“Death of a Nation.”D’Souza MediaWhile moviegoers often flock to bad films in large numbers (see: 2018’s “The Nun” and “Fifty Shades Freed“), professional film critics will tend to pile condemnation on those same films.
To find out which films film critics have collectively hated the most, we turned to the reviews aggregator Metacritic to compile this list of the most critically panned films in history.
From ill-advised sequels like “Scary Movie 5” and “Caddyshack II,” to two dubious political documentaries by conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, these films drew the ire of critics and provoked the repulsion of many.
Here are the 75 worst films of all time, according to critics:
Note: Only films with seven or more online reviews appear in the ranking, so it skews toward more recent films.
75. “Evidence” (2013)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 5.3/10
What critics said: “There have been a lot of shoddy found-footage flicks over the past few years, but maybe none quite so shoddy as this.” — The AV Club
74. “What Love Is” (2008)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 7.3/10
What critics said: “A shrill cacophony of puerile clichés about men and women and sex, delivered in adrenaline-driven harangues and arrogant lectures. When the stage clears, all that’s left is the unpleasant odor of all that hot air.” — Los Angeles Times
73. “Mixed Nuts” (1994)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 6.0/10
What critics said: “A farcical whirligig that doesn’t whirl. It’s energetically unfunny.” — Los Angeles Times
72. “The Omega Code” (1999)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 5.2/10
What critics said: “By turns laughably simplistic and confoundingly muddled as it charts the “final battle” between good and evil.” — Variety
71. “Rollerball” (2002)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 1.4/10
What critics said: “Gets stupider as it moves along. By the end, you just don’t care whether that cold-hearted snake Petrovich (that would be Reno) gets his comeuppance. Just bring on the Battle Bots, please!” — Philaelphia Inquirer
70. “A Little Bit of Heaven” (2012)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 4.7/10
What critics said: “There is nothing the slightest bit heavenly about this project, which is wrong-headed in just about every department.” — Arizona Republic
69. “Kung Pow: Enter the Fist” (2002)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 8.6/10
What critics said: “An inept, tedious spoof of ’70s kung fu pictures, it contains almost enough chuckles for a three-minute sketch, and no more.” — The New York Post
68. “Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan” (1989)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: N/A
What critics said: “To crystallize its fundamental flaw, here’s a movie about Manhattan that takes 75 minutes just to get to Manhattan.” — USA Today
67. “From Justin to Kelly” (2003)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 2.5/10
What critics said: “It’s like ‘Grease: The Next Generation’ acted out by the food-court staff at SeaWorld.” — Entertainment Weekly
66. “Glitter” (2001)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 3.4/10
What critics said: “A butt-numbing exercise in tedium, sporadically redeemed by moments of unintentional hilarity.” — TV Guide
65. “Dungeons & Dragons” (2000)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 5.0/10
What critics said: “Stinketh like the breath of a dyspeptic dragon.” — The Washington Post
64. “Don Peyote” (2014)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 3.0/10
What critics said: “There’s no rhythm or rules, and the beyond-indifferent camerawork and community-access-TV-grade effects help nothing.” — The Dissolve
63. “The In Crowd” (2000)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 2.3/10
What critics said: “Isn’t a movie, it’s Gorgonzola, a crumbly summertime stinker veined with pop-cultural fungus.” — Entertainment Weekly
62. “Cabin Fever” (2016)
Critic score: 14/100
User score: 2.6/10
What critics said: “It doesn’t help that what passes for acting here seems more like a table read.” — Los Angeles Times
61. “Love, Wedding, Marriage” (2011)
Critic score: 13/100
User score: 3.1/10
What critics said: “Only old pros James Brolin and Jane Seymour, as Eva’s colorfully squabbling parents, occasionally rouse the film beyond its fate as fodder for a Snuggie-wrapped slumber.” — Time Out
60. “Daddy Day Camp” (2007)
Critic score: 13/100
User score: 1.8/10
What critics said: “Filling in for Eddie Murphy in a septically humored kiddie sequel to ‘Daddy Day Care,’ Gooding gives a mug-job performance that consists mainly of reacting (again and again) to nasty smells.” — Entertainment Weekly
59. “Fascination” (2005)
Critic score: 13/100
User score: N/A
What critics said: “Glacially paced, self-consciously acted and narratively risible.” — Variety
58. “Fair Game” (1995)
Critic score: 13/100
User score: N/A
What critics said: “A thriller primarily about the movement of Cindy Crawford’s breasts beneath a succession of ever-smaller T-shirts.” — Entertainment Weekly
57. “Freddy Got Fingered” (2001)
