Image via Netflix
Published Feb 2, 2026, 10:00 PM EST
Jeremy has more than 2200 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings).
When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account.
He has achieved his 2025 goal of reading all 13,467 novels written by Stephen King, and plans to spend the next year or two getting through the author's 82,756 short stories and 105,433 novellas.
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It’s easy to talk about good-to-great movies, and it’s also pretty easy (hell, maybe even easier) to talk about bad-to-terrible movies, but what about the no man’s land in between? Are 5/10 movies indeed better than 1/10 ones? If you believe 5/10 should be around average, then maybe a 5/10 movie will be about as boring as a movie gets. Such a rating might suggest there’s nothing particularly good or bad to be found within.
These go against the whole Goldilocks idea of something being balanced and “just right.” They're just not very fun to watch, these sorts of movies. It’s also a subjective topic, picking out the most mediocre or disappointing movies of all time, so be warned. Most of these are thunderously average, but a couple have equal parts good and bad elements that cancel each other out, resulting in a 5/10 (and those are probably more interesting to watch and/or talk about).
10 'The Fall Guy' (2024)
Image via Universal PicturesThe cinematic equivalent of eating slightly toasted bread with absolutely nothing spread on it (not even butter, get that dairy product the f**k outta here), The Fall Guy feels like it wanted to offend absolutely no one, and in the process, also appealed to absolutely no one. It’s a misguided attempt to make a blockbuster anyone can enjoy without too many brain cells being put to work, but they forgot to add anything funny, fun, or exciting.
It just unfolds with the mildest sense of competency. It is technically fine. Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are okay, given what they're given to work with. The script is quite boring, maybe only being close to passable because it’s doing a blockbuster-level thing without resorting to superhero, fantasy, or sci-fi tropes. It’s kind of original (just forget it’s a loose reworking of an old TV series). There is action and there are indeed stunts. Still, it's all incredibly dull, but not outright terrible, and quite astoundingly far from offensive, for whatever that might be worth.
9 'Ocean's Eight' (2018)
Image via Warner Bros.As a heist movie, you can’t really go wrong with 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven, since it’s all very efficiently written and made. The sequels weren’t executed quite as well, but they're sort of okay-ish. If Ocean’s Eight counts as a sequel, though, it’s definitely not very good. At the same time, it’s not terrible. That’s why it’s here and stuff. But it was a missed opportunity.
It assembles a good cast and is presented in a slick enough way, but there really isn't any danger or tension throughout. You don’t exactly watch Ocean’s Eleven thinking things will end badly, but there’s just enough that goes wrong and feels tricky for the main characters, so there is some tension. Ocean’s Eight feels afraid to suggest its characters might do something wrong, so they just kind of go through it all a bit easily, and watching a heist movie play it this safe ends up being rather dull.
8 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1' (2014)
Image via LionsgateBefore The Hunger Games split one book into two, for an adaptation, the Harry Potter and Twilight series had both done the same thing. Harry Potter did it pretty well, and then Twilight… well, Twilight is bad in a funny way, or it’s melodramatic in a charming and nostalgic way. But either way, it feels a bit weird to call any films in that series “average.”
Returning to The Hunger Games, though, the final book in the original trilogy didn’t have to be an email, when adapted, but it could’ve been just the one movie. There is a decent amount that happens in that book, just not enough for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 to really justify its existence, and getting through it is tedious when pretty much everything important to concluding this whole dystopian series is ultimately found in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, released the following year.
7 'Judy' (2019)
Image via 20th Century StudiosThere’s a hesitance that comes with being negative about Judy, but it’s in this ranking, so there are inevitably things to appreciate here, alongside the more disappointing elements. It’s a look at a less well-known part of Judy Garland’s life, after she’d starred in some of the most iconic musicals of all time, all the while grappling with becoming older in the entertainment industry, where youth is celebrated more often.
Also, Garland’s shown to battle various personal demons, and Renée Zellweger gives a sort of good performance as Judy Garland, but it might feel a bit more like an impersonation than really capturing the core of Garland, as she was – or might've – been. Judy the film, though, plays things so safe and formulaic, which makes it a bit of a slog to get through, in the end, even if its heart might well be more or less in the right place.
6 'Falling in Love' (1984)
Image via Paramount PicturesIt’s surprising how mediocre Falling in Love ends up being, considering the talent involved. The title may end up suggesting how “eh” it’s all going to be, since it is just called Falling in Love, but it’s directed by Mike Nichols, and has two acting legends – Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro – in the main roles. Having Harvey Keitel in a supporting role might also sound enticing, especially if you're a fan of Mean Streets and Taxi Driver (both De Niro and Keitel were in those).
