Great directors, terrible films: The biggest misses from Hollywood’s heaviest hitters
Directors like Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, and Martin Scorsese have won Oscars and critical acclaim. But they've also made films they'd love to forget
Film Features Steven Spielberg Steven Spielberg
The directors on this list rank among the most decorated in Hollywood history, with a banquet table full of Oscars to their collective credit and some of cinema’s most revered and lucrative titles scattered across their CVs. But even the likes of Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, James Cameron, and Francis Ford Coppola can swing and miss big. Whether it was a box office bomb, a notoriously troubled production, or a film that just failed to win the hearts of critics and fans, these directors and the other icons here have made some certified stinkers. Given their stellar batting average, though, we forgive them. But in case we need reminding that even Ridley Scott and the Coen brothers aren’t perfect, here’s our look at the worst films from some of Hollywood’s greatest directors.
428 Comments
The Ladykillers is the ONE Coen Bros. movie that I just find completely irredeemable, especially when compared to the brilliant original. It’s just woefully wrongheaded at every possible level.
At least with Intolerable Cruelty, which is another dud, I’ll admit, I could see what they were TRYING to do there. I saw what they were going for. They didn’t get there, mind you, but I could see the finish line they had in mind.
I enjoyed Intolerable Cruelty. They wanted to make a homage to golden-era Hollywood romantic farce, and did so. To me it falls into their bucket of films that they seemed to make for their own amusement rather than critical or box office success. I’m not sure I’ve seen filmmakers who give less of a fuck what anyone thinks of their work. Fortunately most of it is fantastic, but it’s still clearly whatever interests them.
Yeah, there’s stuff IN it I like, but overall it just kinda fell flat for me. It’s a misstep for me, but not an out and out mistake like Ladykillers.
Other than clowning on Clooney’s megawatt charisma, it’s a movie that could have been directed by a number of different people. It doesn’t have the usual Coen stamp.
And as for Clownin’ on Clooney, I mean, they already kinda did that with O Brother!
That’s what I mean – they basically saved him from a career of faceman roles in mediocre movies.
Miami Vice is hardly Mann’s worst film and is, in my opinion, his most underrated. It’s fucking awesome.His worst would be Public Enemies.
Good call. I know I saw both in theaters. I don’t quite remember hating or liking Miami Vice. But I did recently look to see if it was streaming anywhere to possibly watch it again. That thought has never crossed my mind in regards to Public Enemies.
After Collateral I remember being disappointed by Miami Vice, but I didn’t think it was terrible.
I saw Public Enemies in the theater and don’t remember a thing about it. Nothing. Not one scene, not one line of dialogue.
I don’t agree with the Public Enemies assertion – I think it’s pretty good and has some really interesting elements – but you’re dead-on about Vice. It absolutely rules.
Serious question: Did you watch the Miami Vice TV show when it ran? Because that was my problem with the film version, it didn’t compare well at all tonally to the TV show. The TV show was must watch viewing for me at the time, with it’s serious tone leavened just enough with the lightness of the setting and some humor. I found the movie to be WAY too serious.Also, as a side note, for a show about the problems of drugs in America, that show always made me want to toke up.
Yea, it really doesn’t compare to the classic show. That point of reference will probably affect how the movie lands for folks.
Serious question: Did you watch the Miami Vice TV show when it ran? I know you weren’t asking me, but I have never seen the show and I still thought Miami Vice was muddled. When it came out, the only Michael Mann movie I’d seen was Collateral, and I thought MV was a step down from that. I agree with the OP that Public Enemies was his weakest tho.
I don’t think that having 2 big stars in the movie version helped. The TV show ran with 2 (at the time) little known actors.And I really liked Collateral. I think it’s one of Cruise’s best roles, and I think that Foxx should have won his Oscar for his role in that instead of the Ray biopic.
No I didn’t see Miami Vice during its original airing as I born about halfway through its run.However, that being said, I did grow up watching it in reruns during the 90s, have watched it front to back on DVD, have quite literally met several of the cast and own a replica of Crockett’s white suit, so I can say without any doubt that I have an enormous love of it.But at the same time, I love the movie for different reasons. Its atmosphere is incredible, seeing the characters and situations reinterpreted with an extremely 2006 lense (The soundtrack and those awful suits that Crockett and Tubbs wear in the club scene) and the way it is shot is so visually interesting to me.It’s something I go back and rewatch at least once a year.
I think the worst thing about Miami Vice is that the source material is so indelibly associated with that extremely specific 80s aesthetic that it made a set-in-2006 remake pointless. The movie itself is fine. It’s a solid Mann crime/cops movie that has zero reason to be connected to the 80s show.
The TV pilot did about as good a job at building an emotional connection between characters as you’ll find. Crockett and Tubbs didn’t trust each other AT ALL but before the end ride together to what may be their deaths, stopping only for Crockett to call his soon to be ex-wife in case he never talks to her again. For a show known mostly for its 80s neon and Johnson’s suits it had surprising heart.
That sequence is incredible, especially for the time. It was cinematic in a way that TV really hadn’t been until that point.
There’s a reason the In the Air Tonight sequence remains in the conversation 30+ years later. They don’t even talk, it’s all in their faces.
The pilot is indeed excellent. I remember the first time I watched it again as an adult when I was 19 and it just blew me away.
I was really let down by Public Enemies. Shooting it digitally didn’t help either. I’ll always have that pretty great trailer, though. Love the music they used
Agreed. As the article itself notes, Miami Vice has a “stylish look and frenetic action sequences.” It’s not clear what else one can really expect from an action movie, and lots of movies supposedly focused on action don’t pull that off.
As long as “The Keep” exists, no, “Public Enemies” is not his worst (and, in fact, has some laudable qualities.)
“go-fast boats”
A friend of mine was an extra in Public Enemies – to approximate a 20s haircut they put her long hair in a ponytail and then cut the ponytail off. Nothing in the movie could be as good as that picture of her in a vintage dress holding her disembodied ponytail.
Hook by Steven SpielbergPredictable pick. Also incorrect. FFS, Always was RIGHT THERE.
Spielberg is interesting in that a bunch of his flawed films that people have decided were terrible are actually pretty good. I’ll stick up for Hook and The Terminal.
Hook’s a weird one, even when I was a little kid I found it painfully boring at some points, but it definitely left a big impact in a lot of the things that did work.
Hook is easily one of my child hood favourites.Maybe adults weren’t into it but please hop in a time machine and ask the kid version of me how delighted I was by that film.
I love The Terminal.
Hook is a fun movie with a ton of great bits and fun performances. Everything with Hoffman’s borderline-suicidal Captain Hook was great, and somehow sneaking in a Glenn Close cameo as a bearded pirate is one of those weird details I love. It’s also aggressively, unabashedly corny and sincere. It wears its heart on its sleeve so completely that it begs to be crapped on by internet savages with withered little souls.
Hoffman went full Pantomime baddie with the role and knocked it out of the park. Bob Hoskins was also terrific. The movie basically worked because of them.
Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was EVEN MORE RIGHT THERE!
I hated Hook from the jump, but have always assumed that given the chronology, it and (the nearly as bad) JP2 were the price he paid to get Schindler’s List made the way he wanted. Also kinda surprised Always hasn’t been mentioned here as a contender for his worst (I have a soft spot for it though, and maybe people have just forgotten it).
I know it’s really easy to forget about B.F.G. but oof! Hook was the highest level of cinematic masterpieces compared to B.F.G.
Popeye is amazing. Still holds up from my childhood wearing-out-the-VHS.
Hook is very flawed but still a lot of fun.
Notice how two of these movies have Robin Williams playing adult-looking kids. The whole idea just doesn’t work, not matter how much Robin gives to the roles. Hook is watchable for the banter between Dustin Hoffman and Bob Hoskins. I also enjoyed watching Jupiter Ascending purely as a campy movie.
As an actual kid at the time of release, Hook was easily in my top 5. You don’t know what your talking about.
Hook was brimming with child like wonder for me. The imaginary food fight? I’m sorry I unabashedly love Hook.
Robin Williams death fucked me up as a kid but this movie is definitely part of that. I remember calling up my Dad that day and we both just cried on the phone.
I love Hook – again, I was a child when it came out and it’s easily one of my favourite films from growing up.
Not I disagree with your love for Hook but I gotta ask, you were a kid at the time of the release of Hook AND at the time of Robin Williams death? You from Neverland?
I came on just to make a similar comment. There’s a ton of internet hate for Hook, but I really enjoy them movie. As a dad, I tear up every time I watch it at the part where Peter realizes his happy thought is his kids and he’s able to fly again. Certainly oversentimental, but I have a real soft spot for this movie
It’s not exactly a new phenomenon that people will continue to treasure schlock that they enjoyed as kids. Nostalgia strongly colors perception. I’m from Gen X: we all still champion a host of objectively terrible cartoons that were just 22-minute toy commercials, and most of us can simultaneously love and praise a thing and acknowledge that it isn’t actually, well, good.It’s cool when a thing that you loved as a kid holds up and actually is awesome, because then when you share it with your wife and kids and whatnot, they don’t laugh at you. But you can still enjoy junk that hit right in childhood.
we all still champion a host of objectively terrible cartoons that were just 22-minute toy commercials, and most of us can simultaneously love and praise a thing and acknowledge that it isn’t actually, well, good. Yep.HOTT TAEK: Thundercats is fucking garbage. It barely held up THEN.
Yeah, I was never much of a fan of that particular one.
Star Blazers FTW. No toys involved.
agree, but not exactly how i feel. I have plenty of stuff i like that’s “so bad it’s good,” or stuff that’s associated with other good memories. While I don’t think Hook is any kind of masterpiece, I do think it’s an ok movie, and not deserving of the ton of crap it gets on the interweb
I do think a lot of the crap that it gets is just the result of who directed it. If it was anyone else, it wouldn’t constantly be reassessed in that context, and far fewer people would be talking about its flaws. A lot of the movies on this list wouldn’t ever come up if not for where they land in each director’s catalogue.
strong agree-also related to budget cost. I will certainly concede that Hook probably not as good as a movie with it’s budget size should be. On the other hand, why do I as a viewer give a crap how much the movie cost? That’s not my problem. I can understand bean counters at the studio saying, this movie ain’t worth what we spent on it. But again, that’s not something that affects my viewing pleasure
I heard someone say yesterday that Herculoids was one of the best cartoons ever made. That person’s age? You guessed it; 53.
Hook is actually good. Nostalgia isn’t a big factor for me since I have a terrible memory so I’m always judging what I watch during that moment not from what I felt in the past and the movie still holds up.
Okay.
People use nostalgia to much as a excuse to explain why they can’t comprehend why people like something they don’t, which your comment is leaning towards.
Well, okay. Some people just have terrible fucking taste. Better?When there is a chasm in perception between people who were children when the thing came out and those that were not, nostalgia is a reasonable and gracious explanation. But hey, not everyone wants gracious.
