Voices
in
Japan

have your say

What are some of your candidates for the worst movie of all time?

188 Comments

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

188 Comments
Login to comment

Natural Born Killers

I keep waiting saying to myself it will get better.

Never did.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

It took me a week to watch the whole movie.

But gotta love Johnny for trying.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Recently saw Jackie Chans "The Spy next door". I could cry.

Actually having some hard times thinking of titles, easily forgettable I guess.

The one still not released but probably ( 99% certain ) will make it to the list is "Titanic 2" O_o

0 ( +0 / -0 )

-Closer -Ecks vs. Sever -Any thing on MST3k -Tsukiyaki Western Django

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Okinawamike - Fear and Loathing wasn't as good as the book, but still damn good. Perhaps it was a little over your head. Anything by Michael Bay is a joke, but I remember having the misfortune of paying money to go see Batman and Robin. If I wasnt with a date, I would have walked after 15 minutes.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Natural Born Killers" was good in my opinion made you question who are the really sick/twisted people.

The Killers who can't help themselves or the cop that hunts them(remember the scene with the prostitute, etc).

As for Jackie Chan recently watched "Project BB" recent movie of his it was bad on so many levels.

Titanic, Far and away, Australia, etc all sucked for me.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Hoserfella: Yep, over my head but then again you liked Grease I and II!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

One for the Aussies - The cars that ate Paris

I saw the new Robin Hood film last night. The one with Russel Crow. It has to make this list. The story was bastardized beyond belief!
0 ( +0 / -0 )

The Cove

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Mesa of Lost Women

It is, by far, the worst movie ever made. Not just poorly made, but badly made. And, uh... you got me started, so I will keep trying to think of movies that top this.

Wild women of wongo

was quite bad, but it was fun, and kind of hip in a 50s way.

And Fukuoka. Have to disagree. MST3K used THIS ISLAND EARTH for their first movie-movie (in theaters). This Island Earth was ok, and it was especially good for its time. So you can't say EVERY mst3k was bad.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

George And mildred, Confessions Of A Window Cleaner, Robocop 3, octopussy, Mike Barrymore`s Pool Party, Rising Damp The Movie, Dawn Of The Dead (remake), Dandy.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What? No Ishtar? No Battlefield Earth?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Hoserfella: Yep, over my head but then again you liked Grease I and II!

actually, I DID like Grease (I was about 7 I think, so forgive me)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

actually, I DID like Grease

I only picked this movie because it was on Star Channel again and John looked so cool:}

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I rented Grease fairly recently. It is what it is. Fun. You kind of had to be there to not think it was stupid probably, but it was the time of the FONZ and SHA NA NA and American Graffiti. I was singing those songs for a week.

I think WORST has to be defined. This problem often crops up on movie sites. People who went to see Grease, for instance, got what they expected. Little kids who went to see Gremlins left the theater screaming. You could put just about any Disney animation up here because it is just hacked stuff, generally, but it delivers what it promises to people who like that. Dance routines were copied from Jungle Book to the Aristocats to Robin Hood, for instance. Disney can't be forgiven for that.

Ishtar and Heaven's Gate and B. Earth and Waterworld top the list by one definition. (Bombs)

Plan 9 and The Conqueror and Mesa of Lost Women top the list by another. (Stinkers)

Zardoz, Glen or Glenda, Lust in the Dust, and Eraserhead and Women of Wongo top the list by other definitions. (What am I watching?)

Some movies took a lot of guts to make and some were made by people who just did not care.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I disliked the following:

Kill Bill Australia No Country for old men

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Smokey and the Bandit 3 is my all-time worst movie. The once great Jackie Gleeson just looked terribly sad and pathetic having to carry this woeful movie. Even Burt Reynolds could tell it was going to be awful and chose not to have anything to do with it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I have seen a LOT of movies. Some were so bad as to make me angry.

Klein2 mentioned "Lust in the Dust," but some scenes in that movie made me laugh out loud. ("Cha-ang!") So it gets a pass.

The movie that really disappointed me when I finally saw it was The Deer Hunter. Totally awful. Cimino followed that up with Heaven's Gate, which, for me, was par for his course.

But the worst film I've ever seen is a Spanish stinker called Timecrimes. My skin crawls just writing the title.

If I think back to my Navy days, some of the movies shown at the base theater and on ship were truly bad. One I recall had a young Jeff Bridges and Rod Steiger titled Lolly Madonna XXX.

Michael J. Pollard made pretty much a career appearing in awful films. Dirty Little Billy may have been the very worst.

And speaking of "Billy," nearly all of the Billy Jack movies are pretty bad in their cheaply made cheesy-ness and over-the-top preaching. I guess Billy Jack Goes to Washington was so bad they never released it, which really says something.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I have to be honest, and I know I'll get flack for it, but... Avatar. I've discussed with friends who absolutely LOVE this movie, and when I bring up my complaints, it's usually "But... The visuals were amazing yeah?!" Yes, it was very pretty to look at. That does not make it a good movie.

The Twilight movies are pretty awful too (though I totally admit I watch them for fun).

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Of course someone says The Cove they just don't want to live in reality. I would have to say any sci-fi movies ever made are on that list. I just don't like ignorant fake make believe moives that have no educational value to them.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Twilight.

I downloaded it thinking 'Vampires = Blade = Wesley Snipes and lots of blood'

Talk about a disappointment. Vampires should suck blood, not man sausage.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I have never seen any of the Star Wars movies, and never intend to. I tried watching the first one once, but fell asleep when they were walking through some desert....boring!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

99% of Japanese films would be on my list.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Toys with Robin Williams was horrible.

The most overrated movie in recent times has to Little Miss Sunshine.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

suzu1; Nice one. I would say any one that features Robin Willimas except the one where he works in a photo place. The over acting makes me maaaaaaaaad!!!!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Yabits. Good calls. BTW, Lust in the Dust was in my WHAT AM I WATCHING category, which I would not really consider bad, but like Rocky Horror Picture Show and Bruce Campbell vs. Army and District 9.. it defies description.

People will say that they are bad, but hey, they just don't get it.

The Billy Jack thing is also a good call. Extremely bad, but tucked into that period in time (Rancho Deluxe), it fits in all too well.

I have a collection of bad movies, and among them, these are the worst that I have seen: Eegah, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, The Alpha Incident. I don't think they have any redeeming feature whatsoever. Bad acting, bad concept, bad writing, bad editing. Just bad through and through.

Suzu, if you hated TOYS, and mrsynik, if you felt sorry for Jackie Gleason, you should team up for a movie that you would both really really really hate. --- THE TOY. Starring Richard Pryor, who is basically purchased AS a toy (slavery anyone?) by Jackie Gleason. Richard Pryor made it mostly because he was on drugs.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Yabits. Deer Hunter won 5 Oscars. Somebody should make a category of worst film to win an Oscar.

I don't know a single person who has not laughed at Lust in the Dust, and frankly, I am glad I don't.

steve, I really agree with you, but Awakenings and Patch Adams were in the 5 to 6 range. I think Robin Williams makes money with his zany, and then tries to get serious roles if he possibly can.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I saw a highly acclaimed french movie called "The Green Flash" with an old girl friend who said we just had to see it. I still can't figure out what it was about.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Star Wars Episode 1 - Way to spoil something better left untouched.

Showgirls - It's bad, but I still watch it.

Anything with "3" or above in the title - There have been decent sequels - Aliens, Die Hard II - but the third movie and beyond usually wind up being turkeys.

Anything with Rosie O'Donnell - That is one pissed off woman.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Almost every movie that Jerry Bruckheimer has ever made. You can almost feel IQ points dropping while watching them, so that by the time you leave the theater you are unable to remember how to do basic arithmetic. I really hate his bloated brand of Hollywood movie...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Anything directed or produced by, or starring Michael Moore. Even when his movies show up for free on TV I take a pass. Can't believe there are people who actually lined that slug's pockets with their cash.

RR

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Ooh, Ooh, Ooh, Seeing Milla Jovovich on that picture of the day reminds me, Have any of you seen that "4th Kind" turkey? Jeeze, how did she get roped into doing that lemon?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

You know Romeo, I love seeing RR at the end of your posts.

