Jump to content

Talk:List of films considered the worst/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3→Archive 5

Eyes Wide Shut deleted

I was pretty shocked to see Eyes Wide Shut on here. Just because some people think its Stanley Kubrick's least good movie, and some people don't like it at all doesn't make it the one of the "worst movies ever".. It has lots of fans, and lots of people consider it as one of his best. Don't usually like to use IMDB votes as "evidence", but 7.0/10 is a _good_ rate, isn't it? This is no turkey. Calling it one of the worst movies ever made is just plain crazy. You don't really find any movies that SOME critic didn't like. Please save this list for real turkeys, and don't throw in art-movies in here just because you don't understand/like them.

E Section

No "E" section yet? I nominate "End Of Days." :)

Any votes for Love Story?

More deletion debate

ARGH. No, no no. First of all, it's generally agreed that Howard the Duck is the worst movie ever made. Second of all, this article has no place on Wikipedia. I mean, Christ, Jimbo is talking about 1.0. Graft 05:28, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hey, me and some of my friends actually watched Titanic in the theatre. It's more enjoyable if you laugh out loud when people fall off the boat as it sinks. But anyway, yeah isn't this incredibly POV? Adam Bishop 05:33, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
NPOV'd a little.... Dysprosia 05:38, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)


I don't beleive this page can exist in Wikipedia. It needs to be moved to meta. Mintguy 15:22, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

We should have a couple of these "worst" things. Even if there is no one film you can actually say "is the worst", there is ontologically still such a thing as "the worst movie ever made" - people just disagree as to which it is. The title makes the *pursuit* of the *criteria* for the worst, the point, not the worst. The fun part is that people *do* agree on these things, if not unanimously, so, there must be such a thing as "worst".

I agree, it needs to go to meta; it's subjective by definition, and can't adhere to NPOV for that reason. (Besides, if it took this long for Ishtar to make the list.... ;) - Hephaestos 15:32, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Actually, on reflection, not even meta; meta is for talking about Wikipedia itself. There are several wiki sites that would welcome it though (in fact they probably already have an article on it). - Hephaestos 15:41, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Even though I added to this page (for fun) it should indeed not be part of Wikipedia. - Fuzheado 15:56, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
The only reason you think Ishtar is a bad movie is because people told you so before you saw it (if you saw it at all).


Votes for Deletion

Discussion is also happening at Vfd, so people may want to look there. Also, the worst movie of all time is unquestionably Millenium. --Dante Alighieri 20:05, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

There's an article named List of major flops. I don't know why Heaven's Gate or Waterworld are here. Ericd 21:26, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I don't know how "famous" Terminal Island is but I know from viewing it that it is one horrible movie. It counts in it's cast most of the actors from Magnum P.I. and Tom Selleck has publicly apologized for it calling it the worst movie he has ever been a part of. I might also add Devil's Rain to the list but, again, I don't know how famous it is for being so bad. Probably it's only claim to fame. StinKerr 11:23, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Titanic is not 'widely considered extremely bad'. I would say the same for Independence Day, however much I may personally disagree. DJ Clayworth 16:44, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, they have extremely bad scenes, but that does not make them wholly bad. They aren't a sheer root canal to watch end to end. For instance, in Titanic we get to see that wimpy sensitive-guy Leonardo di Caprio actually freeze to death and we get to laugh as his goofy corpse goes to the bottom. And, in Independence Day Will Smith, after a dogfight between his aircraft and a hostile flying saucer, after they crash, still chomping his cigar, hauls off and punches the alien in the face without missing a beat. This was good for a laugh too. Then again most true crap film has such moments.


At the risk of feeding the trolls, my point was that most people, such as the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts, considered Titanic to be very good. The page title says 'widely considered'. DJ Clayworth 17:03, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)


Should we have a section for B movies, separate from the rest, is it fair to consider Plan 9 and Titanic on the same terms?

Independence Day was quite good, as was Titanic. LirQ

Lists that have bad/worst/best/good in their titles should be removed from Wikipedia as they are an expression of someone's opinion rather than NPOV or fact.

Nah, it doesnt hurt anything. LirQ

First of all, I'm not sure this article belongs here because of POV issues. Regardless of that, the article title is perhaps the most awkward sequence of words that I've ever seen on Wikipedia. Is that really the best anyone could come up with: "famous for being widely considered extremely bad" ? What about List of famously panned movies or List of widely panned movies or even List of movies that are famous for being widely panned? At least make the title readable. -- Minesweeper 11:44, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Deep Impact, a wholly decent movie, is on this list but Armageddon remains absent. Please. This is a totally subjective list, and the commentary after each movie does nothing to remove that stigma. -- goatasaur 05:05, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

So remove Deep Impact, or add Armageddon. Lirath Q. Pynnor

I think this list should more closely mimic the List of movies that are famous for being widely considered extremely good where recognized authorities or polls are cited for each film to be included. - SimonP 13:05, Oct 20, 2003 (UTC)

I nominate this page for worst article title in Wikiland. Paul Klenk 13:09, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Removed the 3 quotes, because they look so ugly, but if you really want them, keep them.2toise 09:00, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

How did Star Wars make this list? Is the criteria for being extremely bad that a movie makes a lot of money. Both Star Wars films are in the top 25 all-time grossing movies. I only wish I could make a movie so bad. Rmhermen 13:08, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)

You know, I always thought this page would remain intact exactly as titled as an easter egg in Wikipedia with no serious attempt to make it part of the mainstream. Look at the edit history and look at the title - List of movies that are famous for being widely considered extremely bad It's a parody on the NPOV policy by using weasel words to describe what, as you pointed out, are "The worst movies." Even the early edit history had comments like, "This article should be deleted, but I'm adding..." :) Fuzheado 08:53, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think that as it stands this page is too subjective. Rather than deleting, I propose splitting the page in two:

which would, under each title give details of budget and gross box-office (information availible under Box Office and Business on IMDB see Data on Heaven's Gate for Example). This should also have the caveat that a film can eventually recoup it's losses in the video rental market and TV syndication.
which would have at least one quote (and preferably more - especially if the film does not have an article associated with it) from an established film critic/reviewer supporting its inclusion as an atrocious movie

Once all the titles were on one (or both) of these lists it could be removed or converted into a disambig if there are any articles left pointing to it that it is not clear which type of failure or "bad movie" they are talking about. Any Thoughts? MrWeeble 00:26, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Agree that deleting would be less attractive an option than dividing into 2 or 3 sections (financial flops, disappointing sequels/adaptations, and the truly bad); while a lot of the titles here have been widely viewed as failures on virtually all levels, the list mixes them to too great a degree with titles here for other reason. A few of the titles here - Munchausen, Tron, The Cotton Club, for instance - are genuinely good movies; they were big financial failures, but neither critics nor audiences found them truly bad; I can easily watch any of them free of either guilt or smug derision. (BTW, someone might add some notes on the associated murder case to the Cotton Club page; I don't have enough background to add them myself.)

Some of the others - Alien 3, Batman and Robin, Episodes I & II, etc - might be grouped under diappointing sequels (and/or adaptations). Godzilla, Cleopatra and Last Action Hero - among others (maybe For the Boys belongs here) - should probably be categorized simply as hugely expensive or ambitious movies that didn't do as well as was hoped; Heaven's Gate fits this description, though to a much greater extent. I'm not sure where The Postman fits in here; I think it kind of suffered from piling on at the time, though those who actually saw it didn't think it was that bad. (Some fans of the book may disagree.)

I can't fathom why Deep Impact is on here; it was a big hit (though not as big as Armageddon the same summer), and audiences generally liked it. MisfitToys 01:24, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

This is getting silly. Worst ever? Pearl Harbor barely sinks to the depth of "mediocre." Heck, I saw it in the theatre and didn't even leave before it was done. Disappointing, OK. (imdb, click, click) I see Roger Ebert gave it one-and-a-half stars and described it as "a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours" OSo, OK, maybe it was worse that mediocre, perhaps you could even call it bad, but worst ever? C'mon, we can set the bar lower than Pearl Harbor. Dpbsmith 16:18, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The above talk mainly seems to focus on an (inevitably) failed attempt at deletion. Perhaps now we should turn our hand to NPOVing the article? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 23:00, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

VfD Part II: This sucker won't die

(a fine name for a bad movie)

List of movies that have been considered the worst ever

Silly list. Inherently POV. Wyllium 01:09, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete. Valid topic only if started over as a properly referenced list of professional reviewers calling movies the worst ever. Fredrik 01:12, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. It's been around since August 2003 and there have been nearly 200 edits. It needs some work but it should not be removed. Acegikmo1 01:49, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
    • How could this article be ever encyclopedic or npov? It's a list of opinions for Pete's sake. Titanic is on the list as a "worst movie ever", but I know people that love it. Wyllium 01:58, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
  • Absolutely keep. A movie's entertainment value is perhaps its most critical metric. We have other lists of subjects sorted by the metrics that are most important to those subjects. Why should we exclude the most important metric to movies simply because it's subjective? As long as each entry on the page is defended (some certainly need to be expanded), then the page serves its use. RADICALBENDER★ 02:07, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
  • Just the title uses weasel words and is POV. The entire article is based upon the opinions of its creators. Delete it before more of its ilk have time to sprout. Guanaco 02:22, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. I don't like the title much myself, but there are many movies downright notorious for being bad, and it's nice to have a list of them. The article as stands has useful information, though perhaps it could be pruned a bit. VV 03:04, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. This is an obvious content issue. All we need to do is state by whom the movies has been considered the worst, and voila, it is NPOV, and people will undoubtedly find the page interesting. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:56, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
  • Agree with Pete; keep. James F. (talk) 12:06, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Yes, it's marginal, mostly because the research to reference who considers them "the worst ever" is unlikely ever to be done. But I have to say that the fact that the article has received so much attention and so many contributions and edits—and real edits, not reversion wars—weighs in the balance. If I had to give a rationalization, it would be that a page that receives that much ongoing attention is probably in the process of improvement. I'd add that "reasonable judgement based on personal expertise" is not the same as "biassed point of view." Dpbsmith 13:18, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep (what, Lord Bob, making a keep vote? Incredible!). Pretty borderline, really, but a list like this belongs somewhere on Wikipedia. POV title, but the content is worthy of keeping. Lord Bob 17:00, May 31, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep Abigail 00:08, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete But if you really want to keep it, record box office stats, dvd sales, and production/advertising budget and compile a biggest money-losing movies of all time, then it would be encyclopedic rather than POV. siroxo 00:10, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Whilst it's not the most encyclopaedic article ever-written, and unashamedly POV, it is interesting and (dare I say) fun! Julianp 00:19, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Already been here once, several months ago, for mostly the same reasons. The title needs work, true, but that title was made weaselly because it was supposed to be "more NPOV" that way. There are of course too many moviegoers who have seen clinkers for every such opinion to have, or need, a reference. Perhaps move it to something like "List of notoriously bad movies." Smerdis of Tlön 03:09, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Some movies are note worthy only because they are the worst. Tomatoes and Plan 9 for example. IMDB has its own list of 100 worst. Why shouldn't we? Most of these movies have good annotations, the rest should either be similarly annotated, or removed from the list. Note on Titanic being on the list--comments attached with it are well balanced, and I would have to agree with them, despite liking the movie myself. --ssd 04:16, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. It has no chance to be neutral and well-grounded. Mikkalai 05:18, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - no chance to be NPOV. - Tεxτurε 17:03, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Of course it can be made NPOV. I can also imagine someone finding use in such a list. I second Ihcoyc's suggestion to rename it "List of notoriously bad movies." -- Wikisux 18:16, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Redirect to the Razzies Awards?? Muriel G 08:51, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • delete, wikipedia is all about npov RustyCale 18:53, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Lighten up. MK 07:19, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Another one, just added

  • The Brown Bunny (2003): Hyped entirely on the "controversey" it created at Cannes, it was in fact declared unpatriotic because it purported to represent American filmmaking.