Thank you for admitting your own faults.
Tfw you’re too fucking thin-skinned for the gentlest possible disagreement.
Sorry I keep forgetting notifications doesn’t show the entire comment so my sarcasm was still with your single word reply of Okay.You have a misconception of how big this chasm is. It’s only big hear because the writers don’t like the movie go outside this limited circle and the dislike and love is pretty equal.
physician, heal thyself
Troll, maybe consider having your own takes on things rather than just pointlessly sniping.
Okay, my take is that Hook is an uneven movie and those who like it and those who dislike it each have valid opinions that aren’t worth going several comments deep to defend with such trollish (heal thyself) bile and bad faith.
I didn’t even comment on the quality of this movie, just offered an incredibly mild take on why this movie and movies like it create this kind of conflict and how when you first engage with art can make a profound difference in how you view it. Given how every commenter praising the movie clearly references seeing it as a child, I thought this was so self-evident as to be pointless to post, but did not imagine someone working themselves up to be offended by the suggestion.Then this kid caught feelings because I didn’t say that this film is objectively good, so I gave him the negative comment he seemed to seek. Then you showed up for your pointless troll from the wings stuff.
I won’t hear a word against the Mars and Mattel Quick Energy Chocobot Hour!
Yup you have to have been a kid in the 90’s to like Hook apparently. Loved it then. Would probably still like it now. Was very confused to hear it was panned when it came out
“Banter”The romance between them.
“Try and stop me, Smee” 😉
The idea worked when Tom Hanks did it in Big.
For the most part, Hanks played the 13 year old as too naive and child-like. I was 13 when it came out, and felt that way as well.
Maybe because Hanks took his ritalin.
Wait people didn’t like Hook? I’m 31 so sometimes I’m surprised by the cultural conversation surrounding things that were released when I was a kid but my gosh I have so much Hook nostalgia. RUFIO RUFIO!
“There you are Peter” *stretches smile on Robin Williams face*
It’s a friggin classic.
I’m in my 40s, I love Hook, it was released at the right time for me.Spielberg hates the movie himself, but we can all agree, he’s just wrong.
i think a lot of little boys discovered their first boycrush in “hook.”
I remember that! Although I think mine was one of the kids in Secret Garden (1993).
Smee and Hook are life goals, let’s be honest.
You can feel the guy going through a crisis realizing his kids are growing up while he’s working too hard. To the movie’s benefit and detriment, he’s processing some shit up there on the screen; I get why he doesn’t like it.
Yeah, this one surprised me. Hook is magical. It’s not aiming to be high cinema, and it doesn’t achieve that. But it is a wonderful kids’ movie that is not physically painful for adults to sit through. If you were young when it came out, you most likely loved it and still have a lot of nostalgic warmth for it. And you’re right, that moment where the lost boy stretches Williams’ face and says, “There you are, Peter,” is just the best. The sparkle in Robin Williams’ eyes is just infectious.
If you’re an animation fan, the actor who played Rufio also became a well-liked voice actor (he’s Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender), so I appreciate the film for that as well.
My least favorite Richard Linklater film is actually Waking Life. I love animation, but the rotoscoping looks bizarre to me, and I couldn’t follow the plot. Not sure why it’s ended up on “animation for people who hate animation” lists.
I think the problem is, though, watching it as a kid I thought all the sentimental stuff with Peter having to learn to be a kid again and the general family drama was a little boring. It occupies this weird place where the themes it’s dealing with are mostly for the parents but they don’t harmonize with the fun action adventure.There’s also a way in which it really seems overdesigned- like yeah it’s preferable to a mass of CGI but it’s mostly the same problem where all these big expensive setpieces and gaudy costumes crowd out any sense of the personal.
Same, I was the perfect age to latch onto Hook but it was very meh for me. Same with Goonies…I was a really popular kid as you can tell.
The Goonies is a really great idea for a kids’ movie, it’s got treasure maps and pirate ships and secret passages and a monster guy who turns out to be a friend, but there’s just something off in the execution.
Though everyone involved seems to have fun, I never felt someone as far away from the script and the tone as what Richard Donner does in there.
Pretty much the only reason I clicked on this article. I was like “Hook can’t possibly be on this list, right? Right?!?”
It’s not a very good movie. Good performances, bad script, bad dialogue. If you hadn’t seen it when you were a kid you wouldn’t like it today.
I hate Hook. Never liked it, besides the Robin Williams performance.
I tried rewatching it many times and I just can’t get behind it.
That said, I never likes Peter Pan’s story to begin with so that doesn’t help.
It’s the perfect movie for people to be fond about because they watched it on VHS a ton as a kid – sentimental, ridiculous, but also fun.
It’s possible people were confused by the premise. I was little when it came out but no one seemed particularly enthusiastic about it release. I think Hoffman’s Hook was a bit over the top as well. In general it just suffered by comparison to Spielberg’s previous works.
Hook was torched by critics at the time. The people who love it now are those of us that saw it as kids.
Same. Maybe because I was the right age, but I really loved Hook. It was definitely one of the most memorable movie experiences of my childhood. Watching it again as an adult…yeah it’s got flaws. I think Dustin Hoffmann was probably miscast. Roger Ebert thought someone like F. Murray Abraham would’ve been better, and I agree. The film loses a bit of steam in the second half, but the first half is excellent. Hook may not be top tier Spielberg, but it sure as hell isn’t one of his worst by any stretch, and I would probably put it somewhere in the 50th percentile among his work.
Spielberg’s comments make sense, though. Because the movie is great but very uneven. The concept is solid and some of the sequences are just incredible — but if you compare it to E.T., you see how the goofy kid moments aren’t well balanced to the great dramatic scenes. Hook is a great family movie but it could have been a cinema classic on par with E.T.
I’m not even the biggest fan of Hook, but come on! 1941 was RIGHT there as an option!
I’m in the “Hook sucks” camp and was deeply surprised when I found out that so many kids grew up with the movie and loved it. I freely admit that maybe it’s just taste but I’ve always had a theory that a lot of crummy movies like Hook or Ghostbusters 2 ended up with a lot of love because they were constantly running on TBS or USA or other cable channels and kids just grew up with them.
Anyways, anybody saying that Hook is worse than Crystal Skull is nuts.
It’s a close call between Goonies and Hook for worst Spielberg-associated production that benefits from nostalgia
https://lifehacker.com/30-beloved-movie-classics-that-dont-hold-up-according-1848049440
Goonies isn’t bad but I stunned by how many people think it’s a classic. I lived in Portland, Oregon, and I had visiting friends insist on spending time at Canyon Beach and Astoria just to hit up the landmarks from the film (and, hey, those towns are charming in their own right but still…)
Crystal Skull, Ready Player One, and War of the Worlds are all worse than Hook in my book.
Disagree strongly on War of the Worlds. The last act of the movie fails but the preceding 2/3rds before it is incredibly strong. Some of the best action/horror filmmaking Spielberg has done since the first Jurassic Park (better IMO)
I’ll have to give it a new watch. I don’t think I’ve seen it since it was in theaters and that was during my highly cynical film snob era.
I loved Hook, but I do know that it’s not universally beloved. I believe it was, if not a flop, at least a box office disappointment. Given the premise of the article, it’s hard to find a better candidate for Spielberg’s “worst” – I guess Ready Player One (though I feel like that was really the best anyone was going to do with that material) or Crystal Skull?
Feels like major, deliberate clickbait to me. I don’t think anyone would argue that Hook is the perfect movie or anything like that, but it was a huge blockbuster with memorable performances from Williams and Hoffman, some incredibly imaginative sets and effects that were pretty cutting edge at the time, writing that ranged from okay-that-was-pretty-bad to actually really good in parts, and powerful moments and images that are still seared into folks’ memories over 30 years later. Even the bad or extremely cheesy parts had that “earnest” factor to them; nobody slept-walk their way through the making of that movie. Calling it a “terrible film” is just rank trolling.
I dunno — I disliked it from the first time I saw it, then had to watch it repeatedly at our video store, trying to unload copies. It’s cut from the same cloth as Temple of Doom, I think — forced, shrill freneticism, visually overstuffed and ugly.My two cents, probably worth about as much.
Yeah, I was not personally a fan of Hook, but I think it is on this list just to get people to read (which would be silly since I think it is an interesting article in general). Hook has a huge following out there to be honest, and I totally get it.
I simultaneously will go to bat for Hook and declare it deserves its ire. I was like six when it came out, so naturally I have nostalgic love for it.However, it’s tonally weird; at times, it feels like an adult guessing at what kids like, and others it feels like a kid guessing at what adults like. The beige/rucksack aesthetic of the Lost Boys’ camp looks like ass. I think Robin Williams is a weird choice, as he’s wisecracking even when he’s supposed to be humorless. Oh, and the part where Julia Roberts becomes big and kisses Peter is troubling.But it also has great, committed performances from Hoffman and Hoskins, a fun score, great bits from the Lost Boys themselves, and some fun swordfights. Oh, and the part where Julia Roberts becomes big and kisses Peter is kinda hot.
I read somewhere that Roberts insisted they shoehorn that in.
It was a bonafide classic among my friendgroup too
I feel like both culturally AND personally, opinions on ‘Hook’ kind of went in a circle since its release. I was a tween when it came out, and most other folks my age and younger (let’s face it, the target audience) absolutely loved it. Then as I got older, the general consensus was that it was horrible.
Now that I’m in my 40’s I weirdly enjoy it again, and I hear and read a lot of reappraisals where people have come around to finding it charming again.
I first saw Hook thirty years ago, and to this day I still want to eat the food the Lost Boys were eating.
Hook was ok but 1941 was an unfunny disaster.
Australia was fun tho, as bad as a rep as it gets I thought it was pretty silly enjoyment
In fairness, I believe this can be said about all Baz Luhrmann movies.
You’re never going to be bored, that’s for sure. Annoyed or seizing, perhaps, but not bored.
Elvis is no great shakes either.
Cool! I can immediately dismiss this list because the first slide is Robert Altman’s amazing live action Popeye movie. Like I’d give you the Prairie Home Companion movie or even though I like it OC and Stiggs but not Popeye.
“Ready to Wear” (or “Prêt-à-Porter”) is by far Altman’s worst. I walked out of the theater.
…worse than Quintet?
Hm. I liked Quintet, actually. Despite not understanding a thing that was going on. Liked the sets and the costumes and the dogs.I will defend Popeye to the ends of the earth. Beautifully designed [based on the earliest Segar strips, not the cartoons] and perfectly cast. Yes, Williams’ dialogue is unintelligible sometimes – that was based on the cartoons, wherein sometimes Popeye was mock-swearing up a storm. You know, like a sailor. I know its plot is… not really much, and the effects are clunky. But two things – kids, in my experience, love the damn thing. And despite what business it did here – which was 50 million I am pretty sure, it made a ton more overseas.
