Jump to content

List of films considered the worst

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by RickK (talk | contribs) at 06:52, 26 September 2004 (→T). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This is a partial list of movies that have been considered the worst ever. Obviously, due to the subjective nature of "good" and "bad" judgments, there can be disagreement about what constitutes an "extremely bad movie". A movie usually garners an extremely bad reputation not merely for simply failing as drama, but failing to a degree out of all proportion to popular and critical expectation. Sometimes, excessive pre-release hype surrounding a film can build up expectations in viewers to an unrealistic degree; an example might be the Star Wars prequels, which, while performing extremely well at the box office, have caused great argument among fans of the series. And sometimes, audiences who are tiring of an overexposed celebrity will heap vilification upon a film starring that celebrity if it is in any way dramatically flawed; an example of this would be the Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez vehicle Gigli or Guy Ritchie's Swept Away, starring his wife, pop music diva Madonna.

Among fans of low-budget cult films, the term "so bad it's good" is popularly used to refer to movies made by filmmakers who are either too inept or untalented to pull off their intentions (and seem clueless about their shortcomings), or who, despite possible latent talent, simply try too much with too limited a budget. An obvious example would be the filmography of Ed Wood or Coleman Francis, or any of the myriad obscure films featured on the television spoof show Mystery Science Theater 3000. Unlike more mundane bad films, these bad films actually develop an ardent fan following who love them because of their poor quality.

Motion pictures that are frequently cited by some as among the worst movies ever made include:

Template:CompactTOC2


A

B

  • Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002): This action movie, starring Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas, was universally panned by critics, earning a rare 0% rating (with 98 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics variably described the film as "A picture for idiots," "Boring to an amazing degree," "A fine achievement in stupidity and dullness," "It's dreadful," "Gives new meaning to the word incoherent," and "The film is bad on just about every level."
  • Batman & Robin (1997): The fourth and final film of the 1989-1997 Warner Bros. franchise based on Bob Kane's DC Comics character, this film is viewed as the worst superhero movie of all time, even to the point where star George Clooney says he will refund people's money if they stop him on the street and say they paid to see it.
  • Blood Feast (1963): Pioneering, if not the first film in the "gore" genre. Called worst movie of the year by Time magazine. Only with the passage of time, now that the shock has worn off, can we fully appreciate just how bad the acting really was.

C

  • Catwoman (2004): Ostensibly based on the DC Comics character and starring Halle Berry in a film that resembles next to nothing of its source material. Upon release it had 0 positives on Rotten Tomatoes with only 11% positive during its opening weekend, and was declared "arguably the worst superhero film ever made" by the Orlando Sentinel. Perhaps the worst mistake of the filmmakers was trying to fight in the same field with Tim Burton and Michelle Pfeiffer (see Batman Returns), so that many of those who have seen Batman Returns find Catwoman even worse than it actually is.

F

  • Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965): described on NPR as one of the worst films ever.
  • Freddy Got Fingered (2001): Of this Tom Green "comedy" vehicle, which he gave zero out of four stars, Roger Ebert wrote, "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels... The day may come when Freddy Got Fingered is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny." [1]

G

  • Gigli (2003): A movie featuring Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck that, while having a somewhat decent concept, was so odd, irrational, and badly written that it was immediately declared the worst movie of 2003. Reviewers dubbed the film "The ultimate turkey of all time", referring to Lopez's sex talk "It's turkey time."
  • Glen or Glenda (1953): An inept quasi-documentary from Ed Wood about transvestism, this film tells the story of Glen, who enjoys wearing women's clothing. After a nightmarish dream sequence (which is so transcendently bad, it's even worse than the rest of the film), Glen undergoes psychotherapy to help cure his affliction. Bela Lugosi appears for the sole purpose of spouting bizarre psychobabble at the camera. Many aficionados of Wood's films insist that this is a worse film than even Plan 9 from Outer Space.
  • Glitter (2001): Based on Mariah Carey's life story. Mariah plays the role of a young singer who is eager to become a big star. She dates a DJ who helps her get into the music business. One of the ranking members of IMDB's bottom 100 movies.

H

  • Heaven's Gate (1980): At the time, the biggest and most expensive Hollywood box-office flop of all time; its failure resulted in the sale of the United Artists studio to MGM.

I

M

N

  • North (1994): high-profile Rob Reiner movie with numerous celebrity parts and cameos, about which Roger Ebert famously said, "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it."

P

R

  • Robot Monster (1953): the classic of bad movies that often vies with Plan 9 from Outer Space for the title of "worst science fiction movie" (or any other film genre); so unbelievably awful, it is seen by audiences as one of the funniest bad movies ever made. When this film came out, it was so universally scorned and derided by reviewers that the director attempted suicide by shooting himself. He missed.

S

T

  • Titanic (1997): In many ways Titanic is the most successful film in history - it took eleven Oscars, a joint record, and pulled $1.6bn in box office receipts - a record. Perhaps because of this success, the film has suffered a backlash. Six years after the film's release, perhaps an ideal period of time for a backlash, viewers of the BBC's Film 2003 programme voted Titanic the worst ever.
  • Troll 2 (1990): Notable in part for not featuring any trolls (the baddies are goblins from the town of "Nilbog"), nor having anything to do with Troll, this famously odd movie has both topped the IMDB bottom 100, and been cited in most of the few reviews (the picture being slightly obscure) as a "so bad it's good" movie, in the vein of Ed Wood. [3] [4] [5]

Y

  • You Got Served (2004): Dance film went to the top (bottom?) of IMDb's worst 100 film list in the immediate aftermath of its release.

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_films_considered_the_worst&oldid=6159767"