The worst film of all time

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

On the internet hyperbole is at a premium and that couldn't be more truer than it is for discussion about films. Casual (and sometimes even professional) discourse on the subject exists almost exclusively in extremes. Things are either good or they're bad. I'm not admonishing that, of course. Mediocrity rarely finds its place in simple, casual, laid-back conversation. To get into the finer points of more humdrum products is probably anathema to the ease one expects from that type of chatter.

But even keeping all of this in mind I have to say I'm beginning to feel a growing anxiety around the use of the phrase "the worst film of all time" or "the worst film ever" or any variant on that same sentiment. It could be that I'm stupid but I just don't really know what it means anymore. It seems, to me, to have succeeded the phrase "[film] is bad" as the generic, all-purpose statement of dissatisfaction. That's the only explanation I have for how frequently I see it used to describe incredibly mediocre, competent, technically decent films. Among these supposed "worst films of all time" are; Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Twilight, Attack of the Clones, High School Musical, The Last Airbender. I'm not about to go to bat for any of them. I certainly didn't enjoy any of them, myself. But to insinuate that those examples are on par with, say, The Wild World of Batwoman, Monster-A-Go-Go, After Last Season or Anus McGillicutty is... well... well it's just not true, is it?

Any film with a sufficient budget and backing from a major studio is more-than-likely to meet some median level of competency or decency. And certainly one could make the argument that something like New Year's Eve is an exceptionally bad film from amongst major studio films. But that's just the problem. The statement isn't "the worst mainstream film ever", it's "the worst film ever". Shouldn't we reserve that type of outrageous hyperbole for something that deserves it? For example, have you guys seen Scarecrow Gone Wild? You will run screaming back to High School Musical, I assure you.

The problem now is that we can't use a juicy, heavy statement like "worst film of all time" because it's been so overused and overexposed that it has no weight. Why isn't "bad" bad enough anymore? Why can't bad things simply be bad? Why must they always be exceptionally bad? Where does this insanity come from, I ask you? In what universe is a merely bad film like Attack of the Clones in any way comparable to the profoundly bad, like Racket Girls?

[Yora]

The worst movie ever made, if such a thing could even be said to exist, would certainly be completely unknown to almost everyone in the world. Most likely some kind of no-budget amateur project that has only ever been seen by 10 people.
If a movie makes it into theatres or broadcast, especially internationally, it probably is already among the top third. Maybe even among the top 10% of best movies ever made.

[Malimar]

This is why I exclusively stick to "the worst film I've ever seen". This can be an accurate claim as it is much more limited in scope. (Rocky Horror Picture Show, for the record.)

[Jay R]

The measurement of a movie is subjective, and we don't all agree on it. The comparative measurment of two movies is just as subjective.

Until we all agree which is worse, movie X or movie Y, for any values of X and Y, there can be no unambiguous "worst film of all time".

[Otomodachi]

The worst film ever made is Master of Disguise. Period. They had a decent budget, they had a decent cast, they had decent people writing it, and still churned out a turd.

[theMycon]

There is an answer, if we're limiting it to movies people have paid to see. It's on YouTube, you can watch it at the cost of $2.99 and your ability to taste ice cream.

I've done more research into this than the average man. I've narrated & acted in a few films that got editted down into youTube trailers and died there. I've seen many feature films made on a budget that's less than a semester of college. I suspect I've seen every popularly known "worst ever" movie.

I've also seen people take 3-5 minutes of a friend rambling sophomoric nonsense, slap it over time lapse footage from a couple bridges, and make it seem mind-blowing the first time you see it.

Like the OP said, Ed Woods' & Tim Curry's worst are all still professional works. They blow your average film student's best efforts out of the water. Most truly bad movies don't have the crew to reach a finished state; the makers would usually drop it and move on to the next movie, rather than spend the money to edit, promote, and produce something nobody will pay to see.

And while there's a lot to be said about taste...

Nothing I have ever seen has come close to Uninvited (1988), a horror movie about starting a rat-stuffed-cat about horny teenagers on a boat with a bank robber. Yes, the cat is a mindless radioactive killing machine, but it's the closest the film has to a protagonist. If you cut it out entirely, you'd lose the first scene and nothing of the plot.

People who haven't seen it like to use "worst film ever" as hyperbole, often for enjoyable camp or confusing art. People who have will just go slack jawed, get a vacant, glazed look in their eyes, sigh & shake their heads when the topic comes up, because they don't want to remember. Sobbing is a normal reaction for those who can't forget. They don't want their 93 minutes back- they want every moment of their lives after the truck scene purged. Once they process everything that was wrong with those 30 seconds, their lives have been forever tainted.

[Fyraltari]

The worst film ever made is Master of Disguise. Period. They had a decent budget, they had a decent cast, they had decent people writing it, and still churned out a turd.

No see you are using a particular meaning of "worse": quality to expectation/competence involved ratio.
As the OP said there almost certainly are films out there whose quality is even lesser and were made by untalented, unexperienced people.

No-one is ever going to agree on "worst movie ever" and frankly I don't see why anyone would care.
Argue about the best movie ever, people, that way ypur picks will be things people will enjoy seeing and we will all end the day happier!

[Jay R]

I have no interest in the identification of "worst film ever" by anybody who has not watched all bad films ever.

This is totally separate from the issue that we don't all agree about how good all movies are. I can't even fairly and honestly decide what my personal "worst film ever" is until I watch thousands more films than I've ever watched.

The most I could do is try to define the worst film by my personal taste, from among those films I happen to have watched.

[tomandtish]

The measurement of a movie is subjective, and we don't all agree on it. The comparative measurment of two movies is just as subjective.

Until we all agree which is worse, movie X or movie Y, for any values of X and Y, there can be no unambiguous "worst film of all time".

