YMMV / Turner Classic Movies

• Awesome Music: They're regarded for using Alternative Indie music in some of their promo reels, most notably in the TCM Remembers ones. One such example is Black and White by Lion, which was used in a promo around April 2017.
• Broken Base:
  • In 2021, TCM featured a month-long series, Reframed, in which certain classic films with Values Dissonance were analyzed and evaluated (Gone with the Wind for its romanticized depiction of the Antebellum South, Breakfast at Tiffany's for its use of Yellowface, etc.). The films were shown in their entirety, with the host segments at the beginning and the end of the films discussing the problematic elements of the films and what society can learn from them. TCM insists that the program was created to prevent the films from not being screened at all and becoming victims of "cancel culture", but that still hasn't stopped some people from saying that what they're doing is cancel culture because it admits to Values Dissonance (rather than excusing or denying it). The series returned in November 2022 with a month of movies that helped advance discussion on controversial issues and/or broke down barriers in Hollywood filmmaking (Gentleman's Agreement, Philadelphia, etc.).
  • The earlier Race and Hollywood series were presented before today's more organized armies of alt-right trolls existed. Reframed of course met with plenty of those, but also received insightful criticism from more established conservative sources. The most polite conservative review suggested that Reframed actually didn't go far enough in detailing the subtle differences in nations and cultures that are often behind now-controversial portrayals and attitudes.
  • In The New '20s, the network's increased spotlighting of post-1980s titles and especially the work of minority, female, and/or LGBTQ+ creatives has been met with a great deal of disdain from viewers who insist they cannot be considered classic movies, even if they have won awards. Part of this has to do with such movies often falling outside Small Reference Pools, but it's telling that the channel's official Facebook page often has to block comments on posts highlighting these films when they take a turn towards the hateful. Since the mid-1990s, TCM's Race and Hollywood series has taken one month (usually May) to focus on non-white creators in front of and behind the camera with insightful commentary and interviews. Another such series is Screened Out, featuring LGBTQ+ creators. Generally these were well-received rather than detracted as "woke", but social media wasn't as powerful then.
• Cult Classic: TCM Underground, which ran Friday nights/early Saturday mornings (though it, like other blocks, took breaks in February for 31 Days of Oscar and August for Summer Under the Stars) from 2006-2023, focused on movies of this stripe, programmed as thematic Double Features. Exploitation Films, Blaxploitation films, all kinds of horror films, Unintentional Period Pieces, So Bad, It's Good movies, and just plain quirky movies had a place. Even the interstitial programming in the block consisted of vintage shorts that would make the Rifftrax gang smile. Very likely to run films that have fallen into Keep Circulating the Tapes/out-of-print territory (the November 2020 titles included Near Dark, Times Square, and Earth Girls Are Easy; since then, the latter two have had new physical media releases). It was also the only block without a regular host, a rare thing for TCM; it was initially hosted by Rob Zombie but he left pretty quickly (no one seems to know why).
• Heartwarming Moments: Once you get past the sheer tearjerkingness of the “TCM Remembers” montages, you get a loving, well-done annual tribute to stars big and small, writers, technicians, composers, etc., who made a lasting impact on cinema, especially more obscure names that the Academy Awards Ceremonies and such often miss. Some years, they'll even edit in people who died in late December after the bumper has already aired.^note The producers joke that after these clipreels are released, they pray that everyone else "hang on through the holidays, please!"
• Tear Jerker: "TCM Remembers", anyone? You know, those end-of-December montage bumpers dedicated to famous actors, directors, etc. who have passed on each year? Yeah, they definitely deserve a mention here. Much more detail here. Produced by TCM's Andrew Alonso and directed and edited by Scott Lansing of Sabotage Film Group, and featuring beautifully repurposed pop songs from small indie artists, they can be heartrending even if you don't know who everybody was. Robert Osborne, who was the host of the channel ever since the network launched, died in 2017 and was included at the very end of that year's "TCM Remembers" reel, in a slot usually reserved for someone like Elizabeth Taylor who has had a particularly rich legacy in classic film.

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