Yeah, Popeye gets this bad rep that it was a flop — financially, it did really well.
As one of the few people who watched HEALTH and one of the even fewer one who defend it, I would say that yeah Quintet may be his worst, or Dr T.
You did not just come for The Hotstepper!!!
Pret-a-porter is watchable. Goofy. I haven’t seen it in a long time, but I liked it. He had maybe fallen into a rut of doing the same thing by that point. But, it was a thing that no one else was really doing.
My exact thoughts regarding Popeye and this list. I mean, for Pete’s sake, a number of these movies, including Miami Vice, Bad News Bears and, yes, Popeye, have good write-ups on this site. So, how can they be terrible films?The AV Club keeps suckering me in and then I get upset when the content makes no sense. I must stop the cycle!
I still live in the delusion that it’s 10 years ago and this site still has soul.
Oh the glory days.
Pret-a-Porter or whatever it was called
I like that the author of that Popeye section obviously never saw the cartoon the movie was based on, and complained that Williams mumbled his dialogue. Like, yeah, dude, that’s what Popeye does.
Popeye was a kids movie that kids enjoyed (myself included). I’d say it 100% delivered on its mission. Oh, and Williams did a great job with a really unique cartoon character. Not sure who else could really have pulled it off.
I don’t like Popeye but it has its charms and isn’t the worst Altman film (the man took many wild swings and struck out often!)It has great songs, a game cast, and couple inspired scenes plus the amazing village set of Sweethaven is still standing in Malta. You can visit it and, yes, it’s weird.
EXACTLY. And for god’s sake, this may *still* be the comics-adaptation that best nails & respects the looks, characters and details of the actual original comic strip. The Jules Feiffer script rules and the Nilsson songs are full of earworms. [And, yeah, the correct answer is “Stiggs” anyway.]
Anyone who thinks Popeye is Altman’s worst movie needs to sit through fuckin’ Quintet.
Popeye was the very first movie I ever saw in a theater and I love it to this day. I rewatched it a few weeks ago with my son and he also loved it. DeSalvo is a joyless douche that hates everything.
You get OC & Stiggs out of your mouth! That movie is bonkers and amazing – King Sunny Ade, Paul Dooley, Dennis Hopper, Ray Walston, Jon Cryer, Jane Curtain, all of the total Schwabbiness? It’s probably his best film after McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Nashville.
Dude literally kicks off his list with a movie I love, have rewatched and listened to the soundtrack many times as an adult. Dismissed!
I dismissed the list because of Popeye, Hook, and Dune.
Jeeezus, THANK YOU!
popeye sucks
I have to disagree with a lot of these picks. For me the worst of these directors:-Chappie: Demonic is incredibly inept, but Chappie is grating and nearly impossible to sit through. At least with Demonic, I could laugh at how bad it is.-The Ghosts of Mars/Escape from L.A.(tie): The Ward is formulaic, but TGoM and Escape are incredible misfires.-Deadly Friend: I go back and forth with Wes. Even at his worst, there’s always some redeeming fun to be had. Deadly Friend has the basketball scene, but I always thought this should have been a PG kids/tween movie, and would have been better for it.
-Inland Empire: I can’t fault anyone for picking Dune, but I love so much about it(costumes, production design, performances). However, Inland Empire is a cobbled together experiment which even Lynch admits to. There’s a lot there to love, but even for Lynch, it’s unfocused.-The Last Airbender: The Happening is at least funny. TLA is borderline unwatchable. Everything is a mismatch of talent vs. source material. I was also about to put The Lady in the Water here too, simply for M. Night casting himself as a writer that will create a work that will change the world(or something to that effect).
-Chappie: Demonic is incredibly inept, but Chappie is grating and nearly impossible to sit through. At least with Demonic, I could laugh at how bad it is. What, you WEREN’T chomping at the bit for the cinematic debut of Die Antwoord!?
Only Blomkamp and Die Antwoord were dying for that.
I’m having a hard time swallowing that Blomkamp should be on this list at all. He made one bonkers, very original film, and one solid sci-fi movie. I’m not seeing much since then.
Taking Chappie off the table, did you see Demonic? It’s not just a bad movie, it’s ineptly made. It’s honestly amazing that the same man that produced the three previous movies, made a flat, Lifetime-looking movie, with a nonsensical plot.
No, and unless given a really emphatic endorsement by someone whose opinion I trust I don’t see myself watching another Blomkamp movie.
I remember the time my friend tried to show me a video of theirs and proclaiming how great they were. I had a lot of questions about his taste after that.
OBLIGATORY:
You’re bugging about Ghosts of Mars.
The Ghosts of Mars might be the biggest misfire I’ve seen in theater. So bad it’s terrible – there’s only one good intentional joke in that movie, when the guy is showing off his knife skills and accidentally cuts off his thumb (plus Ice Cube’s reaction).
Ok, but Deadly Friend DID have the basketball scene and it IS amazing. Also, the tacked on ending always makes me laugh.Personally, I think Shocker is bland and boring and would be my choice for Craven.
I go back and forth on Wes, which one is the worst. He takes huge swings and not everything works for everyone. I think Deadly Friend, if you took out the violence would have been a pretty fun PG/PG-13 teen movie.
Shocker, I love the ending. It’s such nonsense, but for my 7 year-old mind, it’s was like live action Looney Tunes and Mitch Pileggi is an underrated actor.
They probably only went with The Happening because it’s a Shyamalan original (and much more widely mocked) instead of an adaptation like TLA. Because yeah, TLA is by his worst movie by leaps and bounds.
There are some good movies on this list.
That’s the thing about great directors. Even when they stumble, they make something interesting. Popeye and Hook are great examples.
Spielberg has directed worse films that were bigger bombs than Hook. I would call Hook his most disappointing film rather than worst, because of what a missed opportunity it was given how much it had going for it versus the end result. It’s interesting that he thinks the first act and epilogue were the strongest parts of the film, because those are generally my favorite elements, too. The kidnapping is an A+ Spielberg sequence. There’s many individual moments on Neverland that are quite memorable, but it’s a bit of a slog getting between them.
The suspense of the kidnapping scene is terrific and was also terrifying to me as a kid.
Is The Black Dahlia really worse than Mission to Mars? I find that hard to believe.
I’m that one guy who actually liked Mission to Mars, as hokey as it is. Black Dahlia was pretty bad but my personal choice for worst De Palma film is his Bonfire of the Vanities adaptation.
Agreed. Bonfire is such a huge fucking misfire.
Is either worse than Bonfire of the Vanities, one of the legendary Hollywood disasters? I keep hoping someone will make another run at the LA Quartet, but fact is between LA Confidential being such perfection (and draws from three of the books) and the Black Dahlia mess, it’s unlikely.
Me too. ‘L.A. Confidential’ is fucking amazing, but it’s a loose adaptation, so there’s still room for a more faithful one. I wanna see that shit with the trains.
Best you’ll ever get is LA Noire drawing heavily from Elroys works at this point.
I never saw Black Dahlia, and probably never will. Too bad it’s apparently such a mess; it’s actually one of my favorite Ellroy books.
I haven’t either and was disappointed at the reception. Seems like it would be a tough story to screw up.
Yes, specifically for Swank’s grand mal seizure of a performance. It’s truly stunning, like your sister coming onto you.
The interesting thing is that James Ellroy himself loved how Black Dahlia turned out. At least the first cut before the studio insisted a bunch of stuff be taken out, which he’s never said anything about.
There are plenty of greater De Palma offenders than Black Dahlia, I mean…Raising Cain is also right there.
Is Piranha II: The Spawning really worse than Avatar?
“It looks like human DNA, but it’s missing two chromosomes at the end”. An actual line of dialogue from Mission to Mars, from a character looking at about 5 base pairs of DNA. This is what’s wrong with this country — that someone can get (presumably) through high school and write a line like that.
HA! I have not seen the film but that line by a “scientist” is hilarious. Sort of like saying “It looks sort of like a bird, but it is missing the forehead feet”.
I liked Mission to Mars more than Black Dahlia, that’s for sure.
The Ninth Gate is a fun little movie. Frank Langella is really good in it. And I like A Good Year too. Marion Cottilard is delightful, of course.
I agree with the take on Good Year, though – Crowe just seemed miscast. I’m sure he far preferred hanging in the France wine country to spending months getting jacked and filming in the desert though.
Ninth Gate is some solid Lovecraftian camp.
My memory of Popeye is watching it as a kid at my grandparents house and getting a sore in my mouth from drinking too much orange juice.
My memory of it is from my Uncle’s when I was babysat, and it might have been my earliest experience of adaptation disappointment. Kept waiting for something, anything in this to be like the cartoons.
I was in high school at the time, and tried it straight, drunk, stoned…nope. No there there.
That accurately sums up the experience of watching Popeye
‘Boxcar Bertha’? Nope. ‘New York, New York.’‘The Black Dahlia’? Nope. ‘Bonfire of the Vanities.’‘Miami Vice’? Nope. ‘The Keep.’
I never saw Black Dahlia, but Bonfire was such a disappointment having read the book. So many great themes were absolutely left out in favor of the least of the story.
Yep.
New York New York is my pick too. Boxcar is so early on Martin was still learning the ropes. New York is why he will not do another musical. Only good part is Liza singing the title song.
Yep.
His next film, the dystopian action thriller Elysium, starring Matt Damon, was thinking-man’s science fiction and another win.This is the kindest write-up of Elysium I’ve seen since it was released. Between it, Chappie, and Demonic (which I had never even heard of until right now), when is it safe to say that District 9 was a fluke?
when is it safe to say that District 9 was a fluke?Right now.
District 9/Blomkamp are South Africa’s Sixth Sense/Shyamalan.
I liked Elysium just fine, but it was pretty by the numbers. I won’t ding Blomkamp for it, but agree that it and District 9 are really the only things of note he’s done.
Fluke. Three misfires in a row is not a sign of a great director.
I get the feeling it’s more like if any of those films had come first, it would be the one that everyone loved, and District 9 just had the good luck of being that one. Because the more films of his you watch, the more clear it is that “heavyhanded social analogy through sci-fi concept” is the only trick he knows.
I was thinking the same thing. If anything Blomkamp should be the reverse of this list, “Directors Who Keep Getting Work Despite Making Only One Good Movie”
I had not heard of Demonic until reading this article.
Chappie was awesome.But Chappie was arguably District 9 in a trenchcoat. There was a lot of its plot and main character that slant-rhymed with District 9’s plot and main character.Also, I think how much a person hates or loves Chappie depends rather sensitively on their ability to tolerate or enjoy Die Antwoord.
Neill Blomkamp is not a heavy hitter. He’s made exactly one passable movie, which happened to be his first. He doesn’t belong on this list, because his whole career is a miss.
Hook’s a great movie. How dare you.
Y’all really love to clickbate with Hook. Clearly you all have never watched or just ignore The Terminal and 1941.