Very much this. I can come up with several answers depending on WHICH definition of worst I am using?

Worst technical quality? Worst acting? Dumbest plot? Biggest letdown?

I mean, The Asylum's movies are pretty bad by most standards, but I don't expect better from them. I consider none of them as bad as The Phantom Menace, because of how much that film broke my heart.

[tensai_oni]

People using hyperbole, including calling something "the worst ever"? That's nothing new. Not even for the internet - it predates the internet by decades.

No way to get around it except getting used to it and maybe avoiding people or sites who overuse such hyperbole as it means there's a high chance they're clickbaiting. At least we should be glad "movie X is raping my childhood" is a phrase that fell out of fashion.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

A common response I've seen is that the statement "worst movie ever" is subjective.

That's true, but it's besides the point. People can think other people's opinions are a bit shady or uninformed. That's rather the backbone of all discussion about the arts. Maybe your personal most hated movie really is Twilight. I'm obviously not taking that away from anyone. But at the same time, it doesn't exempt you from questions like "Have you seen so-and-so?" or "Are you exaggerating?"

I mean, if you genuinely genuinely think something like Twilight is a more poorly made and less satisfying product than The Wild World of Batwoman please tell me why because I do not have the imagination to make that kind of jump.

[Glorthindel]

I think the height from which it falls often contributes to why people intone this title - after all, in all likelihood, most people have never heard of, let alone seen the truly worst films ever made, simply because they never got into the cinema, and the 10 DVD's ever printed lurk in bargain bins in some Walmart or Woolworths in the arse end of nowhere.

But when a film has a seemingly unlimited budget (compared to the truly worst films filmed on one second-hand twenty-year-old camcorder), global sets (instead of a bedsit, a lot behind an abandoned warehouse, and a dirty truckstop), and A-list stars (compared to the cameramans two mates and the prostitut he's paid $50 to play the 'love intrest'), it is probably fair to say that hollywood "only a turd" film is worse than the ****ty back-bedroom effort, simply because the hollywood film has fell much further from what it should have achieved (the back bedroom effort was never going to win an oscar, just getting maybe one good laugh, and keeping someone willing to watch the full length being the best it could ever have hoped for.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

I think the height from which it falls often contributes to why people intone this title - after all, in all likelihood, most people have never heard of, let alone seen the truly worst films ever made, simply because they never got into the cinema, and the 10 DVD's ever printed lurk in bargain bins in some Walmart or Woolworths in the arse end of nowhere.

But when a film has a seemingly unlimited budget (compared to the truly worst films filmed on one second-hand twenty-year-old camcorder), global sets (instead of a bedsit, a lot behind an abandoned warehouse, and a dirty truckstop), and A-list stars (compared to the cameramans two mates and the prostitut he's paid $50 to play the 'love intrest'), it is probably fair to say that hollywood "only a turd" film is worse than the ****ty back-bedroom effort, simply because the hollywood film has fell much further from what it should have achieved (the back bedroom effort was never going to win an oscar, just getting maybe one good laugh, and keeping someone willing to watch the full length being the best it could ever have hoped for.

I find that a dangerous position to adopt. It's true we're never going to be able to divorce ourselves entirely from biases and outside context when judging a film. But that doesn't mean we should throw any and all attempts at objectivity to the wind. The problem with this system is that it's punishing the film for things that exist outside of it. Your personal expectations about what a major studio motion picture should be is not actually a part of the finished product. It is not one of the parts that make it up. Cinematography, acting, lighting, dialogue, editing, etc. These are the parts that make up "a film", but when you purposefully and wilfully introduce things that aren't part of that makeup it dilutes your statement.

Objectivity is impossible, but we should always try. The act of trying to take things in a vacuum is the first step to stemming the tide of hyperbole I'm pushing back against.

[eggynack]

I mean, if you genuinely genuinely think something like Twilight is a more poorly made and less satisfying product than The Wild World of Batwoman please tell me why because I do not have the imagination to make that kind of jump.
As was implied by earlier comments, there is more than one definition of worst, and someone calling Twilight the worst film of all time might be using a definition that is distinct from poorly made and less satisfying. I don't even think that how well made or satisfying a film is is that good of a metric.

I'ma talk through some other metrics. Was the film boring? The difference between a bad movie and a so bad it's good movie is frequently that the former is boring where the latter is interesting. If it holds my interest, I'm unlikely to categorize a film as awful. What messages did the film have? If a film conveys a message that is either value neutral or positive, I'm liable to consider it more highly than a film that arguably actively makes society worse. What sort of expectations did the public have going into the film? While it may be something of an inherently subjective criteria, the fact that the Star Wars prequels were attached to the franchise as a whole impacted people's experience of the film.

To that last point, why should the question of whether a film is the worst hinge entirely on that film's quality? Should the fact that the E.T. video game partially contributed to the temporary downfall of the entire video games industry not impact how bad we consider that game? Along those lines, we may actually consider how many people saw a given film as one of the metrics. A version of E.T. that was played by only one dude would probably never be considered the worst video game of all time, even if we were specifically asking that one dude. Cultural impact matters.

I'm not claiming that any given thing is the worst thing in its category here, but the idea that we shouldn't include a film's context in an analysis of its worstness strikes me as very wrong. It's definitely worthwhile to analyze film quality in a vacuum, but we ultimately do not live in a vacuum, so a holistic understanding of what films are the worst must include things besides objective quality. If a film makes the world a worse place to live in, then I'm going to call that film worse than one that just has really bad cinematography.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

*stuff*

I can't really refute any of that. I think you and I just have a fundamental difference of opinion about what constitutes a helpful metric and what doesn't. I find the impact that a work has had on the world to be a separate discussion entirely. A compelling discussion, certainly, but not one that might factor into my opinion of how "good" or "bad" it is. Because to me that's not film theory, that's film history. As for E.T., I don't consider it the worst game of all time. Not by a long shot. I don't understand the hype at all. The Atari 2600 had many licensed games I think are even worse. Did you play Superman, for example?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Should the fact that the E.T. video game partially contributed to the temporary downfall of the entire video games industry not impact how bad we consider that game?

