Making movies requires so many people, so much money, and so much good luck, that it’s surprising that any of them are good.
Still, that truth does not change the fact that some movies are terrible. Even when everyone involved worked hard, even when a big studio gives a lot of money, some movies end up terrible.
Sure, some of these can be fun to watch with friends and some clever riffs. Most of these films, however, will create no joy, intentional or otherwise. In fact, the sole pleasure of these movies comes from complaining about their dreadful writing, direction, and stories.
1. Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
When asked about his performance in Jaws: The Revenge, star Michael Caine gave the best possible answer. “I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible,” he responded. “However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.” Thus, Michael Caine is the one person who enjoyed Jaws: The Revenge.
No one who saw Jaws: The Revenge expected the fourth entry in the franchise to match the wonder of the Steven Spielberg original. However, director Joseph Sargent and screenwriter Michael de Guzman couldn’t figure out how to make a movie about a killer shark interesting. Between an unbelievable plot, one-note characters, and lackadaisical direction, Jaws: The Revenge has no reason to exist.
2. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Fans waited years for the final Star Wars trilogy to make it to screen, and despite mixed feelings about the middle entry The Last Jedi, many had high hopes for the last entry. Director J.J. Abrams, teaming again with co-writer Chris Terrio, returned to complete the series that he began with the safe but enjoyable The Force Awakens, which at the very least promised to please the traditionalists put off by the big swings of The Last Jedi.
However, The Rise of Skywalker pleased no one. A complete mess of a film, The Rise of Skywalker featured multiple fake-out deaths that get reversed the very next scene, a mind-numbing quest plot, and fan service that made no sense in the universe. When Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) says, “Somehow, Palpatine returned,” viewers can feel the Force seeping from their bodies.
3. Lions For Lambs (2007)
No one can deny Robert Redford’s movie star bonafides. Handsome and charming, Redford makes a welcome addition to any film. However, Redford has struggled to retain those likable traits when he steps behind the camera to direct. As a director, Redford tends to take a heavy hand, sacrificing dramatic tension to underline his movies’ important themes.
No movie underscores this problem like Lions For Lambs, a Gulf War treatise written by Matthew Michael Carnahan. Redford stars alongside fantastic actors such as Glenn Close and Tom Cruise but asks them to deliver overwrought monologues. Even those who agree with the politics of Lions For Lambs feel harangued by the movie’s self-righteousness.
4. Eat, Pray, Love (2010)
Ryan Murphy continues to create successful shows such as American Horror Story and 9-1-1. Yet, even Murphy’s biggest fans admit that he’s not for everyone. Everyone can agree that Murphy’s second directorial feature stinks.
Based on the novel by Elizabeth Gilbert and co-written by Murphy and Jennifer Salt, Eat, Pray, Love stars Julia Roberts as a vacuous woman who feels guilty about being selfish until she travels the world and decides to not feel guilty that she’s selfish. Roberts tries to find charm in the material, and Murphy gets some compelling co-stars in Javier Bardem and Richard Jenkins. Eat, Pray, Love’s first-world feminism and glib perspective make most viewers want to gag, scream, hate.
5. Rollerball (2002)
On paper, Rollerball sounds like a slam dunk. The 1975 original has a lot going for it, including a fantastic lead performance by James Caan and able direction from Norman Jewison, but it could use updated effects. Enter John McTiernan, an action movie great who made Die Hard, Predator, and The Hunt for Red October. Who else could update a futuristic sports movie/resistance parable?
Apparently, no one can because Rollerball 2002 stinks. McTiernan chooses a poor lead in Chris Klein, who lacks Caan’s gruff charisma and plays the hero as an oblivious airhead. Worse, McTiernan seems to have forgotten how to shoot action, choosing too many close-ups and failing to explain the function of the titular sport. Maybe a new remake will update Rollerball for real.
6. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023)
In most cases, a low-budget independent picture such as Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey would not make this list. After all, it’s not fun to pick on films that can’t overcome their minimal cash flow when so many pictures with massive studio backing turn out worse.