1941 is pretty bad.
I agree with you about The Terminal. It sucks.
“Miami Vice by Michael Mann”Fuck aaaaaaaaaaaaallllllll the way off. Vice owns.
Hmm…I have some thoughts:- The Ladykillers is most definitely one of the Coens’ weakest films, sure, but I still find a lot of it pretty damn funny, just in a much broader, perhaps dumber way than the Coens’ sharper films. I just went with Tom Hanks’s silly accent and performance and it was something a little different for him. I love JK Simmons in this. The one Coens film I couldn’t really stand was Intolerable Cruelty.- Having Baz Luhrmann in this discussion at all as a “great director” is rather funny to me.- The inclusion of the Miami Vice movie is my biggest bone to pick here. Admittedly I didn’t think much of it when it first came out, but it has seriously grown on me after a couple of re-watches. It’s Michael Mann just stripping plot to bare essentials and putting mood, atmosphere, movement, music front and center. I dunno, I guess it’s one of those “just vibes” kind of films that really struck a chord with me after some time.- Totally agree about Hook, a movie I remember liking as a little kid but later found nearly unbearable upon a re-watch at an older age. One of those that’s really for a child’s eyes only maybe, and that’s fine.- Robert Zemeckis has unfortunately had a lot of stinkers in recent years to choose from. Haven’t seen his Pinocchio but Welcome to Marwen is likely the absolute worst movie I’ve seen in the last 5 years.
I also thought Ladykillers was funny, but I agree with DeSalvo that it’s not as funny as it thinks it is, and it comes across as not as funny as it should be. Maybe with a different lead actor the comedic timing would be better and it would be hilarious, but it’s just not there.
Robert Zemeckis has unfortunately had a lot of stinkers in recent years
to choose from. Haven’t seen his Pinocchio but Welcome to Marwen is
likely the absolute worst movie I’ve seen in the last 5 years.
That Marwen movie looked awful in the trailers. I’ve heard . . . not so great stuff about the real life guy it was based on, too.
Yeah, I know there was a documentary about the real guy that Steve Carell played in the Zemeckis movie. I just recall the character came off as increasingly creepy to me, when we were clearly supposed to sympathize and root for him. I remember finding it just a really off-putting movie overall, and Zemeckis once again trying to awkwardly show off the latest type of special effects that he’s obsessed with.
If you had previously watched the documentary about him, you would’ve joined me in going “Whaaaah?” at the Carell trailer.
Zemeckis has made exactly one decent movie in the last 20 years and that was Flight. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s also the rare movie he’s made that’s not up its own ass in special effects/CGI. The man who made Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit is long gone.
Yep, I also thought Flight was the only worthwhile thing he’s done in ages.
I loved Flight’s audacity to set up what looks like action+legal thriller but then actually turn into the most moving and realistic portrait of addiction I’ve ever seen.
The Walk was excellent, and the CG recreation of the towers is impeccable.
If “Joe Randomdude” had written and directed The Ladykillers, it would’ve been a cult classic. “Quirky, held together with safety pins, but with a genuinely weird and impressive verve, and a killer gospel soundtrack.” —AV Club Reviewer in Earth 312 AAlso, thank you Elvis movie for overshadowing what was heretofore considered Hanks’ worst performance.
I stand by Ladykillers.
Piranha 2 > Avatar
I can’t understand why AV Club insist on gargling Cameron’s balls over the Avatar movies. They are 45 minutes of story stretched into 3 hours of Jimmy jerking off on his computer
There seems to be an age break around Hook. If you watched it as a kid you liked it, if you saw it as an adult you probably did not like it???
I saw it for the first time last year, and I didn’t care much for it, but I didn’t hate it, at least. I think the divide is mostly on either side of “watch your kids at the play/concert” versus “provide for them.” Makes sense that kids and adults would mostly be on different sides of that divide.
I am a Zemeckis, “Pinocchio” defender. It’s full of mirth and whimsy and Zemeckis really cooks up some great effects during the Pleasure Island sequence. “Polar Express” is a horror show.
Polar Express is truly awful.
Pinocchio was absolutely, catastrophically unnecessary.But it sure wasn’t *bad*. Polar Express is trauma inducing.
And it wasn’t even justified! The (I think unfairly) maligned Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was a couple of years earlier than Polar Express and yet had CGI humans who actually looked reasonable.
I haven’t seen it, but isn’t Welcome to Marwen the obvious Zemeckis choice?
Confirmed: every movie has at least one defender.
Back to the Future 2 was worse
Mistakes: The lack of Scott’s Black Rain as his worst, and the inclusion of Miami Vice, Hook, and Roman (child) fucking Polanski
What’s wrong with Black Rain?
I found it massively cliched unentertaining prejudicial white savior nonsense. Also, I saw it pretty soon after release on VHS but not really since. Its impression as crap has really stuck with me, but I suppose that could change upon re-watch, I just have no interest, I guess?
Lynch’s Dune is a masterpiece! Get it off this slideshow.
It’s not. The ending completely falls apart.
The Ladykillers beat out Garfield?!? 😉
Not just Popeye himself. That whole movie feels like they’re making it up as they go when it comes to dialogue and songs. You can still get a good movie out of heavily improvised dialogue and good editing (see Smoky and the Bandit), but that was not the case with this.
I’m fond of Ladykillers, but I agree – it feels like this movie should be a lot funnier than it is. Something about the jokes just doesn’t land like it should, and I’m not sure if it’s the jokes themselves or the comedic timing. Maybe they needed someone who could chew scenery better (Hanks is usually not good in roles where he has to be a scenery-chewing villain or scumbag).
The Lynch Dune movie has its fandom. I’ve never understood why – it’s got some interesting visuals (albeit heavily limited by the technology at the time), but like the SyFy miniseries I don’t recall it really getting the thematic “heart” of Dune in the way that the Villevenue film does.
Strong disagree on the Ninth Gate. It’s an odd film, but I really like the twist at the ending. I read the novel it was based on, too, and liked the film more.
The problem with Jupiter Ascending is that the Wachowskis were so obviously in love with the setting they’d created, that it kind of suffocated the movie that it was ostensibly for. It’s a very interesting idea – that in a galactic empire where everything is cheap and plentiful due to technology, the most valuable thing becomes extra time and the wealthy are those with a stranglehold on its supply – but they drown you in exposition. The robot lawyer scene was pretty funny, though.
Shymalan does that too, sometimes – way too much exposition because he’s more in love with the premise or setting than the actual story.
Jupiter Ascending is a weird one. I’ve got a soft-spot for anyone willing and able to spend that kind of money to make a movie so ambitiously bonkers. I mean, I hated the movie, but I respected the hell out of the effort and quite liked most of the ideas behind it.
I liked how Jupiter Ascending had the “corrupt aristocracy in space” vibe from Dune in a time when nobody was doing anything with Dune.
I really like the first half of the Ninth Gate, but I find that the ending just gets a bit too silly for me.
It is a bit weird that it ends with him actually getting the correct page and opening the gate, versus the book ending (where it turns out there is no correct page – just a really good fraud). Maybe that felt too comical after the whole movie up to that point.
I was actually pleasantly spooked by the ambiguous ending. Did he, in fact, actually open the ninth gate? At that point, horror films are more or less obligated to end, because what follows is too unbearably weird to show or even imagine: think of the first “Lawnmower Man”. I haven’t read the book yet, though.
I don’t recall it really getting the thematic “heart” of Dune in the way that the Villevenue film does.I love the Lynch Dune, but you’re not wrong about the disconnection from the book. It might almost be better to view it as its own movie full of Lynch weirdness, with no relation to the book series
Lynch’s DUNE is a mess to be sure but it’s an epic mess with a great cast, powerful soundtrack by ToTo, visually striking and could have only happened in the late 70’s/early 80’s. Villeneuve’s DUNE just looks washed out, sterile and in spite of also having a pretty solid cast, Timothée Chalamet and Stellan Skarsgård were the only stand-outs. Jason ‘My Man’ Momoa is just being Jason Momoa and Hans Zimmer’s score just feels so generic and lazy. I think the strange, gutteral monk vocals section is the only thing I remember from the soundtrack. The worst offender in 2021’s DUNE is that it doesn’t really add anything new or offer anywhere near as interesting a vision than David Lynch’s.
Also Kyle MacLachlan is just a better Paul (and frankly a better actor period) than Chalamet, and the same for Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck as compared to Brolin.
Also Pug Life
Lynch’s Dune may not be the most faithful adaptation but it’s like the only sci-fi movie I feel where it really feels like an alien culture and not something translated in modern day terms. You get the sense that people actually think and act differently.The thing with Jupiter Ascending is that it’s basically a fairy tale. A young woman who hates her life is whisked off to a magical land where she’s the most important person and finds it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. The movie does sorta have the problem where it tries to be like a big action epic instead of leaning into that, but at its core it’s closer to something like Labyrinth. Probably one of their more flawed movies, to be sure, but has its moments.
I have a certain affection for Popeye, and the set is amazing. But yes, the songs in particular feel like Altman threw a song title at the actors and told them to wing it.
I’m a fan of the Ninth Gate, too. It works a lot better if you consider it to be some sort of supernatural mystery story and not an actual horror film. Maybe it helps to like books, too. Whether or not it’s an “elevated” horror film, I do think it’s at least dimly aware of its own ridiculousness. And Lena Olin gets naked at the end, and that’s not nothing.
Ninth Gate is a crappy movie with one of the most haunting endings of all time. On the one hand, it’s a triumph, he has achieved the ultimate dream of limitless knowledge and rides toward the shimmering light of eternity. On the other hand, he just released Satan. It’s simultaneously the ultimate triumph and the ultimate fail. I love it.
I know the ending of Ninth Gate is devisive, but I liked it. We’re left to speculate whether making a deal with the devil is such a good idea. Was he welcomed in Hell, or sent to eternal punishment for the sins he had committed?
I don’t hate the Coen “Ladykillers” as much as some people, but I agree it’s a disappointment — and it certainly pales in comparison to the wonderful, wonderful Ealing Studios original, with Alec Guinness. If you only think of Guinness as Obi-wan, you have to see “The Ladykillers.”
Ladykillers just feels . . . off. It’s kind of funny and I enjoyed it more than once, but it really feels like it should be a funnier film than it is – like the comedic timing isn’t landing or something like that.
Exactly. The remake (like most remakes) is just inferior in every way. I can only imagine that people who enjoy the remake have never seen the original.
See also : Kind Hearts and Coronets
And “The Lavender Hill Mob”!
Some of these are legitimately bad but most of them are interesting failures, and there are far worse things that a movie can be. Hook unironically kicks ass and while it’s certainly not up there with Spielberg’s best it is definitely not his worst.
Um half these movies are decent/good. I guess I have bad taste..