That's an interesting question, that I can only address (but I don't think I can answer) via counterexample.

Don Quixote, by Cervantes, is generally credited with single-handedly killing an entire genre of literature, Chivalric Epics. It is also considered one of the great works of literature of all time, and the greatest novel of Spanish language. So the impact of a work, even if that impact is "killed the market", doesn't reflect on the quality of the work itself. Thus, we are back to having to consider why the consequences were what they were. In E.T.'s case, it was the straw that broke the camel's back in the bubble of the video game market. A rushed, quickly coded and poorly designed cash-grab to be companion to a movie which didn't sell as well as expected is hardly a unique characteristic of ET the videogame, but in the full context of the market at the time, it happened to be the catalyst to the crash. But it wasn't the actual cause, not as such.

(As to the OT, I'm rather surprised no-one has brought up The Room yet, which I would have thought is the perennial top contender for "worst film of all time". Not that I can opine on it, having never watched it. Just that it feels strange it has not been brought up)

Grey Wolf

[The Glyphstone]

I thought Manos: The Hand of Fate held that title?

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

I thought Manos: The Hand of Fate held that title?

That makes more sense to me than Attack of the Clones.

[Sylian]

(As to the OT, I'm rather surprised no-one has brought up The Room yet, which I would have thought is the perennial top contender for "worst film of all time". Not that I can opine on it, having never watched it. Just that it feels strange it has not been brought up)The Room isn't actually that bad. I suppose it'd fall around 3-4/10 bad, while the "worst film of all time" surely would fall in the 0-1 range (depending on where the minimum is). Also, there's the whole "So bad it's good" factor. I'd rather watch The Room over Twilight, even though Twilight is arguably a more well-made film. Twilight is (in my opinion, anyway, although many people seem to share this sentiment) boring (note: I've only seen the first movie), while The Room is entertaining.

Anyway, people are not very likely to deliberately watch bad movies, unless they're looking for "So bad it's good" or if they're doing it for review purposes or something. Furthermore, most people likely won't want to rewatch bad movies, while they might rewatch "The best movie ever" several times. I don't find it strange that people struggle to properly list "The worst movies ever", especially since chances are people don't really remember all of them. Oh, and if the movie is really bad, chances are you'd stop watching it before it's over (unless you have some reason not to).

[eggynack]

I can't really refute any of that. I think you and I just have a fundamental difference of opinion about what constitutes a helpful metric and what doesn't. I find the impact that a work has had on the world to be a separate discussion entirely. A compelling discussion, certainly, but not one that might factor into my opinion of how "good" or "bad" it is. Because to me that's not film theory, that's film history. As for E.T., I don't consider it the worst game of all time. Not by a long shot. I don't understand the hype at all. The Atari 2600 had many licensed games I think are even worse. Did you play Superman, for example?
The question of impact is definitely distinct from the one of straight up bare bones film quality. What I'm saying is that I think both aspects are pertinent when determining whether a movie is the worst ever. And, for the record, I've probably played a quantity of Atari games that can be rounded down to zero. I am reasonably well versed in old school gaming history though, for what it's worth.


Don Quixote, by Cervantes, is generally credited with single-handedly killing an entire genre of literature, Chivalric Epics. It is also considered one of the great works of literature of all time, and the greatest novel of Spanish language. So the impact of a work, even if that impact is "killed the market", doesn't reflect on the quality of the work itself. Thus, we are back to having to consider why the consequences were what they were. In E.T.'s case, it was the straw that broke the camel's back in the bubble of the video game market. A rushed, quickly coded and poorly designed cash-grab to be companion to a movie which didn't sell as well as expected is hardly a unique characteristic of ET the videogame, but in the full context of the market at the time, it happened to be the catalyst to the crash. But it wasn't the actual cause, not as such.
Wasn't it also partially responsible for inventing the modern novel? Besides, there's a distinction between destroying a thing because you're just that great and destroying something because you're just that terrible. The former might actually count in a work's favor. As for E.T., I agree that the degree to which it was responsible for the video game crash is probably overstated, but the reason it shows up at the top of so many worst games lists isn't entirely down to its quality. Sure, it's a dumb game, but it's not really the worst designed game ever.

The Room isn't actually that bad. I suppose it'd fall around 3-4/10 bad, while the "worst film of all time" surely would fall in the 0-1 range (depending on where the minimum is). Also, there's the whole "So bad it's good" factor. I'd rather watch The Room over Twilight, even though Twilight is arguably a more well-made film. Twilight is (in my opinion, anyway, although many people seem to share this sentiment) boring (note: I've only seen the first movie), while The Room is entertaining.
I'd actually rate The Room reasonably highly. Yeah, the stuff I like clearly wasn't intended, but it does a few things I'd expect out of a great film. It is very entertaining, I consistently get new things out of it when I rewatch it, and it is magnificently complex. I think it somewhat defies rating systems, because that's just the way with so bad it's good films, but if forced I'd probably toss it somewhere over a 7.

[Tvtyrant]

When I was in middle school we had a film contest, and the two worst were my group's and another trio. Ours was a really bad lightsaber fight with us making mouth noises and then a song track put on top.

The other was two people running back and forth in the same hallway while the person holding the camera narrated the "horrors" they were seeing in an unintelligble garble. "They just saw *mutters* and are running from it."