I actually own some of MMoore's productions. He is getting tired. Roger and Me was his best. But, I don't know of a single person who takes his word as law or likes everything about his movies, even Roger Ebert.

Techall. You know who is the modern champion at getting big stars to appear in turkey movies? M. Night Shmalien or whatever. I saw Happening. Aaargh. The ads for 4th make it look pretty good, but I guess it is a bait and switch along the lines of Happening, huh?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the classic worst film of all time, "Plan 9 From Outer Space" - of course it's a movie few people have ever seen:

http://www.spike.com/video/plan-9-from-outer/2831785

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Anybody ever seen a film called RAT RACE starring cuba gooding jr..probably the only film i have not watched to the end .it was attrocious.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Noripi. I own Plan 9. It is bad, but as I kind of wrote above, Ed Wood tried. There are a lot of people who just don't care. Ed Wood was clueless, but he wanted to make movies more than anything.

If you thought Plan 9 was bad, see Mesa of Lost Women. Ed Wood's girlfriend (the one who left him because he was a transvestite) stars in it. And the narrator is the same, but the movie is much much worse. One of the weirdest things about the movie is that it starts with a flashback, but by they time you get to the end of the movie, the flashback becomes impossible. All the people who could have had the flashback are dead or worse.

You can also see Invasion, USA, which is what Plan 9 would have looked like if Ed Wood had substituted Russians for Aliens, and then done a decent job of editing it.

Judderman: Wow. I looked at Rat Race at IMDB. Looks like a real T**Dburger of a movie. Cuba Gooding was in some OscarWinners and big budget movies and then squeezes this out. Pretty sad.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Not that anybody cares, but I worry sometimes that a lot of movies, good and bad, are going to get REALLY hard to get ahold of in the years ahead. Once a movie goes off copyright, nobody takes care of it anymore. And if they retain copyright somehow, sometimes the movie just gets buried in a vault somewhere, sometimes for political reasons.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Almost anything with Ben Affleck in it. At least Ed Wood(for example) was trying to make bad movies. Ben Affleck (and some others) actually think they are good. Really annoying.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Every movie with Adam Sandler in it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

While I can't agree with the person who said "99% of Japanese movies," there are some that would fit here very nicely. For example, Monster Zero with Nick Adams. But some movies are so bad they're a riot to watch, and lot of Asian-made films are in that category. (Especially Bollywood stuff.)

Someone mentioned Toys -- Oh, I recall seeing that and leaving the theater wanting my money back. The only interesting thing about watching that movie was seeing the set re-used as the main control center in Men in Black. (I dislike a lot of movies with Robin Williams, and Millenium Man fits right in there with some of the others mentioned.)

Invasion USA -- Ha! I saw that one years ago and it helped me laugh through Red Dawn. And the word "red" brings to mind Red Sonja, one of Schwartzenegger's first outings.

Finally, for this installment, I offer an early movie where John Travolta makes a brief appearance: The Devil's Rain. Oh, what a stinker!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Has anyone mentioned Bruce lee's Game of Death? Especially the non Bruce lee parts.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Michael Moore pretty much destroyed the documentary. Now everyone is rushing out to make a political movie and calling it a "documentary."

Bad Films? I dunno...some films aren't necessarily trying to be bad but you know they aren't trying to win an Oscar, either, so they can't really be judged the same. You don't go into a Michal Bay movie with the same mentality of a Scorsese movie. They're trying to accomplish different things.

One movie I really disliked was The Assassination of Jesse James. The narration and the character didn't seem to match up at all. After watching scene after scene I had to keep asking myself why I needed to see the last scene. That movie is a bit special because I ended up watching it twice thinking I'd missed something the first time around. I didn't. Another 3 hours of my life gone.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

99% of Japanese films would be on my list.

you obviously haven't even watched 1% of them - if any

0 ( +0 / -0 )

actually Yabits... it is Centennial Man. An Isaac Asimov adaptation. They keep mining PKDick and Asimov books for movies, and messing them up.

haha. I have Red Dawn too. WOLVERINES! There again, that was every American boy's fantasy before zombie apocalypses became all the RAGE (get it?). So it seems dumb now, but there was a time when that movie was cooler than Footloose.

tigerguy: OK I have a candidate. The movie with Bruce Lee's actual funeral footage and his widow cut into the movie. Very very bad. Don't know the name off hand, but Bruce Lee fans can help. Tasteless nasty production.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

sorry.. Bicentennial man?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Almost anything with Ben Affleck in it.

Anything with Curt Russell in it too. It's a curse! Anything with either of these two in it is a turkey...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

worst ever AVATAR best ever CABIN BOY

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Waa. Not Kurt Russell. Skylar? Waa. Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China. Turkeys? Sigh. I guess it is true. My library is chock full of guilty pleasures.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

OK. I will shut up, but I propose one more category. CRINGE WORTHY movies. They were popular back in the day and nobody batted an eye, but now they look very strange, for obvious reasons. You would not want to watch these with anyone you don't know.

For example, ANY Shirley Temple movie, Song of the South, Can't Stop the Music, Sgt. Peppers LHCB (BeeGees), Labyrinth, Freaks, Car Wash, Green Berets, Birth of a Nation, Battleship Potemkin, Uptown Saturday Night, Coonskin, Americathon.

That last one will blow your mind for how well it predicted America's "future".

It just goes to show that, to some degree, the movies have not changed THAT much, our preferences and norms have.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

AVATAR

0 ( +0 / -0 )

sorry.. Bicentennial man?

Well, it felt more like a millenium.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Klein2:

You appear to be a real movie buff. How's about a movie that you hated the first time you saw it, and then, on a second viewing (perhaps years later), found yourself completely on the opposite side towards it?

I've got two, but I'll hold one of them back until later. The other one is The Leopard by Lucino Visconti. (Stars Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale.) Saw it back around 1983 in a theater and was bored out of my gourd. Then I saw it again last year and feel it ranks with some of the best films ever made.

There are only two films that I recall falling asleep in while I was in the theater. One of them was Thunderball. (That's right. James Bond. All that underwater slow-motion "action" stuff really got to me. As much fun as watching the bubbles rise in an aquarium tank.) The other was The Tree of Wooden Clogs but I doubt if anyone has seen it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

There aren't many movies that I can't get through all the the way to the end but "The Brothers Grimm" was one. "Oh, Brother" with George Clooney was another (although I usually like his movies). But my all time worst would have to be one of those flicks from the 80s like "Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes" (even though it was so bad that it was funny).

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I Love Harue was pretty bad too.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The other was The Tree of Wooden Clogs but I doubt if anyone has seen it.

I have. In a cinema as well!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Mostly 90% of Japanese movies

Harry Pottery 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 or especially the last 2 that haven't come out yet.

Pirates of the carribean 3 especially the (over 1000) crabs pulling a Spanish Galleon" that scene was at least 10 minutes of BS.

inglourious Basterds - pure crap and historically inaccurate Mamma Mia - simply annoying music and bad actors !!!!!

End of the World movies -journey to the center of the earth(2008),2012, Independence Day, The Day The Earth Stood Still(2008), The Day After Tomorrow and etc.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

RED CLIFF 1&2 terrible movies - people flying in the air. I wish they make a movie about Gangis Khan And stop it already with people flying in the air all the time. 90's is over already

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I love good BAD movies, like Battlefield Earth ("leverage!") and Showgirls; I could re-watch these again and again and be highly entertained by their awfulness. The worst of these guilty pleasures is The Room by Tommy Wissau (maybe that's his name)- if I've had a bad day, I just YouTube a few clips from this movie and my frown has turned upside down ("Hi doggie!").

Now, for movies that are BAD bad, and would be projected to me ClockworkOrange-style-non-stop in my own personal hell? #3. Patch Adams: I only watched a few minutes but if I was one of his patients I would have prayed for death #2. Powder: a terrible movie that made me want to stab my brain. #1. Love Actually: vapid, purile, over-the-top sentimentality, irritating, tedious, inane, banal and so phony. A movie made by people who have obviously run out of ideas but feel the need to throw something on the screen to keep their increasingly dull-witted sheep, whoops! I mean fans, appeased. I think the thing that shocks me most about this movie is the number of people who actually like it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

****OPEN WATER is by far the worst movie ever made.

They complain, argue and moan. Then they die. Oops, spolier alert

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"SIGNS" - was pretty bad, Aliens that can't turn door knobs but can build space ships. Maybe they ordered them from the ACME Spaceship Company.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Yabits "You appear to be a real movie buff. How's about a movie that you hated the first time you saw it, and then, on a second viewing (perhaps years later), found yourself completely on the opposite side towards it?"