-[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 22:52, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I appreciate the work you are doing trying to keep this article in a good usable state despite the never-ending drive-by additions of regular joe bad movies, Aranel. Thanks! Pcb21| Pete 17:31, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I readded this, with solid cites. Luc "Somethingorother" French 03:45, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

love means never having to say you're sorry *tears up*

Here's another one:

  • "South Pacific" (1958): A film performance of the musical, terrible. A result of reckless directing, as the mood of the drama changed, the image was tinted a different colour.

-[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 22:28, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't save this one. Luc "Somethingorother" French 08:59, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

And again (there is documentation, but it doesn't establish that anyone thought it was the worst ever):

  • Dungeons & Dragons (2000): Easily defeats Worst of the Year "winners" of other years, typically overlooked, having been a "Battlefield Earth" classmate. Disturbingly bad, baffling judgement on the part of Jeremy Irons to star in this dog, unclear connection to RPG game of same name, and perpetuates circa 1930's African-American racial stereotype courtesy of Marlon Wayans "doing what can only be called a heartfelt tribute to Butterfly McQueen..." (Kalamazoo Gazette, James Sanford)

-[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 00:46, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Re-added D&D. Don't want to write a thesis on this movie, but there's evidence if one looks, like a 10% on rottentomatoes, etc. How long a blurb you want? Other films suffice with fewer words, more 'documentation' means a longer entry, which is totally unnecessary. Suffice it to say, it deserves to be on here. What's wrong with people's additions? It's a 'world' resource, not 'your' resource. Kindly de-nazify your self-appointed 'guardianship.' Just to point out, I *did* say why it's overlooked. It *was* released in the same year as Battlefield. If it weren't this would not be a point of discussion at all, at all... - unsigned comment from 4.8.236.235

Let's keep the conversation productive and civil, please. Gamaliel 08:57, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I had to take it out again. I agree that there are other films on the list that should be removed for lack of documentation, but that doesn't mean that this one should stay. 10% on Rotten Tomatoes signifies a particularly bad movie, not "the worst ever". 0% on Rotten Tomatoes would perhaps be notable. (I think we need to establish a policy for Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb data.) Just because it was released the same year as another bad movie doesn't mean that important reviewers didn't review it. (You might start by checking what Ebert said.) -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 15:09, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

North

North was sheer brilliance! What on earth is it doing there? You people don't understand hyperbole. Fishal 00:37, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • It's included because of the Ebert quote mentioned in the article. (Is that quote being misinterpreted? I didn't put it there and I really don't know.) This article lists movies that were considered the worst ever, and if Ebert really said and meant that, then it probably does deserve to be listed, regardless of whether it is actually in the running for "worst ever". -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 23:44, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Moved from article page

The following template was added to the article. It is obvious metadata meant for editors so I am moving it here. Make of it what you will.

No, this template is obviously meant for the article page: Any notice of bias belongs on the article because it qualifies the accuracy of the article to readers, and it refers the reader to the talk page, so obviously isn't meant to be posted on the talk page. See Wikipedia:Template_messages/Disputes. 119 21:25, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Deleted some uncited entries

I removed a few uncited films. Feel free to check the diff. - Vague | Rant 11:52, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

Removed for lack of documentaion

I removed this entry:

It's listed above, but has apparently been reinserted with even less documentation than it had previously (i.e. none).

There are a lot of other entries that are rather POV, of course, but I didn't get to that. The sometimes vague references to "[unspecified] reviewers said" and "is widely considered" make it hard to distinguish fact from speculation. --[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 01:04, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Round two

The following entries used to be in the main article, but now aren't. There needs to be at least some attempt to document these (other than just describing how bad they are) if they are to be reinserted. Can anyone provide the relevant citations?

  • The Beast with a Thousand Eyes: Another classic awful film, in the vein of Robot Monster. It is especially famous for its "score", which was composed by playing a record behind the camera during the filming.
  • Glen or Glenda (1953): An inept quasi-documentary from Ed Wood about transvestism, this film tells the story of Glen, who enjoys wearing women's clothing. After a nightmarish dream sequence (which is so transcendently bad, it's even worse than the rest of the film), Glen undergoes psychotherapy to help cure his affliction. Bela Lugosi appears for the sole purpose of spouting bizarre psychobabble at the camera. Many aficionados of Wood's films insist that this is a worse film than even Plan 9 from Outer Space.
    • This comes close, but "many aficionados of Wood's films" is not exactly a source. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]]


I was being nice. There are some that are left that have support that is close to the handwaving variety. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 22:13, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've re-added Leonard Part 6, this time with documentation. Luc "Somethingorother" French 06:04, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Kung Pow removed from list

I removed this film from the list for lack of citation. It's 5.2/10 in the IMDB:

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002)
In the film, Steve Oedekerk stars as "The Chosen One". He is marked by the sign of the Chosen One, which is the fact that his tongue has a small face, including mouth and its own small tongue, and emits high-pitched screaming from time to time. The Chosen One calls his tongue "Tongue-y". That's all that needs to be said.


Criteria for Inclusion

How does one determine which movies are the "worst ever"? Here are some proposed guidelines:

  • All personal feelings about a movie should be put aside.
  • Financial success (or lack of) should not be considered.
  • Each movie should have at least two cites, from a movie critic, where "movie critic" is defined as someone who gets paid to write reviews. The more well known and established, the better.
  • A "Razzie" nomination counts as at least one reviewer. A "Razzie" award counts as two.
  • Each cite should indicate not only that the movie was bad, but that it was (in the reviewer's eyes) one of the "worst ever".
  • The movie should roughly be considered a "bomb" but at least 50% of all reviewers.
  • Having a few reviewers love the film does not disqualify it, but does merit further scrutiny. There are films (although rare) that truly fall into the "love it or hate it" category.
  • Some movies may be the worst of a particular year, but this list should think broader.
Good points, but doesn't this inherently bias against older films? I know MetaCritic doesn't even rate films prior to 1998, and I'm sure RottenTomatoes has a similar cut-off date. Even the Razzies were only instituted in the 1980's. So what about earlier films? There's quite a dearth of citations for films before the internet age, so it's hard to meet the arbitrary 2-source standard above. I still believe that discussion on this page is the best barometer of whether a movie should be here or not, since personal feelings are really the essence of this article. POV cannot be avoided when it comes to "bad movies", so why don't we just embrace it by deliberating the movies here? Not to say that the guidelines above shouldn't be used, but just the opposite: they should, but with a healthy amount of common sense mixed in. Davis21Wylie 16:20, 1 Oct 2005 (UTC)
Some good ideas, but they seem more open then the unofficial rules were anyway. Only two cites? And a Razzie award counts as two? Even popular movies have been nominated or "won" Razzies (often times for Worst Song), so that opens the door for just about any movie to go on here. And that would seem to contradict the last suggestion (which I like) about movies just being worst in their particular year not being good enough; that's what the Razzies are about! Also, all folks have to do to find two critics is look up Rotten Tomatoes and pick two bad reviews, even if the overall score is good. I know this is not really how you wrote the suggestions, or how I assume you mean them to be read; it's just that they could be interpreted in ways that would open up this list to way too many movies to be added/re-added that are merely bad or have mixed reviews (or even 'allow' the re-addition of Titanic.) A lot of the ones I removed really had some goofy criteria for being added, like: overspending (which again, would qualify Titanic), just being on the IMDB Bottom 100 (which would qualify, hey, 100 movies), or finding a random or even famous "worst list" somewhere. I don't think the rules should be chokingly strict, but this list does need some. What they should be, I have some ideas, a few of which are listed in the Higher Standards section of this talk page. Dannybu2001 16:05, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Davis21Wylie: I am not too worried about old films - truly bad ones are still reviewed (see Leonard Maltin's list, for example). More to the point, let's recognize that the majority of truly bad movies have been made in the last 20 years. Hollywood keeps on churning out stuff in a shotgun fashion, hoping for a hit, and generating many bombs in the process. I don't agree about discussion on this page about sepcific movies being a useful tool: that's total POV, and further limited by the people who bother to post on this page. The 2-cite rule is merely a starting point: bad movies should have plenty more to find.
Dannybu20001: Good point, particularly in regards to the Razzies. Of course, Worst Song would not qualify it - perhaps only the Worst Movie nominees? And surely a movie that has "won" the Worst Movie of the year award should be a strong contender for worst ever. I agree that the IMDB listings should not count very much. As far as always finding two reviewers, keep in mind that there is a small pool of professional reviewers, and while some may not like a film, calling a film the worst ever is a rare event. Random "worst lists" should not be considered at all, IMO, unless the method they used to choose them was a really strong one. At any rate, good to see this page getting sorted out a little. I think I am somewhere between the two camps right now aas far as the number of movies to include on this page. Wild Wild West defintiely belongs. :) Turnstep 16:25, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Turnstep: Yeah, I almost re-added "Wild Wild West" myself, but got beat to the punch, lol. IMO, the jury's still out on "Batman and Robin" for me; I actually re-watched it last night, and it's actually not THAT bad (maybe corny and inconsistent, but 'worst'? Not really.) As it's written, though, it's really only got one cite (a scathing review.) It did pretty well at the box office and, while it has a 13% RT rating, I think the consideration that it was a third sequel and had 'expectations' are also to consider. Anyway, my point is, it's movies like this that make having rules for this list difficult. I could cite the tomato rating and keep the review, but it doesn't seem right somehow or at least enought to re-add it (especially when I'd rather watch B&R over and over, than ever have to watch Catwoman.) Plus, the review was from a humorist and even some of the reviews listed on RT seemed quite on-the-fence rather than squarely 'rotten'. Ebert's was listed as 'rotten' yet said, "Wonderful to look at, and has nothing authentic at its core."; that could describe a LOT of movies! B&R was pretty 'bad' but doesn't really seem like 'a worst'.Dannybu2001 17:03, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Also, I think perhaps the movies from the "50 Worst Movies" DVD need to have their own article with a 'see also' link at the bottom of this article or at least a special section on the page with ALL of them listed. Most (if not all) of the ones cited from this that are listed, ONLY have this as a cite, with nothing else to back it up.Dannybu2001 17:33, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Rationale of this article

I created this article as a means of cross-linking various existing movie articles that already made statements along the lines of "[subject movie] is often called the worst movie ever". This is not intended to be a subjective article, but one reporting on a divergent set of widely held subjective opinions on a cultural subject. I wouldn't object to moving it to a less provocative title, but I think such a list does have a place in Wikipedia. Mkweise 16:37, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This article has survived two Articles for Deletion debates. The discussion can be found here. Please do not add movies that do not have proper citation from a reputable source as they will be removed. Reflex Reaction 20:37, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Let this article stay. I mean, where else can a large base of editors collaborate and make such a list as this? You wouldn't find this in a regular encyclopedia, but you wouldn't find Pikachu's profile or a list of subcultures in a regular encyclopedia either.