So those are the worst films I have ever seen. A context free toy swordfight and a context free film of two people sprinting back and forth in a middle school hallway.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

The question of impact is definitely distinct from the one of straight up bare bones film quality. What I'm saying is that I think both aspects are pertinent when determining whether a movie is the worst ever.

I get that and that's fine. There's no "wrong" way of doing it, I suppose. But I just think the one aspect is pertinent, is all.

[Mordar]

(As to the OT, I'm rather surprised no-one has brought up The Room yet, which I would have thought is the perennial top contender for "worst film of all time". Not that I can opine on it, having never watched it. Just that it feels strange it has not been brought up)

I saw that. At least it wasn't as bad as Robot Jox. That is my default bottom of the list, and the faintest praise I can offer any film.

- M

[Rodin]

I thought Manos: The Hand of Fate held that title?

In terms of movies that had a theatrical release Manos is certainly a strong contender. An amateur director who was literally making the movie on a bet with a shoestring budget, no-name actors, and one of the biggest roles being played by an actor that was high as a kite and mentally ill at the time.

The only other contender that I've heard of is Birdemic. It wasn't quite as riddled with production problems, but at least the guys making Manos gave a damn.

[veti]

Remember who writes reviews on the Internet.

Freakin' everybody, that's who. Everyone between the age of approximately 7 and 70 who can get their hands on a smartphone for half an hour, now thinks that qualifies them to be a film reviewer.

You can't assume that any given reviewer has seen the rest of what you might consider to be the canon of films that would make a reasonable comparison. Heck, you can't assume they've seen any of them. Or are even vaguely aware of their existence.

You simply need to discount reviews accordingly. "Worst film ever" = "I didn't like it". Unless the reviewer actually shows that they know something about other films that you would consider relevant to the comparison, that's all it means.

[The Glyphstone]

I saw that. At least it wasn't as bad as Robot Jox. That is my default bottom of the list, and the faintest praise I can offer any film.

- M

Robot Jox was awful, but it didnt make me want a refund from life on the time I spent watching it. The only movie awful enough do deserve that from me was The Girl Next Door.

[tomandtish]

I saw that. At least it wasn't as bad as Robot Jox. That is my default bottom of the list, and the faintest praise I can offer any film.

- M


Robot Jox was awful, but it didnt make me want a refund from life on the time I spent watching it. The only movie awful enough do deserve that from me was The Girl Next Door.

Blasphemy! Robot Jox is awesome !!!! :smallbiggrin:

[random11]

This is especially hard since there is an entire category of "so bad it's good" movies, as well as movies that you know are bad but can still enjoy even if it's out of guilty pleasure.
The really bad movies are also memorable because they are bad, and you can at least draw some enjoyment in ripping them apart (or watching someone in YouTube do it for you).

Another category of bad movies, are ones that are bad mostly because you had some expectations from it, so it's not really the objective quality of the movie as much as it is the difference between your hopes and the reality.

What I'm saying is that the REALLY bad movies, are the ones I watch, get bored out my mind, and completely forget about an hour later.
But due to the nature of my definition, I can't remember any name in this list :smallsmile:

[Amazon]

Films can't be bad, they are art, provoke feelings and bring out emotions, there is always going to eb someone moved by a piece of media even if you personally don't like it.

[Keltest]

Films can't be bad, they are art, provoke feelings and bring out emotions, there is always going to eb someone moved by a piece of media even if you personally don't like it.

That doesn't mean it isn't bad though. A 2 hour gore fest showing nothing but people getting disemboweled, and absolutely nothing else, would be an objectively bad movie, even if there is some weirdo somewhere who gets off on that sort of thing.

[GloatingSwine]

Films can't be bad, they are art, provoke feelings and bring out emotions, there is always going to eb someone moved by a piece of media even if you personally don't like it.

Objective quality and subjective taste are actually completely unrelated.

Works of art can absolutely be bad and people can still call them art.

[thompur]

Robot Jox was awful, but it didnt make me want a refund from life on the time I spent watching it. The only movie awful enough do deserve that from me was The Girl Next Door.

Yeah, that's my criterium: So bad that I walked out in the middle. The only film for me, that qualifies in that category, is The Adventures of Pluto Nash. It was so awful, I wanted to go to the ticket window and demand a refund! The only reason I didn't is because I had snuck in to watch it after paying to see, and enjoying, The 13th Warrior.:smallbiggrin:

[Amazon]

Is objective quality even a thing?

[GloatingSwine]

Is objective quality even a thing?

Yes.

Filmmaking actually relies on specific and near-universal mechanisms of human cognition in order to communicate. (eg. the Kulehsov effect)

That means that there is inevitably a functional component to filmmaking, and that functional component can be objectively assessed.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Is objective quality even a thing?

Yes. Precision of brush strokes, quality of the recording, amount of the film in focus are all objective values that can be measured and are connected to quality. There can be reasons for the artist to deliberately ignore some of these measures (e.g. a film deliberately including a scene out of focus), and they are not the only way to measure quality of art, but they do exist, and they do get taken into account. The most moving film in the world, if it looks like it was filmed through a burlap sack, is going to be rightly criticised for lack of film quality.

Grey Wolf

[Z3ro]

Assuming we're judging only movies that have received a commercial release of some sort (so no middle school videos) we have to find a movie that fails on every level: technical film-making, plot, character, themes, one that does every conceivable thing wrong. And we'll rule out films that are entertainingly bad, so no The Room.

My vote is for Howling: New Moon Rising. The seventh movie in the howling series it fails on ever imaginable level. It is shot poorly on a technical level, with basic errors in things like camera framing and lighting. The plot makes no sense. There are multiple shots of people line dancing in the dark for no reason (and I don't mean like some sort of night dark. I mean they clearly couldn't light the set properly dark). There's a detective story that comes out of no where 7/8 of the way through the film. All the acting is like they hired lizard people who only had an approximation of how humans behave. You tie it all together and you get a movie that at no point entertains in any way. I'd recommend no one watch it for any reason.

