The 35 worst movies of all time, according to critics
From ill-advised sequels like Scary Movie 5 to a bad documentary about Hillary Clinton, movie critics have deemed these films the worst of the worst
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Your support makes all the difference.While the moviegoing public will often flock in large numbers to enjoy bad movies (see: Suicide Squad), professional critics are, by contrast, quick to pile condemnation on films that strike them as inferior.
To find out which movies critics have deemed the worst of the worst, we turned to review aggregator Metacritic to compile this list of the most critically panned films in history.
From ill-advised sequels like Scary Movie 5 to a dubious documentary about Hillary Clinton, these films drew the ire of critics and provoked the repulsion of many.
Here are the 35 worst movies of all time, according to critics:
Note: Only movies with seven or more online reviews appear in the ranking, so it skews toward more recent films.
35. 3 Strikes (2000)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 4.0/10
Summary: “[Brian Hooks] plays a character who is just released from jail following his second offence. The state has adopted a three strikes rule and his next offence will possibly land him in prison for life.”
What critics said: “Feels like a very long late-night comedy sketch that occasionally veers beyond tastelessness toward something worse.” — The New York Times
34. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 8.0/10
Summary: “In defiance of the Elder Gods, the evil Outworlders are back to wreak hell on Earth. Earth's last hope is the mighty Liu Kang and his explosive fighting friends. They're all that stand between life… and annihilation!”
What critics said: “It's cynical and it's depressing, and I would lock a child in a room before I'd show him Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.” — L.A. Weekly
33. Date Movie (2006)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 2.9/10
Summary: “The twisted minds of two of the six screenwriters behind Scary Movie skewer the romantic comedy genre.”
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What critics said: “'Comedy is hard,' said Steve Martin. For the writers of Date Movie, it's apparently impossible.” — New York Daily News
32. Pinocchio (2002)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 2.9/10
Summary: “Roberto Benigni brings one of the world's most famous and beloved tales magically to the screen.”
What critics said: “It's an oddity that will be avoided by millions of people, this new Pinocchio. Osama bin Laden could attend a showing in Times Square and be confident of remaining hidden.” — The New York Times
31. Nine Lives (2016)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 2.8/10
Summary: “Tom Brand (Kevin Spacey) is a daredevil billionaire at the top of his game. ... Tom has a terrible accident. When he wakes he discovers he is trapped in the body of a cat.”
What critics said: “At 87 torturous, laugh-free minutes, the film could change the most avid cat fancier into a kitty hater.” — Rolling Stone
30. Scary Movie 5 (2013)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 2.7/10
Summary: “A couple begin to experience paranormal activity after bringing their newborn son home from the hospital. With the help of surveillance cameras and various experts, they learn they're being stalked by a nefarious demon, but in a funny way.”
What critics said: “Scary Movie V murdered my capacity to feel joy. ” — Village Voice
29. Some Kind of Beautiful (2015)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 5.0/10
Summary: “Richard (Pierce Brosnan) is a successful college professor who gives up a steady stream of one-night stands and beautiful undergrads for fatherhood with much younger Kate (Jessica Alba).”
What critics said: “Some kind of hideous, a perfect storm of romantic-comedy awfulness that seems to set the ailing genre back decades with the sheer force of its ineptitude.” — Variety
28. Whipped (2000)
Critic score: 10/100
User score: 6.3/10
Summary: “Every Sunday a group of friends get together to discuss their woman-chasing escapades. One week they discover that they are all picking up on the same girl.”
What critics said: “Ugly. And unpleasant. And clueless on a grand scale.” — San Francisco Chronicle
27. Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (2011)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 2/10
Summary: “Bucky is a small town grocery bagger, going nowhere in life – until he discovers that his conservative parents were once adult film stars!”
What critics said: “This may be the worst movie Pauly Shore has ever been in. Think about that. ” — The New York Times
26. Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 2/10
Summary: “In the year 3000, after the alien Psychlos conquer Earth, killing most of the humans so that they can strip the Earth of its resources, one man comes out of hiding in search of other surviving humans and hoping to overthrow the aliens.”
What critics said: “A picture that will be hailed without controversy as the worst of its kind ever made.” — Slate
25. The Tortured (2012)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 4.2/10
Summary: “Craig and Elise had all the ingredients for an ideal life... Then, on one sunny day, their perfect world is irrevocably shattered. Leaving their five year old son, Ben, alone for only a moment, Craig is horrified to see him being abducted from their own front yard.”
What critics said: “Lean, nasty, and patently absurd, The Tortured plays like one long scream of agony.” — Village Voice
24. Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 1.8/10
Summary: “The adventure continues with a new generation of talking toddlers. This time, the baby geniuses find themselves at the centre of a nefarious scheme led by powerful media mogul Bill Biscane (Jon Voight) to use his state-of-the-art satellite system to control the minds of the world's population.”
