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While every filmmaker sets out to make an exceptional piece of art with as few flaws as possible, it's an inevitability for even the greatest of films to have a few detracting qualities. Conversely, even many terrible films succeed in a select few areas, not enough to make them salvageable, but at the very least something that could be viewed as an inherent positive to the viewing experience. However, some terrible films manage to be so egregious in their execution that they have no such redeeming qualities, being awful from start to finish.
Whether it be blockbuster disasters that continuously disappoint and fail to use their budgets and talent, or notorious low-budget films that are actively falling apart at the seams. There is something intrinsically interesting and compelling about these terrible films, achieving some unexpected charm from being the absolute worst in the medium. While some achieve some notable "so-bad-they're-good" status, all of these films revel in their complete lack of good qualities.
10 'Movie 43' (2013)
Directed by a lot of people
Image via Relativity Media
One of the strangest and most confounding anthology films out there, Movie 43 sports one of the largest and most prolific casts of Hollywood comedy stars out there, yet the film is as painfully unfunny as it gets. The film follows a series of short films that are interconnected through a manic screenwriter, pitching these chaotic and impossibly raunchy storylines including some of the biggest and most acclaimed Hollywood stars.
Whether it was the trend of raunchy comedies that dominated the 2000s and early 2010s or the equally terrible production that plagued the film, the final result of Movie 43 is one of the most uncomfortable comedy films out there. Each short manages to be more problematic and unfunny than the last, ranging from Hugh Jackman with a pair of testicles on his chin to Chris Pratt being hit by a car and pooping all over the windshield. The film was already incredibly dated and out-of-touch when it was released, and has only grown to be more painful and underwhelming since its release.
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Release Date January 25, 2013
Runtime 90minutes
9 'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' (2023)
Directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Image via Altitude Film Distribution
One of the worst trends in the entertainment landscape in recent years has been the snatching of beloved characters the second they enter the public domain and using them for low-budget and low-effort shock value, meant only to ride off of name recognition. The biggest poster child for this phenomenon has been Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, a slasher film that follows an abandoned Winnie the Pooh and Piglet going on a bloody rampage in the Hundred Acre Wood.
While its very inception and goals already place the film in a muddy, undesirable state, Blood and Honey's sorry, low-budget execution is what truly made it one of the most infamous horror movies of recent memory. The lighting is egregiously terrible, being so dark that it's difficult to make out anything that's happening, with the few moments of discernable visuals being further muddied by lackluster performances and cheap costumes. While the sequel would end up improving on every front, the original Blood and Honey still stands out as a shockingly boring horror experience.
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Release Date February 15, 2023
Director Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Cast Amber Doig-Thorne , Maria Taylor , Danielle Ronald , Natasha Tosini , May Kelly , Paula Coiz , Craig David Dowsett , Richard D. Myers , Nikolai Leon
Runtime 100 minutes
8 'Jack and Jill' (2011)
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Image via Sony Pictures Releasing
Adam Sandler has been a wildly divisive comedic force throughout his tenure in Hollywood, being a part of just as many critically acclaimed hits as disastrous critical flops. However, easily the actor's greatest critical low point has been Jack and Jill, one of the worst comedies of all time that has grown to be more problematic and unsavory as time has gone on. The film sees Sandler playing the dual role of twins Jack and Jill Sadelstein, when Jill's eccentric ways prove to create chaos and anger within Jack when she visits for the Thanksgiving season.
Even without going into detail about the film's poorly aged use of drag for the sake of cheap comedy, Jack and Jill is still one of the most painfully unfunny comedy movies ever made. The film is filled to the brim with cheap product placement and even more poorly aged celebrity cameos, while its core story and characters are the same cookie-cutter structure that all of Sandler's low-effort comedies follow. The act of sitting through Jack and Jill is a difficult one, as a comedy that fails to make you laugh only truly succeeds in making you feel shame and disappointment.