However, Blood and Honey earned its place with its audacious and base premise. Once Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet entered the public domain, writer and director Rhys Frake-Waterfield jumped to the most obvious take, changing the beloved characters created by A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard into savage murderers. Everything else in the film feels just as lazy, from its dull fright sequences to its tissue-thin plot. In the end, Blood and Honey wasn’t worth the bother.
7. Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)
Manos: The Hands of Fate began as a bet, as writer and director Harold P. Warren boasted that anyone could make a horror film. A screenwriter friend took Warren up on the challenge, and Warren got to work on his film. Warren came up with the idea of a nondescript American family on vacation, who gets kidnapped by the minion Torgo (John Reynolds) who seeks wives for “the Master” (Tom Neyman).
The glacial pace and obvious plot beats strip Manos of any potential terror. While the team from Mystery Science Theater 3000 has made Manos at least watchable with their jokes, the one person who liked the movie was Warren’s friend, who won the bet with ease.
8. Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
Despite its demonic subject matter, The Exorcist is a miracle of a movie thanks to the explosive combination of writer William Peter Blatty, the devout Catholic who wrote the book and the screenplay, and director William Friedkin, an avowed atheist. When the duo showed no interest in making a sequel, Warner Brothers picked another outsized personality to helm Exorcist II: The Heretic, John Boorman. Boorman made big, bold movies such as Excalibur and Deliverance, and came to the project with big ideas.
Big and lousy ideas, it turns out. Boorman and screenwriter William Goodhart wanted a more hopeful film about good overcoming evil, resulting in a messy plot. Richard Burton’s wayward priest covers ground already tread in the previous movie and additions such as James Earl Jones as an African chief/insect researcher and Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) becoming a dance star.
9. Catwoman (2004)
Halle Berry won over a lot of skeptics in 2004 when she appeared in person to receive her Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for the movie Catwoman. The fact that she arrived holding a Best Actress Oscar from two years earlier helped, as did the fact that neither she nor any of her co-stars were the problem with Catwoman.
Instead, the blame goes to director Pitof, who shoots this superhero spin-off with the pretensions of an art film and the depth of a perfume commercial. Pitof transforms a fine but forgettable story about a woman with cat powers fighting an invincible make-up magnate (Sharon Stone) into a nauseating experience, with too many camera movements and excessive cuts.
10. Space Jam (1996)
To this day, people of a certain age defend Space Jam as a good film. Those people should realize that they have long passed the age when they can make such a claim, which is dubious even coming from a child.
In theory, Space Jam teams the Looney Tunes with NBA star Michael Jordan in an intergalactic basketball match. In practice, Space Jam saps the humor and energy from Bugs Bunny and crew to shove them into a Nike commercial. Even young children can recognize that the film has no jokes or imagination, just an executive's sense of cool.
11. The Avengers (1998)
The Avengers mistakes the viewing public’s interest in the main characters, creating a film with too many unconvincing effects, an incomprehensible plot, and a great actor putting in a misguided performance as the villain.
No, this isn’t about 2012’s The Avengers, the delightful Marvel movie about Captain America and Iron Man. This is about 1998’s The Avengers, an adaptation of the campy British espionage show from the 1960s.
Director Jeremiah S. Chechik and writer Don Macpherson lean into camp and get a solid cast with Ralph Fiennes as the dapper Mr. Steed, Uma Thurman as the sleek Mrs. Peel, and Sean Connery as a mad scientist. But all these qualities work toward a loud, self-satisfied film that never delivers on the good time it promises.
12. Mac & Me (1988)
Most movie executives take a cynical approach to children’s films, hoping that kids won’t be discerning enough to complain about the sloppy films they create. Instead of seeing the craft and beauty in Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, these execs saw dollar signs.
Mac & Me shares some surface-level traits with E.T., in particular the friendship between an awkward kid (Jonathan Ward) who befriends a lost alien called Mac. However, director Stewart Raffill and his co-writer Steve Feke show more interest in product placement, making Mac & Me less a heartwarming tale about a bond between two misfits and more an ode to McDonald’s and Coca-Cola.