[Fiery Diamond]

I can't really comment on a "worst movie ever," since I'm kind of picky about what movies I watch in the first place, but "The Last Airbender" was definitely a bad enough movie that I stopped watching it like ten minutes in.

My favorite "so bad it's good" movie is definitely the live action Super Mario Brothers movie. It's an awful movie, but I love it so much.

[gooddragon1]

The last airbender was bad, I'm just not sure if it was worse than Against the Dark (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Dark).

[eggynack]

Man, I frigging loved The Last Airbender. It was just so hilariously bad. I think I've seen it like three or four times at this point.

[sktarq]

Why is there the use of the phrase "Worst of all time?" When it is obvious that the user has not had a sufficient base of all movies ever made to judge against?
because it get clicks and attention.

Reviews etc are not about how "good" a film is (by whatever definition they want to put out on that).
they are about getting attention, and money (often via ads at people who are giving attention)

look at many popular speaker Trump, Gordon Ramsey, advert folks. They speak with superlatives - Best instead of good, Finest instead of fine, Worst instead of appauling.

[Chromascope3D]

Space Thunder Kids!

The evil forces of the Dark Emperor threaten the entire universe!

Space Thunder Kids!

It is the ultimate battle between Good and Evil! Freedom, and Oppression!

Space Thunder Kids!

Will the courage of a brave few be enough to win the day?

My friends were obsessed with this film freshman year. It's one of those cut-and-paste animation jobs that were popular (among producers) in the 80s/90s. Of course, while the best of these are fondly remembered for being gateways into anime for Gen X (Voltron, Robotech, etc), there were also countless other hatchet jobs as well, of which Space Thunder Kids is a card-carrying member. It was produced from a hodgepodge of Korean ripoffs awkwardly sutured together every which way, and as such is completely incomprehensible. Would recommend to anyone with a group to watch it with.

Worst film of all time? On some levels yes, but my definition would give that title to something that's completely unentertaining, which this certainly isn't. :smallwink:

[The_Ditto]

wow .. I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet:

https://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom

those are some "bad movies" there .. nothing you guys listed are even in that bottom 100 .. so they're not THAT bad .. :) hehe

[Z3ro]

wow .. I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet:

https://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom

those are some "bad movies" there .. nothing you guys listed are even in that bottom 100 .. so they're not THAT bad .. :) hehe

Not sure how this list is populated, tbh. For example, the movie I picked currently has a score of 1.8, which would put it between 8-11 on the list, but wasn't included at all. Don't know why.

[Knaight]

wow .. I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet:

https://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom

those are some "bad movies" there .. nothing you guys listed are even in that bottom 100 .. so they're not THAT bad .. :) hehe

Manos Hands of Fate is in #5.

As for the quality of things listed, that chart measures popularity among a varying set of self selected voters. That's not to say it doesn't correlate to quality, or that there aren't some atrocious movies there, but the absence of items from that list doesn't mean they aren't worse.

For instance, I'd rather watch any of the things I recognize from that list than put up with What the Bleep Do We Know? again. I'd also rather watch any of them than Forrest Gump.

[theMycon]

wow .. I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet:

https://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom

those are some "bad movies" there .. nothing you guys listed are even in that bottom 100 .. so they're not THAT bad .. :) hehe

I've seen 78 of those movies (Like I said, I've seen every movie popularly considered "worst ever"). I actually liked 6 of them- Lawnmower Man 2 is my favorite from the list, and I can't really call Monster a-Go Go bad. Saving Christmas was my least favorite- it's not good enough to merit the 1.5/10 rating.

I still think Uninvited (1988), with its 4/10 rating, makes that look like a decent movie. It certainly makes Pledge This! (#7 on the list, the first I'd call interesting, aside from Manos) look like art.

[tomandtish]

wow .. I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet:

https://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom

those are some "bad movies" there .. nothing you guys listed are even in that bottom 100 .. so they're not THAT bad .. :) hehe

Ahh yes, Zombie Nightmare. Where a throat gets slit and someone gets impaled.... with a metal baseball bat....

[Telonius]

Sometimes a movie goes so far into awful that it ends up breaking the scale. Take "Plan 9 from Outer Space" or "Manos: Hands of Fate" for example. They weren't deliberate parodies. They tried, and failed completely. They are wretchedly awful, terrible, horrific. But they go so far into bad that - at least for some people (me included) - they loop back around to being hilarious. Mystery Science Theater 3000 has a lot of this sort of movie, but you don't need robot puppets to see the comedy.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

Sometimes a movie goes so far into awful that it ends up breaking the scale. Take "Plan 9 from Outer Space" or "Manos: Hands of Fate" for example. They weren't deliberate parodies. They tried, and failed completely. They are wretchedly awful, terrible, horrific. But they go so far into bad that - at least for some people (me included) - they loop back around to being hilarious. Mystery Science Theater 3000 has a lot of this sort of movie, but you don't need robot puppets to see the comedy.

I feel like I'm not getting something. I don't know how this is a response to my original post, though.

[tomandtish]

I feel like I'm not getting something. I don't know how this is a response to my original post, though.

If a movie is so bad it's good, can it be the worst film of all time?

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

If a movie is so bad it's good, can it be the worst film of all time?

That would be the "so bad" part.

[tomandtish]

That would be the "so bad" part.

But if we are getting enjoyment out of it, can it still be the worst?

[Dorath]

But if we are getting enjoyment out of it, can it still be the worst?

Bad and enjoy are not exclusive.