And can anyone find something that says that Alexander was exceptionally bad? They all only described the movie as a waste of time.


The area movie critism, is a very subjective area. There can never truly be any real consensus because so many varying opinions will always exist. What one person considers an outstanding film, another would consider a bomb.
For example, ZATHURA is currently in theaters. On the IMDB website, film has (so far) been given a vote average of 6.7 by 530 of the sites users. Of these, 140 gave the movie a 10 (outstanding) and 48 gave it a 01 (Mother of All Bombs. A ratio of 140 to 48 for these two extremes says a lot!
This is a very active and subjective area. It is a subject that will ALWAYS be a current event. PLEASE -- don't delete it! -- Jason Palpatine 06:08, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

This article is a disgrace

  • How can this be a part of an encyclopaedia!

This is outragous. This is all totally subjective, there is no way around it. I could add the Godfather to this list or Star Wars, as many people I know think they are crap. Go check up on them in the Movie Database movie listings and tens of thousands of people argue that they get 0 out of ten, which surely makes them movies "that have been considered the worst ever."

It is this kind of drivel that makes me want to give up on wikipedia completely.

jucifer 02:04, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Winning" at the Golden Raspberry Awards is not subjective. 0% ratings at Rotten Tomatoes are not subjective. This article does not report that these movies actually are the worst ever. Just that some reputable source has considered them remarkably bad. See the preceding discussions on this page. I agree that the standards need to be increased. Being "somewhere on the bottom" at IMDb is not particularly notable. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 00:48, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The page move was a bad idea in this respect. "Amonth the worst ever" is a sucky nebulous concept, whereas "the worst ever" is precise. Has it been called the worst ever? Yes? Then it's on the list - No? Then it's not. Simple. At least it should be! Pcb21| Pete 07:35, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • WTF is this?

This article doesn't belong on the Wikipedia. It is totally subjective!!! It is not neutral from the beginning till the end and belongs on another site. 83.134.125.182 20:34, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The issue has aleady been debated, and it has twice been decided that the article should not be deleted. I am removing the NPOV dispute tag, since lately the editing has conformed to prior discussions of what list entries should contain, i.e. a citation to some critical source which affirms the movie's "badness". Ellsworth 20:48, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
OK, let me state it another way, so all the supporters of this rotten page have no reason to censor me away. The citations made are subjective. Quoting subjective findings and compiling them, doesn't make them objective. The encyclopedial value of this kind of article, is 0.0 and yes, this stinks and a lot!! Has there ever been a poll about this? 83.134.129.26 08:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
There have been two votes, and in both voters decided to keep the article. It is unlikely the subject will be revisited again. This article is here to stay. Gamaliel 20:29, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
But, 83.134..., we invite your contributions if you think certain entries don't belong, or if there is a way we can change the criteria to improve the article. That's why we have the meta-list on this talk page. Ellsworth 22:24, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
  • freaking ridiculous list

Use your common sense people. One big name critic and his cult said Titanic is a bad film, and you're gonna ignore all the oscar and the box office report? I may as well list "the Sound of Music" in there and cite Pauline Kael.

  • Articles for Deletion debate

This article survived an Articles for Deletion debate. The discussion can be found here. -Splash 22:34, 12 September 2005 (UTC)


A couple of movies have been put back in, citing a poor number of positive votes on Rotten Tomatoes. Is this a good solid indication of a bad movie? Seems a bit weak to me. Pcb21| Pete 05:40, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No, it isn't solid. This is a list of "worst", not "bad" or even "extremely bad" movies. We'll eventually end up with a list of everyone's personal disfavorites if such weak provisos are allowed. Maybe we can keep the movie with the worst score, though, if there is a clear winner (loser). Fredrik | talk 08:41, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

There is still a big problem in this page as it only mentions movies in English (and basically from the USA or the UK). The title of the page is thus misleading. It should be "The worst american and englisg movies ever". It would be nice to remember there are other group of people on Earth. And plase don't refer me to a page in French or German. This is not the point. I find the page funny but I agree it is really poorly debated and utterly subjective.

Article Format Discussion/Suggestions

Short list

What happened with the slimmed down list here? Is there a process for getting films on the list? Mark Richards 00:05, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

We decided that all films listed needed a citation i.e. who considered that the worst ever. The article was turning into a dumping ground for any movie some editor didn't like. See VfD above, and my comments below it. Pcb21| Pete 00:55, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Ah, thanks! Mark Richards 04:15, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Higher standards

Or maybe I should say "lower standards". I'd like to propose some standards for IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes based inclusions. This is what I would suggest:

  • 0 positive reviews listed at Rotten Tomatoes. (Maybe permit just one or two, or some low percentage. 5%? I'll have to poke around and see what that would mean in practical terms.)
  • Documentable appearance at the very bottom of an IMDb list.

If we're going to claim that someone considered these the "worst ever" (or even "among the worst ever", which I think is unnecessary here), we should pick the ones that are truly shining examples of bad ratings. Being somewhere on the IMDb "worst" lists or having somewhat low reviews at Rotten Tomatoes is not particularly notable. Lots of bad—but not awful—films meet that dubious distinction.

If, of course, a film had only five positive reviews at Rottem Tomatoes, then there's a good chance that some notable film critic said something sufficiently scathing to merit inclusion. I'm just saying that the Rotten Tomatoes (or IMDb) rating alone should be not sufficient.

Comments? Concerns? Better suggestions? -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 15:15, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Personally, I'm not sure if anything should go here on the basis of nothing more than Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB, unless it is at the absolute top of the worst list. The bar should be high - or low rather. Zero percent at RT (lots of movies accomplish this) and in the bottom 50 or even 15 at IMDB are my suggestions. Gamaliel 19:27, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Personally, I think films need to have a distinct combination of badness. i.e. at least the bottom 10 or 20 at IMDB, 10% or less at Rotten Tomatoes, at least one critical review (such as Ebert, Maltin or the others), and either have mutiple Razzie nomination regardless of 'wins', or 2 or more Razzie 'wins' regardless of nominations. Also toss in some bad box office, even some of the worst movies did well before WOM could take effect. Finding one or two cites, saying essentially 'everybody hated it', noting low box office, or it JUST being in a worst list SOMEwhere (i.e. The Book of Lists, Worst 50 DVD, etc., Esquire reader polls?!) just doesn't seem like enough. Dannybu2001 12:21, 30 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Come on, guys. This article is hardly a serious academic work, and it says so in the introduction; we needn't have any kind of strict, arbitrary guidelines (i.e., "at least the bottom 10 or 20 at IMDB, 10% or less at Rotten Tomatoes", etc.)for inclusion. If somebody puts one up that's way out of left field, we can deliberate its deletion on this page, but to have somebody (no offense intended, Dannybu2001, but please!) come in and delete over half of the entries because he, by himself, didn't feel they deserved to be on the list... that's not right, either. Many of the movies you removed had met their burden to be considered on this list, and, what's more, some of the ones you added seemed to fall short of your self-expressed standards! While I don't agree that every film on the list should (or even could) be considered the "Worst of All Time", it's really a gathering place for the truly bad movies, the universally panned films, that have graced the big screen. I mean, you removed Heaven's Gate?!! Because it didn't meet your narrow criteria? We're talking about perhaps the mother of all flops, the original "unmitigated disaster"... it must be on this list. Otherwise, what's the point of the list? We'll just have a collection of low scores from the post-Razzie/post-RottenTomatoes era. Contrary to popular belief, life did not begin with the advent of the "Information Age"... yet, that will be the list we'll have: "If it didn't score low on MetaCritic, well, by God, it's not one of the worst films ever!" So let's consider our deletions and revisions, discussing them in this forum, rather than unilaterally picking and choosing the films whose presence here we don't agree with and then deleting them, okay? Davis21Wylie 3:26, 1 Oct 2005 (UTC)
First of all, I want to say for the record that the only one I added was "Envy" and it IS quite universally hated, so where does "some of the ones you added" come from? The rest of my 'additions' were existing write-ups I reinforced with more info (case in point, Jury Duty had one slim cite and I checked up and found more). And I didn't have 'narrow' criteria, many of the ones I deleted (and moved to this talk page for later review) had such convincing cites as "it appeared on MST 3000", and that was it. A couple only had one bad review from Ebert, and if he doesn't like it, then on the list it goes? I know some are famous for being bad (Heaven's Gate and Howard the Duck) and certainly 'deserve' to be on here by reputation, but as they are written, there's not much proof, and without proof, it's POV. As far as Internet info, some were on here with the cite of "appeared low on the IMDB Bottom 100", well, wow, that says it all don't it? I actually tried to be as 'un-Internet' focused as possible with this, and the only one I really trusted was Rotten Tomatoes since it's a combination of reviews from real-live reptubale critics. I don't even use/read Metacritic. I know I was pushing it on a couple of them (Batman and Robin did suck), but the majority of the ones I removed didn't follow any kind of standard but finding one cite (or, as I like to call it, "excuse") to put it on, and with that as a rule, Titanic would officially be allowed. I mean, The Book of Lists? I looked that one up and the last updated publication I could find was 1993! Add some back if you like, but don't blanket revert the list just because I removed 'too many' in you opinion. Dannybu2001 20:34, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I wanted to clarify that my suggestions before were not meant to say that the movies should have to meet ALL that criteria before being added to the list. I just meant--as I said--that they should have a 'distinct (or notable) combination' of those kinds of things. Simply being/appearing on the Bottom 100, only being a B-movie, or just bombing at the box office shouldn't qualify a movie, whereas being on the list, bombing, AND/OR/PLUS having a low RT score AND/OR/PLUS being on something like Ebert's Worst List, etc. should be more the kinds of movies to be added. Even if a movie won a lot of Razzies, shouldn't make it 'worthy' of the list, some movies just suck in a particular year, but in the big picture are masterpieces compared to the likes of "Catwoman" and "Plan 9". As far as 'unilateral' goes, a movie shouldn't be listed because one or two reasons can be found; that just makes it a 'bad' movie with an excuse for a cite (unless we want to open the flood gates and actually make this a listing of 'bad' movies; we could have as many as we have now, listed per year, lol.) To qualify as a 'worst' movie there needs to be a documentable consensus (basically 'proof' that at least the majority of people and/or critics, or even nearly "everyone" hated it.) Example: Howard the Duck's only cite was that George Lucas dissed it. I didn't even plan to delete it and made a genuine, conscious effort to find more 'proof'; I couldn't find it (it had a 25% RT score, which seems 'bad', but less than 10% or maybe 15% seems more like the unofficial criteria for it to be 'a worst'.) Maybe someone else can find it, but for now, "but, it's Howard the Duck" just doesn't cut it by any definition, especially the POV rule. The same goes/went for a number of other movies.Dannybu2001 16:40, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Page Title (Read before moving)

If you're going to move this page, please realize that this list is, by nature of Wikipedia, required to be NPOV, so any page title is going to have to satisfy the following:

  1. NPOV by it's very nature. The current title (as of this writing), "List of movies that have been cited as being among the worst ever made", conveys the requirements for inclusion in this list; i.e., a cite, and preferablly several.
  2. Shortness. While not exactly short, "List of movies that have been cited as being among the worst ever made" conveys all the information about the nature of the list in as short a space as possible.