I am not a buff. You mention some that I have not seen. Movies just interest me. Up until about the early 80s, there was not much depth, but now there is a huge body of work to look and explore. So I do that. It is art.

Anyway, good question. There are movies that just grow on me. Some I watch over and over to see new things. Perpectives also change as you get older, so that might explain why some movies just go right over your head, but then hit you when you get old enough to get it.

Here are dumb examples. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was such a "whatever" movie, but if you look at it after watching kids grow up, it is moving. Where the Red Fern Grows moves anyone to tears, until you get jaded enough to appreciate how really schlocky it is. I will think of some ZERO to HERO movies and post them in a bit.

mokgohan: Patch Adams with Robin Williams looks stupid and he is all manic and everything. But that guy really changed medicine in many important ways. If you read a book about Patch Adams, you would not really understand what a weirdo he was. He was weird enough to provide an umbrella for other "different" people to enter that profession. If you did not like the movie, you probably would not like Patch. I agree it is not a great movie, but RWilliams played him well. Treating patients as people was a revolutionary concept not that long ago.

CrazyTown: There was a sequel/knockoff that is worse. Look for it! haha ... wait.. you say THEY, so it is the sequel you saw, right? The Mexico one? Isn't Open Water just one person?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

inglourious Basterds - pure crap and historically inaccurate

whiskeysour - oh dear. where do I start on that little nugget? Maybe you missed the "Once upon a time" at the start of the movie. Maybe you missed the fact that Germany did not surrender in 1941. Perhaps you missed the fact that Hitler did not meet his demise in a tiny French cinema with the rest of the Nazi elite. Let me fill you in on a little bit of news. It was a fictional story. I could continue on about how it was the best movie of 2009, but it seems kinda pointless.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This is a difficult question indeed. There are so many bad movies...

"Pirates of the Caribbean 3"

After the first two Pirates movies, which were simply fantastic, with the ending of Pirates 2 leaving us clamoring for 3, 3 was a HUGE let-down.

Another HUGE let-down after reading the great book was Battlefield Earth. I still can't believe John Travolta, a great actor, was involved with this...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Barbarella", "Lifeforce", not worth watching again. "Plan 9 from Outer Space", "They saved Hitler's Brain", "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes", these are so bad they are funny. Biggest let-down, hugely over-hyped movie "The Philadelphia Story".

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Yabits: Movies that were just average, but became favorites. Almost all Cohen Bros. movies fit here. They are stupid until one day, you meet one of these characters walking around, and you get the joke. Is it art because life imitates it? Frankly, it is hard to list others because I don't really see any pattern to them.

Sneakers, The Color of Money, King Kong (PJackson), The Great Dictator, Marty, Citizen Kane, Midnight Run, Philadelphia Story, Rear Window, Metropolis, Fight Club

But then there are others that I used to think were SO COOL, and now I think they are extremely stupid. Not the worst, but very bad: Logan's Run, Wild in the Streets, HELP, Elvis movies (pick any one, they are all the same), Animal House, The Jerk, THX-1138 (student film, so it gets a pass), Planet of the Apes. ha. I did not really think about it at the time, but a lot of the 60s and 70s science fiction movies were complete rip-offs of TV shows and films of the 30s through the early 60s. Once you see that Gene Roddenberry was just a hack copying other people's work, Star Trek is not inspiring at all.

In that light, Japan gets some respect from me for producing some very original stuff at a time when many Americans did not care. A lot of the early Japanese and European sci-fi seems strange today because it was not born in a pool of Hollywood writers. The English version of Gamera is a terrible B movie, but the original Japanese version has a lot of science, an anti-war message, and kids taking control. I can't say for sure, but people who think that most Japanese movies are bad might be talking about old good movies that were reworked by Hollywood to produce bad movies and /or more recent bad movies that were made as imitations of bad Hollywood movies.

Japan could produce much better movies. Something got messed up along the line. There are good stories to tell. Japan needs about 30 Spike Lees.

OKOK. Here is a category for YOU YaBits: Movies that are seen as GREAT now, but will be seen as among the worst 20 years from now. It is controversial, but just imagine you are punching in text into JT in 2030. I suspect that about half of a typical top 50 list of today will be seen as dogs in the pretty near future. Movies by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer are not built to last at all. It is a good reason not to see them, I think.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Star Wars. Sucked the biggy.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Hopefully I've avoided watching the worst movies of all time. One I failed to avoid was Enemy Mine. I think it was on late night on Japanese TV, and I got sucked into it thinking it would get better at the end.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Here is a category for YOU YaBits: Movies that are seen as GREAT now, but will be seen as among the worst 20 years from now.

That's a good question. The Best Picture Oscar might be the best predictor of that -- just like the Heisman trophy has been able to predict future pro football non-performance.

Right at the top of my list: Slumdog Millionaire

Runner up: American Beauty

I don't believe Avatar will hold up very well at all.

The wife and watched a totally entertaining Spielberg movie last night (Catch Me If You Can), and were glad about it because Spielberg so often gets it wrong towards the end of a movie after a strong start. Case in point: The Color Purple. When we first saw that, and the scene towards the end where the two sisters are reunited, my wife started shouting "Don't do that hand-clapping game! Don't! Noooo!" (Sure enough, that's exactly what Spielberg had them do.)

Schindler's List is the same. That totally schlocky ending where we watch the people putting stones on his grave was totally unnecessary. It spoiled an otherwise very good film.

My wife and I started to play a game after that where we would "Spielberg-ize" the endings of other great films, much like Ted Turner's "colorizing." For example, for The Verdict, we had Paul Newman answering the phone at the end and making up with Charlotte Rampling. In The Third Man, Aleda Valli passes Joseph Cotton at the end, pauses, and turns back to him.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Some ppl watch crap even though they know it7s crap from the start. go figure. theres no account for taste. Perhaps not the worst of all time, but I coudnt watch 'Galaxy Quest' till the end. I get annoyed when that happens.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

in general, anything I watch and it has Dicaprio in it, by coincidence

0 ( +0 / -0 )

oops, on the other hand some guaranteed turkeys can get amusing at times. Six string samurai, lol.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I remember seeing a movie a long time ago called (I think) Megaforce. It was horrendous.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Hancock. It didn't need W. Smith and C. Theron, who are great but a bit wasted on that one.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

All you guys ain't got nothin'! Without a doubt "Ishtar" by far was THE ABSOLUTE WORST movie ever in movie making history! Second would be anything that Steven Segal makes. After "Under Siege" I said, yep, that's it for me!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Considering all of Star Trek's problems and how good it looked, it boggles the mind how anyone could make and sell such BAD sci-fi movies as those that appeared from 1966 to 1977. It was a time of "no new effects and no new stories." All you had was Planet of the Apes. I mean, Logan's Run was a BIG DEAL, so Star Wars was an EXPLOSION. I busted THX-1138 above, but the truth is that the story was somewhat original, and the effects were about as good as they could be for a student film of that time. Which really makes it an "achievement". George Lucas did a great job with what he had.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Right at the top of my list: Slumdog Millionaire Runner up: American Beauty I don't believe Avatar will hold up very well at all."

LOL. Good ones. American Beauty will survive to show fin de siecle ennui. Of those three, it will fare the best because, especially to foreigners, it DOES say something about the US of that time. The movie makes much more sense to foreigners than it does to US residents, from what I understand. I think it is goofy and kind of They Might Be Giants in terms of its "deep message".

I liked Avatar in the theater, but, well, --sigh-- I agree. It's a titanic.

CMIYCan is a Solid flick. I watch it every once in awhile. DiCaprio is perfect for it.

Haha. Your game sounds fun. You are lucky to have a person close to you that you can enjoy that with. You make a good point that AVERAGE can be good commercially, but bad artistically. So average gives you better box office, but bad critical staying power. Casting the problem in those terms, your Academy Award indicator is a good quick-and-dirty measure of how far a movie will fall in esteem over time. The more mass appeal it has, the less special it is. You figured that out and have a good yardstick. But has that always been true? Or just since the 1980s or so?