[Fiery Diamond]

Bad and enjoy are not exclusive.

No, but worst and enjoy are, at least when it comes to talking about film quality.

[eggynack]

Bad and enjoy are not exclusive.
I'm not sure I agree. Assuming we're evaluating a film without any sort of external context, how am I to evaluate a film's quality aside from asking what I got out of it? If I got more out of Birdemic than I did out of some random hunk of decent, then why call the latter less bad? And, given that the latter rated a decent by definition, it seems hard to rate something like Birdemic a bad. Note, enjoyment is definitely not the only thing you can get out of a movie. I can not enjoy something a ton and still get a ton out of it. But, if a film is entertaining, it's hard for me to say I didn't get enough out of the film to call it non-bad.

[Knaight]

I'm not sure I agree. Assuming we're evaluating a film without any sort of external context, how am I to evaluate a film's quality aside from asking what I got out of it? If I got more out of Birdemic than I did out of some random hunk of decent, then why call the latter less bad? And, given that the latter rated a decent by definition, it seems hard to rate something like Birdemic a bad. Note, enjoyment is definitely not the only thing you can get out of a movie. I can not enjoy something a ton and still get a ton out of it. But, if a film is entertaining, it's hard for me to say I didn't get enough out of the film to call it non-bad.

There's all sorts of less subjective quality criteria that can be used to evaluate a film, on top of being able to analyze your own biases and how they feed into your appreciation of work. This is without necessarily just going with the crowd - there's movies that I enjoy and think of as bad, there's movies I dislike that I consider good, but there's also critically loved movies that I don't just dislike but consider garbage.

[Keltest]

There's all sorts of less subjective quality criteria that can be used to evaluate a film, on top of being able to analyze your own biases and how they feed into your appreciation of work. This is without necessarily just going with the crowd - there's movies that I enjoy and think of as bad, there's movies I dislike that I consider good, but there's also critically loved movies that I don't just dislike but consider garbage.

Perhaps, but should entertainment value be completely ignored as a measure of quality? Given the existence of movies that both are terrible made and not at all entertaining, id say that if nothing else a movie that is widely considered entertaining cannot be a contender for the worst movie.

[eggynack]

There's all sorts of less subjective quality criteria that can be used to evaluate a film, on top of being able to analyze your own biases and how they feed into your appreciation of work.
Is the entertainment criteria really so subjective? Birdemic isn't just a film that entertains me. It's a film that, as far as I can tell, entertains a high percentage of the people that watch it. I suppose I posed my criteria in a self-centric way, but what I meant by that is that what audiences get out of a movie, on aggregate, is a reasonable primary criteria for this sort of qualitative analysis. There may be room to dispute that a given movie that people find entertaining is particularly entertaining, but are you disputing that for Birdemic? That movie is hilarious.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, many of the DC offerings lately have been poor performers, but as far as worst movie I've paid to go see?

Jarheads.

To be blunt, it's an insult to everyone who ever made the commitment. I literally walked out about half-way through, and I wasn't the only one. I didn't even bother demanding my money back, I was that disgusted with it.

It wasn't bad as in 'campy', it wasn't bad as in 'might be a cult classic', it was bad as in 'absolutely no redeeming features, and insulting to every service member who has ever served, is currently serving, or will ever serve'.

I'm not sure if the director was trying to go for a Hot Shots or Down Periscope form of farce humor, but if so, he failed miserably.

[Aedilred]

I agree that any such judgment should be hedged with qualifications and often is implicitly. After all there isn't a single metric on which films can be judged.

With that said, a big-budget film like some of those mentioned in the OP has the opportunity to fail on many more of these than does a low-budget indie or amateur film. Squandering of budget, misuse of special effects (especially 3D), terrible marketing and/or gulf between hype and delivery are all areas where lower-budget films aren't even in consideration.

In particular, and while it's not entirely straightfoward, I think larger-budget films are influential on the industry in a way that low-budget ones rarely are. Transformers 2, an absolute dumpster fire of a film, made it clear that a film can be almost unwatchably terrible, and unnecessarily long, and nevertheless be a financial success if it has the right branding and is sufficiently aggressively marketed. Its negative impact is relatively greater than some arguably worse films and it probably bears some responsibility for the ongoing glut of mediocre brainless franchise blockbusters that continue to plague cinemas ten years later. That's an enduring badness that most bad films can only dream of.

There is also of course an element of the personal involved. I have over the course of my life seen several films worse than Jurassic Park 3, but it holds a special place of resentment in my heart because it was the first time I had watched a film and on conclusion felt like I ought to get my money back. Compare Season of the Witch which was at least equally terrible but which I went to see with the express intention of laughing at and felt like I got my money's worth.

Nevertheless I do tend to make a point of saying that the worst (non-amateur) film I've actually ever seen was a low-budget Hong Kong martial arts flick that was highly technically deficient (to the point of being frequently out of focus, inaudible sound, etc.). But I don't hold those failings against it to the extent that I do, for instance, Casino Royale (1968) which while in many respects being technically much better was still worse than one would expect and had much more budget.

[Chromascope3D]

Well, many of the DC offerings lately have been poor performers, but as far as worst movie I've paid to go see?

Jarheads.

To be blunt, it's an insult to everyone who ever made the commitment. I literally walked out about half-way through, and I wasn't the only one. I didn't even bother demanding my money back, I was that disgusted with it.

It wasn't bad as in 'campy', it wasn't bad as in 'might be a cult classic', it was bad as in 'absolutely no redeeming features, and insulting to every service member who has ever served, is currently serving, or will ever serve'.

I'm not sure if the director was trying to go for a Hot Shots or Down Periscope form of farce humor, but if so, he failed miserably.

The Jake Gyllenhaal film? I thought people generally liked that one.

