TLJ: cultural elites liked the whole burning the sacred texts thing, normies hated it. (NB: I only vaguely remember this movie and don't have strong opinions about it, don't crucify me.)
The Greatest Showman: I assume "not oscar worthy" meant specifically not "Best Picture" worthy. It's a specific type of movie that wins that award.
In any case, just like you append " reddit" to most searches, I recommend appending " letterboxd" to any movie searches. You do kind of have to read the reviews instead of just going by the rating though.
Wouldn't the "cultural elites" in this context be the hardcore Star Wars fans who hated everything about the new trilogy, and Luke's disillusionment arc in particular, and the "normies" be the mainstream fans who really didn't care?
They tend to hate Star Wars because it's wildly successful and popular, but it doesn't have any of the cultural crap that they want.
Cultural Elites are the ones who decide what wins Oscars, for example.
The nice thing about letterboxd is that many different subgroups are represented, so you can find the reviews you vibe with and get a better idea of whether the movie will appeal to subgroup you're a part of.
There's probably a pretty decent youtube essay on like the balkanization of culture and also the construction of identity through consumption, and how social media has turbo-charged all this here.
TLJ got great critic reviews and poor audience reviews because it was propaganda designed to please movie executives and their friends who don't care about Star Wars but do care about social engineering (the badly named "cultural elites"). It wasn't intended to please the people who paid to go watch it.