Anybody got any other requirements? Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 07:54, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we have to get so picky about having all information in the total. A title of "List of worst films" with a lead section that makes clearly that the films in the list have to be cited is perfectly neutral. Pcb21| Pete 12:17, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Well, I would like to point out that "List of worst X" or "List of best X", where X is a noun, is a simply horrible title for an article, being non-grammatical, inherently POV, and a surprisingly large multitude of lesser sins; and that "List of movies that have been cited as being among the worst ever made" has the advantage of putting "cite" right there in the title, so that when we remove uncited entries, we can point to the article title as the reason why. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 14:02, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
We should be titling our articles for the benefit of readers, not for writers who don't read a lead section before trying to contribute to an article. Pcb21| Pete 15:06, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

An inadvertant problem with the constant moving is double or more redirects created. Someone should delete the unnecessary ones. - Lucky13pjn 15:07, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

I've changed most of 'em so that they're not double redirects. I'm too lazy to fix the articles they link to, though. Anybody care to volunteer for this quite thankless task? Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 15:32, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Surely there's a better option than the current title, "List of films that have been cited as being among the worst ever made", which is long and painfully convoluted. What was the problem with "List of movies that have been considered among the worst ever"? It's entirely neutral, attributing all the judgement to other sources (which are presumably noted in the article) by means of passive voice. — Dan | Talk 03:09, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone else think that this article no longer reflects it's title? I think it is drifting towards List of bad films rather than its current title. - Lucky13pjn 14:27, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

No Third Person

The article needs to be written in third person instead of first person grammar. For example, instead of writing, "We movie-goers generally believe...", write, "Movie-goers generally believe..."

Also, there could possibly be a list of criterias for what generally makes a film bad.

It should also be noted that films are subjective, and although the films listed below are considered bad by most critics; most of the critics cited are from American cultures. Our culture affects what we believe to be a bad film or a good film. There are possibly some cultures outside of the U.S. which believe that Battlefield Earth is a great film! This should be explained in the article somewhere.

Renaming

I think this article is truly one of the best sources on awful movies, anywhere. But it's getting outside the scope of its title; very few of the movies on the list could truly be considered the worst of All-Time. And I think people (myself included) know that, but put the movies up anyway. If we were earnestly doing an article on the "Single Worst Movie of All Time", and being honest with ourselves, it would be quite a short list. Like I said, most of the movies currently up (even with the recent housecleaning) are bad movies, no doubt, but not the worst ever by any stretch. But that's okay, because we all know that, and we treat it as simply a list of "really, really bad movies". So why don't we just rename it? Call it "List of films that have been considered among the worst ever". I mean, that's the way we're treating it anyway, right? So why kid ourselves? Call a spade a spade. That way, you don't get people coming in and deleting a ton of movies because they didn't meet some arbitrary standard for "the Worst Ever", because we're no longer claiming that they're the single worst movie ever, but simply a "really, really bad movie". The burden of proof would be much lighter as well. I'd like to rename it, then revert some recent deletions to form a master list of any movie anybody’s put up on the "Movies removed from main article for lacking in citations". This whole thing is blatantly POV anyway, because movie analysis (other than raw box office numbers, which in no way represent a film's quality) is by definition qualitative! Anybody coming in on their high horse saying, "well, that one didn't have enough sources... I'm just gonna delete it without consulting anyone else" has to be joking, because it's all opinions anyway! I just wanted to get some feedback on the idea, though, since this article seems to arouse deep proprietary feelings in people (I have no clue why!). Davis21Wylie 15:26, 1 Oct 2005 (UTC)

I think the title is fine how it is - we already have one weasel word ("considered") we don't need a second one ("among"). I don't think the size of the list is wrong in respect to listing the "worst ever." While you or I might have 10 movies that we consider the worst ever, there will be some overlap. Add a lot of people and soon you have a large list. But not too large. :) Although, as you point out, movie ratings are by definition qualitative, we can (and should) still measure somehow. I think we are actually fairly close to a consensus, reading through some of the talk page here. However, I strongly disagree with consideration of how much money a movie has made - as we all know, that in now way correlates to how "good" the film is. Plenty of good movies ("Wizard of Oz") failed at the box office, and plenty of bad movies ("Men in Black 2", "Godzilla") did well. I'll start a new section below on a set of criteria. Turnstep 20:08, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Recent Changes

Just wanted to say, this article is coming along nicely. And no angry edits by anonymous users in over a week! :) Good job with the pictures, Dannybu2001. Turnstep 23:34, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! I wanted to note that the list as it is right now seems to live up to its name (IMO), all the movies listed right now seem to have been proven 'worst' and I am officially done removing titles (any one's added or re-added without new or convincing cites after this writing are fair game though, lol.) Sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes, but I honestly don't think this is a listing of just 'bad' movies, and nearly all of the ones I took off were only that, 'bad'. Like I said, a lot of movies are considered 'bad', and many 'good' movies are considered 'bad' by someone somewhere. I think it's takes a little something extra to be considered 'worst'. Also, I'm not sure how it should be updated/formatted, but another idea would be to change the way this article categorizes the movies. Instead of alphabetical, we could have sections like "Big Budget Flops", "Cult Favorites" and the "The Worst of the 'Worst'". Alphabetical is nice and to the point, but it seems like things could be listed more creatively. Any ideas? Dannybu2001 00:16, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Alphabetical seems the most NPOV. And "worst of the worst" would almost certainly reignite this page's umm....activity. :) Turnstep 01:18, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Quick requests

No time to do this myself, but the link to Ishtar at the top should be removed, and a better example used, since Ishtar is not on our list! Alternatively, someone could add Ishtar. Also, the examples at the top should link to the reviews on this page, not the movies themselves. I made a quick edit for a couple, but ideally they should link to the review itself, not the letter. Turnstep 01:29, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I actually couldn't find a reasonable cite to re-add Ishtar, so I updated the link with Wild Wild West, lol. Same goes for Heaven's Gate, can't find a real reason right now. I know these movies had their time in the spotlight for being bad, and flopping financially, but in retrospect were possibly unfairly judged and over-hyped by bad press. Some of the RT reviews even state this (ironically, I remember reading articles where Titanic was compared to these films during its pre-release 'most expensive film ever' days, it just got lucky is the only difference, really lucky; though arguably a better film.)Dannybu2001 22:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


The Neverending Story Part 3 should definitely be here, under "bad sequels". Anyone care to add it? Mexican film fan.

Pootie Tang

Now why isn't this here? IIRC, that movie was so bad it didn't last a week in theaters. From my perspective, it was even more awful than other turds listed here like Battlefield Earth, or even the ones not listed like Neverending Story 3 or Wild Wild West.

Recent cleanups

I made a lot of cleanups today, including starting to make some references, particularly to Rotten Tomato pages. Feel free to jump in: I only got through the first few letters. :) Turnstep 01:13, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Moved list of movies

I think that the several list used to manage the removed films was getting unbearable. I have moved the content to another page and have tried to organize in such a way that preserves as much of the talk as possible. I have made minor changes to formatting but I have made a distinct conscious effort to retain the intent while changing as little as possible of the words that each of you has created. If I have stepped on anyones shoes I apologize. Reflex Reaction 21:26, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Um, where exactly did you move it to? It was a nice reference for films that either were unjustly added and are there as a warning not to try listing them again. As well as keeping an archive of films that "need a little more" to be reconsidered for inclusion. This makes the Talk page shorter and easier to read, but it would be nice to still have access to the lists.Dannybu2001 20:20, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I guess my notice on the top of the talk page was not prominent enough...It's located at Talk:List of films that have been considered the worst ever/Removed films. I will make it more a little more prominent.
Okay, I see it. I skipped right past it since it was nestled below the "Nominated for deletion" notice. I think it should be moved to its own subheading rather than as a small notice.Dannybu2001 20:29, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for name change - November 2005

For your consideration, I think the name of this article is unnecessarily long and I believe it could possibly be changed to one of the following two choices without damaging the purpose, meaning, and/or NPOV status:

  • Choice #1: "Films that have been considered the worst ever"; This is a simple removal of "List of" at the beginning since it's obviously 'a list' and it doesn't seem necessary to state this. This may also help it to seem more like the 'sister article' to "Films that have been considered the greatest ever".
  • Choice #2: "Films considered the worst ever"; Short, sweet, and to the point. In addition to removing "List of" it also removes "that have been". I don't think the "that have been" part is actually needed to convey that these films have been considered the worst ever, and doesn't even seem correct when one considers that recently released films or particularly infamous films 'are' considered the worst ever for a period of time. Simply using the word considered essentially conveys this without having to qualify it with "that have been", since a film has been officially been 'considered' whether it's Film E that was 'considered' the worst ever in 1973 or Film Z that is 'considered' the worst ever of 2005. The downside is it wouldn't pair as well with the "greatest films" article, but then maybe that one could be shortened too.

I personally vote for #2.Dannybu2001 20:20, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Because it is a list, "List of" needs to be there, though I like List of Flims considered the worst ever, short and to the point without sacrificing meaning or NPOV. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 20:15, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I prefer the way it is, or the shortened version mentioned by Reflex Reaction. We need to keep the "list of." Perhaps we should be asking the "greatest" list to change their name? So we would simply have:
  1. List of films considered the greatest ever
  2. List of films considered the worst ever
Turnstep 02:17, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Is it actually required for lists to be titled "List of" by Wiki-policies, or is this just a common/personal preference? If it is required then I think "List of Films Considered the worst ever" would be preferable, as I said before "that have been" just makes the title unnecessarily. Further, if the 'list' is true policy, than the 'greatest films' one needs to be updated regarless of preference (whether or not they want "that have been" removed too.) If it's not required than I satnd by my other statement that a list that is obivously a 'list' doesn't really seem to need to be titled as such.Dannybu2001 17:41, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, according to Wiki-policy as best I can tell, lists are to be titled "List of (subject)". There was something else about categorizing that I didn't fully understand, but I don't think it applied to this article. My amended proposal is: "List of films considered the worst ever". What does everyone think?Dannybu2001 18:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Another idea is to reformat this article--like I've suggested before--so it's not just an alpha listing, but make it more like the 'greatest films' article. The way that one is written isn't fully in a list-like format considering how it's categorized, expanded on, etc. If there's anyway to redo this article to mirror the 'greatest films' styling, then we could technically get rid of "List of" altogether. It would be difficult to not be POV, but not impossible. Any ideas? Dannybu2001 18:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I vote for #2: "Films considered the worst ever" -direct H Bruthzoo 21:12, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

The following are a list of movies removed from this list that were succesful financially and/or critically, thus negating any bad reviews/scores that would otherwise make them list-worthy. Despite the ability to find negative reviews, if a movie's a success by any definition of the word, then it disqualifies them from the list with rare exceptions. Case in point, Titanic, despite personal opinions and real criticism, it is still the most successful movie ever when it comes to earnings.