What critics said: “So bad that I predict there will be drinking games set around viewing it someday.” — The Washington Post
23. Alone in the Dark (2005)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 1.6/10
Summary: “Based on the best-selling Atari videogame series, this film features Edward Carnby (Christian Slater), a private investigator specialising in unexplainable supernatural phenomena.”
What critics said: “So mind-blowingly horrible that it teeters on the edge of cinematic immortality.” — San Francisco Chronicle
22. Atlas Shrugged III: Who Is John Galt? (2014)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 3.0/10
Summary: “Approaching collapse, the nation's economy is quickly eroding. As crime and fear take over the countryside, the government continues to exert its brutal force against the nation's most productive who are mysteriously vanishing - leaving behind a wake of despair.”
What critics said: “The movie's so slipshod and half-assed that I almost feel for Rand, whose ideas have proved enduring enough that they at least deserve a fair representation, if only for the sake of refutation.” — Village Voice
21. Meet The Spartans (2008)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 2.8/10
Summary: “The heroic Leonidas, armed with nothing by leather underwear and a cape, leads a ragtag group of 13 — count 'em, 13! — Spartans to defend their homeland against the invading Persians (whose ranks include Ghost Rider, Rocky Balboa, the Transformers, and a hunchbacked Paris Hilton).”
What critics said: “Gamely alternates between unfunny gay jokes and violent pratfalls for a good 80 minutes, finding time for not one, but two musical dance numbers set to 'I Will Survive.'” — The AV Club
20. Dirty Love (2005)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 2.8/10
Summary: “In the slapstick comedy Dirty Love, Jenny McCarthy is gorgeous, goofy and gross all at once in this hilarious take on one woman's chaotic quest for true love.”
What critics said: “Dirty Love wasn't written and directed, it was committed. Here is a film so pitiful, it doesn't rise to the level of badness. It is hopelessly incompetent.” — Chicago Sun-Times
19. State Property (2002)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 4.9/10
Summary: “Frustrated with being broke, 'Beans' (Beanie Sigel) decides that the only way to grasp the 'American Dream' is to take it. State Property follows Beans and his crew, the 'ABM' as they take over the city, creating mayhem as their empire builds.”
What critics said: “Result is a fairly good-looking video shot down by a hackneyed script, atrocious acting and a total lack of redeeming social value.” — Variety
18. The Mangler (1995)
Critic score: 8/100
User score: N/A
Summary: “A laundry-folding machine has been possessed by a demon from Hell, causing it to develop homicidal tendencies.”
What critics said: “It is not a compliment to suggest that a demonically possessed piece of machinery embarked on a bloodthirsty rampage has more personality than most of the flesh-and-blood characters in The Mangler, a horror movie based on a Stephen King story.” — The New York Times
17. Among Ravens (2014)
Critic score: 8/100
User score: 1.6/10
Summary: “An annual 4th of July weekend hosted by troubled couple Wendy (Amy Smart) and Ellis (Josh Leonard) is seen through the eyes of Joey (Johnny Sequoia), Wendy's ten year old daughter.”
What critics said: “Featuring unlikeable characters, preposterously contrived plotting, ham-fisted dialogue and strained attempts at poeticism, Among Ravens is a misfire on every level.” — The Hollywood Reporter
16. Septic Man (2014)
Critic score: 8/100
User score: 2.6/10
Summary: “Jack, a sewage worker who’s determined to uncover the cause of the town’s water contamination crisis, gets trapped underground in a septic tank and undergoes a hideous transformation.”
What critics said: “Beyond its mere unfunniness and stupidity, Septic Man is criminally unimaginative.” — The Dissolve
15. Transylmania (2009)
Critic score: 8/100
User score: 8.7/10
Summary: “Spoof horror in which a group of college kids do a semester abroad in Romania and realise that if the partying doesn't kill them, the vampires just might!”
What critics said: “The current vogue for all things vampiric is ripe for a satirical drubbing, but this repulsive comedy is part of the problem, not the solution.” — Chicago Reader
14. Is That a Gun in Your Pocket? (2016)
Critic score: 7/100
User score: 2.7/10
Summary: “If there’s one thing the men of Rockford, Texas love as much as their women, it’s their guns. But life in this idyllic town is turned upside-down when a gun incident at a neighborhood school spurs stay-at-home mom Jenna (Andrea Anders) to rethink Rockford’s obsessive gun culture.”
What critics said: “The movie tries to wrap an important social message in comedy, but it’s unpalatable all the way through.” — Los Angeles Times
13. Miss March (2009)
Critic score: 7/100
User score: 4.3/10
Summary: “Miss March tells the story of a young man who awakens from a four-year coma to hear that his once virginal high-school sweetheart has since become a naked centerfold in Playboy magazine.”