[Knaight]

Perhaps, but should entertainment value be completely ignored as a measure of quality? Given the existence of movies that both are terrible made and not at all entertaining, id say that if nothing else a movie that is widely considered entertaining cannot be a contender for the worst movie.

I wouldn't ignore it, no. I'm just saying that there are other, more externalized factors.

[Slurm]

Worst film ever? Manos: The Hands of Fate. Manos is, I believe "hands" in spanish, so it translates to Hands: The Hands of Fate. It's borderline unwatchable.

Mystery Science Theatre 3000 covered it in one of their episodes, and I highly recommend watching that version since the commentary will give you some form of entertainment value.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

I feel like people are getting away from the point of the thread.

[Fyraltari]

I feel like people are getting away from the point of the thread.

Welcome to the Giant in the Playground Forum, where everyhting is made up and the points don't matter.

[Reddish Mage]

I feel like people are getting away from the point of the thread.

The OP basically made the point that there really isn't a "worse film of all time." I suppose someone could defend the value of hyperbole, humor, and sarcasm but it doesn't look like anyone is exceptionally interested in seriously defending the use of that language.

What's more to discuss except to ignore the entire point of the thread by igniting debates about films you would like to label as worse film of all time? Yep, this thread is about to head towards drowning out the sane point that no film is really the worse with a sea of additional accusations regarding what is the worse film of all time...

Ironic isn't it?

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

The OP basically made the point that there really isn't a "worse film of all time."

I am the OP and that wasn't the point I was making at all.

Like, that's so far from the point I was making that it's almost the exact opposite of the point I was making.

[sktarq]

You may not have meant to but you basically said so matter how bad a film is you can always find one worse. . . Which basically amounts to the same thing because there thus is never a reason to use "the worst film ever" type phrasing with anything people actually see.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

You may not have meant to but you basically said so matter how bad a film is you can always find one worse. . . Which basically amounts to the same thing because there thus is never a reason to use "the worst film ever" type phrasing with anything people actually see.

My point was that there probably is a worst film ever and it's nowhere close to the usual, very competent, films that get carted out.

[Razade]

My point was that there probably is a worst film ever and it's nowhere close to the usual, very competent, films that get carted out.

Do you not understand hyperbolic language? When someone says "It's the worst film ever" they don't mean it literally. Usually. But I imagine that some of the films carted out actually are close to the worst ever.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

Do you not understand hyperbolic language? When someone says "It's the worst film ever" they don't mean it literally. Usually. But I imagine that some of the films carted out actually are close to the worst ever.

Trust me. They're not being hyperbolic.

[Razade]

Trust me. They're not being hyperbolic.

No thanks. I know plenty of people who use it in just the way I described and I don't know you from Adam. I know plenty of critics who use it in the way I described as well. You may well be a critic but I still have no idea your credentials. Not that they'd matter.

I also think that some of the movies listed here (Manos is a great example) really would count as one of the worst movies. Because if you want to be a pedant about it, what constitutes a movie? Is anything made by some art student with a Red5 camera a movie? Then sure, there's really some awful stuff out there. Is the snuff film my great uncle made with his VHS recorder a movie? Because boy, I've got a contender.thisisajoke.donotfreakout.

[Reddish Mage]

I am the OP and that wasn't the point I was making at all.

Like, that's so far from the point I was making that it's almost the exact opposite of the point I was making.

*grumble* Death of the author and no one asked your participation and all that *grumble*.

Seriously, what you did say is that there’s probably some lousy film made by an amateur somewhere that no one has actually seen takes the cake. Nothing actually released is close.

And let’s not talk about snuff films. Now the term “bad film” suddenly has a completely different meaning.

[Calthropstu]

Manos Hands of Fate is in #5.

As for the quality of things listed, that chart measures popularity among a varying set of self selected voters. That's not to say it doesn't correlate to quality, or that there aren't some atrocious movies there, but the absence of items from that list doesn't mean they aren't worse.

For instance, I'd rather watch any of the things I recognize from that list than put up with What the Bleep Do We Know? again. I'd also rather watch any of them than Forrest Gump.

Manos, while "only" #5, has the distinguished honor of having been there the longest. The only reason people have seen it is due to it being mst3k's pilot episode.

Manos is bad. It doesn't come around again to become amusing, it is just awful. Try watching it without the bots and you will consider it one of the worst experiences of your life.

It may well and truly be the worst film of all time. Others will come and go. Most movies are forgettable rubbish. But manos is something I truly regret watching.

[Jimorian]

"After Last Season" give Manos a run for its money. Filmed with a "$5M budget" and released to exactly 5 theaters nationwide in the U.S. to probably avoid outright fraud charges against the producers, it features an MRI machine in a medical office that's literally made out of butcher paper, and the office is a little girl's pink bedroom where they covered whatever frilly detail on the cornice with stapled up sheets of printer paper. Manos is a hundred times more competently shot and acted, because as bad as it was, the people involved there at least cared.

There's a "MSTing" of it by Spoony running around somewhere if you can find it, and a reaction video of some unsuspecting viewers who actually paid to see it in one of those theaters.

Ahh, found the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPPRB6ErOIU

[Glorthindel]

Perhaps, but should entertainment value be completely ignored as a measure of quality? Given the existence of movies that both are terrible made and not at all entertaining, id say that if nothing else a movie that is widely considered entertaining cannot be a contender for the worst movie.

I definitely agree that entertainment value (although subjective) has merit as a criteria for assessing the best and worst. "The ABCs of Death" is an abysmal movie in concept and execution, but did manage to create a couple of laughs (possibly at the absurdity), which in my mind would put in leaps and bounds ahead of "Irreversible", despite the latter having far better acting and a novel concept, simply because watching the latter is such a horrible and disturbing experience.

