: yes. The Hurt Locker, currently in theatres in the US, has not found the audience it deserves. Neither has 500 Days of Summer. And last winter's The Wrestler deserved a much bigger audience than it got; it was a film more talked about and honoured than seen. But these are obvious, somewhat arty choices. What about more mainstream films?

One film that has been roughed up a bit by the fickle public is Judd Apatow's Funny People. Apatow, as director or producer or writer, is responsible for such lighthearted fare as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Talledega Nights, Anchorman, Pineapple Express, Superbad and Knocked Up. He is one of the most admired and influential people in Hollywood, mostly because he keeps making the same kind of movie. But in Funny People, he has gone out on a limb by directing a 146-minute film about a star of innumerable inane comedy films who finds out that he is dying and then hires a very unfunny amateur comic (Seth Rogen) to be his factotum and pal. The comic, played with shocking effectiveness by Adam Sandler, who has previously kept these gifts well hidden, is not a very nice person. Indeed, the film is obsessed with driving home how that class of people best described as the professionally amusing tend to be incredibly cruel and insensitive, and that when they die, the world doesn't take long to adjust to their absence.

This is a daring premise for a motion picture, which the American media has now officially declared an underperformer, if not an out-and-out disappointment. Hmm. Moviegoers and critics alike are forever blasting Hollywood for playing it safe and refusing to do anything unconventional, yet here is an unconventional film, a film that uses the most famous young comedy stars in America to attack precisely the types of films and sneering attitudes that made all of them – including Apatow himself – famous. Yes, it is too long, but Funny People is nonetheless the most interesting big-budget film to come out of Hollywood this year, and it certainly deserves a wider audience. It will probably have to wait until it comes out in DVD to find that audience, when the public comes to its senses. As for the public, if it keeps turning out in droves on opening weekend for films such as GI Joe and Watchmen, it doesn't deserve to have any good films.

Obviously, one can go too far with this line of reasoning. There is a natural temptation among producers and directors of duds to console themselves with the following socratic line of reasoning:

A. The Wizard of Oz was a flop.

B. The Pink Panther 2 is a flop.

C. Some day, The Pink Panther 2 will be as beloved as The Wizard of Oz.

Alas, reality doesn't work that way. History tends to be very hard on motion pictures that suck beyond belief, which is certainly the case with The Pink Panther 2. History catches up with bad films, and repossesses their kudos, but it also catches up with good films and tries to atone for their earlier mistreatment. This is why Funny People will probably live on. Conversely, I see little hope for an aftermarket revival of Terminator Salvation, et al, because, with the exception of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, all of the films I have cited as box-office duds that were later deemed classics can honestly be described as good, and in certain cases, excellent films. They are simply films that initially missed their audience. And even Fear and Loathing, which I do not understand because I do not have access to the drugs needed to follow it, at least qualifies as a film that appeals to special tastes, much like Triumph of the Will, The 120 Days of Sodom and all films about morally conflicted public-school boys.

This is not the case with The Ugly Truth, The Haunting in Connecticut, The Pink Panther 2 or Terminator Salvation. These films did not find the audiences they hoped for because these films were lucky to find any audiences at all. The Haunting in Connecticut is a generic horror film that looks like it was made by someone who last saw a scary movie in 1973 and has never heard of The Ring, much less Saw VI. The Pink Panther 2 is the film that comes directly after The Pink Panther 1. Terminator Salvation is big, ugly and stupid, while The Ugly Truth is small, ugly and stupid. It is impossible to imagine that any of these films will have a major afterlife. Not on this planet.

One could argue, however, that the mediocre box-office performance of a film such as Confessions of a Shopaholic stems primarily from the unfortunate timing of its release and not from the fact that it is, as some have contended, derivative, cloying, sexist and moronic. A peppy, life-affirming tale about a dimwit journalist battling an obsession with purchasing clothes and accessories she does not need, Confessions was not the breakout hit its packagers had hoped for, and actually, quite mysteriously, performed better in foreign markets than in the US. Assuming that it did not underperform because the American public suddenly stopped liking cloying, sexist, moronic movies about adorable dimwits, the logical conclusion is that its failure to win a wider audience stems from entirely different factors.

Off the top of my head, I can think of two. One, it was released at the very trough of the current recession, when the merry exploits of an acquisitive chucklehead was the last thing the public wanted to see. After all, it was an entire society's maxing out on their credit cards during the Bush years that had brought the world to the precipice of a second Great Depression. Second, more perversely, by encouraging shopaholics to chop up their credit cards and stop buying things they clearly did not need in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, Confessions of a Shopaholic was actually helping to prolong the recession – because the reawakening of the spendthrift consumer is the only way the moribund American economy will be revived, and we need all the shopaholics we can get. Thus, in a strange way, Confessions of a Shopaholic is a victim of its own insensitivity to what experts call "the headwinds of the zeitgeist". Telling Americans to stop buying things they cannot afford and do not need in the middle of a recession is like shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre. It is malicious and it is immoral. The public will forgive a newly released film for being moronic. It will not forgive it for being oblivious.

But it might when it comes out on DVD.