13. The Laundromat (2019)
At the end of The Laundromat, the woman playing Panamanian executive Elena peels off her wig and scrubs off her make-up to reveal that she’s Meryl Streep, who also played the cheated widow Ellen. Streep addresses the camera as she lectures about the nature of global financial dealings, which allow a minority to grow their fortunes at the cost of good people like Ellen.
It’s a pretentious and ill-advised way to end a film that wants to follow the lead of The Big Short by entertaining viewers while revealing the workings of unjust financial systems. Instead, The Laundromat is preachy and smug, as the often great director Steven Soderbergh fails to make the script by Scott Z. Burns palatable.
14. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
In 1967, MGM Studios pulled off a holiday miracle when they adapted the delightful 1957 book How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss into a perfect television special. Of course, they had some help, in the form of legendary Warner Brothers animator Chuck Jones and narration from Boris Karloff. But the show retained the books’ warm tone and visual audacity.
The same cannot be said of the bloated, grotesque version from 2000. It too had talent in front of and behind the camera, with Jim Carrey in the lead and Ron Howard directing. But it makes every wrong decision, as Carrey’s mugging never charms and Howard fills the frame with hideous colors and unsettling designs.
15. Madame Web (2024)
Even in a period of superhero fatigue, movies about folks in capes and tights make money, and no superhero is more popular than Spider-Man. So one might understand why Sony would keep making superhero movies featuring Spider-Man characters, even if rights issues prevent them from using Peter Parker himself.
But nothing explains the existence of Madame Web. Directed by S. J. Clarkson, who co-wrote the script with three others, Madame Web takes a very minor character from the comics, a blind older woman with precognition, and tries to make her into a hip action hero. The project fails in every regard, with a plot too convoluted to follow, an indifferent performance from lead Dakota Johnson, and distracting product placement.
16. Nothing But Trouble (1991)
Dan Aykroyd is a comedy genius. He helped launch Saturday Night Live and has been a key part of classic movies, such as Ghostbusters and Trading Places. However, on his own, Aykroyd can have some off-putting ideas. He marshals all of those ideas for his passion project Nothing But Trouble, which he wrote and directed.
Aykroyd gets a bunch of his pals to co-star, such as Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, and John Candy. Whatever charm they bring gets undermined by the hideous characters Aykroyd creates, including a slobbering, sad*stic judge and a pair of lumbering man-babies. One almost has to admire how devoted Nothing But Trouble is to revolting its audience. Almost.
17. Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)
Thanks to the loving portrayal in the Tim Burton biopic baring his name, film fans have softened their opinions of director Ed Wood. Whatever feelings one might have toward the man, Wood’s movies remain difficult to watch.
The most infamous of them all is Plan 9 from Outer Space. As the title suggests, Plan 9 involves an alien invasion plot. But that’s just a loose thread to connect whatever scenes Wood could put together with his ramshackle crew and stock footage. It’s one thing to admire Wood’s pluck, but it’s something else altogether to try to sit through one of his movies.
18. Battlefield Earth (2000)
Battlefield Earth doesn’t join this list because it exists to promote Scientology. Philosophical and religious beliefs have inspired some of the greatest movies ever made, such as Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal or Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker. Battlefield Earth joins the list because it’s unwatchable.
Battlefield Earth may credit Roger Christian as director and Corey Mandell and J. D. Shapiro as writers, but it comes from the mind of star John Travolta, who long wanted a big-budget adaptation of the novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Travolta’s devotion fails to make for a compelling film, which gets tripped up with convoluted plot mechanics and incomprehensible visuals.
19. The Delta Force (1986)
Genre fans of the 1980s could always count on Cannon Films for cheap thrills. Operated by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, Cannon pumped out low-budget and satisfying genre thrillers, most of which went straight to video. Golan and Globus knew how to maximize their profit, but that didn’t always result in a good movie, as demonstrated by The Delta Force.