I completely disagree with this criteria. You can't judge and much less remove a movie from the list because it managed to be a box office hit despite overwhelming critical panning. A movie has to be judged on its own artistic merits, not by the amount of box office receipts. The Titanic example is flawed as well. Sure, there were people that hated this movie, but so have there been regarding films considered classics like Citizen Kane, Dances With Wolves, The English Patient, This is Spinal Tap, etc. Titanic does have its flaws and it's far from being a perfect movie, but it's also far from being a bad movie; at the most its a 4-5 star movie. It maybe a tad overrated (As it is the case with several great movies) but it isn't a bad film at all. However, editing out of the list such films like Batman and Robin, Pearl Harbor and Rambo First Blood Part II, simply because it made a profit in the box office is simply absurd. These films have been critically panned and are considered amongst the worst movies ever (I myself had the unfortunate pleasure of enduring these three piles of trash) and yet they aren't in the list because they managed to rip off millions of dollars from unsuspecting people? I'm sorry, but this list cannot and will never be an objective list if it takes into account commercial success, despite a movie's overwhelming critical evidence to the contrary. I strongly urge the webmaster or whomever is in charge of this list to remove this criteria since its completely without merit. Respectfully; catrevilla (11-11-05) (moved by --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 22:03, 11 November 2005 (UTC) with permission)

I could have sworn I've read the above essay before - where was this moved from? Turnstep 02:13, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
I moved it from the removed list, I didn't think it was appropriate to have his comments at the "reasons for removal". When I compiled the list of removed movies, I tried to retain as many appropriate comments as possible to respect their contributions. Perhaps it may need to be rewritten/restructured. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 17:52, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems a little funky to have it here instead of on the removed page considering my use of "the following is list...", yet there is no list here (yes, the top comment was mine, I must have forgotten to sign it.) What was the reason for moving it here?Dannybu2001 17:57, 12 November 2005 (UTC)


Yes, Giorgio

Ironically, after getting tired of seeing the red link for the movie, and taking the time to create the page Yes, Giorgio, I've realized that it probably does not warrant a listing here. Not only was it merely only nominated for three Razzies (not won, as the article said), but I could not find any reviews citing it as one of the worst ever. Thus, I am removing it. Which is kind of unfortunate as I just spent an hour making the page it linked to! :) Turnstep 23:03, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

lol, I've almost removed it several times since it was such a short listing, which often means folks couldn't elaborate on why it belongs here. But I was under the impression it "won" three Razzies, and while a weak reasoning, seemed to still warrant a listing. But since it was only nominated, it certainly does not belong here. At least it got its own article out of the deal.Dannybu2001 18:17, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Temporal bias?

Going through the list, I noticed that a surprising percentage of the movies in this article are from the last 5-10 years. Are there really that few crappy movies from before the 1990s, or are cultural memories really that short? I don't think we should necessarily remove any of the movies, but a broader perspective (both in terms of time and space: why are almost all of these movies American, when List of films that have been considered the greatest ever has plenty of foreign movies?) would be a huge asset. Just look at the numbers:

  • 4 "worst movies" in the 1950s (2 in 1953, 2 in 1956)
  • 3 "worst movies" in the 1960s
  • 1 "worst movie" in the 1970s
  • 5 "worst movies" in the 1980s
  • 12 "worst movies" in the 1990s (including 4 in 1995 and another 4 in 1997)
  • 14 "worst movies" in the 2000s — including:
  • 1 "worst movie" in 2000
  • 2 "worst movies" in 2001
  • 4 "worst movies" in 2002
  • 3 "worst movies" in 2003
  • 4 "worst movies" in 2004
  • 6 "worst movies" in 2005

Are movies really getting exponentially worse and worse, or is this article just overly fixated on modern flops? -Silence 21:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I think one major factor is that a lot of, um..."older" people don't use the Internet. Statistics I've seen about how many senior citizens DON'T use the 'net (or even own a computer) would make it likely that Internet users are heavily in the 12-35/40-ish range, which leaves it up to the few seniors that do (or dedicated film buffs) to care enough to enlighten us to the older 'worst' films (or even come to Wikipedia in the first place.) With that, records of reviews, etc. of pre-1990 films are increasingly difficult to find online, which is where most of us get our information (especially in regards to URL linking for proof, rather than, "Take my word, it was in this one book...somewhere.")
Also to consider is that probably more and more movies are made every year, which increases the odds of bad films being created. Regarding there being the most in 2005, on the one hand this has been a banner year for bad movies (and poor box office even for the good ones.) On the other hand, there's an air of 'I wanna post it first' here and some films are prematurely added without due cause (one person added Doom the week after it came out!) and there are some films that may not deserve to be on here (yet.) Dannybu2001 22:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't think it has to do with the age of the user. Movies used to be art, not a money-making commodity, which they mostly are today. Take sequels for example. Today, there would be "Gone with the Wind 2" in which Rhett Butler and his funny-but-tough sidekick stops terorists from taking over Atlanta. Studios are releasing more and more movies, and do it a shotgun approach : quality be damned, let's just shovel a bunch out and hope for a hit. That's how I see it anyway. Looking at those figures, there may be a slight bias as 2005 seems overrepresented. Anyone with more time than me want to make a little list here which breaks down the movies by year? Turnstep 23:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Uhh, dude, they kind of already made a sequel to GWtW. Oh and I disagree that movies used to be art. They've always been entertainment. Do you know how many Frankenstein sequels they made? Lairor 09:06, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
You mean like this?
  • 1950s
  • 1953 — Glen or Glenda, Robot Monster
  • 1956 — The Conqueror, Plan 9 from Outer Space
  • 1960s
  • 1964 — Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
  • 1965 — Monster A Go Go
  • 1966 — Manos: The Hands of Fate
  • 1970s
  • 1976 — Blood Sucking Freaks
  • 1980s
  • 1980 — Xanadu
  • 1981 — Inchon
  • 1986 — Howard the Duck
  • 1987 — Jaws: The Revenge, Leonard Part 6
  • 1990s
  • 1992 — Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!
  • 1993 — Boxing Helena
  • 1995 — Jury Duty, The Scarlet Letter, Showgirls, Vampire In Brooklyn
  • 1996 — Barb Wire
  • 1997 — An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, The Postman, Speed 2: Cruise Control
  • 1999 — Wild Wild West
  • 2000s
  • 2000 — Battlefield Earth, Pootie Tang
  • 2001 — Freddy Got Fingered, Glitter
  • 2002 — The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, Crossroads, Swept Away
  • 2003 — Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, From Justin to Kelly, Gigli
  • 2004 — Catwoman, Christmas with the Kranks, Envy, SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2
  • 2005 — Alone in the Dark, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, The Fog, King's Ransom, Undiscovered
-Silence


Guys, I came here intending to start a section dealing with this. Now I find out someone beat me too it. Although the alphabetical listing is the most simplistic format, wouldn't it be a little more efficient to list the films by year of release? -- Jason Palpatine 06:11, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Why? Alphabetical makes it easier for people to find specific movies (or find out if they aren't listed at all). Everyone knows the names of movies they've seen, but most people don't know the exact year they were made if it was more than a couple of years ago (and they especially won't know the month, which we'd presumably delve into as well for the many movies that were made in the same year). I made the above list because a chronological list will be helpful to editors seeking to negate a temporal bias in the article, but what advantages would the chronological order give to readers? -Silence 06:16, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
"Why?" Why? -- you ask. Why ask why? My friend, I am merely making discussion here. Yes -- as I said -- alphabetical is easier. But given the bias being discussed here, after a fassion, it would seem to make sense. It really is a moot point, but it does make for an interesting topic. -- Jason Palpatine 22:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for that list, that's exactly what I was looking for. It does provide a strong argument, although the recent pruning have evened things out a little bit more. We should look at the Razzie nominees for the early 2000s/late 1990s and see why they are so under-represented. 2000, I can maybe understand: Battlefield Earth was *so* fantastically bad, it made even bad movies from that year look good next to it. And what won worst movie of the year in 1994 and 1998? Maybe as a rough guideline we should carefully look at any year which has more than one movie listed:
  • 1995 — Jury Duty, The Scarlet Letter, Showgirls
    • None of these seem particularly strong: I'll have to reread the reviews. Showgirls is the strongest of these three. Jury Duty - it's a Pauly Shore movie, what were people expecting? :)
  • 1997 — An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, The Postman, Speed 2: Cruise Control
    • Alan is a no-brainer. I think the remaining three might be questionable as a "worst ever".
  • 2001 — Freddy Got Fingered and Glitter
    • Hard to argue with those two. I'm tempted to say "especially the first one" but I don't want to belittle the "worstness" of Glitter.
  • 2002 — The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, Crossroads, Swept Away
    • A suspiciously bad year. Based on reviewers reactions, I'd rate these (starting at "most worst") as Ecks, Crossroads, Pluto Nash, and Swept Away. Are they all considered some of the worst of all time? Or just really, really bad?
  • 2003 — Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, From Justin to Kelly, Gigli
    • Absolutely no doubt about Gigli, or Justin to Kelly. Dumb & Dumberer is a sequel : note that sequels are very rare on this list. Sequels usually do bad, but don't become among the worst ever. Is this sequel worthy of being on this article?
  • 2004 — Catwoman, Christmas with the Kranks, Envy, SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2
    • This year almost all by itself deals a deathblow to the time bias theory. All four have good cites, although SuperBabies and Catwoman probably occupy a higher niche than the other two.
  • 2005 — Alone in the Dark, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, The Fog, Undiscovered
    • No doubt whatsoever about Alone in the Dark. Undiscovered too, although not quite at the same level. I'll have to research The Fog, I don't remember much. Gigolo may get worse with age and make the list yet. :)
Those are my quick thoughts. Overall, I think there may be a slight under-representation of earlier years, but in general we've got it covered. Maybe before 1990 bad movies were killed early with dignity and not pushed out to the public with a big marketing budget? Feel free to add your own thoughts to the above. Turnstep 02:57, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
  • 1995-I agree that Jury Duty and The Scarlet Letter are questionable. I once tried to delete Jury Duty, but instead of finding reasons to delete it, I found more cites! In the end though, as you said, it's a Pauly Shore movie, and was frankly better than the likes of Bio-Dome. I think it's more of a "bad rap at the time" film than historically a bad movie. Showgirls, never seen it, but by reputation and cites, it should probably stay. The Scarlet Letter I think is more disliked for being a bad adaptation than a bad movie (again, never seen it, but going by the cites...)
  • 1997-The Postman and Speed 2 I don't think should be on here, but I haven't found good cause to remove them, but I won't complain if someone else does.
  • 2001-Oh yeah, those stay!
  • 2002-I think Swept Away is the only questionable one, never heard much about Ecks vs. Sever--good or bad--until this very list, but it seems to belong.
  • 2003-Gigli for sure, it's probably a contender for worst film of the 2000's (not sure about THE, yet, we got five more years, lol.) Justin to Kelly is squarely in Glitter and Crossroads territory and most likely should stay (perhaps if we de-alpha the list, we need a "Lame attempts at singer film careers", lol.) Dumb & Dumberer is obviously unpopular due to the lack of Jim Carrey and earned a bad rap by that alone. If the movie itself is actually 'worst ever' quality I don't know, cause I didn't see it...cause, um, Jim Carrey wasn't in it. In the end though, I think it's the only '03 that deserves removal.
  • 2004-All these belong, with the possible exception of Envy. I personally added that one and have run into a lot of bashing of the film. I actually have seen it and found it to be 'not-as-funny-as-School-of-Rock', and lacking in film quality (they seemed to use some really crappy cameras), but not as bad as some movies I've seen that are not on this list. Christopher Walken alone is worth actually watching this movie. Jack Black seemed under-used as if it was supposed to be a Ben Stiller movie, yet Stiller wasn't even funny in it (although, I don't usually find him funny anyway, but I at least got a few chuckles from him out of Meet the Parents and even Mystery Men.) I think it warrants continued listing but it also has potential for removal and if anyone wants to remove it, go ahead.
  • 2005-I personally think we should have a 6 to 12-month old addition rule, in that folks keeping adding films sometimes literally the week after they come out (Dukes of Hazzard, The Fog, Doom...), often with very weak cites for their inclusion. I think Undiscovered was victim to post-SNL-'incident' media bashing more than its actual quality (I could be wrong, having not seen it), and was also apparently a limited release film. Since most of its write-up is about it's record poor box office, I don't think it warrants inclusion unless it wins some Razzies or something (and even then, it would depend on what categories.) Deuce Bigalow is one of those, supposed to bad to be funny, but ends up actually being bad, going by its cites, it had a very weak listing, but will probably end up back on here given enough time. The Fog I don't think should be on here (yet), it just came out, and seems to suffer for not being as good as the original. Time will tell, though. Alone in the Dark seems to be the only '05-er that genuinely warrants inclusion. The rest just seem too new to be listed going by the 'big picture' (i.e. next month an even worse movie come out.)Dannybu2001 20:35, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Just an update that I removed:Dumb & Dumberer, The Fog, The Scarlet Letter, Jury Duty, and The Postman from the list based somewhat on my above statements and further scrutiny of the write-ups. I did not remove Swept Away or Speed 2, I believe they've "earned" their place on the list. Not trying to overly picky here, I just think these listings were--for lack of a better word--lame. Envy I'm still not sure on. We've gone from six 2005 films, down to one. As I said before, I think all but Alone in the Dark were prematurely added. Dannybu2001 23:42, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Not that I'm criticizing the decision to remove it, but how can you not include The Scarlet Letter? It wasn't that great as a film both in the sense of an overall movie and in the sense of remakes and/or sequels. And the reviews I've seen have been terrible, to put it nicely. Siskel & Ebert both gave it thumbs down (and Ebert's review itself slammed the movie pretty hard), Leonard Maltin rated it a "BOMB," and its reviews at Rotten Tomatoes aren't pretty, either. Cubs Fan