I actually agree with most of the list. But for these 3 directors, the worst movies I’ve watched from each has beenM. Night Shyamalan: The Happening The Last AirbenderSteven Spielberg: Hook Kingdom of the Crystal SkullRobert Zemeckis: Pinocchio Welcome to Marwen
Oh my goodness. How did they skip past Crystal Skull? It’s unwatchable and the pacing is awful, not to mention that the story is fragmented at best. Also, there’s no way in hell that Marion Ravenwood would raise a kid and call it Mutt by herself.
Marwen has no reason to exist when the documentary it was based on is easy to get. The doc is also less creepy and less don’t take your medicine? What a mess.
As the AV Club links to Miami Vice. Once of their articles praises how thrilling it was. The other was their original review. B+. Who makes these lists?
Not the same people who wrote those earlier articles? Why should we expect every person writing for the site, over the years to have the same opinions on things?
I’d argue that Shyamalan’s career is mostly misses, with a few hits. Personally, when the aliens invading earth (a planet 75+% water) were allergic to water, he completely lost his ‘auteur’ cred. When your big trick is the ‘shocking twist’ and that twist is, well, just so stupid…
He definitely went too long coming at his movies from the perspective of what the twist should be, rather than telling a compelling and coherent story along the way.
Especially when instead of just coming out and saying “water kills them” he tries to tease it out by having a confused news anchor describe their vulnerability as having to do with “some sort of ancient ritual” as though no one in the US had a way of figuring out the Spanish word for baptism.
I’m not even the biggest fan of Hook, but come on. 1941 was RIGHT there as an option!
I think Popeye is great.
Disappointing glimpse into the level of film knowledge we have at the AV Club now. How could you highlight Dune as an expensive foible and not, like, Fitzcarraldo? The Herzog blunder that took 5 years, involved building temporary communities and debatably led to actual preventable deaths?
Be…cause that’s not what that entry was about?
Then I think John Landis’ worst film is obvious.
Because Fitzcarraldo is good?
Because Fitzcarraldo is considered one of Herzog’s best films and doesn’t fit the criteria.
Ridley Scott has made as many bad movies as he’s made good movies, and he’s made a LOT of good movies.
One thing not wrong with Lynch’s Dune is the soundtrack. It’s still as EPIC as ever!
Deathproof is not just the worst Tarantino film, it is one of the three worst films ever made in the history of cinema. Saying he’s never made a bad film is hilarious, considering the existence of this stinker.
Ah, I love that good ol’ raw, unpasteurized internet hyperbole.
Never understood the hate for Death Proof. And as far as QT’s oeuvre is concerned, I’ll watch it any day over Hateful Eight.
I must admit to having never seen Hateful Eight, but outside of showing me four hours of him having a colonoscopy, I am not sure he could make something shittier than Death Proof.
It’s just by tarantino standards its kind of by the numbers. essentially an action thriller but the killer isn’t interesting and the way he kills people is so over the top. Hateful 8 at least has some good dialogue in it.
I think Death Proof doesn’t work without context. It works great as the second film in a goofy double feature homage to low budget 70s schlock. When Grindhouse crashed and burned at the box office they did everything possible to try and act like Deathproof and Planet Terror were always meant as separate films for the home release but that just never felt like the case in my mind. Seeing them without the goofy trailers just makes them both lesser works by great directors
yeah, Hateful Eight seemed like it was 10 hours long. All I can remember about it is Kurt Russell destroying a 150 year old Martin guitar….thinking it was a cheap prop
Ever made? I get the joy to leap to exaggeration but if that’s your view you need to see more movies, friend-o.
Nope. It is #3 on my personal list of the worst films ever made. As I explained in another comment, to be on that list, you have to have tried to make something good and failed miserably. There are no redeeming factors to Death Proof. It plays like Tarantino clipping out things his critics hated about his previous films and then just making a script out of those clippings.
Wha? Have you seen only 10 movies or something?Also, Death Proof is almost purposefully “bad” because it’s a too honest homage to b-list grindhouse movies from the 70s-80s. Watch some of those if you want to see some of the worst movies ever made.
Silly little Jimmy, I love 70’s/80’s grindhouse films. I suspect it is YOU who have never seen one of them. None of them were talky boring slogs with characters talking about nothing in particular. Do tell me about the 20 minutes of dialogue in Last House on the Left or Ilsa, She Wolf of the S. S.? Remember that great moment where Francis in his wheelchair in Texas Chainsaw Massacre went on and on about vaginas? See, if you knew what you were talking about, instead of what you gleamed from Tarantino interviews, you’d know grindhouse films were known for having very little dialogue. The dialogue was never the point. The blood, violence, and sex were.
No, Death Proof is not an homage to grindhouse films. It’s an homage to Tarantino himself. It is him, basically disappearing like an ourboros, up his own ass, riding a log flume of his own hype. It’s basically everything every critic of Tarantino’s others works has spoken negatively of, dragged into an unwatchable piece of shit only his most ardent crotch sniffers could like.
You are welcome for the education, Silly little Jimmy.
Who’s Jimmy?Also, most grindhouse movies were entirely dialogue in the second act because they didn’t have money to shoot any action. They start and end on action, middle of the movie was for going to the drive-in concession stand and necking. You mention two of the best grindhouse movies… that’s not what he was emulating.
You are Jimmy now. I’ve decided it.
“it is one of the three worst films ever made in the history of cinema”That’s such a stupidly unfounded edge lord statement and you know it!Do you honestly believe that Deathproof is worse than Disaster Movie (2008), Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010), Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004), House of the Dead (2003), Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas (2014), Son of the Mask (2005), Epic Movie (2007), Battlefield Earth (2000), or Dragonball Evolution (2009)? AKA some of the actual worst movies ever made…Because if you honestly think so, then you really need to get an MRI for some potentially drastic brain issues. Or watch more movies, ya buffoon!
I don’t count movies like Birdemic as even being movies, if we’re being honest. They’re basically one step above home movies. They’re not made with care or an attempt at making a quality film. No one looked at Son of the Mask and thought, “Well, I’m making a masterpiece.” So, I don’t count it. To make one of the worst movies ever made, you have to have intended to make something great and failed horribly. Stuff like Baby Geniuses and House of the Dead are disposable product, not art. It’s why I wouldn’t look at a 3 year old’s fingerpainting and think that was the worst painting I’ve ever seen, even if technically, it isn’t very good.
Death Proof fails in every conceivable way as a film. It is a chore to suffer through. Although, funny story…you mentioned Battlefield Earth when I said that Death Proof is in the three worst movies ever made. Can you guess what is number two, ahead of Death Proof (for the record, Kevin Costner’s The Postman is the worst movie ever made)?
“They’re not made with care or an attempt at making a quality film.”This is an asinine statement that basically insults filmmakers that just want to make films because they enjoy making films.“To make one of the worst movies ever made, you have to have intended to make something great…”This is a horrible thing to go by. Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas (2014) was intended to be a serious think piece about Christmas and materialism. Dragonball Evolution (2009) had a very seriously involved cast and crew, and from the press run, they certainly tried to make a decent film, but clearly missed the mark. These cannot be disqualified just because you don’t want to take them seriously… That isn’t a way to make a point or have a debate.“Stuff like Baby Geniuses and House of the Dead are disposable product, not art.”Going by your way of judging, I can still very easily rattle off a mass list of high production films that completely failed to be good and do well: Alexander (2004), The Eagle (2001), Immortal (2011), Gods of Egypt (2016), Clash of the Titans (2010), Hercules (2014), Rampage (2018), Skyscraper (2018), Baywatch (2017), Dirty Grandpa (2016), Cutthroat Island (1995), Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002), The Lone Ranger (2013), John Carter (2012), Green Lantern (2011), Stealth (2005), Cats (2019), Amsterdam (2022), and Black Adam (2022).Are those disposable products? All of those movie did worse in the box office and are rated lower than Death Proof by every available metric.“Death Proof fails in every conceivable way as a film.”No it doesn’t. You’re very much in the minority with that opinion, and I can prove that mathematically. Going by available metrics, Death Proof has a 7/10 rating on IMDB, a 77 Metascore and 7.9 User Score on Metacritic, a 66% Critic Rating and 71% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes. Fucking Norbit (2007) came out that same year, so it wasn’t even the worst movie of 2007… Redline (2007) is rated worse, Daddy Day Camp (2007) is rated worse, Kickin’ It Old Skool (2007) is rated worse, Delta Farce (2007) is rated worse, License to Wed (2007) is rated worse, Pathfinder (2007) is rated worse, and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) is absolute garbage and also rated worse.Now, if you don’t give a shit about ratings or metrics, cool, I don’t care, because all that means is that you have your fee fees to go by, which isn’t a convincing winnable case here for the edge lord statement you made about a pretty decent movie that’s certainly better than Four Rooms.It’s okay to be wrong, my guy. Just take the L, because no one here agrees with you.
I don’t give a shit if I’m the minority on this or any other opinion. Only the weak rely on the opinions of others to back up their arguments. If a bunch of dick riders gave it a good review, good for them. I don’t care. Their opinions mean jack shit to me. 70m people also voted for Donald Trump. Does that mean that he was a great president? What about the even more tens of millions who voted him out? Sorry, Billy, but you cannot argue opinions. That’s not how opinions work. You can state that you disagree with me just as I stated that I disagree with this article. You can give me a whole list of films that you think are worse than Death Proof. Those are your opinions and you are entitled to them. As a filmmaker myself, I don’t care about reviews other than to put good ones on a box or poster. I don’t even know what the imdb score on any of my films are, because it’s not important to me. If the masses love my stuff, good for me. If they hate it, don’t care. I like it and that’s the only opinion that matters to me.
In MY opinion, Death Proof is worse than each and every one of them. And while, out of that list, I haven’t seen Cutthroat Island, Baywatch, or Cats, it’d take a lot for them to be worse than Death Proof. I don’t see why you think you can somehow change my mind by telling me a bunch of guys who live in their mom’s basements (because, let’s face it, those are the only people who rush to imdb or rotten tomatoes to review a film after watching one. The rest of us just tell our friends, something I suspect these people don’t have, if it was good or bad) think differently than I do.
So, you can tell me the fucking ghost of Bob Hope, the Pope, and the Popeil Pocket Fisherman all cream their pretty pink panties at Death Proof and you can tell me my top 5 of the greatest movies in history all suck and…guess what? I won’t care because those are all just opinions and they won’t sway me from my opinions.
“I don’t see why you think you can somehow change my mind by telling me a bunch of guys who live in their mom’s basements (because, let’s face it, those are the only people who rush to imdb or rotten tomatoes to review a film after watching one.”My god, you suck, dude. LOL! I’m not trying to convince you of anything except that opinions can, in fact, be bad… You’re a filmmaker and you think this is what you think of audiences? You think that people who give ratings to things online are just a bunch of lonely bottom feeders? Do you think critical opinions don’t matter or that subjective aspects of “good” vs “bad” aren’t dependent on the masses?As I said, there is such a thing as having a bad opinion… and you’ve got one.Why do we even have metrics then? Why did humankind even invent survey methodology if pricks are just gonna be like I DON’T CARE! Metrics and ratings is all science, which apparently you don’t believe in… Huh, I wonder who else shares that opinion…? You brought up Trump supporters, the 70 million that voted for him, while also basically pulling the same shit that they do:Reasonable Person: “Well, here are the facts and figures form multiple sources.”