Worst Movie of All Time candidate to add: The Dark Backward. Released in Japan as WONDER ARM STORY. Judd Nelson, Bill Paxton, Wayne Newton. An absolutely repulsive and ugly movie. I keep a copy as kind of a gag and for its full-on weirdness. It is not the worst written or worst made, but I think it should not have been made. It is a mutant that just should have died at birth. It pretty well killed Nelson's career and Newton's non-Vegas career. Bill Paxton came out ok because his character is so weird.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

bass4: I am kind of a poseur because I have not seen a lot of movies that I just KNEW would be bad. I am most proud of never having seen a single Rocky movie or Jaws movie. Ishtar, Heaven's Gate, Damien series, SlumDogMill, and a bunch of others. Even so, I have watched some real dogs. I don't think I have ever paid theater money to see one...excepting kid movies like Doraemon and Anpanman and Pokemon... which are just a scam that I have participated in over and over.

Bass, you KNEW Ishtar was going to be bad, right?

An open question: How do people get roped into watching movies that they KNOW will be bad? How did you wind up watching THE WORST MOVIE OF ALL TIME?

I suspect alcohol is involved in many cases. Pranks? I guess for Sarge, it was his love of Scientology. haha.

I watch movies expecting them to be average or interesting somehow, but they ended up being soul-crushingly bad. Mesa of Lost Women was a 50s movie among some B movies I was watching and it was just a train wreck. I couldn't stop looking at it. And then it just ended, leaving gaping plot holes. The Dark Backward was alcohol. Plan 9 was a surprise to me. I watched it as a young kid and kind of liked it as a b movie. Wild Women of Wongo was mentioned in a song by the Tubes. etc.

MST3K performed a valuable public service. People could see bad movies and NOT waste hours of their lives doing so, alcohol optional.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Thanks for the great posts, Klein. I had a fun time looking up all the ones I didn't know about. I must say the worst movie I've seen in recent years would be "Hancock." No character development, bad soundtrack ... was it supposed to be action? comedy? drama? Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was pretty bad too. Glad I skipped out on 3.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

bicultural. Yeah. See I got roped into Hancock because I wanted to see "a new Superhero!!" Disney has bought Marvel, which means that Marvel has Disney lawyers protecting them. So, in five years or so, there aren't going to be any new superheroes unless they are talking dogs or fish. I agree it wasn't great. It could have been better in so many ways, and it would not have cost them a dime. Homeless, drunken superhero? Hmm. I thought they were going to really go somewhere with that.

Can you believe I wait until they come out on DVD in Japan to watch these things and I STILL get suckered? I don't know many movie people and I am usually busy, so I get myself worked up and ignore reviews and watch them, and I get let down. That is why I wonder why people see these dogs. I get suckered, but I am the stupidest person in the world. What is everyone else's excuse?

For instance, PiratesofCarib I have seen all three. I have the expensive DVD versions of all of them. Ya. Stupid, right? Well, I have at least one daughter. Nuf said. But other people without daughters HAVE to see those movies too. For all that is holy, WHY?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

If we factor in hype and expectations and disappointments, definitely Star Wars Episode 1. What a horrible, horrible film.

Avatar was horrible and made a lot of money, but the bar was not set as high as for Star Wars 1 and there weren't decades of fans waiting to see what would happen, only to be disemboweled by how much the movie sucked.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

How do people get roped into watching movies that they KNOW will be bad? How did you wind up watching THE WORST MOVIE OF ALL TIME?

@Klein To be honest, I am so embarrassed to tell anyone that is a real movie connoisseur. I was on a date...(yeah, I know...)and she asked me to go and that the movie would be funny, so I thought Dustin Hoffman, how could you go wrong, right? Boy, was I ever wrong on that one! Anyway, excruciating doesn't even come close to describing how bad that movie was. But if Dustin Hoffman admits He himself made a mistake in doing the movie that should tell you something. But did I learn my lesson.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Many movies people think are really bad.... I like alot. :)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Bass. Haha. A girl talked you into Ishtar! Oh man, that's low. I think that happens a lot, though. Had she seen it before? I guess she wanted to know how serious you were about her! haha. If it makes you feel any better, I have a lifelong obligation by marriage to watch every movie with Jennifer Aniston or George Clooney that ever comes out. Basically I threatened divorce to get out of Hugh Grant.

No. I dont think I am a movie snob or connoisseur. I just think about them. I don't talk about them, usually. I like some really bad stuff. Toxically bad. Like if I told people I liked them, they would stop liking me. My library is full of movies that make no sense at all, but I throw them into the mix anyway. Rated G, Rated R. I don't care.

Here is something I did that will keep you from being embarrassed. About 7 or 8 years ago, I was buying some used videos in the states. I found some interesting things, but I thought "hmmm.. what is this? People talk about this here and there. I wonder if it is really all that bad." So I put it in my basket and took it home. I watched it maybe a month later. It was a DVD with four Beavis and Butthead episodes. I think I lasted 15 minutes. I kind of sampled two episodes and saw no difference. Unbelievably stupid waste of time. Ishtar could not have been worse.

I know Sarge liked the recent Sex and the City movie, but I wonder if it was better than Ishtar?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Oh. Monkeyz. You mean the Jar Jar movie. Oh yeah. Good one. And yes. What other movie has had a multi-decadal buildup... good point. It could have been better, should have been better, was expected to be better, and it wasn't. I hope Peter Jackson does not screw up The Hobbit.

Which kind of makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look better and better by comparison. Ed Wood had a bad script, prima donnas, no budget to speak of, bad props and sets, no editing, and he himself was without talent. The movie was made sheerly by will, and it shows.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Come on Junnama. Don't be coy. Come clean. Do you want us to guess?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

When I watch a movie, something happens to me. I am oblivious to the surrounding. Get fully absorbed and even pay attention to the tiniest details in the movie. And when the movie finishes, I do not remember a thing.Cannot recount the plot or say who was acting in which movie. It is almost like travelling in a time machine. Nice feeling during the movie. When the movie finishes, feel miserable. Is there anyone else who feels that way?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"to get out of Hugh Grant." Please don't misinterpret that, anybody.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I'm typing on an iPhone...cut me some slack :)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Jkanda. Do you watch alone? What happens if you stop a DVD or pause it? What happens when you watch a play or other performance? What genres do you like?

This happens to me a little.

Time slows down. If I watch the same movie the next day, it seems like it is over in 15 minutes.

I also usually do not remember the same things other people remember.

And unfortunately, I figure out plots very early in the movie. When that happens, it is boring to wait for the movie to catch up, so I look at small details more. So a bad movie is ten times worse if the story is obvious or has plot holes.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Allright, how can POTC be "bad" and Grease be "fun"? That's just silly!

Star Wars Ep 1 wasn't that bad. Jar Jar was real stupid, but it was a pretty decent movie - not up to its hype, but hey rewatching the first three flicks as an adult they werent that good....

0 ( +0 / -0 )

NBK was pretty good, it wasnt as nifty as Kalifornia, but "worst ever"??

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Heaven's Gate was good. Way too long, but well made..

Mocking Ed Wood films is like booing at the special olympics...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Ben Afflecks made some good movies: Hollywoodland, that one with Matt Damon about being smaht, Karma.

Adam Sandler's stuff is ok. I liked Happy Gilmore...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Why the hate for the Cohen Bros? Fargo wasn't awesome? Oh brother? No Country? Barton Fink? Hudsucker? Lebowski? C'mon these are just ok movies? really? (I'm running out of question marks!!)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Klein thanks for making me feel that I am not abnormal :). Yes, watch movies alone.No stopping the DVDs.It would make me very miserable. I rent a few DVDs at a time and go non-stop.Not every weekend, but on some long holiday when I just want to be at home and all by myself. With plays and other theatrical events, yes do get engrossed totally.

Real-life stories, Action films, Sci-fi,animation, anything and everything. No, cannot watch a movie twice-it means torture. Except Babe part1, a million times.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Who watches bad movies on dates?! You intentionally go to bad movies on dates so you don't have to watch the movie! Ha!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Mocking Ed Wood films is like booing at the special olympics..."