Maybe the performances are a little engaging at first, but this is just a less interesting – and not nearly as moving – Brief Encounter sort of drama/romance film.
The movie, though, is thunderously boring. Maybe the performances are a little engaging at first, but this is just a less interesting – and not nearly as moving – Brief Encounter sort of drama/romance film, trying to be emotional yet not really succeeding. If you feel like you have to complete the filmographies of any of the people involved, you could well be tempted to watch Falling in Love, though it’s ultimately not worth it.
5 'Meet Joe Black' (1998)
Image via Universal PicturesThere’s always an exhaustion that comes about when a story is too long. Take Meet Joe Black, for example, which is one of the most bafflingly long films ever, as it clocks in just two minutes shy of three hours. It is a fantastical romance film that doesn’t really have an epic scope or a huge number of important characters, so why it’s all so stretched out is anyone’s guess.
Like, Meet Joe Black looks good enough, and it does have a strong cast (oh hi, Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins), with various members of said cast getting lots of opportunities to shine, since the movie is so many minutes long. It’s too exhausting though, in the end, and it’s hard to stop thinking about why they made it this long, and not a more manageable two hours… or even around 100-ish minutes might well have been more than enough.
4 'The King's Speech' (2010)
If you're fond of British movies that feel like they existed mainly to win Academy Awards, then you might want to bail on this whole ranking, because there are a few of those coming up. To get the biggest hot take out of the way first, here’s The King’s Speech. It’s about a king who can’t talk so good, and he wants to talk more gooder, so he gets good talker man to help him talk more good, and then he do talk more good, and he give good speech. King give speech. King’s Speech get Oscar.
It did really well at the Oscars, even though it’s boooooring. The Social Network came out that year, and should’ve won the Oscars that The King’s Speech did, or whichever ones they were both competing for, whatever. Definitely Best Picture. This really wasn’t the best picture of 2010, by any means, and if their performances are good/worthy of praise, then Tom Hooper’s awkward direction undoes the good stuff. This is almost as poorly directed as (the admittedly much messier) Cats, but most people aren’t ready to have that conversation just yet. Soon. Maybe one day.
3 'Darkest Hour' (2017)
Image via Focus FeaturesThis one doesn’t faceplant when it comes to the direction and cinematography the same way The King’s Speech did, but Darkest Hour is similarly dull. You might hope you get a good performance here, at least, with Gary Oldman playing the most famous British politician of the 20th century, Winston Churchill, but he doesn’t really play the wartime Prime Minister, because it’s mostly just the make-up that does the acting for him.
That sounds like shade thrown at Oldman, but it’s not, because he is a legendary actor. It’s just he’s given so many performances that are more interesting than this one, and in better movies. Him being Churchill is all that this movie has going for it. Everything else is beyond underwhelming and flat, almost like no one else in front of or behind the camera wanted to step on Oldman’s toes. It’s some of the most blatant and shameless Oscar bait (mostly just focusing on that acting Oscar) of the last decade or so.
2 'The Theory of Everything' (2014)
Image via Focus FeaturesThe Theory of Everything is even blander, as a biopic, than the two previously mentioned movies about prominent English people. It’s about Stephen Hawking, chronicling what he did within the scientific field while dealing with health issues and grappling with personal relationships. If you know even a little about Hawking, it’s the kind of movie you can probably picture in your head without actually watching.
Eddie Redmayne gets the most Oscar bait of roles, with him playing someone with a medical condition, and also a real-life individual, so he gets to do a lot physically while impressing people by presenting all of Hawking’s traits, and mirroring his appearance, and blah, blah, blah. Redmayne won an Oscar, so good for him or whatever, but The Theory of Everything is a pretty nothing kind of film.
1 'Maestro' (2023)
Image via NetflixThere are times that Maestro comes close to being bad in a funny way, or it could be more that there’s a desperation to it that’s occasionally awkward, which inspires a nervous sort of laughter. It’s a movie that’s trying so hard to be great while being about someone whom Bradley Cooper, the film’s director and star, sees as great: Leonard Bernstein. And it’s a biopic of his life, looking at his accomplishments and some of his personal flaws.
Cooper swings big, and he makes something that can be admired for its ambition, some of its technical qualities, and certain performances, yet all that good stuff exists alongside some really clunky stuff. It’s like watching a great conductor do mostly great work, with most players sounding great, but a couple of people in his orchestra don’t have musical instruments, and are instead making fart noises with their armpits. Also, this hypothetical great conductor walks out on stage wearing a pair of clown shoes that honk loudly with every step, but he doesn’t seem to find anything funny about that. That experience would be exactly like watching Maestro.
Maestro
Release Date December 20, 2023
Runtime 129 Minutes
English (US) ·