Written and directed by Golan, along with co-writer James Bruner, The Delta Force has the makings of a solid action flick. It co-stars reliable B-movie figure Lee Marvin and focuses on a special operations team. However, it stars Chuck Norris, a Bruce Lee-trained martial artist with zero charisma or screen presence. Norris mumbles his way through the picture, smothering the basic pleasures that The Delta Force could have offered.
20. North (1994)
“I hated, hated, hated this movie.” So declared the review of North by Roger Ebert, still considered the best movie critic who ever lived. At the time, Ebert’s review shocked audiences, who expected more from North director Rob Reiner. After all, Reiner had made great movies such as When Harry Met Sally… and The Princess Bride. How could he go so wrong?
Part of the blame goes to the source material, written by Alan Zweibel, who co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with Andrew Scheinman. North deals with unpleasant material, in which the titular kid (Elijah Wood) searches the world for new, and better parents. Whatever value that premise had gets squandered by Reiner and his team, who present an unpleasant, icky film that leaves everyone agreeing with Ebert.
21. Beauty and the Beast (2017)
1991’s Beauty and the Beast remains the high point of Disney’s animation renaissance, a gorgeous film with a simple story and outstanding songs. Of course, then, Disney would tarnish its legacy for a few bucks, with the horrid blockbuster hit it released in 2017.
Beauty and the Beast takes everything wonderful about the original film and ruins it. Director Bill Condon, working from a script by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos, makes the musical numbers frantic and unclear. Emma Watson is wooden as Belle, and Lumiere and Cogsworth have messy designs, replacing the clear visuals of the original. Every time someone watches the 2017 film, another petal drops from the perfect rose of a movie that was 1991’s Beauty and the Beast.
22. Honorable Men (2004)
Like Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, Honorable Men is the type of independent feature that most lists like this ignore. It’s made on a microscopic budget, has no studio backing, and relies on writer, director, and star Garrett Stewart Sayre to do most of the heavy lifting.
However, Honorable Men represents an indie movie trend in which creatives with little talent portray themselves as heroic, perfect, and admired by women. While this approach sometimes results in bad but enjoyable flicks such as The Room or Fateful Findings, Honorable Men adds to its self-satisfaction a morally queasy plot about a police officer who dates much younger women.
23. The Scarlet Letter (1995)
The Nathaniel Hawthorne period novel The Scarlet Letter focuses on one man’s struggle to be his authentic self within a rigid Puritan society. Somehow, director Roland Joffé and writer Douglas Day Stewart decided that it would make for a steamy adult drama.
Demi Moore and Gary Oldman star as the hottest Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale ever conceived. In place of the soul-searching and religious wonder of the original story, Joffé substitutes unconvincing love scenes and self-serious debate. Any teen hoping to skip out of a book report by watching this movie will soon retreat to the original novel.
24. Bee Movie (2007)
Throughout the 90s, Jerry Seinfeld became a huge star with his wry observational humor. For some reason, Seinfeld thought that his act would appeal to kids. So Seinfeld, along with three co-writers and directors Simon J. Smith and Steve Hickner created Bee Movie, in which he plays Barry B. Benson.
Every so often, Bee Movie tries to entertain kids with a slapstick joke. Most of the time, however, it focuses on a romance between Barry and a human woman (Renée Zellweger) and even includes visual references to The Graduate. Seinfeld and his co-creators might be impressed by their sophistication and film history knowledge, but no kid finds it entertaining.
25. The Last House on the Left (1972)
By the time of his death in 2015, writer and director Wes Craven had reinvented horror two times, first with A Nightmare on Elm Street and then with Scream. But he began with a real stinker, the exploitation film The Last House on the Left.
Inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, Craven had some heady ideas about revenge and purity. But he had to work in a low-budget, exploitation production, which resulted in a tonal mess. Philosophical inquiry and shocking violence get squeezed out by broad, racist humor, droning folk music, and sleazy camera work. To the good of everyone, The Last House on the Left was not Craven’s last movie ever made.