Haha! Yeah. That is my sentiment exactly. It is obvious he tried. He just... well, anyway, that is why the Johnny Depp movie about him was so good. I am sure he was just like that.

Hey. Way up in an upper post, I suggested that categories are necessary for "bad movies." My big two, which are The Dark Backward and Mesa of Lost Women, are really just unwatchable. I defy anyone to watch them and then go and have a nice day. Any other movie I mention is not that bad.

Bombs, Stinkers, and WTHeck movies might be good categories.

There are WTHeck films like Eraserhead and Rocky Horror Picture Show. They could also be genius films, but who knows?

There are big budget Bombs like Battlefield Earth and Heaven's Gate and Ishtar, which could arguably be the worst because everyone had big expectations. They destroy capital.

Then there are Stinkers that are poorly made or just pretty well a waste of time. Inept.

There might be other categories.

Now see, Grease might be bad, but why is it bad? I will just say it is fun and leave it at that. And see. Adam Sandler is one of my guilty pleasures. I have not seen many of his movies and they are all kind of the same, but they are fun to watch and basically clean in a comic book sense of the word. The movies are good to watch with 13 year olds, for better or worse. My favorite is Little Nicky. I also like Happy Gilmore and you might know that the Happy Gilmore swing has been researched and proven to be a superior swing for teeing off.

I like Cohen Bros. I mentioned that they always start out average with me, but I like them better over time. I said "they fit here" not as bad movies, but movies that really grow on me. I can safely say I did not really like any of those movies the first time I saw them. Not one. But each time I watch them, I like them more. FargoLebowskiBrother are my most favorite.

I will stick up for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, too. I particularly like the movie they did together. You know the one.

Anyway, we can argue about the list. It is good to see the opinions. It will be hard to find a movie that is actually the worst for all people because it will be obscure, almost by definition. I like seeing the opinions, and I am pretty sure that my two selections probably cannot be topped. I am going to try and watch everyone's selections someday just for fun.

"Who watches bad movies on dates?! You intentionally go to bad movies on dates so you don't have to watch the movie! Ha!"

Get your paws off me, you big lug. Please offer up your best make-out movie. I bet it is not Eraserhead or Memento.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

No JKanda. You might still be abnormal! ;) It just sounds like you concentrate a lot. Then you put the memory somewhere and can't find it. Try videotaping your face while you watch a movie. Do you react, or just zone out? If you don't remember the movies, how do you know if you have seen them before? Anyway, everybody has quirks. And everyone has a favorite movie. If yours is Babe, well, That'll do.

My problem is that I have to stay perfectly silent or family members get really really irritated with me. They throw things.

I feel really bad that I ruined my wife's Crying Game experience by making clever observations. Years later, I had to leave the room in the middle of the Sixth Sense because I had figured out and I was going crazy not being able to say anything. Unfortunately, my wife can now tell by gestures and postures that I have figured something out and she just gets irritated. So now, we just watch stupid movies together. We can't watch good ones together until we have each seen it once. Now that is messed up, right?

When I watch movies alone, I will often try to guess dialogue, or yell at the characters. Sometimes I have to pause just to stop laughing. The dog scene in Something about Mary gets me every time.

You should try to figure out your little quirk and use it. It might be an advantage in some work or activity.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I will stick up for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, too. I particularly like the movie they did together. You know the one.

Uh, Dogma?

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back?

(I know...I know...)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Deer Hunter won 5 Oscars. Somebody should make a category of worst film to win an Oscar.

I think Kramer vs. Kramer would make that list. There was something in the water in the late 70s.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

inglourious Basterds - pure crap and historically inaccurate Mamma Mia - simply annoying music and bad actors !!!!!

What about the Nazi Jew hunter? People always seem to rave about his performance. Brad Pitt seemed hammy, but maybe I'm being overcritical because of my wife's insatiable lust for him.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Dogma. I am sure it is on many people's WORST list. How come I don't know about the other one? I heard about it somewhere, I think.

JKanda, there is a type of epilepsy that causes 'absence' seizures. This is not what you have, but you should look it up. It does not explain Babe, but it might make you think about what goes on in your brain when you watch movies.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Klein, checked absence siezures. No, I do not stare on the same object for a long time at all. It is a perfectly nice feeling. You just become one in the movie. No, i do not cry also, just that I feel too much part of the movie and the characters are real. I enjoy the movie, yes concentrate a lot and then the memory is somewhere. Cannot find it as you say. Yes, do borrow the same movies at times and start watching, and then realize I have seen this. Annoying. Could be some short term memory trouble.

Babe was a habit. Usually grumpy when I wake up, so it was nice to watch something pleasant and the music and everything about it took the grumpiness away. No I do not remember how the sequence of the story. Yes, yes, I am strange. Let us change the subject.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

But one good thing about this problem I have is: If I was stressed and did this the stress just vanishes after the movie. Guys you should try my time-tested method. You too Klein. It is magical. And please watching movies is nice when alone, so let your wife enjoy the movie.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Kill Bill. Rubbish movie.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

...also Kevin Costner's Waterworld. What a fizzer that crap was!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

2 girls 1 cup

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Jkanda. Do you remember the title as a list? You can just ignore this if you dont want to answer, but have you tried sitting down and writing down all the robot movies you have seen, or all the Brad Pitt movies you have seen? Could you do that? or all the ones with happy endings? Would those be easier or harder than writing a list of the names of the last 10 movies you have seen?

Anyway, it is not that strange. I was joking around about you being strange. Everybody is different. I knew somebody like you once. She would get very absorbed in things and she liked Babe and one other movie quite a lot. And Babe is a happy movie. Pure in a lot of ways. She was a happy person. I know of people who watch The Shawshank Redemption as often as once a week just for courage and inspiration.

Movies as stress reduction is interesting. I KNOW people do that with TV to a scary degree. I suppose I use movies for that quite a lot. Oddly enough, and this is weird when I think about it, I use movies more often to "relax" or "do something else" than I use them purely for entertainment. In that way, I guess they are more of a hobby or a ?drug? to me than a consumer good. I read a lot, but movies are different, and I use them differently from books.

There is no way I will finish a bad book, for instance, but I will let a bad movie play out. I am pretty sure I will never read the worst book of all time, but I might write it.

Another candidate for everybody. I am still trying to verify that I have actually seen this movie. I think that the name was TRANS, but it does not seem to fit the imdb description of the 1998ish movie. I acquired this video years ago and I watched a little and went UGH and threw into a box and never opened it again. It was not sex-themed. It was more repulsive than The Dark Backward and seemed very disjointed and harsh. Anybody seen something like this? I include it because it is the worst movie I never finished. Beavis and Butthead was not technically a movie, see.

If someone could sit through The Dark Backward, then Mesa of Lost Women and then Trans, it would crush their soul.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Battlefield Earth. Worst movie ever.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I don't like watching fake overdone historical fictional crap

then stick to documentaries, duh

worst movie ever: Alien v. Predator (AVP) that was awful!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

XXXXX That is a good one for the list. AVP should never have been made. The game was so much fun, so how was the movie going to be better? The DOOM movie was fun for me, but only a 100th as fun as the game, so it was kind of a bother. Is there any game-based movie that is better than the game?

OK. I have pulled out all the stops to find more bad movies THAT I HAVE SEEN. Last night I started watching PINK ANGELS before I fell asleep. I have not finished it, of course, but it appears to be very very bad, particularly for its cringe-worthiness. It is a mainstream movie made in the early 70s, I think, about a motorcycle gang of transvestites.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Klein, I shall do you the "best poster for this thread". SO you must be having a good collection of hats now.

No lists. And if asked to re-iterate the story, I would come up with a whole muddled-up story of a few movies put together with actors and actresses all changed according to my imagination. I am not joking.Books also the same.

I have been telling you and tkoind2 to write for a long time. You guys have some style, which is very different.Please write and publish. You alreay have fans.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Ben affleck won an Oscar for that smaht movie!! An Oscar!!!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Heavens Gate, Jaws 3, The Fast and the Furious, Pink Panther 2, Basic Instinct 2, Catwoman, The Nutty Professor 2, Hairspray, Battleship Earth, ALL the " Blade " flicks...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Oh, anyway, worst movie I remember was "where the buffallo roam" another hunter s Thompson flick.... Real fanboyish. Waste of bill murray's skills.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The most amusing and captivating bad movie I've ever seen was "Killing Me Softly" with Heather Graham and Joseph Fiennes. Absolute car crash of a film, such a terrible script, badly directed, preposterous story and trying to make an edgy drama out of a laughable plot concept. You do get to see Heather with not much on, though. Breathtakingly bad, and fascinating.