Trump Support: “That’s just FAKE NEWS! You can’t trust that shit! Global warming isn’t real! Voter fraud occurred and Trump won! Rape doesn’t cause pregnancy! The democrats are pedophile Satan worshippers!”Your response to just general information from (again) multiple sources was exactly that, and it’s embarrassingly low. Like I know I’m giving you a hard time, kind because I want to see how far you can take this, but man, you hit my expectations exactly—nothing but another edge lord with no sense of reasonability, critical thinking, or insightfulness. Your perspective of critiquing film is equal to that of someone that people would just walk away from in daily conversation. You haven’t brought up anything about why Death Proof is bottom 3 films of all time, and I highly doubt you even have the filmmaking criticism capable of that laying out your points with sound rhetoric. You’ve taken like a dozen steps back and not a single step forward in this debate. Not that you care, because honestly, you should stop caring and just walk away, because I can keep going.As for your response. Try to be less of a horribly judgmental and dismissive person to everyone you don’t know (since I hope you now know what it’s like), because trust me, I know I’m an ass, but even you’re making me cringe.
I will agree with you on one thing. I don’t care and I am going to just walk away, because I don’t really care to keep reading if you’re going to keep going. Critics are merely people giving their opinions and thus, their opinions mean no more or less than any other person. Normal, well-adjusted people don’t rush to sites like Rotten Tomatoes to rant about how much they loved or hated a movie. That’s really really obsessive behavior and it’s not the type of people I would choose to associate with or even care about their opinions, in any way, shape, or form. So, you can write a response to that or you can not, I don’t really care, either way.
And I did an entire 40 minute podcast episode on how much Deathproof sucks. I’m not here to plug my podcast, but I can really go on and on about what a shitty movie it is. You never once, until that last reply, actually asked what about it I didn’t like. And that’s because your goal was not to debate but to bludgeon.
You also never once stated that you felt that the movie was “one of the 3 worst I’ve ever seen” because that’s not the point you’re trying to make. You’re trying to overall bottom the movie on an “all time worst” list with no notion of personal opinion.“Normal, well-adjusted people don’t rush to sites like Rotten Tomatoes to rant about how much they loved or hated a movie. That’s really really obsessive behavior and it’s not the type of people I would choose to associate with or even care about their opinions.”Again, this is stupid. Very stupid. It’s a speculative insult against unnamed people that you don’t even know. You’re generalizing people that give their thoughts publicly (even the negative ones that you’d probably agree with) while being entirely dismissive of them for doing something that’s hardly abnormal… If anything, being so woefully ignorant of that hypocrisy and cynically dismissive of statistical data is higher evidence of yourself being abnormal and not well-adjusted, which to you, could mean that you wouldn’t likely respect your own opinion—given the parameters you set. But for some reason, you’re really not seeing the hypocrisy of that statement… You came to this article and rushed to the comments to state how much you hated Deathproof. I mean really, how are you any different?“And I did an entire 40 minute podcast episode on how much Deathproof sucks. I’m not here to plug my podcast, but I can really go on and on about what a shitty movie it is.”Okay… so do it. What’s stopped you so far? I can’t really care about some Podcast you made (easily accomplishable by anyone with a laptop) or the fact that you’re a filmmaker… And that’s not me being dismissive, it’s really because you’re anonymous. I don’t know who you are, as you haven’t stated anything revealing about yourself, even though you’ve pointed to some unspecific personal experiences, but those aspects of your personhood are anecdotal and currently unsubstantiated. It’s also not my duty to probe you about what you don’t like about the movie. That’s something you should start with, rather than being an edge lord looking to drum up some responses. I already said: “I highly doubt you even have the filmmaking criticism capable of that laying out your points with sound rhetoric.” And that’s me being equally dismissive as you have been, but you didn’t even defend that point by laying out your own case. All you’ve done is be abnormally dismissive of the multiple sources I’ve laid out, while cynically generalizing people in some sort of strawman argument that hasn’t proven anything. Walking away now is basically an admission that you don’t know what you’re talking about… Of the 500 or so words you’ve written on this, not one sentence was used to describe something wrong with the film. As a filmmaker, I’d expect that that should be an easier thing to do on an insightful technical level that some random guy in the IMDB review section… but here you are being no better.
I love Deathproof. One of my favorites.
I’m sorry for your condition.
You have a little pee pee.
In fairness, it was really cold in your mother’s bedroom.
So you slept with one of my two fathers?
Concurrently, though not enthusiastically.
agreed!
The only thing I liked about HOOK was the SNES game lol
Of for goodness sake, Dune is fine.
A fine mess.
I would agree with that, a fine mess.
Sorry, it is really bad. I say that as a major fan of the Dune books.
I really don’t think it’s fair to include Cameron and Scorsese’s early work for Roger fucking Corman. For Cameron, I might go with The Abyss. I liked it, but it was kind of a mess.For Scorsese, I’m not sure. Age of Innocence? I never saw it, but I seem to remember people being really “meh” about it.
Yeah, but neither of those are really bad movies. Just not especially compelling. But I agree debiting them for work under Corman is like blaming any employee for turning out shady work that complies with company strategy.
On most days, I think Age of Innocence is his best film. I think some folks saw it as Oscar baiting and didn’t see it for what it is.Boxcar Bertha isn’t bad, let alone “terrible”.
For me, AoI was Marty saying “Yeah, New York’s always had gangs. Always.” But I get why some can’t get on board with the key he’s playing in here. I’ve never been brave enough to try Kundun or Silence. Any thoughts on them?
I haven’t finished either of them, actually. Kundun just didn’t engage me, oddly; Silence’s Christians are so theologically wrong-headed… someone else told me I should’ve stuck it out to the end, because that was part of the point, but to me, that’s like Fight Club or something of its type wallowing in whatever and then wagging a finger at the audience for engaging in it as entertainment. I think something like A Clockwork Orange does a better job at showing violence as grotesque; I think Kubrick does a better balancing act of putting violence onscreen but not making it attractive, however charismatic his lead might be.Otherwise, if you are going to make a violent entertainment, I think you should just go for it without apology or sadism.That said, I think Scorsese has earned enough cred that anything is worth a shot, while we still retain the right to shut it off.
I liked Silence because it had a a fair treatment of opposing sides. Christianity was illegal in Japan, which obviously sucked for the Christians, but the regime did that because they saw that missionaries converting people was often a first wave of colonialism and they didn’t want to be colonized (which Japan avoided and unfortunately became a colonial power itself).
People seem to forget that Silence is based on a book of Shusaku Endo, a Japanese writer, not an unknown or overlooked book in any way, and already adapted by Masahiro Shinoda in 1971. And I say that “tend to forget” because that movie was seen as another colonialist piece of cinema, and I recall one of those twitter spats where I entered with my “well actually” and got replies of “you can be a portuguese colonialist being Japanese” in the end, which I guess that’s the label that Endo ended up having in the end. Sorry for the digression.
I think Boxcar Bertha was great, although obviously inspired by Bonnie & Clyde.
I like Boxcar Bertha, of course I’m a sucker for trains in movies. Shameless plug for Emperor of the North Pole, “Ya got no class kid!”
Age of Innocence was slow moving, but I liked it.
Having just watched Age of Innocence again, I can say it’s great, just really restrained and very much a stuffy period piece. It’s easy to see how it would get lumped in with the Merchant Ivory stuff that was having a hey day when it came out. It’s about this tiny, dying social world and what it takes from the people who are trapped in it. You might not care too much about the emotional lives of the rich, but the movie does work as a gentle but withering commentary on their shortcomings. It’s worth checking out. It’s a Scorcese outlier for sure, but not remotely a low point.
I’m not sure I know all of Cameron’s films off the top of my head, but there’s no way in hell The Abyss is his worst.
AV Club did a listicle before Avatar 2 opened ranking his films. I don’t remember if the even included Piranha 2.
“The man behind Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill,and Inglourious Basterds has never made a truly bad film.”The Hateful Eight respectfully begs to differ. Inane, two hours too long, and clearly inspired by, but not a patch on Incident at Blood Pass / Machibu. That film dragged like few others I’ve ever seen.
I found it an amusingly violent whodunnit. Channing Tatum popping up to come to his sister’s rescue and immediately getting the top of his head blown off was a particular favorite.
And when you say “popping up” (and forgive me, because I don’t remember it that well), was he the one who was hiding under the floorboards or in the outhouse or whatever it was, for hours, in the freezing cold, twiddling his thumbs, in a plot twist that made no sense whatsoever?
Correct. He was under the floor and shot Sam Jackson in the balls. I thought it made sense, he was her brother and part of the gang conspiring to rescue Leigh from Kurt Russell. Their plot just never got off the ground, which is the funny part after all that planning.
I just hope he didn’t need to use the toilet while he was down there.Well, each to their own. I know a lot of people like the film. I personally enjoyed this review of it more than the film itself:https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20151218-film-review-the-hateful-eight-tarantino
Personally:Right Call for Bad News Bears. And simply because the original is damn near perfection. They got the adults right, they got the kids right, they got the bullshit about sportsmanship right. I personally loved some people were shocked by the foul mouthed kids when a majority of those same kids they were raising were foul mouthed little assholes. Everyone knew a booger eating quiet kid like Lupus, or a cool jerk who got off being a dick like Kelly Leak, or the ever pissed off , Napoleon complexed Tanner Boyle. Hell, even I had a Amanda Wurlitzer in my league as a kid who had a rifle for an arm. It was as close to reality on the screen….a bunch of left out kids who had to be included because their parents were embarrassed to not have their kids on a team…..and the kids knew it. And we all had our Buttermaker (or Buttercrud’s). A put upon parent who would rather be anywhere but here and would come to the games/practices routinely sauced.It didn’t need to be remade.
Right Call for Bad News Bears. And simply because the original is damn near perfection. I can’t agree more. Or, well, I could disagree – taking out the “near”. Bad News Bears was a revelation it came out; the language from the kids was a surprise, although to me a pleasant one. Because I don’t know about you guys, but my friends and I talked like that at that age. Everything about it works: the parents, the interactions between the kids, the games, all of it. I know people love The Sandlot and I suppose I do too, but Bad News Bears is the best kids-in-sports movie that has ever been made. No need to make another. And am I remembering through rose-colored glasses? Nah. I own it and watch it at least once a year.
The remake? I saw it but the only thing I dimly recall is that it was a scene for scene copy and not worth the effort. Why was it done? Well, money, I guess, but it’s just not a good movie at all.