I almost didn't remove it, but ultimately is seemed more like a 'bad-at-the-time' movie than a 'worst ever'. Dannybu2001 08:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I am adding Pootie Tang, maybe it is my bias but I consider it to be even worse than Battlefield Earth; also considering that it was so bad it tanked harder than any other movie I know to date (4 days? 5 days?). Maybe it didn't get listed because few people actually watched it, or those who watched it erased it from their minds. Some consider it 'cult' status, but then, so does Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam have this privilege. It still is a bad movie, though. 06:36, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Important: Vote for Deletion underway

This article's sister article, List of songs that have been considered among the worst ever, is currently in the middle of a VfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs that have been considered among the worst ever. If it is deleted, I expect that this one will be shortly as well, since I don't see any significant difference in topic between the two articles. As such, some editors and other frequenters of this page may be interested in participating in the ongoing discussion there, and in casting your votes if you have an opinion on the matter. The vote will also likely affect Computer and video games that have been considered the greatest ever and Films that have been considered the greatest ever. -Silence 21:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

For the record, the AfD mentioned above ended with a keep consensus. Turnstep 02:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Article Makeover

FYI that I updated the article as best I could to a non-alphabetical format (though I retained this method within the new headings.) I think it needs some edit work, but overall I find it less boring then the old listing method. As I said in the history, please don't revert it with a very strong reason why the new format is bad. Dannybu2001 23:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I really prefer the old format. Or at least, I don't prefer this one. It seems we're shoehorning yet another layer of categorization onto the page that does not need to be there, and it just doesn't flow as well as the old one did. Turnstep 02:24, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
The old version didn't have a flow, that was the problem. An A-Z list just sits there, and it's just that, 'a list'. With enough effort this could become an article about the worst films ever made, which would be a lot more interesting to read than a list of. Just because it's an article about mediocrity in film, doesn't mean the article itself has to be. I fully agree that this new version isn't the greatest: the category write-ups need work, the categories need better titles, the order needs work, etc. Although, I think the categorizations themselves were pretty good (i.e. sequels, big star/budget flops, etc.) just the title choices are suspect (I debated whether "The Sound of (Bad) Music" was POV or just continued the theme of the article, and I almost added "...Oh, My" to the end of "Sequels, Prequels and Remakes" but thought it was too cheeky.) And considering I did it all by my onesome in a couple hours, I think it's a fair start; it's not like other people can come evaluate the work and modify, re-edit, polish and expand it or anything, right?
The only one I couldn't find a category for without creating a new one, was Alone in the Dark, thus, "Newest Additions." I also removed Boxing Helena (again) because the write-up, while long, had no 'worst' substance. Further, the TOC is actually shorter now and I think expanding on the reasons why some films in general end up so wretched is worth mentioning (i.e. not just within the context of specific films), and with this new setup, there's less to read through at the very beginning of the article and you just get right into it. Dannybu2001 18:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, to be fair, let me sit on it a while and see if it grows on me. :) Turnstep 20:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Just a minor note to the 'pros' of this new setup is that "Batman & Robin" and "Catwoman" are now together. Somehow that just seems right. Dannybu2001 19:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Still not growing on me much. One problem I have with what you said above is that this *is* just a list. And the moment we attempt to make it more than that, we start adding POV. I think we are already bordering on POV and original research by putting them into those categories. Keep playing with it though, I'm willing to critique from the sides for a while yet. Turnstep 23:27, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted it back to an alpha listing. I'd still like to seen an 'article' about the worst films ever rather that a 'list of', but to do that without being POV at all seems rather difficult. I kept the b-movie section write-up as merged and updated since it's an important element in relaying info regarding 'worst' movies. On a side note, I was the first to admit that the new format needed work, but I don't think the article deserved the 'inappropriate tone' message given the nature of the subject of the article itself. I'll grant some write-ups were (and perhaps still are) a little cheeky. But it is rather difficult sometimes to find a nice, academic and (strictly) NPOV way to say, "This movie sucked." Dannybu2001 19:09, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I was ready to give up but enough folks jumped on the bandwagon and really turned this thing around. I think it looks pretty spiffy now. I still think it needs some tweaking, but overall I think it looks a lot more interesting. I also still think some of the paragraph titles need updating to be more appropriate, but the existing ones seem to suffice for now. Dannybu2001 17:55, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

A Query about the 'musical' section

Whilst reading the section on movies starring musicians attempting to make a cross-over into film I was repeatedly reminded of the move 'Honest' which starred the group 'All Saints' (who were massively succesful in the UK and europe for several years) The film was universally panned and pulled from cinema screens after less than a week it also essentially marked the end of the group. Although the band's fame was primarily European, given that the two people from American Idol's movie is included in this article (and no-one outside of the U.S. has heard of them) I feel that the film really warrents inclusion in this article as a text-book example of such movies.

Actually, Kelly Clarkson is played quite often here in Sweden, so people outside U.S have really heard of them.


Another film which immediately occured is the 'Hip Hop Witch', which I seem to recall being constantly at the near-bottom of the IMDB's worst films list. It used brief cameos by various famous rappers to sell itself and is, from what i've heard, truly awful. 82.20.58.97 18:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

If you can find some good references, we will be happy to add them. Films that disappear very quickly, however, rarely build up much infamy, however, unless they were over-hyped to begin with. Turnstep 23:23, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Hip Hop Witch was on here before but was removed due to the fact it wasn't a widely released movie (in fact, any sources I could find claim it was direct-to-video only and those don't 'count' here), and it sounded like more of a 'special' anyway. This is similar reasoning why the likes of the 'original' Fantastic 4 and the Star Wars Christmas Special are not on here anymore; either they weren't widely theatrically released (if at all), or they aren't even a 'film' by the standards of this article.Dannybu2001 18:59, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for name change December 2005

This is really just a continuance of my old proposal but I'm renewing it here since things have changed so much. I believe that given the new format of the article it appears to be more about the worst films ever, rather than just a 'list'; comparable to the 'greatest films' article which is not considered a 'list' anymore. As such, I believe Films considered the worst ever would be an exceptable title. More on my previous reasonings that the "that have been" line is not only unnecessary, but is implied by the word 'considered' in the first place, are located within Proposal for name change November 2005 above. Please indicate if you think the title should Change or Not Change, plus add comments if you think the title should be something different entirely or if you have reasoning why it should retain the 'that have been' in its title. Dannybu2001 18:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, three 'yes' and zero 'no's'. I think I'll leave this voting up for awhile in case anyone feels like putting there two-cents in either way so I know if there's a consensus. Otherwise I'll go ahead and rename it in a couple weeks. Thanks! Dannybu2001 23:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I'm okay with the name change, although I still have concerns about separating the list into somewhat arbitrary categories, which still verges on OR. For example, why is Swept Away not listed in the remakes section? Or Howard the Duck in the comedy one? Unless we can find a cite that alredy categorizes these as such, I'm uncomfortable with doing more than describing (and citing) other people's reaction to a film. Turnstep 13:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure myself why Swept Away isn't listed in remakes. I'm not positive, but I think it was before, but someone moved it to musicals. I guess it works in either category if one wants it to, but perhaps remakes would be more appropriate? Was Howard the Duck considered a comedy? It seems more like a sci-fi movie that merely contained comedy (supposedly) than a comedy in and of itself. I think the main cite is that Lucas himself hates it, probably second only to the Star Wars Holiday Special, lol, so 'Disowned by the makers' seems the best place unless we add a 'sci-fi' section; but then, where would most of the B-movies go? I think maybe citing the categories with other academic sources on the subject may be in order so it can't be considered original research, and an overhaul on the particular categories isn't out of the question, but for now, I think the article is acceptable. Just a note that I'll be updating the article title momentarily. Dannybu2001 17:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Addition?