Why anyone is mentioning Slumdog as a bad film is unbelieveable. Even if you weren't grabbed by the story the quality of the direction and the cinematography is excellent. Hence the Oscars.

I do agree that Avatar was wildly overhyped, though.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Mr. Deeds (2002) with Adam Sandler. Many jokes, none funny.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Battle Field earth did indeed suck bigtime... wish I could unwatch that one!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

mission impossible 2. absolutely the worst film/crime ever committed.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"if asked to re-iterate the story, I would come up with a whole muddled-up story of a few movies put together with actors and actresses all changed according to my imagination. "

I think I would rather read one of your books. Kind of impressionistic interpretations of films and characters... like they were spilled from a blender. The way you think might really be special, Jkanda.

Report on Pink Angels. They are transvestite bisexual bikers, apparently, and they continue with antics as the movie gets worse and worse. It is not the worst movie ever, but it is offensive enough and bad enough to get plenty of votes from the academy.

Pamelot, you seem like a movie fan. How did you get suckered into watching those? Bored?

"Breathtakingly bad, and fascinating." It is funny how that works. Whether it gets better or worse, you just have to watch it until the credits. I know that feeling well.

"I remember was "where the buffallo roam" another" a very forgettable flick. I have seen it, but I don't remember anything about it. Was there a mountain cabin somewhere in it? Some kind of wilderness abandonment thing?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Yeah, cabins.... Hunter s liked cabins and guns and stuff like that. Real schlock....

I miss alot of bad movies cause if I think I won't like it I skip it. Never seen titanic, never seen avatar, never seen transformers, etc....

Most flicks are redeeming in some way... Except stuff by Joe esterhauz of course...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Avatar = Dances with Wolves, with blue indians.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I would say the propaganda film Exodus is the worst to ever have been released.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

How 'bout memorable quotes from clinkers:

Admiral Kimmel in Tora, tora, tora: It looks good on paper, but for God's sake... that's not a paper fleet sitting out there. said standing in front of a window with a paper fleet in the background.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

There are so many bad ones out there but how about those from aging and past-their-prime action stars who were otherwise fantastic in their heydays? Though sometimes not entirely their fault as they couldn't get better roles in Hollywood these days.

Jackie Chan - Rush Hour x, The Medallion, Spy Next Door(seriously, Jackie!?)

Jet Li - The One, Romeo Must Die, Cradle 2 the Grave (yo, '2' not 'to')

Van Damme - Double Team, Street Fighter(As Guile...hahahahaha)

Steven Seagal - Half Past Dead, Exit Wounds, Against the Dark (it's a vampire movie! it's an action movie! it's both!)

Chow Yun Fat - Bulletproof Monk, Dragonball (no amount of kamehameha is gonna save this one)

I'm sure there are others I missed that are as amusingly awful (or just plain awful).

0 ( +0 / -0 )

klein2, nice that someone understands what I mean!

I literally watched Killing Me Softly aghast at how shockingly, confusingly bad it was. At first I thought they were taking the mickey, but they actually did set out to make an erotic thriller, just it came off like a parody of one. If you appreciate truly bad cinema, you MUST see that film. Part of the reason was apparently that it was the first movie in English that the Chinese director had ever made.

Some films you watch because you know beforehand that they are bad - Plan 9 (charmingly amateur) and Gigli (two star egos and a rubbish script collide) for instance - but in the case of Killing Me Softly I had no expectations at all but found I'd stumbled across the crap thriller motherlode by lucky accident.

...and I think it had a half-naked Heather Graham on the back cover of the DVD - notice how the Japanese releases always do that?

FnC

0 ( +0 / -0 )

By directors:

Oliver Stone: W., Alexander Joel Coen: Intolerable Cruelty (the worst movie by one of the world's greatest film-maker) John Woo: Windtalkers, Paycheck Laurice Guillen: American Adobo Jonathan Demme: Manchurian Candidate (2004) Phillip Noyce: Salt

0 ( +0 / -0 )

So many bad movies.

Quick one anything that has something Bruce Lee in it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I like Jim Carrey, but The Number 23 wasn't what I expected. Yeah, it was bad.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Sukiyaki Western: Django (スキヤキ・ウエスタン ジャンゴ) When I saw the previews I was like wow.... until I actually watched the movie then I was like nooooo, no more please. IS a Japanese movie filmed in Engrish with awesome dialogs like "Ah, dead!" when they could say "oh you killed me!". Or an old Japanese guy trying to speak like "yo ain't from around here". And the drama!??? Just imagine one of the "good guys" (correct if I am wrong) raping a woman who is wounded with an arrow in her stomach in front of her son :o

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"crap thriller motherlode by lucky accident." haha. You know it is the same impulse that motivated people to go to executions and freak shows, but it so harmless. I highly recommend bad movies as therapy for anyone.

On the other end of the spectrum is the MST3K concept of soul-crushingly bad. I think these movies do exist. They sap your will to live. Eraserhead seriously twisted me around for years because I could not believe that it was something that someone would put that much effort into and present it. It was too ugly and disturbing to be art. As I grew up and learned about what a pinhead David Lynch is (in person!) it all made sense to me. Sometimes a movie just gets past stopping. It gets thrusted upon the public whether we like it or not. Ed Wood had no stop button of any kind. I not only have Plan 9 but Bride of the Monster and Glen or Glenda. They are all bad.

Some movies could be weaponized and used to demoralize whole populations. The Dark Backward, Mesa of Lost Women, Trans, Pink Angels. Any of them could be used in Psi-Ops.

Glen or Glenda, however, is the b*llsiest thing I have seen put on film since The Great Dictator. OK, Charlie Chaplin is a socialist? OK. Ed Wood is a transvestite, personally, seriously, and truthfully. At that time, it was at least as illegal and much more personally embarrassing. And his GIRLFRIEND did not know until he made the movie. She left him to go make Mesa of Lost Women. Can you imagine making a movie about something secret and shameful like that and handing to a distributor, and saying, "Here you go!" That guy, not his movies, was a serious piece of work. It is an uplifting piece in some ways, and I am not just talking about the pumps and bras. And they DISTRIBUTED IT! The movie... in that context and that time... must have been unbelievable. People were stunned.

Anybody who knows the story, ask yourself: did Ed Wood know what he was doing with Glen or Glenda? There is a very very fine line between idiocy and genius with Ed Wood. Courage or stupidity? Who knows? Johnny Depp could not be sure how to play him. That says something right there.

See Glen or Glenda. It should be required viewing for Sarge. haha

Looking at the list we have built up here, it is a little depressing how many bad movies there are. They should be getting better as we learn from our mistakes, but .... are they?

Public service announcement: Jackass 3D comes out next month.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

In Pink Angels, Grizzly Adams' Dan Haggerty is a homosexual biker gang member. It is easy to tell it is him. Part of my youth has been lost forever.

It also lets you know where he got the name GRIZZLY.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Can't leave out Even Cowgirls Get the Blues on any worst movie list.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

...and I think it had a half-naked Heather Graham on the back cover of the DVD - notice how the Japanese releases always do that?

Half-naked Naomi WATTS might entice some Japanese/ Chinese businessman to invest in Hollywood films... but definitely not Mulholland Dr-- not necessarily a bad movie but watching it should fright some Asian money-men... Spooky =/

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Inglorious Basterds was historically inaccurate? hahaha you don't say... Did you turn off 2001 a space odyssey when you first saw the monolith? historically inaccurate hahaha

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Gangs of New York.

Che.

Kill Bill.