What critics said: “Writer-director-stars Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, of the Whitest Kids U'Know, here prove the crassest, most maladroit moviemakers you know.” — Entertainment Weekly
12. Screwed (2000)
Critic score: 7/100
User score: 8.2/10
Summary: “Working for a wealthy boss, a chauffeur kidnaps her dog and holds it for ransom. Accidentally the boss gets the dog back and thinks the chauffer has been kidnapped.”
What critics said: “A confusedly misconceived hybrid of interracial buddy comedy and imitation Marx Brothers farce.” — The New York Times
11. The Hottie & the Nottie (2008)
Critic score: 7/100
User score: 2.3/10
Summary: “A woman agrees to go on a date with a man only if he finds a suitor for her unattractive best friend.”
What critics said: “Great actors make the craft look easy. In the Paris Hilton comedy 'The Hottie and the Nottie,' acting looks very, very difficult.” — New York Post
10. Baby Geniuses (1999)
Critic score: 6/100
User score: 3.0/10
Summary: “Two doctors set out to dominate the world once they discover they can crack the code to a secret baby language.”
What critics said: “Bad films are easy to make, but a film as unpleasant as Baby Geniuses' achieves a kind of grandeur.” — Chicago Sun-Times
9. National Lampoon's Gold Diggers (2004)
Critic score: 6/100
User score: 2.5/10
Summary: “National Lampoon breaks new comedic ground as it explores the misadventures of two completely incompetent con men who, in desperation, turn their attention to the art of gold digging.”
What critics said: “So stupefyingly hideous that after watching it, you'll need to bathe in 10 gallons of disinfectant, get a full-body scrub and shampoo with vinegar to remove the scummy residue that remains.” — The Washington Post
8. The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence) (2015)
Critic score: 5/100
User score: 2.5/10
Summary: “Taking inspiration from The Human Centipede films, the warden of a notorious and troubled prison looks to create a 500-person human centipede as a solution to his problems.”
What critics said: “It’s only fitting that a series that began with the concept of linking the digestive tracts of three people would end by feasting on its own sh-t.” — The Dissolve
7. Vulgar (2002)
Critic score: 5/100
User score: 2.2/10
Summary: “A man who performs as a children's birthday party clown tries to piece his life back together after being gang-raped.”
What critics said: “Sure to appear in everyone's worst-of lists at year's end, to say nothing of a few bad dreams, Bryan Johnson's Vulgar is an unclassifiably awful study in self- and audience-abuse.” — Village Voice
6. Strippers (2000)
Critic score: 5/100
User score: 4.3/10
Summary: “Alan is having an horrendous day... he loses his job, money is missing from his bank account, he is evicted from his apartment, misses a date with his girlfriend and much more.”
What critics said: “Unbelievably awful celluloid-waster.” — New York Post
5. Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party (2016)
Critic score: 2/100
User score: 4.7/10
Summary: “Dinesh D'Souza analyses the history of the Democratic Party and what he thinks are Hillary Clinton's true motivations.”
What critics said: “Little more than an extended version of the kind of political screeds that can be found online with only a minimum of effort, this is just a terrible movie.” — RogerEbert.com
4. The Singing Forest (2003)
Critic score: 1/100
User score: 3/10
Summary: “Two lovers, killed during the Holocaust, are reincarnated. The first soul to return now has a twenty two year old daughter who is now in love with her father's past life lover.”
What critics said: “The Singing Forest was written and directed by Jorge Ameer, whose film Strippers opened three years ago and remained the single worst movie I had ever reviewed — until now.” — The New York Times
3. United Passions (2015)
Critic score: 1/100
User score: 0.7/10
Summary: “Three men—Jules Rimet (Gérard Depardieu), Joao Havelange (Sam Neill) and Sepp Blatter (Tim Roth)—establish FIFA and help make the World Cup the most popular sporting event in the world.”
What critics said: “As propaganda, United Passions is as subtle as an anvil to the temple. As drama, it’s not merely ham-fisted, but pork-shouldered, bacon-wristed, and sausage-elbowed.” — Village Voice
2. Bio-Dome (1996)
Critic score: 1/100
User score: 7.1/10
Summary: “Five brave scientists are forced to face life forms more perplexing, more terrifying, more annoying than anything they've ever encountered: Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin.”
What critics said: “The sheer ineptitude of the movie is supposed to be funny, but there's no lunacy behind it: Shore and his writers are like comedians on Prozac, smiling through the fart jokes without a hint of desperation.” — The New Yorker
1. Chaos (2005)
Critic score: 1/100
User score: 2.3/10
Summary: “Quite definitely one of the most brutal displays of violence ever set to celluloid, Chaos is a dark fairy tale of two young happy teens whose rose-colored contact lenses tint their wooded path a little too densely.”
What critics said: “Writer-director David DeFalco's ugly, pointless and dishonest remake of Craven's remake.” — L.A. Weekly
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