  • In The Gratuitousness section should that movie "Striptease" with Demi Moore be added? I'm sure that was considered a flop with reviewers at least maybe someone could look into it? Mike 21:00, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I believe it was on here before but was removed due to unsubstantial reasoning. Dannybu2001 00:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, Can we look into it again, I think it was not liked by critics if we can find more info maybe we could vote or just add it. Mike 01:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Read this: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/striptease/ it lists many critical reviews of the movie all bad. The movie should be listed if you have read this. Please consider for addition. Mike 01:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
In the big picture, 13% isn't actually all that bad when compared to the most of the movies listed. Regardless, RT rating isn't really considered enough by itself: Add at least two Razzie 'wins' (preferably more), its IMDb rating, and maybe a couple other substantial cites and maybe it could go back on. Dannybu2001 06:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
I think it is substantial your just picking at straws with the other stuff. Some website with some people voting I dont think is that reliable but harsh reviews is a better source. Mike 06:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
True, I personally don't care for using IMDb as a source, but since it can sometimes be a good indicator of what everyday people think of a movie, it is sometimes a neccessary evil. Let me clarify that what I said before was "more like guidelines than actual rules", but I was trying to bring across that one should not basically cherry-pick several bad reviews solely from Rotten Tomatoes and use that as a basis for addition. By that criteria, this list would be huge (and it used to be!) and virtually any movie could be added; good ones even. This isn't a listing of 'bad' or 'crappy' movies, if it was, most of last year's movies would need to be on here (I've said it in other discussions that we would have almost as many movies listed per year as we have on the whole list if we opened the door to merely 'mediocre' or 'blah' movies.) I'm not saying Striptease couldn't/doesn't qualify, but using RT as the sole source will probably get it deleted quickly. If you find something more substantial (mainly proving cites from more than one source) then by all means add it, the other sources I mentioned are simply some of the most common ones used in this article and are a good place to start finding cites. Dannybu2001 17:49, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Fair Enough Mike 19:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
I think it is more than ready to be added: it won *six* Razzies in 1996, including Worst Picture. [1] Turnstep 18:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Would Staying Alive be considered for addition? It was recently voted the Worst Sequel of all time by Entertainment Weekly, and it has a 0% rating at Rotten Tomatoes [2]. I want to add it, but fear it might get deleted. Cubs Fan 01:46, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Wolf Creek's inclusion

I fail to see how this film is rated as one of the worst ever. It's not a movie for regular movie goers, but is quite popular among horror fans. At the Movies, a reputable Australian movie review show gave is four star, each, which is pretty good[3]. Yes, the movie was extremely gorey, but like some other horror films, it can be part of the genre. I would also like to note that this is one of the best films to come out of the Australia film industry in a LONG time. Another positive review [4]. And yes, there are likely to be some positive and negative reviews of any movie. But I don't think this would be considered one of the worst ever. -- čĥàñľōŕď 05:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it 'qualifies' for this list either, hence why I previously removed it. Even with the cites now sourced, it's an extremely weak addition. Dannybu2001 06:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I've deleted it. It's a terrible inclusion. If someone wants to create a seperate article on "gratuitousness" in movies then that's fine, but Wolf Creek is not a poorly made film on any level. It scores 6.1/10 at IMDb [5] and 51% positive on Rotten Tomatoes [6]. Certainly not great scores in either case, but far above what you'd consider some kind of "worst movie ever" consensus. Ramanpotential 03:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

From the article history: "I dont think it is grasping at straws, its violence and gore is gratuitous." The great grape ape is straight out of the know. Regarding the re-re-addition (assuming the user who keeps doing it ever sees this since they have yet to respond to any of this discussion) that section is not for films that are just gratuitous in general, it's for when the makers use that as a way to draw people in through shock value and curiousity, or think they're creating 'art' and are oblivious to their lack of talent, and folks find out it's either a terrible film and not even the violence and/or sex can make up for it, and/or the violence/sex is actually what makes is a terrible film. Showgirls is the epitome of this, Wolf's Creek is actually considered "OK" going by reviews and such. If it was for any gratuitous film we'd need to add Kill Bill, Cannibal Holocaust, those fake Asian "snuff" films, and from what I've heard, the recently released Hostel, all of which are either very popular or are cult classics. Simply put, stop re-adding it, it doesn't have substantial reasoning for addition to this list. Dannybu2001 17:50, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

This film gets way more bad reviews than good. A whole lot more for lack of a better term that I can think of at the moment. Most of the "good" reviews are from a small minority in Austraila and GB. This film is near universally rated as 'terrible'

  • One of the most viciously nasty horror thrillers in recent memory. But the extreme grisliness is purely gratuitous." Rich Cline, SHADOWS ON THE WALL
  • "No new ideas, and runs out of old ones fast."-- Walter Chaw, FILM FREAK CENTRAL
  • "Wolf Creek bills itself as "Based On Real Events," a dubious claim since the film is rife with the sort of boneheaded plotting that can only be found in sub-par thrillers of this nature."-- Matt Brunson, CREATIVE LOAFING
  • The darkest lump of coal ever dropped down a moviegoer's throat on Christmas Day, bought by the Weinsteins for $3.5 million. Next time, could we get a gift certificate instead?"

-- John Beifuss, COMMERCIAL APPEAL (MEMPHIS, TN)

  • What is the point, other than to show up the director's technical skill at presenting mutilation?"-- Gary Thompson, PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS
  • ... the ordeal is excruciating -- for the audience and for the victims..."

-- Sean Axmaker, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

  • "Wolf Creek is an unrelenting, grueling experience."-- Devin Faraci, CHUD
  • It's boring, then it's nasty, then it's over. That last one is its only saving grace "

-- Ken Hanke, MOUNTAIN XPRESS (ASHEVILLE, NC)

  • An initially promising horror film that turns exploitive, Wolf Creek fails to deliver the requisite payoff considering its leisurely pace."-- Kevin Crust, LOS ANGELES TIMES
  • There's no substitute for bad taste. And this one has it double-barreled, both in the timing of its release and as a movie, one said to be loosely based on fact."-- Mike Clark, USA TODAY
  • What Wolf Creek offers is a competently made horror excursion with an unfortunate reliance upon clichés balanced off by some legitimate shocks."-- James Berardinelli, REELVIEWS
  • Wolf Creek is unimaginative, light on the grue and heavy on the faux-serious desperation."

-- Michael Atkinson, VILLAGE VOICE

  • "Viewers eager to embrace 90 minutes of footage featuring women being brutalized, beaten, stalked and slaughtered may want to consider some serious introspection."

-- Tyler Hanley, PALO ALTO WEEKLY

  • "There's no suspense, really, and the movie is carelessly vague about the victims, who have as much personality as lambs lining up for the slaughter."

-- Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS


Some of the more positive reviews:

  • "...its debt to...Texas Chainsaw Massacre is obvious. Still, this is a gritty flick that must be giving Australia's Outback tourism industry a bad case of heartburn. "

-- Laura Clifford, REELING REVIEWS

  • You may need to squirm and recoil a fair bit to get through the film, which involves graphic, sickening violence."-- Liz Braun, JAM! MOVIES
  • Aussie writer/director Greg Mclean has made one nasty little film"

-- Stefan Halley, HERO REALM

  • "A vicious torrent of blood-letting. What more can we want?"-- Harvey S. Karten, COMPUSERVE
  • "Un des films d'horreur les plus méchants et cruels des dernières années."

-- Nicolas Lacroix, ENPRIMEUR.CA

  • "The film is okay, if you're into that sort of thing, but it's an acquired taste."

-- Eric Lurio, GREENWICH VILLAGE GAZETTE


Ok, safe to say its not for everyone. Sure some people like it, but it's a small minority. Some people worship Alone in the Dark, Showgirls, Battlefield, Batman and Robin etc, and all of those are listed here. It was put under gratuitousness because it's just that, gratuitous. It was only made to show gore for no other reason that to show gore and blood. Not really anything else unlike most other horror movies. I saw it, I can deal with a "gorey" movie, but without any reason for it, I'm just watching a slaughterhouse. Don't worry, I'm not putting it back on, but thats my side.--The great grape ape is straight out of the know 05:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Your statement that "This film gets way more bad reviews than good." is not supported by the facts, such as Rotten Tomatoes which I already cited. And selectively posting four times as many negative quotes as positive ones doesn't really help your case.
And on IMDb: Alone in the Dark: 2.3/10, Showgirls: 3.8/10, Battlefield Earth: 2.4/10, Batman & Robin: 3.5/10. Wolf Creek: 6.1/10. A significant difference. Never even mind that Wolf Creek's reception at festivals the world over place it effortlessly above the movies that actually BELONG on this page.
I'm glad you've had the sense not to put it back up, but geez... you're sure going to a gratuitous level of trouble to beat this dead horse. Ramanpotential 12:18, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
"Your statement that "This film gets way more bad reviews than good." is not supported by the facts, such as Rotten Tomatoes which I already cited. And selectively posting four times as many negative quotes as positive ones doesn't really help your case."
Actually I couldn’t find as many positives as negatives, (hence my side to why it's one of the worst) and Rotten Tomatoes is just one of many sites. Maybe if we wait until the voting settles, (its still a new movie) we'll see what happens.
And yes, sorry I must apologize and say that I it is possible that I may have been just slightly 'gratuitous' in beating this dead horse, but let us not forget this famous quote by an unknown author:
In order to beat a dead horse, one must dismount it first
Thanks for your input and see you out there in Wikiland, take care --The great grape ape is straight out of the know 04:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The "Official" Movie Nomination Request Thread...

The movies that I will request here are newer movies that have either been critically or publically panned... or both. This list is just to add movies (without being scolded by some peoples...) Here are my "Selections":

In The Mix - Usher's debut movie. Has a 3% rating on Rotten Tomatoes [7] and is #5 on the IMDB Bottom 100 with a 1.9 rating

[8]

BloodRayne - Another dud by Uwe Boll... what a surprise. Has a 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes [9] and is #19 on the IMDB Bottom 100 with a 2.2 rating.

This is all I have for now... so I still need to research some more valid claims from respected critics. Hossmann 11:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll add two more:
Blood Feast and its "sequel" by a different director Blood Diner gets a 4.0 on IMDB due to cult followings. Blood Feast may have been the first "gore" film. Its sequel Blood Diner is probably one of the worst movies i've ever seen... In one scene they cover a naked girl with cake mix and deep fry her head (then knock it off baseball style).
 ALKIVAR™ 06:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't feel Blood Feast would be a legitimate entry - HGL knew exactly what he was doing and makes no bones about the fact he was making gory films for drive in audiences. It was also a very important film for future zombie and cannibal movies. (Emperor 14:40, 9 April 2006 (UTC))
Time magazine listed it as "one of the worst movies ever made" ... I think that gives it some weight for readding (it was already on the list)  ALKIVAR™ 02:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
My suggestion:
  • Offending Angels it cost £70k and took £89 (yes not a typo - you'd think the team's friends and family going might bring in more than that) in the cinema [10] or even £79 [11] and according to the last source "In one of the few cinemas it did open in (Croydon, London), it played for an entire week with no-one watching it)!" It has been released on DVD with the fact that it performed so very badly as one of its selling points tempting people to see if it really is that bad. Reviews [12] [13] suggest that yes it really is that bad.
Perhaps a section on "Box office disasters" might be handy for this and similar underperforming turkeys. (Emperor 14:40, 9 April 2006 (UTC))
Got another one:
  • Men in White - National Lampoon's worst film ever (and lets be honest the quality slackened off a long time ago!!) - it was shown once in the US and never repeated - unfortunately it got a showing on UK TV which is when I had the misfortune to see it (or enough of it to convince me it was truly awful but not enough that I'd injure myself to stop having to watch it again). The only reason it isn't further down the ladder at IMDB [14] is that osme people have given it 10s as it is so bad and so few people have actually seen it (there would be riots if a TV station tried to reshow it and no one sane would release it on DVD so it languishes in the archives - here's hoping the arhcives burn down).
It is a TV movie so I'm unsure if it counts - possibly have a category for that too? (Emperor 02:32, 10 April 2006 (UTC))
Could Staying Alive be considered for addition? It was recently voted the Worst Sequel of all time by Entertainment Weekly, and it has a 0% rating at Rotten Tomatoes [15]. I want to add it, but fear it might get deleted. Cubs Fan 15:33, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

A new nominee! found this wonderfully bad piece of crap on tbs at 3am Warrior of the Lost World ranking a 2.2 out of 10 on IMDB (placing it among the top 20 worst if it had enough votes). I think imdb's trivia for it is equally amusing: "Director/writer 'David Worth' says that he was hired, shipped to Italy, and told to begin work on the film.... before he ever had a script. He was reportedly shown a poster for the film and told to make a film that would go with it." I'd even be willing to provide a screenshot or two for anyone who agrees this deserves inclusion. The amazon review by cookieman108 is also amazingly insightful as to the bad-ness of this movie. I've seen From Justin to Kelly, I've seen Glitter, and I've seen Gigli... they are masterpieces in comparison to this abortion on film.  ALKIVAR™ 08:14, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Super Mario Bros?

Should the movie Super Mario Bros be added to the list? I've found several sources citing it as a pretty bad movie... --I mean, Daisy's father was a giant pile of snot

Well, we need more than "pretty bad", we are going for "worst ever" after all :). But post the links here, by all means. I recall it being a bomb, but no idea if it was considered one of the worst ever. Turnstep 05:37, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Doogal

I just removed this from the page, but since somebody went throught the trouble of creating it, copied it here for discussion. It seems a bit new to me to be considered a "worst ever".

Doogal (2006) (replacing the Tom Green film, Freddy Got Fingered): The Magic Roundabout (released in North America as Doogal) is a film based on the television series of the same name. The film was released on February 11, 2005 in the United Kingdom and France, and on February 24, 2006 in North America. Kylie Minogue performs the title song. In the North American version of the film, the majority of original British voices have been replaced by celebrities more familiar to the American public. As of March 16, 2006, the film grossed a total of 7.2 million dollars in the United States box office, and was both a critical bomb (5% Rotten from "Rotten Tomatoes") and a box office bomb. The film was rated the worst animated film on IMDB.com.

Larry the Cable guy: Health Inspector

This movie was only released yesterday, but it already has a 14% at RottenTomatoes and a 1.4/10 at IMDb (making it IMDb's lowest ranking film).

I am by no means a Dan Whitney fan, but this entry is dubious. Being on IMDB's bottom 100 is nothing special nowadays (IMDB voting in general is rediculously polarized with "1" and "10" votes, mass voting by people who haven't seen each film but dislike the lead actor(s) or filmmaker, very bias toward newer movies, similar to the point made above), it only has 20 rottentomatoes reviews, and the movie didn't flop at the BO (7m is middle-of-the-road). Crumbsucker 10:40, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
So far it's made about $11.5 million, and it cost only $3.5 million to produce, according to this article. I saw the movie and thought it was pretty funny, so I don't think it belongs on the list, but then again I am a Larry the Cable Guy fan. It's down to 4% on Rotten Tomatoes now, though, and it's already out of the top 10 in theaters. --Idont Havaname (Talk) 04:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

intro paragraph issue

The statement "The movies listed here are not simply box office bombs, although many of them are; rather, they are films which spectacularly failed to meet critical and commercial standards set by advance publicity or the weight of expectations." included in the intrro section would seem to exclude some of the included movies in this article. I don't think critical and commercial standards are always set by advance publicity or the weight of expectations. This seems to imply that if a film's expectations are very low to begin with then it is not a cadidate for one of the worst films ever which would seem to exclude films like Plan 9 From Outer Space. --Cab88 22:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Xanadu

I was just wondering if this film really deserves to be on the list. On IMDB it currently has a 4.4 rating,[16] a 25% rating at Rotten Tomatoes,[17] and a total gross of $22,762,571[18] from Box Office Mojo along with a "C" rating, from a $20,000,000 budget.[19] Not brilliant figures to be sure, but I wouldn't consider them to count as "the worst ever." In addition, it has only 'won' one award from it's seven Razzie nominations (six in 1981 and one in 2004.) Although some may claim that the nominations themselves should count against Xanadu, when you consider how the Razzies have nominated several actors/films over the years which are questionable to say the least, (most notably Tom Cruise for War of the Worlds and Kevin Costner for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Wyatt Earp) I do not know if they can be weighted against Xanadu quite so strongly. I also note that the Kelly claim about admitting it was a terrible film still needs to be sourced. Finally, Xanadu has developed into quite a cult film, [20] over the years, especially due it's soundtrack, and in a positive manner compared to other cult films such as Showgirls.

Anyway, that is my case for Xanadu. What do you guys think? --220.239.152.150 07:44, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

The link you gave for it being a cult film is 404. The Razzies are important I think, and should not be discounted just because they sometimes nominate people who have been otherwise good (case in point: Catwoman). I'm inclined to keep it - there are some good cites in the listing. Certainly stronger than some other entries on the page. Turnstep 14:08, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't seem to get it to directly link to the page for the cult reference. The site is http://www.fast-rewind.com/ and you can just click on "Xanadu" on the left if you're interested.--211.28.184.217 17:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks like they have a real annoying javascript script to try and force you to use their frames. One less site I'll ever visit. Turnstep 21:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, I have linked the missing references to the Razzie award/nominations and also manage to unearth a link to the Gene Kelly comment. Hope that helps.--220.239.152.150 11:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Editing guidelines

This page has gotten fairly busy lately, but I'd like to ask everyone to slow down a little bit and keep this article at a high quality. I'm very tempted to remove "Basic Instinct 2" - while it may be a bad movie, it's still in theaters as I type this, and it is entirely too early to label it as a "worst ever." Same goes for some of the other recent entries. Also, please keep the listing as NPOV as possible - you can quote other people describing how bad the movies are, but the article itself must stay strictly nuetral. Finally, please make an effort to make links to the actual reviews, not just a link to the name of the newspaper the reviewer comes from. Every link in this article should be a citation of a fact used, or a link to a closely-related page that adds context. Thanks. Turnstep 21:00, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


Uwe Boll

Do you think he needs his own subsection here as he seems to excell at making bad films. I know the tax loop hole is covered on his own entry but it might be worth featuring him here - there can't be many other directors who have all their mainstream films in IMDB's bottom 100. At the time of writing: House of the Dead (#15), Alone in the Dark (#21) and Bloodrayne (#22) and the rest are doomed to follow. (Emperor 03:24, 9 April 2006 (UTC))

Perhaps if there were an article on directors considered the worst ever. I don't know how useful that might be, since it could just end up being redundant with bio pages. I somehow have avoided seeing any of Boll's movies, though I've caught parts of HotD. Шизомби 16:26, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
I'd just add links to the wiki-bios of exceptionally bad directors to the 'see also' section (we're talking Ed Wood and Co., not people like George Lucas, as tempting as it is.) If we start a sub-section, this article could lose its focus. And as said, a separate article about worst directors would probably just end up repeating the same info as the bios. Dannybu2001 17:05, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Too many movies in this list

Every year, Razzie Awards will be given out. That doesn't mean every recipient should be listed here. At least one citation should be available for every film in here, I'd say, of someone saying that film was "the worst of all time". I'm planning to take out "Crossroads" and "Wild Wild West", for instance, unless someone objects. Korny O'Near 19:23, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Howard the Duck is spectacularly bad (at least the part I could bring myself to watch, and it's a shame, as I liked the comic), but how can something that was made relatively recently be one of the "first big bombs" when there had been almost a century of narrative filmmaking (and six decades of talking film) when it was relased? This is another example of the point made by the previous editor above – that the list is too long and too heavily biased toward more recent films. Rlquall 15:03, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


Hercules in New York

By far, this is the worst film i have ever seen. 'tis absolutely horrendous. It deserves a place on this list. Motor.on 00:43, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Why no Heaven's Gate (film)?

The movie which helped seal the fate of United Artists. Bwithh 19:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard any one claim it was the worst ever, just an expensive flop. Night Gyr 07:21, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
It was actually a pretty good movie.68.197.74.95 00:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

How About Starcrash?

Being somewhat of a bad-movie connoisseur, I was surprised to find that starcrash is not on this list... this may be due to its relative obscurity, but it truly is a horrible movie. --Schuyler s. 03:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

From Justin to Kelly

Why was this film moved to the "Stars" category? It is definitely a musical, and no one can call either of the leads "stars".

I've moved it into a sub section. As to the "musical" section, I think this page would work better if the films are categorized based on why they failed so disastrously. In this case, I don't think it failed because it was a musical, but because of the hype they were attempting to cash in on and misjudged. 68.39.174.238 00:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone seen Superman 3 and 4?

I saw number 3 a few weeks ago. First quarter was just average, but the rest of the film was terrible. Poor Christopher Reeve man, stuck in that role of Superman even if the films have been given up on. Dissapointing. Sequels that aren't planned through story line in Hollywood are always a let down. Never fails. They never seem to beat the original. But I also saw that new Superman Returns Movie and WOW! What a cool movie! Very happy with that one! I just hope that the future sequels wont crash and burn like the other ones did before that.

I agree, those were truly bad movies Dr Aaron 07:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Batman and Robin

Someone has added a couple of times a comment saying that George Clooney played batman gay. I deleted it (twice!) because i think this is unnecessary and somewhat offensive (that playing someone gay makes something a bad movie) and that the "citation" seemed shaky and unreliable. Feel free to argue with me if you think i'm being unfair.68.197.74.95 22:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

A Google search seemed to turn up pretty solid evidence that this isn't just a BS reference, although a better source could probably be found. I added it back in, though I removed the "and" so that it flows a bit better. EVula 22:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

George Clooney said in a later interview that he played Batman gay. So maybe if its qouted as GeorgeClonney saying it?

Batman and Robin Reply

No George Clooney didn't play the role gay. But the filmed sucked really bad. I mean you didn't see Batman getting it on with Robin did you, so how is Batman portrayed as gay?

Daredevil

I'm surprised this didn't make the list, nor made the list of rejected worst movies. I certainly consider it the worst superhero movie of all time. While Batman & Robin is undeniably poor, I rate it the third worst superhero movie, followed by League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Daredevil is still the worst though by a wide margin.

I'll do the research and see what sort of critical acclaim (or lack thereof) it has received. Dr Aaron 07:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

New additions

Someone's re-added Caligula, added "Honest" (Which doesn't even have a page on it yet), and a few others. Not having seen any of these, anyone else know if they belong here? 68.39.174.238 07:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Kevin Smith "disowning" "Jersey Girl"

Toward the end of the credits of Clerks II, director Kevin Smith thanks his previous film Jersey Girl for "taking it up the ass so hard and not complaining once". Given this and its generally lackluster critical reception, should it be added to the list of "disowned" films? Ubernostrum 12:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Jersey Girl didn't tank that badly among the critics (it got an average of "C", and an "A" from Roger Ebert) and Kevin Smith disowned it not because he thought it's a bad film, but because the film got unfortunately caught in the aftermath of Bennifer.Suredeath 13:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Mars Attacks!

What about "Mars Attacks!"? That's one hell of a formulaic, dumb comedy movie, lol....68.32.48.42 05:13, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

People are still confusing 'mediocre' movie with 'worst ever' movie Suredeath 03:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Caligula

Caligula is one of the most famous debacles ever, disowned by just about everyone who worked on it--and what a crew it had!

There is no question it ought to be included, along with other seventies disasters such as Heaven's Gate and One from the Heart--TallulahBelle 16:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:List_of_films_considered_the_worst/Archive_1&oldid=1136364684"