The last Matrix movie.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Wow... some of you really have no concept of what a 'bad' movie is. Granted, some movies are SO bad they achieve a kind of cult status and are literally loved. People citing Michael Moore movies or other personal grudges as bad movies don't cut it. Definitely among the worst are:

Planet 9 from Outer Space. True, as Klein says, Ed Wood DID try, but that doesn't excuse this from possibly being the worst movie ever made. Troll 2: The movie is about a bunch of GOBLINS for Pete's sake! The movie can't even create monsters after its namesake! Never mind the absolutely horrible (and classic) dialogue, the world's worst costumes, and awful actors. Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler. I think this movie was just an excuse for blue light porn. Jack Frost. No, not the one with Michael Keaton... the one with the guy who dies and comes back as a snowman who murders people. Forbidden Zone. This black and white classic is another awful, and wonderful, source of classic one-liners.

I could name a dozen more, at least.

Keeping in mind these are all classic B-movies -- some intentional and others not -- so I offer up the so-called A-movie classic: Battlefield Earth.

So, keep listing Michael Moore movies if you're a Republican, or Jackie Chan movies, but you simply cannot compare them to how bad actual bad movies are.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Actually... you can compare how bad anything Moore does to ANY thing else "bad". They are just that terrible.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Actually... you can compare how bad anything Moore does to ANY thing else "bad". They are just that terrible.

I've been to a number of Moore movies at the cinema -- Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine, Sicko, and Capitalism -- and none of them shared any the traits of a truly bad movie:

People leaving the theater early. (People nearly all stayed to the end and applauded.) Identification of specific bad scenes. (No one can give an example of a "bad scene" in any of Moore's films -- one that could be agreed upon as such by a wide variety of moviegoers.) A near complete absence of good scenes. (There are plenty of great scenes in Moore's films.) A total lack of entertainment or artistic value. (Moore's films are fun to watch, and many do what good art is supposed to do: make morally bankrupt people uncomfortable.)
0 ( +0 / -0 )

inglourious basterds is a bad movie from beginning to end

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Signs. It's so bad it gives bad movies a bad name.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Loki520: "Actually... you can compare how bad anything Moore does to ANY thing else "bad". They are just that terrible."

Strictly because you do not espouse the values that Moore does, and that's all. Yabits says it better, though.

I forgot to add these gems:

Leprechaun 4: Leprechaun in Space

Leprechaun 5 (and six!): Lep in the Hood ('starring' Ice-T).

Go to you tube and look up 'Lep in the Hood' to see the music video from the movie -- you'll understand the best bad there is.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

yabits: "Can't leave out Even Cowgirls Get the Blues on any worst movie list."

This movie was an interesting experiment: they took Tom Robbins' arguably best novel (perhaps second only to Skinny Legs and All) and tried to make an artsy film of it incorporating Robbins in the film as a narrator. I didn't think it was that bad -- and it had a pretty amazing cast. Not GREAT, but not among the worst movies, I think.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Anyway, if you want to see a boon of bad movies look up the old TV show Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I loved it when I was still living back in Canada way back when, and sometimes it was friggin' hilarious. The movies themselves, of course, were gawd awful, but the comments they made sometimes while 'watching' the movie were unbelievably funny.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

SmithinJapan I think you've missed the point of this string with your reasoning (that even the worst A-movie is better than a B-movie, thus only B-movies should be submitted here [if I understand you correctly]).

Of course B-movies are the worst, technically speaking, but bad A-movies, made with budgets exponentially higher, are the most inexcusably, and thus disappointingly and maddeningly, bad. And thus it's far more interesting and amusing to ridicule them.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Armageddon is absolutely the wort film of all time.

At least Ed Wood had a soul...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

There are a lot of really bad ones with no budget, but with a relatively higher budget and very popular stars at the time of its release, hands down 'Ishtar' has to be one of the worst movies ever made. I think it was Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty - just a really horrible and unwatchable film.

Close runner up would be 'The English Patient'. Weird film, I didn't care for the acting, and the main character such a treacherous ass that it was difficult to feel any pity for him or care one iota what happened to his character.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Close runner up would be 'The English Patient'. Weird film, I didn't care for the acting

I'm going to put that one on my Netflix list and watch it. A number of folks whose opinions I respect on films have rated it highly.

I've seen Kristen Scott Thomas in several other films and think she's a terrific actress.

As for another one to the bad list: The Hotel New Hampshire. By the end, I wanted to go out an open window. (The only reason I watched it was because I had the hots for Nastassia Kinski at the time.)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

English patient is a tough one. She is an excellent actress, and I love Ray (Ralph, but don't they also call him 'Ray'?) Fiennes. It was beautifully filmed, and won lots of awards to boot. I think for me, it was just one of those films that didn't click. They just didn't develop his character enough for me to feel any empathy towards him. Check it out, you may love it. The beauty of film is one person's trash is another one's treasure.

Another horrible one for thought that popped into mind only because I saw it mentioned just yesterday - Pearl Harbor with Ben Affleck.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I think for me, it was just one of those films that didn't click. They just didn't develop his character enough for me to feel any empathy towards him.

I like to get movies where the opinions run the gamut. When I was really getting into movies -- back when Siskel and Ebert were on PBS and in their prime -- I especially liked seeing the ones they disagreed upon. I think they would have both given thumbs down on Affleck's Pearl Harbor movie.

btw, I think the pronunciation of Fiennes first name is "Raiph." I first encountered that pronunciation with the English composer Ralph ("Raiph") Vaughn-Williams.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

9/11 ''loose change'' you might find it your tube!!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Def By Temptation is the absolute worst movie I have ever seen. I wish I counted the number of times an audience member said the likes of "you've got to be kidding me" or "this movie is horrible". Not one person like anything about it. I don't even know if you could find it anywhere.

It stars Kadeem Hardison of A Different World. Sam Jackson is in it to. It's from 1990.

Horrible.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@ yabits

Identification of specific bad scenes. (No one can give an example of a "bad scene" in any of Moore's films -- one that could be agreed upon as such by a wide variety of moviegoers.)

There is a scene from Fahrenheit 911 where he talks to police/security outside the Saudi embassy, who basically say 'no comment' to all his questions. Then he asks them if the Saudis give them any trouble or not, and they say they can't comment, to which he replies, 'I'll take that as a yes.' It was a blatant piece of manipulation and a very very poor scene indeed.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The worst film of all time is some film-student failure that only a handful of people ever saw.

I'm going to go for a film that had big money behind it and big names in it, a film of whoch we could have reasonably expected some kind of quality and/or entertainment, but from which we got neither.

My vote goes to Pearl Harbour. Honestly one of the poorest films I've ever seen.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Then he asks them if the Saudis give them any trouble or not, and they say they can't comment, to which he replies, 'I'll take that as a yes.' It was a blatant piece of manipulation and a very very poor scene indeed.

Manipulation of what or who? Did you actually feel manipulated? Really?

I thought the scene was hilarious. The movie was chock full of powerful scenes.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Avatar

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Klein2 : My feet were nailed to the floor.

3 more unbelievably boring vessels of time suckage: Reds, Fahrenheit 911, and Thunderdome.

Plan9 , Eraserhead, and Liquid Sky are a few of my favorite awful movies.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Deathrace 2000 (orginial with Sly Stallone)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Deathrace 2000 (orginial with Sly Stallone)

That was a fun movie. No matter the production quality, if you enjoy the movie, or enjoy how bad it is, then the movie can;t be among the "worst of all time".

Candidates for the "worst of all time" should be movies you can't even stand to watch for 10 minutes.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Pear Harbour!

No Country for Old Men was brilliant like a really good dentist.

Dune by David Lynch (though I worship some of his others). Likewise, Kill Bill and all of Tarrantino's movies after the first three, "True Romance", "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs," are really bad in comparison.

Independence Day was really queasy. I saw it at a cinema and wanted to leave before the lights came up lest anyone think that I am from the land of its creation.

I have not seen The Cove, but I think that it is going to make want to eat dolphin.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Waterworld

0 ( +0 / -0 )

bampaku: "SmithinJapan I think you've missed the point of this string with your reasoning (that even the worst A-movie is better than a B-movie, thus only B-movies should be submitted here [if I understand you correctly])."

No, you did not understand me correctly. B-movies are by definition bad; my point was that while B-movies 'have an excuse' and will always be among the top of the worst movies, so-called A-movies have no excuse to be so awful, making them even WORSE than most B-movies. I LOVE B-movies... heaps of fun; but nothing is worse than a bad A-movie.

So, some of the worst bad A-movies:

Battlefield Earth: I know Travolta was doing his religion's founder a kind of tribute by starring in the film, but geez. And Forrest Whittaker... come on, man!