Critic score: 13/100
User score: 5.6/10
What critics said: “The movie is simply not professional. It’s not, even by the lowest standards of Republic B-westerns in the ’30s or bad, cheap horror films in the ’50s, releasable.” — The Washington Post
56. “A Beautiful Life” (2009)
Critic score: 13/100
User score: 1.7/10
What critics said: “This laughably clichéd dive into sexual masochism and hardscrabble survival replaces story with outline and characters with place holders.” — The New York Times
55. “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2” (2015)
Critic score: 13/100
User score: 2.4/10
What critics said: “While the original was no classic, it had a few mild laughs and the plus-sized actor displayed a certain buffoonish charm. Such is not the case with this painfully unfunny, slapdash follow-up in which the title character is so relentlessly obnoxious that you’ll be cheering for the villains.” — The Hollywood Reporter
54. “Down to You” (2000)
Critic score: 13/100
User score: 6.4/10
What critics said: “The confusion it mistakes for true soul-searching is about as realistic a look at the politics of youthful attraction as one of those ‘Did somebody say McDonald’s?’ commercials is a look at mainstream American family values. Did somebody say McCheese?” — Austin Chronicle
53. “Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood” (1988)
Critic score: 13/100
User score: N/A
What critics said: “Only a mote of humor graces the film, and that is Jason’s cunning ability to come up with ever more dreadful weapons for each successive crime, graduating from stake to machete to circular saw. Dare we hope, in Part VIII, for a neutron bomb to obliterate the series altogether?” — Chicago Tribune
52. “New Best Friend” (2002)
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Critic score: 13/100
User score: 4.8/10
What critics said: “A lurid, unsavory mix of ‘Reefer Madness’ hysteria, drive-in sleaze, and the queasy morality of ’80s slasher film.” — The AV Club
51. “Cannonball Run II” (1984)
Critic score: 13/100
User score: N/A
What critics said: “Burt Reynolds and a host of notable performers seem to be having a hell of a good time wandering through this meandering, episodic farce, but rarely is their good mood shared by the viewer.” — TV Guide
50. “The Avengers” (1998)
Critic score: 12/100
User score: 2.5/10
What critics said: “It’s a film to gall fans of the old television series and perplex anyone else.” — The New York Times
49. “Nothing Left to Fear” (2013)
Critic score: 12/100
User score: 3.5/10
What critics said: “It’s stale B-movie rubbish of a barely watchable sort, albeit slightly more depressing than many of its genre compatriots.“ — The Dissolve
48. “Strange Wilderness” (2008)
Critic score: 12/100
User score: 5.1/10
What critics said: “Aside from the waste of a talented cast, the only thing that really caught my attention was the tomblike silence of the audience–at least until the bong jokes started.“ — Chicago Reader
47. “Cocktail” (1988)
Critic score: 124/100
User score: 3.0/10
What critics said: “There isn’t a scene in ‘Cocktail’ that isn’t cheap and dumb, and whether its camp entertainment value compensates for its contempt for women is a question. ‘Cocktail’ makes beer commercials look deep, makes ‘Top Gun’ look like ‘Hamlet.'” — Boston Globe
46. “Left Behind” (2014)
Critic score: 12/100
User score: 2.6/10
What critics said: “This failed epic — really, an epic failure — would barely be noticed, were it not for former Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage taking on a ‘Sharknado’-quality remake of a Kirk Cameron movie.” — New York Daily News
45. “The Emoji Movie” (2017)
Critic score: 12/100
User score: 2.0/10
What critics said: “A work so completely devoid of wit, style, intelligence or basic entertainment value that it makes that movie based on the Angry Birds app seem like a pure artistic statement by comparison.” — RogerEbert.com
44. “Slackers” (2002)
Critic score: 12/100
User score: 4.5/10
What critics said: “‘Slackers’ is supposed to be a gross-out comedy, but the tastelessness of its jokes is nothing compared to its sheer cluelessness.” — Salon
43. “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” (2002)
Critic score: 12/100
User score: 4.8/10
What critics said: “A limp Eddie Murphy vehicle that even he seems embarrassed to be part of.” — The Globe and Mail
42. “The Master of Disguise” (2002)
Critic score: 12/100
User score: 2.4/10
What critics said: “The individual scenes are just random, uninspired riffs by Carvey or awkwardly flat cameos by the likes of Jesse Ventura and Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson.” — New York Daily News
41. “King’s Ransom” (2005)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 1.4/10
What critics said: “Generic hip-hop soundtrack? Check. Aerial stock footage of milieu? Check. Hardy-har homophobia and misogyny? Check. Emasculated sub-Gump white dude played by Jay Mohr? Double check.” — Entertainment Weekly
40. “Persecuted” (2014)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 3.4/10
What critics said: “This terrible attempt at a political thriller for the religious right is aimed not at Christians in general but at a certain breed of them, the kind who feel as if the rest of the world were engaged in a giant conspiracy against their interpretation of good and truth.” — The New York Times
39. “3 Strikes” (2000)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 4.0/10
What critics said: “Feels like a very long late-night comedy sketch that occasionally veers beyond tastelessness toward something worse.” — The New York Times
38. “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” (1997)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 8.0/10
What critics said: “It’s cynical and it’s depressing, and I would lock a child in a room before I’d show him ‘Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.'” — L.A. Weekly
37. “Date Movie” (2006)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 2.9/10
What critics said: “‘Comedy is hard,’ said Steve Martin. For the writers of ‘Date Movie,’ it’s apparently impossible.” — New York Daily News
36. “Pinocchio” (2002)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 2.9/10
What critics said: “It’s an oddity that will be avoided by millions of people, this new Pinocchio. Osama bin Laden could attend a showing in Times Square and be confident of remaining hidden.” — The New York Times
35. “Nine Lives” (2016)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 2.8/10
What critics said: “At 87 torturous, laugh-free minutes, the film could change the most avid cat fancier into a kitty hater.” — Rolling Stone
34. “Scary Movie 5” (2013)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 2.7/10
What critics said: “‘Scary Movie V’ murdered my capacity to feel joy. ” — Village Voice
33. “Some Kind of Beautiful” (2015)
Critic score: 11/100
User score: 5.0/10
What critics said: “Some kind of hideous, a perfect storm of romantic-comedy awfulness that seems to set the ailing genre back decades with the sheer force of its ineptitude.” — Variety
31. “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers” (1995)
Critic score: 10/100
User score: 5.6/10
What critics said: “Not even the addition of satanic rituals, farm implements or a Howard Stern-like shock jock (Leo Geter) is enough to paint over the creaky trappings.” — Variety
30. “Saturn 3” (1980)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: N/A
What critics said: “The level of intelligence of the screenplay of ‘Saturn 3’ is shockingly low – the story is so dumb it would be laughed out of any junior high school class in the country – and yet the movie was financed. Why?” — Chicago Sun-Times
29. “Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star” (2011)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 2/10
What critics said: “This may be the worst movie Pauly Shore has ever been in. Think about that.” — The New York Times
28. “Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000” (2000)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 2/10
What critics said: “A picture that will be hailed without controversy as the worst of its kind ever made.” — Slate
27. “The Tortured” (2012)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 4.2/10
What critics said: “Lean, nasty, and patently absurd, ‘The Tortured’ plays like one long scream of agony.” — Village Voice
26. “Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2” (2004)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 1.8/10
What critics said: “So bad that I predict there will be drinking games set around viewing it someday.” — The Washington Post
25. “Alone in the Dark” (2005)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 1.6/10
What critics said: “So mind-blowingly horrible that it teeters on the edge of cinematic immortality.” — San Francisco Chronicle
24. “Atlas Shrugged III: Who Is John Galt?” (2014)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 3.0/10
What critics said: “The movie’s so slipshod and half-assed that I almost feel for Rand, whose ideas have proved enduring enough that they at least deserve a fair representation, if only for the sake of refutation.” — Village Voice
23. “Meet The Spartans” (2008)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 2.8/10
What critics said: “Gamely alternates between unfunny gay jokes and violent pratfalls for a good 80 minutes, finding time for not one, but two musical dance numbers set to ‘I Will Survive.'” — The AV Club
22. “Dirty Love” (2005)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 2.8/10
What critics said: “Dirty Love wasn’t written and directed, it was committed. Here is a film so pitiful, it doesn’t rise to the level of badness. It is hopelessly incompetent.” — Chicago Sun-Times
21. “State Property” (2002)
Critic score: 9/100
User score: 4.9/10
What critics said: “Result is a fairly good-looking video shot down by a hackneyed script, atrocious acting and a total lack of redeeming social value.” — Variety
20. “The Mangler” (1995)
Critic score: 8/100
User score: N/A
What critics said: “It is not a compliment to suggest that a demonically possessed piece of machinery embarked on a bloodthirsty rampage has more personality than most of the flesh-and-blood characters in ‘The Mangler,’ a horror movie based on a Stephen King story.” — The New York Times
19. “Among Ravens” (2014)
Critic score: 8/100
User score: 1.6/10
What critics said: “Featuring unlikeable characters, preposterously contrived plotting, ham-fisted dialogue and strained attempts at poeticism, Among Ravens is a misfire on every level.” — The Hollywood Reporter
18. “Septic Man” (2014)
Critic score: 8/100
User score: 2.6/10
Summary: “Jack, a sewage worker who’s determined to uncover the cause of the town’s water contamination crisis, gets trapped underground in a septic tank and undergoes a hideous transformation.“
What critics said: “Beyond its mere unfunniness and stupidity, Septic Man is criminally unimaginative.” — The Dissolve
17. “Transylmania” (2009)
Critic score: 8/100
User score: 8.7/10
What critics said: “The current vogue for all things vampiric is ripe for a satirical drubbing, but this repulsive comedy is part of the problem, not the solution.” — Chicago Reader
16. “Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?” (2016)
Critic score: 7/100
User score: 2.7/10
What critics said: “The movie tries to wrap an important social message in comedy, but it’s unpalatable all the way through.” — Los Angeles Times
15. “Miss March” (2009)
Critic score: 7/100
User score: 4.3/10
What critics said: “Writer-director-stars Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, of the Whitest Kids U’Know, here prove the crassest, most maladroit moviemakers you know.” — Entertainment Weekly
14. “Screwed” (2000)
Critic score: 7/100
User score: 8.2/10
What critics said: “A confusedly misconceived hybrid of interracial buddy comedy and imitation Marx Brothers farce.” — The New York Times
13. “The Hottie & the Nottie” (2008)
Critic score: 7/100
User score: 2.3/10
What critics said: “Great actors make the craft look easy. In the Paris Hilton comedy ‘The Hottie and the Nottie,’ acting looks very, very difficult.” — New York Post
12. “Caddyshack II” (1988)
Critic score: 7/100
User score: N/A
What critics said: “‘Caddyshack II,’ a feeble follow-up to the 1980 laff riot, is lamer than a duck with bunions, and dumber than grubs. It’s patronizing and clumsily manipulative, and top banana Jackie Mason is upstaged by the gopher puppet.” — The Washington Post
11. “Baby Geniuses” (1999)
Critic score: 6/100
User score: 3.0/10
What critics said: “Bad films are easy to make, but a film as unpleasant as Baby Geniuses’ achieves a kind of grandeur.” — Chicago Sun-Times
10. “National Lampoon’s Gold Diggers” (2004)
Critic score: 6/100
User score: 2.5/10
What critics said: “So stupefyingly hideous that after watching it, you’ll need to bathe in 10 gallons of disinfectant, get a full-body scrub and shampoo with vinegar to remove the scummy residue that remains.” — The Washington Post
9. “The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence)” (2015)
Critic score: 5/100
User score: 2.5/10
What critics said: “It’s only fitting that a series that began with the concept of linking the digestive tracts of three people would end by feasting on its own sh-t.” — The Dissolve
8. “Vulgar” (2002)
Critic score: 5/100
User score: 2.2/10
What critics said: “Sure to appear in everyone’s worst-of lists at year’s end, to say nothing of a few bad dreams, Bryan Johnson’s Vulgar is an unclassifiably awful study in self- and audience-abuse.” — Village Voice
7. “Strippers” (2000)
Critic score: 5/100
User score: 4.3/10
What critics said: “Unbelievably awful celluloid-waster.” — New York Post
6. “Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party” (2016)
Critic score: 2/100
User score: 4.7/10
What critics said: “Little more than an extended version of the kind of political screeds that can be found online with only a minimum of effort, this is just a terrible movie.” — RogerEbert.com
5. “The Singing Forest” (2003)
Critic score: 1/100
User score: 3/10
What critics said: “‘The Singing Forest’ was written and directed by Jorge Ameer, whose film ‘Strippers’ opened three years ago and remained the single worst movie I had ever reviewed — until now.” — The New York Times
4. “United Passions” (2015)
Critic score: 1/100
User score: 0.7/10
What critics said: “As propaganda, ‘United Passions’ is as subtle as an anvil to the temple. As drama, it’s not merely ham-fisted, but pork-shouldered, bacon-wristed, and sausage-elbowed.” — Village Voice
3. “Bio-Dome” (1996)
Critic score: 1/100
User score: 7.1/10
What critics said: “The sheer ineptitude of the movie is supposed to be funny, but there’s no lunacy behind it: Shore and his writers are like comedians on Prozac, smiling through the fart jokes without a hint of desperation.” — The New Yorker
2. “Chaos” (2005)
Critic score: 1/100
User score: 2.3/10
What critics said: “Writer-director David DeFalco’s ugly, pointless and dishonest remake of Craven’s remake.” — L.A. Weekly
1. “Death of a Nation” (2018)
Critic score: 1/100
User score: 4.3/10
What critics said: “D’Souza fans and Trump apologists will flock to this, misguided moths to a misleading flame. In that way, it’s a perfect representation of the current climate. In every other way, it’s a mess.” — Arizona Republic