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Release Date November 11, 2011
Director Dennis Dugan
Runtime 91
7 'Birdemic: Shock and Terror' (2010)
Directed by James Nguyen
Image via Severin Films
Requiring a much lower budget and having an immediate ingrained audience compared to other genres, horror finds itself seeing a wide number of cheaply made and poorly executed cinematic disasters, with few quite as entertainingly terrible as Birdemic: Shock and Terror. Taking inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock's horror classic The Birds, Birdemic sees a small coastal town being made the target of an onslaught of attacks from eagles, vultures, and various other avians.
Sporting some of the worst visual effects ever put to film as well as some of the most awkward and stilted pacing imaginable, Birdemic is the gift that keeps on giving in terms of shoddy, low-quality filmmaking. Nothing in the film is done right or correctly, yet its constant mistakes and issues give it an unmistakable charm to help it be one of the 21st century's standout so-bad-its-good horror films. It constantly one-ups itself in its ineptitude, managing to get worse and worse with each passing scene.
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Birdemic: Shock and Terror
Release Date February 27, 2010
Director James Nguyen
Cast Alan Bagh , Whitney Moore , Janae Caster , Colton Osborne , Adam Sessa , Catherine Batcha , Patsy van Ettinger , Damien Carter , Rick Camp , Stephen Gustavson , Danny Webber , Mona Lisa Moon , Natalie Yonkers , Laura Cassidy , Bonnie Steiger , Eric Swartz , Zoya Shybkouskaya , Cameron Palmer , Milan Lee , James Z. Feng , James Nguyen , Justin Osborne , Thomas Cokenias , Steve McMoy , Daniel Mai
Runtime 94 minutes
6 'Cats' (2019)
Directed by Tom Hooper
Image via Universal Pictures
There has always been an inclined fascination and desire to translate some of the biggest names and stories in musical theater to the big screen, yet some stories prove to simply not work in the medium of film. This is most blatantly apparent with Tom Hooper's infamous adaptation of Cats, with its array of disturbing CGI human-cat hybrids transforming the already strange musical into a visual nightmare. The film follows the tribe of Jellicle cats, all performing their own elaborate songs and performances in hopes of being chosen as the one who will ascend to the Heaviside Layer.
As a musical, Cats was designed entirely around its magnificent costuming and wild musical numbers, placing minimal effort into an actual story or structure, as these facets aren't important for a stage musical. However, these same facets are of the upmost importance in the world of film, which, when combined with the destructive and uncanny use of CGI, immediately made Cats one of the worst movie musicals of all time.
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Release Date December 20, 2019
Runtime 110 minutes
5 'The Room' (2003)
Directed by Tommy Wiseau
Image via Chloe Productions
Widely touted as one of the worst movies of all time as well as the face of 'so-bad-it's-good' filmmaking, Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece of trash The Room has lived a full life of its own thanks to its repeated flaws and issues. The film sees Wiseau as Johnny, a successful banker who is seemingly living the best life possible with a fiancé who loves him and is surrounded by great friends whom he loves and respects. However, Johnny's life begins to spiral out of control when his fiancé begins cheating on him with his best friend, Mark (Greg Sestero).
As a standard romantic drama, The Room is a dull and uninteresting film that meanders too much and has nothing original or interesting to say in its story. However, it's all in the strange and confusing execution that has elevated The Room into being one of the most iconic terrible films of all time. The awkward dubbed over dialogue, strange set design choices like framed portraits of spoons, and comical pacing that cuts from scene to scene with no rhyme or reason.
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Release Date June 27, 2003
Runtime 99 minutes
4 'The Master of Disguise' (2002)
Directed by Perry Andelin Blake
Image via Sony Pictures Releasing
While bad comedies come a dime a dozen from Hollywood, the absolute worst comedies of all time manage to give audiences not laughter or a sense of joy, but a dark and harrowing sense of dread and despair. One of the cheapest yet most notoriously painful comedy films of all time is The Master of Disguise, a film that feels as if it goes on for multiple eternities despite only lasting 80 minutes. The film follows the dim-witted young Pistachio Disguisey (Dana Carvey) who is tasked with upholding his family's legacy as a master of disguise to save his kidnapped father.