GI Joe: I actually tried to get my money back from the rental shop, but just gave up in the end. Seriously one of the worst pieces of garbage in movie history. I can't believe I was somewhat hyped about it before it came out.

Stealth: Another awful movie, probably by the same director.

But back to the B-movies, check out a 'rap tune' from one of the best/worst.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlufxatPxnA

Or this gem trailer for Troll 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KCct4RwLNM

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Worst movies of all time and that instantly anybody who actually likes them as a complete idiot? How about the "tortune porn" rubbish that's been hitting us from left and right in recent years: Saw, Hostel....

And it only gets better: Piranha 3D. WTF? Is that what 5000 years of civilization has brought us to?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Sorry... insert "qualifies" between "instantly" and "anybody" above.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Jewel Of The Nile

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Above the Law" was great, but any other Steven Segal movie can go on the list. What's with the black leather coat man? You look like a Darleck from Dr Who.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

kawachi: "Jewel of the Nile"

Oh, come on! That movie is pretty much, along with the brat pack movies, the ultimate statement of 80s silver screen! Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito! Classic! I'm not saying I love it by any means, but to call it one of the worst movies? Man... it even had the light-rock sound track! haha.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Airheads

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Freddie Got Fingered

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Land of the Lost, Dinner with Schmucks and almost every other Will Ferrell or Steve Carell movie. Also the "Mummy" movies and most every other Brendan Fraser movie, appalling.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Eraserhead

Someone I used to know said that it must be "too intelligent" for me. Pretentious idiot. No, I hate it because it's boring, makes no sense, and is rubbish.

The Matrix

Hated it when it was released, and still do now.

Pear Harbour

Full of mistakes and just... crap.

No Country for Old Men

Ended all of a sudden with nothing really cleared up.

any musical ever made

I don't see the point of having to sing something when you could just say it. 99% of the time the lines seem crowbarred into the song.

Bollywood films

Same as above but with pointless dancing. Has anyone seen the Bollywood version of Reservoir Dogs? It does exist apparently.

Kitano Takeshi films

Hype hype hype snoooooze. Why do the French love him??

2001: A Space Odyssey

Nothing happens for an hour, then nothing happens for another hour.

Captain America

The first movies, 1 and 2. Reb Brown being quiet for once. Just... silly.

Space Mutiny

Reb Brown doing what he does best, being bad. I have never laughed so much at a film. I'm on a Reb Brown roll here!

Yor, the Hunter from the Future

For all it's bat-hangliding, purple cavemen and Reb Brown screaming, it's BAD. Even if Yor IS the man.

I can't think of any more at the moment.

"We will need a lot more hemp before we're through".

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Quoting Roger Ebert's praise for Pulp Fiction -- he takes a nice swipe in passing at Pearl Harbor(2001):

Watching many movies, I realize that all of the dialogue is entirely devoted to explaining or furthering the plot, and no joy is taken in the style of language and idiom for its own sake. There is not a single line in ``Pearl Harbor'' you would want to quote with anything but derision.

And I would like to dump the third Bourne movie on this list. It was bereft of characterization and blissfully ignorant of the extent of CIA influence in the atrocities around the world. The characters repeat the name "Bourne" every thirty seconds as if they're trying to program us to buy it on Netflix instead of telling a story.

They spent millions of dollars on the film and it amounts to nothing but noise, scenes that erupt into kung-fu for no reason and Bourne penetrating his old headquarters like a ghost. It is insulting, and I haven't paid for a movie ticket since.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Zardoz rocked!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Zardoz was always cool. Great entertainment.

Worst: The Sound of Music. Absolutely detest that nauseatingly syrupy f...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Ishtar" was awful. Technically "Battlefield Earth" was even more awful ... but it's so incredibly awful that it's fun to watch.

"Zardoz" was, well, "interesting" ... so heavy ideas in an imperfect wrapper.

And "2001" ... that's not a "movie", it's ART.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I just remembered - Starship Troopers. Incredibly, they actually made two sequels. There aren't many movies in which you couldn't care less about ANY of the characters. Like Don Morton of Metropolis said, it's like putting a trashcan over your head and having someone beat on it for 2 hours.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

sarge: "Starship Troopers."

As with RoboCop, by the same director, much of Starship Troopers is a spoof. It was not a serious movie -- it was a play on Naziism and such brainwashed commitment to war, etc. What's more, there was a whole play on Naziism at other levels with the eugenics, and the whole 'Beverly Hills 90210 crowd goes to war'. The movie is quite clever in its messages, although the cast (Michael Ironside and Neil Patrick Harris aside -- though at the time the latter was kind of in the dumps) was a bomb. Watch it again... look at the uniforms, the message of conformity, etc. It's not one of my favourites by any means, but you should appreciate the satire of it.

MrDog: This is an opinion thread, and so no one can really say anyone is right or wrong, but it's tempting in your case. My guess is you are a fan of movies like Stealth? Gung-ho flicks where might is right (as long as the US wins)? Most of the movies you mention are not only NOT mainstream, but very far from it and often done by very un-traditional directors like Lynch and the Coen Brothers -- all geniuses and awarded as such. It's also a bit of a stretch to throw Bollywood in there -- it's a culture more than a group of THOUSANDS upon thousands of movies. I really really wish I understood Hindi -- Bollywood movies look like more fun than any other movies you could think of, just as weddings in India are the most fun in the world. Sure, they can be corny, but they are great. And Kitano (Beat) Takeshi is a world respected director, probably moreso than ANY Japanese director since Kurosawa. His movies, while not easy to understand the underlying theme sometimes, are genius. The variety shows he 'stars' in are garbage. :)

Do you know what? I actually don't even know who Reb Brown is.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Rhinestone -- Stallone sings with Dolly Parton. (What a genius combination.)

Cobra -- Geeeeeeez!

Judge Dredd

0 ( +0 / -0 )

sarge: "Incredibly, they actually made two sequels."

Forgot to mention; the sequels ARE garbage, and should never have been made. You know when you can't even afford to sign on Casper Van Dien for a sequel is HAS to suck! and wasn't part three animated? until they made another part three, I mean (with the same jacket cover, save that an extra leg was sticking through the helmet for each sequel).

0 ( +0 / -0 )

In case it wasnt mentioned yet: Al Gores "Inconvenient Truth".

0 ( +0 / -0 )

In case it wasnt mentioned yet: Al Gores "Inconvenient Truth".

That wasn't a movie, it was a Powerpoint presentation people saw at a movie theater.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@smithinjapan

No, I'm not into action movies, and I'm not American, so I don't want America to win anything ;)

I do see what you're saying, it's just that movies that are classed as "art", in my opinion, are like sleeping pills usually. I don't mean that I want action, I want to be interested and feel that I haven't just wasted 100 plus minutes of my life.

Action movies are garbage, but I'd rather watch Die Hard than Eraserhead. Although, I would love to have seen what would have been made if David Lynch had directed Return of the Jedi like was originaly planned.

Do you know what? I actually don't even know who Reb Brown is.

If you've never seen Mr. Brown, you should. You won't regret it. It's an "experience" to say the least. Speaking of Reb, Robot War should have been on my list, because it's a very bad rip-off of Predator, and is probably one of the worst films ever.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Starship Troopers was hilarious. "Medic!"

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Kitano (Beat) Takeshi is a world respected director, probably moreso than ANY Japanese director since Kurosawa. His movies, while not easy to understand the underlying theme sometimes, are genius. The variety shows he 'stars' in are garbage.

Love his goofy (80s) shows, unfamiliar with his more serious works though =/

Signs. It's so bad it gives bad movies a bad name.

I love Shyamalan films... more like the silver-screen version of so-called Catholic fictions of Shusaku Endo (Scorsese rumored to adapt one of his work, Silence?), Graham Greene, etc. (But I agree, Signs warranted more)

Philippinos made a lot of great films with Catholic-themes in the late 70s- to mid-80s-- that tradition of bold film-making somehow disappeared along with spirited film-makers of the era. Check out Bernal's Himala (1982) as example =/

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Bullit" with Steve McQueen. With this film's success, Hollywood realised the way to the viewing public's heart was to include more and more shooting people dead, car chase scenes and explosions.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites