And a Uwe Boll film is only the second worst...
March 8, 2007 9:14 PM   Subscribe

The 100 worst reviewed movies ever, according to Rotten Tomatoes. "We've got two Baby Geniuses and three Uwe Boll flicks. Heck, you know these movies must be bad if Catwoman ranks a lofty number 100..." Also, check out the 80 best-reviewed movies.
posted by blahblahblah (70 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
God, I love stuff like this, but, um...
is a list available without me having
click 100 times?

Gotta tell you, if Santa and the Ice Cream
Bunny isn't on this list, then I have a desk
job waiting for me at RT.
posted by squidfartz at 9:21 PM on March 8, 2007


Indeed. I think the guy at RT who thought that its readers would have the patience to go through 100 individual 1-per-page entries was about as foolishly optimistic about this task as Uwe Boll is about his own movies.
posted by clevershark at 9:24 PM on March 8, 2007 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I agree... if I had the time to waste that it takes to click 100 times, then I'd have the time to watch bad films.

I don't get their rating system for this list though... movie #2 got a 1% from viewers, yet the 3rd & 4th worst movies got a 0%? It says the scores are adjusted but I didn't see where it said how or why they adjusted them.

Never saw "Master of Disguise" but I still remember Dana Carvey saying "Turtle Turtle!" in the trailer. Obviously it was funnier in the trailer than in the movie...
posted by miss lynnster at 9:27 PM on March 8, 2007


I just clicked through from #100 to #74. Hadn't seen a single one of them, but for each and every click, the merest glance at the movie's promo poster is an instant, rock-solid indicator that the movie is pure crap, so this list is certainly unecessary, that is, as anything other than a cheesy way to get you to look at ads, some of which have sound. So now I feel unclean.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:28 PM on March 8, 2007


And it made me misspell unnecessary.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:32 PM on March 8, 2007


I don't get their rating system for this list though...
From the sidebar: Here's how the Worst of the Worst Pictures works:
• Each critic from our discrete list gets one vote, all weighted equally.
• A movie must have 40 or more rated reviews to be considered.
• Reviews without ratings are not counted toward the results.
• Because reviews are continually added, manually and otherwise, we have a cutoff date at which new reviews are not counted. The cutoff date is 3/8/2007.
• We use a weighted formula (Bayesian) to account for variation in the number of reviews per movie. The winners are determined by the rankings, designated as the "adjusted score," after applying said formula:

(r ÷ (r+m)) × t + (m ÷ (r+m)) × a, with "r" representing the number of rated reviews, "m" the minimum number of reviews needed for a movie to qualify, "t" the Tomatometer score, and "a" the average Tomatometer of all the qualifying movies.

...and I was annoyed that there was no simple list overview, either.
posted by blahblahblah at 9:35 PM on March 8, 2007


but I didn't see where it said how or why they adjusted them.

From the sidebar:
We use a weighted formula (Bayesian) to account for variation in the number of reviews per movie. The winners are determined by the rankings, designated as the "adjusted score," after applying said formula:

(r ÷ (r+m)) × t + (m ÷ (r+m)) × a, with "r" representing the number of rated reviews, "m" the minimum number of reviews needed for a movie to qualify, "t" the Tomatometer score, and "a" the average Tomatometer of all the qualifying movies

posted by Bookhouse at 9:37 PM on March 8, 2007


Bloodrayne only made it to 33? I rented it on a lark, I mean how bad could it be, right? It was so bad there needs to be a new system of math devoted to it's badness, one that will account for worse than the #1 worst movie of all time.
posted by lekvar at 9:37 PM on March 8, 2007


Damn my lack of preview.
posted by Bookhouse at 9:37 PM on March 8, 2007


(r ÷ (r+m)) × t + (m ÷ (r+m)) × a, with "r" representing the number of rated reviews, "m" the minimum number of reviews needed for a movie to qualify, "t" the Tomatometer score, and "a" the average Tomatometer of all the qualifying movies.

I went to art school to avoid sentences like this. So that's probably why I didn't see it.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:43 PM on March 8, 2007 [2 favorites]


By the time I had clicked through 35 of 'em, the image of that Borat flash ad with him in the thong swimsuit had burnt itself into my retina. Thanks a LOT blah3.
posted by JHarris at 9:43 PM on March 8, 2007


Is this anything like the IMDb Bottom 100? I think that's been here before.
posted by puke & cry at 9:46 PM on March 8, 2007


No, no I won't click through.

When will websites realize I come to the internet for content, not because I like to click the mouse? I have minesweeper for that.
posted by klangklangston at 9:51 PM on March 8, 2007 [5 favorites]


Gods and Generals stands out as the largest waste of money and talent on that list.
posted by 2sheets at 9:51 PM on March 8, 2007


Umm, does anyone else notice the "List Countdown" box near the bottom that splits the movies into 10-per-section chunks?

that may solve some of your clicking woes.
posted by p3on at 10:20 PM on March 8, 2007


What a ripoff! There's no way Son of the Mask (#22) is worse than Universal Soldier 2 (#29)!
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 10:35 PM on March 8, 2007


Oh god, the Roberto Benigni Pinocchio. I thought that movie was a figment that my imagination conjured while I was reading the movie reviews in the paper while home sick.

My brother actually had the tie-in game for the #1 film that the site mentions, though I don't know what that says about his taste in video games. It was pretty crap, IIRC. I have no idea why someone thought it would be a good idea to make a FPS for the gameboy.
posted by kosher_jenny at 10:48 PM on March 8, 2007


#1...yeah, I can see that.
"SYNOPSIS
In the mystifying opening sequence..."

Whoa, whoa, whoa....that movie was in sequence? I thought it was like a Tarantino flick or like "Momento" or something and all backwards in time. Do they actually mean to imply the movie moved from one set of action moves to another set...IN ORDER?

I mean we can all agree it was incoherant, but to imply that there was some kind of design to the apparently random dialogue and clip shots or swooshy camera angles...that just blows my mind, man.

I thought it was like a Burroughs method cut up and paste thing.
Wow...I gave that movie way too much credit.
posted by Smedleyman at 11:01 PM on March 8, 2007


Unfortunately, the "list countdown" feature still only allows you to display one entry per page.
posted by Clay201 at 11:06 PM on March 8, 2007


its good to see elia kazan hit #2. im surprised annie hall and amadeus ranked so high.
posted by phaedon at 11:08 PM on March 8, 2007


Unfortunately, the "list countdown" feature still only allows you to display one entry per page.

Which qualifies this for one of the 100 worst websites...
posted by three blind mice at 11:35 PM on March 8, 2007


It's interesting that the top ten list doesn't contain a single movie made in the past 30 years, while the worst ten were all made in the past five.
posted by Ljubljana at 11:46 PM on March 8, 2007


Funny how that works, hm?
posted by puke & cry at 12:23 AM on March 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


i'd like to join the chorus of people who loathe multiple-click list websites. put all the items on the list on one page, ok numbnuts? forbes magazine was an early and still frequent offender, it loads beaucoup ads with every click, i won't click on a forbes link anymore. i suspect they do it to maximize ad revenue, 100 views versus one, well, you'll only get one view from brucie!
posted by bruce at 1:49 AM on March 9, 2007


Now this overdone,
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; this isn't true, I know. Yet, bad movies make me feel horrible. This list is utterly depressing, and not because so many people invested so much of their lives, money or hope in them. They're just fucking depressing. I say screw heritage, screw memory, fuck the unblinking scrutiny of history and burn these films and everything that documents them.
posted by stavrogin at 1:55 AM on March 9, 2007


You can get a similar list, but without the annoying format, from the Rotten Tomatoes database here. Unfortunately, it only lists the 100 "best" films that scored less than 10% fresh, and doesn't go all the way to the bottom. Still plenty of fodder there, including a disturbing number of film I have personally seen.
Universal Solder 2 is a fine film to watch, you just have to be drunk first.
posted by AndrewStephens at 3:00 AM on March 9, 2007


The worst film I've ever seen, which was far worse than ecks vs sever, was billed as the "russian blade runner". Unfortunately, I have never been able to recall the name! Can anyone remember this movie:
Aliens have landed an invisible spacecraft/maze in a cow pasture. The main characters wander through this cow pasture talking about 'why I write' taking frequent naps. The boss alien is a barrel of grease....
posted by Osmanthus at 3:17 AM on March 9, 2007


That web design is a crime against humanity

Worst ten, none of which I've seen, most of which I've never heard of:

1. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
2. Alone in the Dark
3. Crossover
4. Pinocchio (d. Roberto Benigni)
5. King's Ransom
6. Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2
7. National Lampoon's Gold Diggers
8. Twisted
9. The Master of Disguise
10. Half Past Dead
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:25 AM on March 9, 2007


Universal Solder 2 is a fine film to watch

Yeah. I heard that one was like watching lead melt.
posted by srboisvert at 3:48 AM on March 9, 2007


Their algorithm is clearly flawed, as Star Wars Episode III should occupy the number one spot on the worst ever list.
posted by JamesToast at 4:32 AM on March 9, 2007


The 100 worst reviewed movies ever

Bah - I thought this was going to be about really bad *reviewers* - critics who are dreadful writers or totally off the mark in their assessments.
posted by NorthernLite at 4:53 AM on March 9, 2007


...80 best-reviewed movies.

The Departed is #30. I think the list can pretty much be ignored. And, though I didn't click every link, I didn't see a single non-English language film on the list.
posted by dobbs at 4:54 AM on March 9, 2007


Due to the magic of wget, grep and AppleWorks:
100. Catwoman
99. A Man Apart
98. Norbit
97. Slackers
96. Say It Isn't So
95. Taxi
94. I Dreamed of Africa
93. Juwanna Mann
92. First Daughter
91. Grind
90. Valentine
89. Man of the House
88. From Justin to Kelly
87. The Number 23
86. Elektra
85. White Noise
84. Out Cold
83. A Night at the Roxbury
82. Darkness Falls
81. Gods and Generals
80. Kangaroo Jack
79. Stealing Harvard
78. A Sound of Thunder
77. The Skulls
76. Underclassman
75. Date Movie
74. Venom
73. My Boss's Daughter
72. See No Evil
71. The Order
70. The Wash
69. Basic Instinct 2
68. Dragonfly
67. Surviving Christmas
66. The New Guy
65. Lost Souls
64. Boat Trip
63. Deck the Halls
62. Ultraviolet
61. Chill Factor
60. Undiscovered
59. Jawbreaker
58. Stay Alive
57. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
56. Doogal
55. Gigli
54. Because I Said So
53. Envy
52. Yours, Mine, & Ours
51. Johnson Family Vacation
50. Cheaper By the Dozen 2
49. Glitter
48. Summer Catch
47. Swept Away
46. The Adventures of Pluto Nash
45. Extreme Ops
44. The Forsaken
43. Material Girls
42. Yu-Gi-Oh: The Movie
41. The Fog
40. Supercross: The Movie
39. Code Name: The Cleaner
38. Big Momma's House 2
37. Corky Romano
36. Serving Sara
35. The Perfect Man
34. Texas Rangers
33. BloodRayne
32. Soul Survivors
31. The Mod Squad
30. Darkness
29. Universal Soldier: The Return
28. My Baby's Daddy
27. The In Crowd
26. House of the Dead
25. Down to You
24. Happily N'Ever After
23. Fear Dot Com
22. Son of the Mask
21. Bless the Child
20. Rollerball
19. The Whole Ten Yards
18. Christmas with the Kranks
17. Baby Geniuses
16. The Covenant
15. Deuces Wild
14. Battlefield Earth
13. Epic Movie
12. Godsend
11. Zoom
10. Half Past Dead
9. The Master of Disguise
8. Twisted
7. National Lampoon's Gold Diggers
6. Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2
5. King's Ransom
4. Pinocchio
3. Crossover
2. Alone in the Dark
1. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
posted by cillit bang at 5:03 AM on March 9, 2007 [10 favorites]


These are all bullshit mainstream flops. I could probably name 100 more "successful" movies that are equally as crappy.

Aren't there a gazillion more straight-to-video releases that might have some redeemable camp or comedic value to them? I'd be much more interested in that list.

Btw, thanks for compiling that cillit bang.
posted by psmealey at 5:15 AM on March 9, 2007


Bah - I thought this was going to be about really bad *reviewers* - critics who are dreadful writers or totally off the mark in their assessments.

That's what I thought too. I was hoping to see a list of otherwise good movies that were mercilessly panned. Jacob's Ladder immedately comes to mind.
posted by psmealey at 5:17 AM on March 9, 2007


It's interesting that the top ten list doesn't contain a single movie made in the past 30 years, while the worst ten were all made in the past five.

Surely this is because nobody remembers shitty movies that came out 30 years ago, and they probably aren't on rotten tomatoes.

On the other hand...

How is it that a review with the choice quote "A failure on every level" counts as positive for that movie?
posted by thirteenkiller at 5:32 AM on March 9, 2007


I'm pretty sure that this was the worst movie I've ever seen. I was on vacation & there it was on the hotel television, like a televised car accident screaming for me to watch it.

That it was dubbed in Italian may have actually improved it.
posted by miss lynnster at 5:49 AM on March 9, 2007


is a list available without me having click 100 times?

This is why the Firefox Gods created repagination.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 6:30 AM on March 9, 2007


Yeah. I heard that one was like watching lead melt... and drip onto your area.

Here's the list of movies that scored less than 10 on Metacritic. Granted, it doesn't go back very far, but the movies are quite dreadful.

For me, the pinnacle is Battlefield Earth. It's astonishing.
posted by cog_nate at 6:50 AM on March 9, 2007


Wow, RT's "best" list is seriously rigged up to maximize pageviews in a really annoying way.
posted by delmoi at 7:15 AM on March 9, 2007


Thanks for the Night of the Lepus reference, thirteenkiller. I remember watching that with my dad on late-night TV in the 70s. Look, the bunnies are eating brussel sprouts! No! those are GIANT bunnies, and they're eating cabbages! CABBAGES!
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:29 AM on March 9, 2007


Reminds me of a bloggo-journalist site whre they had a wonderful gallery of some 200 odd pictures, but in order to actually get to them you had to click thru each one. The URL was some whacked out thing that you couldn't just say "02.jpg, 03.jpg".

I know it gives them hundreds of pageviews and stats for advertising, but, you know, it sucks!

Thanks a bunch clitt bang!
posted by cavalier at 7:30 AM on March 9, 2007


Look, the bunnies are eating brussel sprouts!

Hee!! HEEEE!! /claps hands wildly

What an amazing world, where such a movie could exist.
posted by thirteenkiller at 8:14 AM on March 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


Something is wrong with a list that leaves out Kazaam.
posted by ken_zoan at 8:30 AM on March 9, 2007


My claim to fame: I saw, in theaters, #1: Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever immediately after #45 Extreme Ops.

Participants in this experiment actually had a fair amount of debate over which was the worser of the two.
posted by pokermonk at 9:32 AM on March 9, 2007


I treasure the four or five days that Epic Movie managed to score 0%.
posted by Artw at 9:32 AM on March 9, 2007


Am I a complete idiot for thinking the description of Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever sounds kind of cool?
posted by roll truck roll at 10:36 AM on March 9, 2007


After looking at that page for a while, I must say that Half-Life 2 looks pretty cool.
posted by Mister_A at 11:11 AM on March 9, 2007


I have seen, in their awful entirety, 8 movies on this list (having seen parts of many others). And actually, a couple I thought weren't that bad: Elektra, The New Guy, and yes even Gigli were watchable, if unremarkable, and I seem to recall Jawbreaker wasn't horrible, just lame. The rest though... yeah, they were pretty bad. Ultraviolet I felt really bad about, because I stupidly went in thinking it was the third Resident Evil film- stupid, stupid hincandenza... *sigh*
  • 86, Elektra
  • 66, The New Guy
  • 62, Ultraviolet
  • 59, Jawbreaker
  • 55, Gigli
  • 46, The Adventures of Pluto Nash
  • 22, Son of the Mask
  • 19, The Whole Ten Yards
I still say Face/Off is one of the worst movies ever made- I actually had to pause the movie and rant for 10 minutes to an otherwise empty apartment, it was so bad. It was throw-my-remote-at-the-TV bad.
posted by hincandenza at 12:29 PM on March 9, 2007


Finally, someone who shares my opinion of Face/Off!
posted by forblaga at 12:50 PM on March 9, 2007


Seen:

Catwoman
Elektra
The Skulls (Which was actually pretty good, though not intentionally)
The Order
The Wash
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
The Adventures of Pluto Nash
Fear Dot Com

So, yeah, eight. I'd recommend The Skulls and Fear Dot Com as both entirely hilarious though.
posted by klangklangston at 12:51 PM on March 9, 2007


I just discovered that my first MetaFilter comment was about a movie that is not, but way should be, on this list.
posted by MrMoonPie at 1:06 PM on March 9, 2007


MrMoonPie - it probabbly predates the coverage. I think you've got your finger on something though- the genre of utterly awful but close-to-unknown sequels. If you see Dusk Till Dawn 4 on the shelves, and you never even knew 2-3 even existed, then you're in for a big heap of poop.
posted by Artw at 1:26 PM on March 9, 2007


heh - one of my plans for this year was to trawl through Rotten Tomatoes' top & bottom lists.

It's probably been mentioned somewhere above in this thread, but there is a simple search feature that lets you search by rating & retrieve a basic list.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:57 PM on March 9, 2007


Ultraviolet was #62? It wasn't really that bad was it?

I liked Ultraviolet. It was big dumb fun
posted by lekvar at 3:33 PM on March 9, 2007


This list is missing plenty. What about Plan 9 from Outer Space? What about Manos?

Or is it just from the past decade or something?
posted by Target Practice at 4:15 PM on March 9, 2007


The UK TV mini-series Ultraviolet was pretty good. There's no (or almost no) relationship between the two, so I'm just sayin'.

This is a list of the worst reviewed movies, and of course lots of movies like direct-to-video are hardly reviewed, if at all. So a whole bunch of really bad movies aren't even being considered.

Also, you have to think about how the pool of reviews has changed over time, especially in relationship to much older good and bad movies. Lots of good old movies are going to have reviews available while old movies that are comparably as bad as the recent movies on the list will be completely obscure. I'd bet that many of the reviews of old movies are much more recent than the movies and are mostly of classics. Thus, the pool of badly reviewed movies is more skewed toward the present and the pool of well reviewed movies is skewed toward the past. The lists reflect this.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:15 PM on March 9, 2007


I think they missed the mark.

I've seen four of these movies. Two ("Gods and Generals" and "Battlefield Earth") were truly, epically, abysmal.

But the other two ("The Skulls" and "Corky Romano") were just stupid and bad.

To be clear, I am in no way defending these two movies in any way, except to say that the were not utterly atrocious. They were just bad, that's all.
posted by Flunkie at 4:47 PM on March 9, 2007


I've got to agree with Flunkie, some of these movie may have had no redeeming artistic merit but they sure weren't bottom 100 worthy. Serving Sara for example was mediocre brain candy but hardly the 36th worst movie even of the last 10 years.

Now Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever deserved to be on this list, I ended up watching it twce and the movie still didn't make any sense.
posted by Mitheral at 5:13 PM on March 9, 2007


I'm shocked and amazed to see that neither Black Snake Moan nor The Life Of David Gale made it on the list - those being the two worst movies that I have personally witnessed.

I count myself blessed to have seen exactly zero of the films on the list if they're even worse than these two.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 7:16 PM on March 9, 2007


Make that three for Face/Off being the worst movie of all time. Simply atrocious.
posted by Arch_Stanton at 11:11 PM on March 9, 2007


I just watched Clerks II and may be the only person alive who enjoyed it.
posted by klangklangston at 8:28 AM on March 10, 2007


Objectively speaking Clerks II is probably utter crap, but I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't even think I was that drunk at the time.

Now what in the helll is with the Face/Off bashing? That's a perfectly fine if utterly demented action movie with a pair of thoroughly batshoit lead performances that are worth the price of admission alone. It's no Elektra, that's for sure.
posted by Artw at 9:12 AM on March 10, 2007


Cabin Boy with Chris Elliot should have made the list.
posted by LoriFLA at 10:00 AM on March 10, 2007


What? No Titanic?
posted by psmealey at 11:24 AM on March 10, 2007


Well, on Clerks II, I was shitfaced. But I felt like, aside from some of the fanboy Rosaria idealization, they were fairly strong characters with some of the best dramatic dialogue and gimickless direction that Smith's ever done. I got where he was coming from, though I thought that the plot got trite at some points (the pregnancy, wtf?), it seemed like a great "coming of age" story. And frankly, I think that a lot of people who really didn't like it were people who were no longer the right demographic. I dunno, maybe I'm getting older and haven't achieved what I thought I might, but I still know a lot of people I went to high school with who are pizza delivery guys or whatever, and I thought that it was pretty emotionally accurate.
I'd argue that it's probably the second best movie Smith's done, after the first Clerks (because it's better than Mallrats and Jay & Silent Bob by leaps and bounds, and Chasing Amy was half a great movie and half absolute shit).
posted by klangklangston at 1:49 PM on March 10, 2007


Seen ten:
Valentine, Elektra, The Order, Fear Dot Com, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (HBO)
White Noise (theatre, sneak preview)
Darkness (theatre, and I like this film)
Godsend, The Whole Ten Yards (theatre, for free)
Alone in the Dark (movie night, at a now ex-friend, not over the film choice)

I watched _The Order_ just for David Torn's work on the soundtrack. I still regretted it.
posted by steveburnett at 7:11 AM on March 11, 2007


Shouldn't just about ever Richard Gere movie be on this list?
posted by nosocks at 1:37 PM on March 11, 2007


I guess I don't understand the process in Hollywood where you can make a sequel of an otherwise entertaining movie and have it turn out so abysmally. Even more astonishing to me is how some completely failed franchises can continue to get funding to crank out stinker after stinker. Mostly notably, any movie with "National Lampoon" in the title (other than Animal House and possibly Vacation), is virtually guaranteed to be dreary, painfully unfunny and largely unwatched.
posted by psmealey at 6:52 AM on March 12, 2007


Chasing Amy was half a great movie and half absolute shit

That seems vaguely correct to me, but I forget which half was great. Mostly, though, the emotional response that the mere mention of that movie conjures is the overwhelming desire that grievous bodily harm to be done to Ben Affleck. Funny that this has not seemed to abate over time.
posted by psmealey at 7:00 AM on March 12, 2007


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