There is just so much in the nuances in the whole movie….not just with the baseball play but the interactions that were perfections of the slice of life. Amanda and Buttermaker’s relationship where she tries to push him to be a dad for her outside of ball and him not having it is heartbreaking because you know he would probably be a good dad simply because he chooses to actually treat the kids as small adults but he knows he can’t be one because….well, he is Buttermaker and doubts himself as much as any guy who thinks he failed at life.Buttermaker trying to boost the kids up with a rah rah speech that goes over like a fart in the wind simply because they know he is finally becoming the same asshole that is currently coaching the Yankees across from them because he is literally doing anything to win by making Kelly run all over them and turning Amanda’s arm to ribbons. And him realizing that they are right.Roy Turner, hated Yankees coach, pushing his kids more and more till his own son steps over the line and his dad slaps the shit outta him in front of everyone and everyone stops because they don’t know what to do (they do but won’t). And that brilliant act of defiance he does in return. I had hated that kid before for being a bully and fuck if I didn’t root for him after (he also had a hot mom).It was so much like actual life for a lot of kids. From the banality of the 70’s suburbia to the sophomoric adults who are little more than petulant bigger assholes for their asshole kids…I will state unequivocally that is the perfect baseball movie. Hell the end of it IS the perfect ending BECAUSE it wasn’t what it ‘should have been’…but it is what it is.And I watch it, and I laugh each time they mention Tanner challenged the entire 7th grade to a fight or the weird ass talent of Lupus’s ability to make a perfect dry martini much to Buttermaker’s delight. Every kid needs to watch it and every adult needs to watch it again…warts and all with kids being cynical, delightfully profane, and deeply untrusting of everyone over 12. Because….shit, thats life.
Everybody Wants Some!! is his worst one.Bad News Bears was unnecessary but it was still a solid movie.
Hot take time: Jupiter Ascending got panned so badly was because it wasn’t attached to a pre-existing IP.IIRC, there is really nothing about it that’s any more or less stupid than a ton of blockbusters out there – for instance, the last two Avengers films, which revolve around an alien trying to collect a bunch of magic space rocks that grant wishes. Seems like we’re willing to suspend disbelief there, but when it comes to original fantasy/sci-fi material we start getting hyper-critical. I’m not sure if that means we need to be less charitable to adaptations of pre-existing IP, or more charitable to original concepts. Probably the latter, but maybe a bit of both.
To be clear – I’m not saying it’s a great movie. But, compared to the turd it was labelled as, it was OK. And there is also a chance I’m only saying this because I went in expecting the worst, and the next time I see it I’ll be like: ‘Oh yeah, it actually sucks.’
Woah, what, people don’t like Vampire in Brooklyn? I have met literally nobody who doesn’t like it. [Murphy] didn’t want to be funny at all. He wanted to play it totally straight, so I couldn’t get the humor into it that I wanted to get into it.This was emphatically a good decision. Murphy’s performance on the film is the correct one.
I have met literally nobody who has seen it.
I consider it essential cult horror viewing, right alongside Lair of the White Worm or Lifeforce, or Blackula, to which it obviously owes a great deal.
But if it’s a cult favourite, you must realize that most people don’t like it. That’s how cult movies work.
I personally find Vampire in Brooklyn hilarious but I don’t know I have ever heard anyone else say they like it.
If the “Wacky” Renfield character was the tone the director wanted I am *incredibly* glad Murphy refused to go there. He brought a dignity to his character that all the really compelling Vampires have.. and it the only really interesting part of the movie.
I think its reputation has improved over the years, but it was really poorly received critically when it came out from what I remember. Wes Craven definitely has other strong contenders for “worst” film he’s directed. Cursed and Scream 3 come to mind.
In 2019, Shyamalan said about The Happening, “I think it’s a consistent kind of farce humor. You know, like The Blob.” So maybe it WAS supposed to be funny? What a twist!
Or Shyamalan likes to make excuses for his bad movies. Have you ever seen him try to excuse why people didn’t like his version of Avatar? It was _totally_ the audiences fault.
Clearly these two movies were attempting the same tone.
One of my favorite bad reviews of his Avatar was complaining how terribly dark and muddy the color grading was, saying: “many of the scenes fail the most fundamental test of cinema: is it visible?”
I liked The Ninth Gate
I have to TOTALLY disagree about Blomkamp. There is no “return to form”. District 9 IS refreshing and a good romp, which to be fair also probably got a lot of run from the idea that Blomkamp was “discovered” by Peter Jackson. But his “form” turns out to be mostly crap.His next film, the dystopian action thriller Elysium, starring Matt Damon, was thinking-man’s science fiction and another win.No. Just no. Elysium is a DUMB movie with a capital dumb. Nothing in that movie makes sense plot-wise. It is basically “lets take the same themes of oppression from my last movie, and just WAY up the hamfistedness because I am not sure people got it last time.” Which he did again with Chapie (staring the horribly miscast Die Antwood), which was way, way worse than “he stumbled a bit”.
Yeah, Blomkamp made one good movie (WITH SOME VERY QUESTIONABLE POLITICS) and then dove headfirst off a cliff.
Hook rules. Stop trying to make it a bad movie.
Was coming here to say this. I love Hook. Dustin Hoffman is amazing in it.
Doesn’t anyone remember 1942 or Always?
Always is a pretty bad remake but it has Audrey Hepburns last film role so I can’t fully hate it.
Crystal Skull, Ready Player One, War of the Worlds… Steve has a lot of really pretty bad movies in his catalogue. Thankfully he also has some of the best of all time to balance em out.
1941. I guess the day didn’t live in infamy for you.
That’s a whole year.
Agreed. Hook is amazing. Not even a cult classic, but a total blast to watch when it came out, and even more so now looking back at the early 90’s, and remembering how bright William’s star used to shine before it was extinguished.
I don’t like Hook at all – the fact that they nearly completely forget that Peter has two kids is just weird. Give him just the son, the plot makes more sense. Hoffman was really great, but.. nah. To me the whole thing is forced and boring.BUT — as I think someone has mentioned, Spielberg did 1941. Which is objectively unfunny, overblown and a failure.
bangarang
it was a flop when it came out. they’re not purposely trying to shit on your childhood.
On Jupiter Ascending I feel like there is way too much effort here to give the Wachowskis a pass and pin this disaster mostly on Redmayne. Is Redmayne terrible? YES, no disagreement there. But just about EVERYONE is giving the worst performances of their lives, and that goes back to the directors.
I saw Popeye in the theaters when I was in kindergarten and remember loving it…and it will stay that way because I will never watch it again.
Blompkampf is Snyder without the restraint or the respect for story. Visually alive and narratively stultifying. Which is a problem because, unlike Snyder, he always writes his own stuff (poorly).
Ready Player One should be at the bottom of any list of Spielberg’s worst. I’ll admit Hook isn’t great, but Christ RPO actually made me angry I hated it so much.
There are quite a few I don’t agree with but Hook is a great movie, I’ve never understood the hate and I will gladly die on that hill
As much as I love Linklater, he’s got a few stinkers on his resume. In addition to Bad News Bears, there’s also Fast Food Nation and Where’d You Go, Bernadette?On the flip side, not nearly enough people have watched Bernie. It’s Linklater’s most underrated movie and arguably Jack Black’s best performance.
Everybody Wants Some Also sucks.
It was fine. Nothing great, but not terrible either. It accurately portrayed what entitled douchebags college baseball players can be. Not sure if that’s what Linklater was going for.If anything, it works as the capper of the unofficial “Richard Linklater Makes Movies About His Upbringing” trilogy that starts with Apollo 10 1/2 and moves on to Dazed and Confused.
This list really needs more toy movies. Levinson’s “Toys” and Donner’s “The Toy” are absolute atrocities.
The Toy gave us a good Richard Pryor performance at least. Timeline just sucks.
Fuck off, Popeye is a great film.
no
Why do I watch The Ninth Gate whenever it’s on? It’s so bad. Like, laughably, but I can’t stop. It’s so fucking stupid. The scene where the dead lady in the wheelchair goes bursting out of the flaming room! I do love Lena Olin, though. The last time it was on I just kept thinking look at this rogue’s gallery of… let’s just say men who are very much not good for women and girls (obviously meaning Polanski, Depp, and Langella).
I’ll give you most of these movies… but Hook? Really?Spielberg directed AI, War of the Worlds, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Ready Player One, but Hook was the worst of the bunch??? I don’t f’in think so. Ru-fi-oooo!
AI was a good movie, until the last 30 minutes. It took a serviceable enough sci-fi plot (which should have an unhappy ending!) and shat all over it by trying to fill it with positive feels.
Exactly. If AI had ended when his battery ran out praying at the Blue Fairy, it would have been decent. Yes, I know that according to Spielberg, Kubrick wanted the aliens/robots at the end, but they were stupid.
I don’t even care if Kubrick wanted them at the end. That just makes it Kubrick’s mistake. Which is less characteristic of him than Spielberg (which is surprising), but still fuck that.
AI is a terrible mess movie but is so ambitiously, tonally bizarre its kind of spellbounding.
The most interesting thing about AI is that Spielberg isn’t responsible for the ending of that movie… Kubrick is. In fact, Kubrick had repeatedly asked Spielberg to direct AI in large part because he thought the saccharine ending (and the project in general) would be better received if it had Spielberg’s name attached to it. Spielberg really only jumped in at the last minute, after Kubrick died and filmed pretty much exactly what Kubrick wanted.
There’s a valid and interesting question tucked in there too – would the film has been treated as unfailingly sweet had Kubrick still been director of the film when it released? There’s arguments to be made that the ending is somewhat bittersweet, especially if you’re interpreting it from the lens of Kubrick’s auteurship. But from Spielberg the ending takes on a completely different character in the eyes of the public, despite the film really being Kubrick’s in all but name.
AI and WotW are good
AI and War of the Worlds are great films.
War of the Worlds rules
I think perhaps the person who compiled this list just doesn’t like Robin Williams.I mean, I’ll give you Jack, but even that one is pretty enjoyable, albeit sappy. Popeye is far from Altman’s worst (if you want that, check out A Perfect Couple, a confused mess trying to be a romantic comedy.) And maybe it’s because that movie has become a generational touchstone for millenials but I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love Hook. Even if you ignore Williams (who does just fine here) Dustin Hoffman having an absolute ball in the title role is justification enough.
“Not only does the movie lack the tension of Carpenter’s best work, you
can tell the director’s heart wasn’t in the project because he didn’t
even compose the music.”By this measurement, then, you could say his heart was in Village of the Damned and Ghosts of Mars, but not in The Thing.