The jokes in The Master of Disguise come in a wide variety, yet all of which accomplish the complete opposite effect of laughter. From cheap references that muster no response and sleazy erotic jokes that are just uncomfortable to watch to an egregious and shocking racist stereotype and a body-horror-esque cherry pie costume, The Master of Disguise is an affront to all senses. Even as the credits roll, the film isn't finished with its painful comedy, with countless gags, additional bloopers, and end credits scenes that only exist to pad out the runtime to the 80-minute requirement for releasing in theaters.
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The Master of Disguise
Release Date August 2, 2002
Director Perry Andelin Blake
Runtime 80 minutes
3 'Foodfight!' (2012)
Directed by Lawrence Kasanoff
Image via Viva Pictures
Being a medium so entirely reliant and defined by its visual flairs, an animated film that fails to have a good visual style can quickly devolve into the stuff of nightmares, a reality that greatly affected Foodfight!. The film takes place in a grocery store where all the various products and brands available for purchase come to life after the store closes. However, after the mysterious and evil Brand X joins the store, it becomes up to the talented Dex Dogtective (Charlie Sheen) to get to the bottom of the case and save the supermarket.
A major victim of a prolonged production time and various issues and delays, Foodfight was released with the animation quality of a film from the early 90s, which by 2012 standards quickly made it an affront to the eyes. Even outside its janky and underwhelming visuals, the film's use of dated stars for vocal performances and an overabundance of cheap product placement makes the entire experience largely unsavory.
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Foodfight!
Release Date February 12, 2013
Director Lawrence Kasanoff
Runtime 91 minutes
2 'The Last Airbender' (2010)
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
One of the most notorious and widely hated live-action adaptations of all time, The Last Airbender has achieved an infamous status among fans of the legendary Nickelodeon animated series. The film follows the events at the beginning of the original series, with the young long-lost Avatar Airbender Aang traveling across the world alongside friends Kitara and Sokka to learn the other bending techniques and stop the vicious threat of the Fire Nation.
It's an impossible task for any film to condense an entire season's worth of television into a single 100-minute experience, yet even worse is the film's active uncaring nature it takes towards its source material. From larger issues like cutting the most pivotal character moments, humor, and charm of the original series to egregious mistakes like pronouncing characters' names wrong, there's nothing that The Last Airbender gets right in its adaptation. Even without the context of the original series, the film is so drab and uninteresting that it makes for a dull, sluggish experience.
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The Last Airbender
Release Date June 30, 2010
Runtime 103 Minutes
1 'Manos: The Hands of Fate' (1966)
Directed by Harold P. Warren
Image via Emerson Film Enterprises
Often considered one of the worst movies of all time, Manos: The Hands of Fate is an infamous failure of a horror film that has achieved massive cult classic status due to its lack of any redeeming qualities. The film follows a family who gets lost on the side of the road before they wind up stumbling upon a hidden devil-worshiping cult who soon takes them in as their latest victims. Led by the vicious leader known as the Master, the family faces an onslaught of terror and destruction as they slowly await their inevitable fate.
There's something truly special about a horror film that fails to accomplish any scares, as the experience of watching the film quickly transforms into one defined by unintentional comedy and mockery. Manos goes well beyond other so-bad-it's-good films by actively failing in every possible way, from stilted and awkward performances to jarring visuals and editing to some of the most nonsensical story beats of all time. The film has been a legendary staple of terrible filmmaking for decades and will continue to delight audiences in the decades to come for all the wrong reasons.
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Release Date November 15, 1966
Director Harold P. Warren
Cast Tom Neyman , John Reynolds , Diane Adelson , Harold P. Warren , Stephanie Nielson , Sherry Proctor , Robin Redd , Jackey Neyman Jones
Runtime 70 Minutes
English (US) ·