Entertainment Value for me. Most of my favorite films are hurting in the story, acting and special FX dept. (Evil Dead series rings all those bells and is still amongst my faves simply because they are so fun to watch.)

:D LOL

Good call I think you're right there!

Yeah, this is where I am. I can't imagine having a single criterion to guide me in selecting a movie. Sometimes it's a recommendation, sometimes it just interests, sometimes it's a total blind watch. It just depends on the situation.

I used to work at a video rental store, and it would floor me that people would only watch what happened to come out that week. They didn't care about anything else in the store; nevermind the huge selection of classics, etc. And, 9 times out of 10, their favorite movie would just be the last one that they saw. Sometimes it could be pretty bad. Like one time, a guy came in and asked me to recommend a movie. At the time, Pan's Labyrinth had just come out, and I recommended that. He went over and inspected the case, and then came back to the counter.

"Now that movie Pan's Labyrinth, is that in Spanish?"
I replied, "Well, yes. It's in Spanish with English subtitles."
And then he looked at me, completely bewildered, and said, "You mean they made it that way?"

I didn't know what to say. And, of course, he ended up renting something else. In English.

I voted for story as well.

Coincidentally, this is also how I choose books. :)

Hahaha holy shit that's awesome :D

Straight out of Clerks or something.

Entertainment Value is the sole reason I revisit a movie. I've enjoyed (and still do) movies with bad stories, actors, special effects (not all these things in one film mind you... usually) but sometimes there's an intangible element to a film that just hooks me and I end up really liking that movie. As far as picking a movie, I think most of the time I go because I hear about the story and it intrigues me so I go see it, either that or it's based on a book or comic that I already enjoy the story from which also draws my attention. Anyway, I'd say MOST of the time it's the story, but a lot of these things can grab me. For instance, I'm going to see the next Christopher Walken movie, or the next Bruce Campbell movie. Do I know what these are? Nope, but I'll be there. Combinations like A Dangerous Method are great too, I heard Cronenberg was making a new movie so I was excited to see it and then I read what it was about and could hardly contain my excitement.

Haha, totally. It's so absurd, I couldn't believe it.

Wow...I expected Story to start off and gallop to a commanding lead, but that is not the case. Good to see people give preference to other things in a movie as well, the second most preferred choice being Entertainment Value.

Let's make this a Sticky and see some more opinions and votes come in. This should be very interesting.

most of the time i go for the story by word of mouth or an advert, sometimes just take a chance. i have enjoyed a good story in movies before and the actors have sometimes just ruined the whole movie with bad acting.entertainment i find it dont matter about a story or bad acting as long as it has a bit of a story i dont mind like braindead, evil dead, bad taste there all just entertainment for me.

yeah i dont mind the acting either unless a new hyped up or expensive movie.for example the bad acting in "human centipeide" or "the Happening is just sad where the bad acting in a low budge movie like "red neck zombies " makes the movie,and i preffer those kinda movies.Which would also mean i dont care about special effects or story line