Fuck you guys. At least half of this list are creatively interesting films that didn’t make money OR were odd by comparison to a director’s later steamrolling streak of success, OR were just low-key pleasures that weren’t as bombastic as the bigger successes. But in many cases NOT the directors’ worst. You’re just shit-posting now, and it makes me want to give up hope for AVC altogether.
says you
Y’all suck at this.First of all… Hook is not a bad movie. Is it one of Spielberg’s best? No, not even close. Is it his worst? No, that would be The BFG, which should have been on this list instead. Even if I take my nostalgia goggles off for a moment, Hook still stands as one of the better Robin Williams movies that made him a star with young kids in the 90s. The adventure, the score, and the cast all do a remarkable job, and it’s garnered quite a loyal following.Secondly, “The Man From Hollywood” segment from Four Rooms is one of the best in the movie. The first 2 segments are much worse, and the film only really gets good when Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s segments come up. You even acknowledged that point, which I feel should have disqualified it from the list entirely.
The only reason to watch *Four Rooms* is to endure 90 minutes of cinematic torture and then get to the “Man From Hollywood” ending. The movie only works as a Shaggy Dog story.
that 4 rooms segment suuuucks and hook was a fucking flop when it came out. some of you are taking it so personally lol.
WTF Hook is a fantastic family movie and holds up as a good family movie. Yes, it’s not on the same level as Schindler’s List, but that doesn’t make it a bad movie, as a genre family movies shouldn’t be held to the same standard as Serious Dramatic Social Commentary movies. This list is dumb.
Hook is a classic and arguably the best live action peter pan movie outside the 2003 one. Are you really saying 1941 is better than HOOK!?
Hook?! Are you kidding me? Excellent movie. I will suffer no arguments.
I can’t tell who this article is written for.
This list seems wrong, Hook, Popeye and Ninth Gate are all great films. Did you even watch them? Or is this just a troll article to get people to click it and argue in the comments?Rufio! Rufio!
popeye great? lol
The Ninth Gate is great movie, this be some bullshit.
I have to wonder if the hate on The Ninth Gate isn’t just hate at Polanski. Which I get, he should have served his time instead of fucking off to Europe. But he’s also a talented director.
If you’re pretending Hook isn’t awesome then you can fuck right off
Wow, I had never even heard of Demonic!
Also I disagree with several films on that list. I liked the Ward and Black Dahlia, and I love The Ninth Gate. Oh, and The Happening is one of my favorite movies, but I kinda knew it would make the list, because you Americans have no taste at all. 🙂
Does it help at all that I’m an Australian who thinks ‘The Happening’ is dogshit?
Nope, sorry. 🙂
Have you seen Ghosts of Mars?
Time to plug the Lynch’s Dune Spicediver Fan Edit. This is the way.
Very early movies in the careers of James Cameron, John Carpenter and Martin Scorsese, of course. That’s to be expected. But Robert Zemeckis’s Pinocchio from 2022 was an adaptation so bizarre and soulless it is impossible to recommend.
Scorcese easily could have landed here for “Age of Innocence”.His style does NOT match the melodrama he’s attempting to make and the movie just doesn’t ever come to much more than posturing and the director hammering home the IMPORTANT EMOTIONAL MOMENTS going on.My favorite, still burned into memory after that long ago evening in Irvine, is the Dashing Young Lawyer having Finally Decided to Choose Love is shown in a room with a couple establishing shots of the fireplace with a booming fire. Dashing Young Lawyer is informed his Plans Shall Not Be. Cut to fireplace as a burning log collapses in the fire.It’s… not good.
Imagine thinking M. Night Shyamalan belongs with these names when literally half his movies are hot garbage.Hook also gets a bad rap. I liked it as a kid and now my kids like it. It’s definitely not Spielberg’s worst, especially when you have 1941 to choose from. Death Proof is also clearly worse than Tarantino’s segment of Four Rooms, which was really fun.
I’m coming here to say “Jack” by Coppola before I read the list. It should #1 on this list. What garbage that was.
Also, Ridley Scott is a goddamn mystery to me. He has made some of my absolute favorite films, and some real bland nonsense. He’s got to be one of the most wildly inconsistent directors working.
I love the 9th Gate….
Popeye has its moments, and the music’s actually pretty good. The film falls apart in the third act, IMO.Lynch’s Dune is extremely well cast. He was a poor choice to direct a blockbuster, and the pacing of the last act is really bad. It also relied too heavy on voiceover.
Ladykillers isn’t that bad.The Ninth Gate’s issues are in the script.Hook is a goddamn treasure and I will hear nothing against it.
I was 10 when Hook came out and I liked it. Now… not so much.
I feel like Miami Vice at this juncture in pop culture history has been reclaimed as an underrated effort from Michael Mann. You could just as easily slot Public Enemies or The Keep in its place.
Popeye is a great goddamn film. It has exactly as much plot as a movie like it needs, and is a more-faithful-than-you’d-think take on the original Thimble Theater comics with its large ensemble of players. Great songs too.
Popeye reboot with Jason Statham as Popeye, Dave Bautista as Bluto and Lauren Lapkus as Olive Oyle.
I second this
The Word is not good. Carpenter can do better. However, Escape from LA and Ghosts of Mars are far, far, worse.
Is Vampire in Brooklyn really worse than Deadly Friend? (Yes, I love the basketball death scene too, but you can see that on Youtube without all the rest of the crap).
I think the original Dune is about as close to a solid adaptation as you were possibly going to get at the time. Hook may not be amazing, but ill bet it is the most beloved movie on this list. A whole bunch of millenials saw that as a kid.
Was there not room for Tim Burton? Or too many choices? Planet of the Apes vs Charlie and the Chocolate Factory vs Alice in Wonderland?Remakes do not fare well in this list.
This article was featured on the morning radio show “The Bunch – with Clairsy and Lisa” on 96fm radio in Perth Australia, as I drove into work today.The concluding summary opinion was that Robin Williams has made a lot of crap movies..
Going with Scorcese’s first cheapo movie feels like a bit of a copout, but one glance at the rest of his filmography and you can see that even the movies I dislike have their dedicated fanbases (New York, New York perhaps being the fanbase which would have to do the most defending). Personally speaking, I know a lot of people liked it but I thought Shutter Island was a complete dud, an ending visible from three continents away.
I’m a Spielberg nut, and I’ll readily admit he’s made some stinkers, but man there’s no way Hook beats out Always, Ready Player One, or Warhorse for his worst movie.
Second War Horse such a boring movie. I had to watch it because my mom was over my house and she wanted to see it because of the horses.
E.T. is a far worse film than Hook.
This might read like trolling but I hated that gross, messy, ugly turd when I was a child, and I still hate him now. Just like The Goonies that movie coasts on nothing bit nostalgia.
(Unlike my favourite 1980s kiddie-classic, of course: Labyrinth, which is objectively perfect, needs to nostalgia to be rightly lauded, and contains no flaws yes even the scene with Fireys. 10/10.)
I’m pleased you singled out Redmayne’s performance in Jupiter Ascending because he deserves the ire; the film does not. I enjoyed it immensely. As for films that suck, Fincher should hang his head in shame for Benjamin Button and I will never understand how someone who directed Let the Right One In and Tinker Tailor could be responsible for The Scarecrow.
I refuse to consider Hook a bad movie.
Blackhat: Exists
Public Enemies: Also existsThe AV Club: mIaMI vIcE iS mIcHaEL mANn’S WorSt mOOvIE!
This list is insane. Many of these are perfectly fine and rather entertaining films. I’m partial to Hook because I was the prime age for that movie when it came out, and I think it’s weirder and more whimsical than some of the more forgettable stuff Spielberg has done in the last 15 years.
The Ward was a surprisingly fun little Carpenter movie, something that felt closer to his pre-Halloween stuff. Certainly not worse than the awful Village of the Damned remake (or even, if I’m honest with myself, Dark Star, which is fun, but not good).
(Agreed with everyone already calling this out for Altman and Spielberg. This feels like a piece written by someone spending five minutes on Google, not someone who’s watched all these movies.)
Hook is good.Jack should be #1. It’s maybe not the worst film (The Happening), but it’s the biggest delta between director capability and end product.
Lynch’s Dune blows the doors off the Villeneuve’s snooze fest. On Friends Joey described how soap-opera actors use “smell the fart acting,” where they say something then stare into the distance for two beats as if they’re smelling a fart. That’s Villeneuve’s Dune, with far more smelling the fart time than action, or story.It’s just a boring movie. Lynch’s is bonkers and poons it hard in the third act, but is still 10 times the movie, I’d watch Lynch’s another 100 times before sitting through Villeneuve’s even once.
Shove your multi-page “slide show,” spamtards.
I got to “The Ward” and stopped there, where you simply infer out of thin air that John Carpenter would like to forget it and offer no actual evidence. He’s spoken of enjoying the film because it was a simple story, small cast, and low budget, and he had his usual creative freedom. He didn’t compose the scores for a few of his other movies, so does that also mean his heart wasn’t in them? Lame article.
This will be a controversial take but I liked Lynch’s Dune & hated Villenueve version. And as a 12 year old Dune was life changing for me so sitting through Villeneuve Dune was like watching a fashion show. Villeneuve doesn’t seem to know what to do with actors in any of his movies. They look great & sound great but the actors seem to be reading from an auto-cue. Lynch was always about the actor even if it was over-acting.
Imagine saying wth a straight face Hook is a worse movie than Ready Player One or The Terminal.In addition, I feel the author also singled out Quentin Tarantino’s Four Rooms segment because they needed another bad take and didn’t want to admit Death Proof is his worst movie.
So “Hook” (admittedly I do not like at all) is worse than “1941″?
Screw you, I love The Ladykillers.Also, it’s a testament to how good Tarantino is that his worst movie is a movie that he only directed a quarter of.
Hook I loved as a kid. I also enjoyed Batman & Robin, mind you, so I’m not saying it’s a matter of taste. I think sometimes critics misread or misunderstand films for children though. Hook is a great kids’ film.
Also, The Sixth Sense is “unquestionably” Shyamalan’s masterpiece? Theydies and gentlethems, I beg your indulgence to question the unquestionable. It’s gotta be Unbreakable (I’ve not seen the follow-ups, don’t care to. It’s the same rationale behind not reading any of Stephen King’s Gunslinger saga besides the first book. Sometimes a perfect weird gem is just a perfect weird gem and that’s the end of it. Your mileage may vary, of course.)
All Baz Luhrmann’s films were bad.
A Good Year is indeed one of Scott’s weaker films, but enjoyed it because it combines my celebrity crushes of Marion Cotillard and Archie Panjabi (granted, in a smaller role) with my dream of retiring to a vineyard in France.
IMO, Dune, The Ninth Gate, & Hook don’t belong on this list.
Hook is a classic. Y’all at io9 gotta comission better writers.
Mostly this just shows how shit your taste is, Bobby.
Old is worse than The Happening
I hated most of these movies at the time, and love them or appreciate them now. Above them all, Hook. I hated Hook so much at the cinema, and I really don’t know why.
Spike, Oldboy remake.
Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet
Bonfire of the Vanities is DePalma’s worst