[Calthropstu]

I definitely agree that entertainment value (although subjective) has merit as a criteria for assessing the best and worst. "The ABCs of Death" is an abysmal movie in concept and execution, but did manage to create a couple of laughs (possibly at the absurdity), which in my mind would put in leaps and bounds ahead of "Irreversible", despite the latter having far better acting and a novel concept, simply because watching the latter is such a horrible and disturbing experience.

Irreversible is a good movie in that it tries to be a horrific experience and succeeds. It wants to disturb people. It's a touchy subject that it portrays (not exactly forum friendly) and to be honest it begs a discussion. Definitely not for the faint of heart though.

[Velaryon]

My point was that there probably is a worst film ever and it's nowhere close to the usual, very competent, films that get carted out.

So basically, hyperbolic language is not accurate? Real hot take you've got there. :smallwink:

I kid, but "not strictly accurate" is pretty much baked into the definition of hyperbole to begin with, so I'm not sure what pointing it out accomplishes.



The worst film ever made is Master of Disguise. Period. They had a decent budget, they had a decent cast, they had decent people writing it, and still churned out a turd.

Master of Disguise was incredibly stupid and juvenile, but isn't even the worst movie I've paid to see (that would be House of 1000 Corpses), let alone the worst I've ever seen.

As for which movie really is the worst ever, I've got a few to add to the discussion which I haven't seen anyone else bring up:

Thankskilling (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPlg9U5YbY4) - a stupid horror comedy in which the monster is a demonic turkey. It's deliberately trying for "so bad it's good" but misses the mark and ends up being awful in every conceivable way. The turkey spouts one-liners, trying to be funny or cool like it's Freddy Krueger, except not one of them even remotely approaches being funny or clever. The other characters aren't compelling in any way, so there's no investment whether any of them live or die. The killings themselves aren't even clever or unique enough to be memorable, like the various repetitive Friday the 13th sequels. Despite being only about 66 minutes long, the movie still drags on interminably.

House of 1000 Corpses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg1GiV7TXR4&has_verified=1) - For a guy whose entire musical persona was so obviously influenced by B-horror films, it's astonishing how poorly Rob Zombie seems to have understood that genre. This is his first film, and it's easily the worst thing I have ever spent money to see (and I paid for Master of Disguise, Street Fighter, and Prometheus, for cryin' out loud!) It's nothing but forgettable characters, jump scares, a meandering, directionless plot, and gore.

Liquid Sky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzX7sg-6Q94) - Sex, drugs, and aliens... sounds like the recipe for entertainment, right? Nope. It's dull, nonsensical, poorly acted, and has absolutely nothing redeeming about it. The only reason I'm not being more specific is that it's been a few years since I inflicted this travesty on myself, and Facebook won't show me the comments I posted on the film when I watched it back then for some reason. This gets my vote for worst movie ever.

[Fiery Diamond]

Suspension of disbelief is important in order to enjoy a work of fiction, in my opinion. So when a movie is just so freaking stupid that I can't suspend disbelief, I don't think it's a good film.

Someone recommended the Dreamworks film Home to me. I only got a few minutes in before giving up. It was just too stupid.

[Calthropstu]

So basically, hyperbolic language is not accurate? Real hot take you've got there. :smallwink:

I kid, but "not strictly accurate" is pretty much baked into the definition of hyperbole to begin with, so I'm not sure what pointing it out accomplishes.




Master of Disguise was incredibly stupid and juvenile, but isn't even the worst movie I've paid to see (that would be House of 1000 Corpses), let alone the worst I've ever seen.

As for which movie really is the worst ever, I've got a few to add to the discussion which I haven't seen anyone else bring up:

Thankskilling (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPlg9U5YbY4) - a stupid horror comedy in which the monster is a demonic turkey. It's deliberately trying for "so bad it's good" but misses the mark and ends up being awful in every conceivable way. The turkey spouts one-liners, trying to be funny or cool like it's Freddy Krueger, except not one of them even remotely approaches being funny or clever. The other characters aren't compelling in any way, so there's no investment whether any of them live or die. The killings themselves aren't even clever or unique enough to be memorable, like the various repetitive Friday the 13th sequels. Despite being only about 66 minutes long, the movie still drags on interminably.

House of 1000 Corpses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg1GiV7TXR4&has_verified=1) - For a guy whose entire musical persona was so obviously influenced by B-horror films, it's astonishing how poorly Rob Zombie seems to have understood that genre. This is his first film, and it's easily the worst thing I have ever spent money to see (and I paid for Master of Disguise, Street Fighter, and Prometheus, for cryin' out loud!) It's nothing but forgettable characters, jump scares, a meandering, directionless plot, and gore.

Liquid Sky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzX7sg-6Q94) - Sex, drugs, and aliens... sounds like the recipe for entertainment, right? Nope. It's dull, nonsensical, poorly acted, and has absolutely nothing redeeming about it. The only reason I'm not being more specific is that it's been a few years since I inflicted this travesty on myself, and Facebook won't show me the comments I posted on the film when I watched it back then for some reason. This gets my vote for worst movie ever.

None of those hold a candle to Manos or some of the others being mentioned here. In fact, house of 1000 corpses wasn't that bad at all. Look at those movies on the imdb list and then compare them to the movies you listed. Seriously, if you think Prometheus was bad, you have never seen a truly bad movie.
Except thankskilling. Yeah, that's pretty bad.

[Giggling Ghast]

To me, the worst film will always be Plan 9 From Outer Space. Ed Wood thought he was a visionary making the greatest movie of all time, and Plan 9 is not only awful, but transcendently awful. This is no poorly-made sequel or ill-conceived vanity project — it's terrible filmmaking as an art form.

[2D8HP]

Liquid Sky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzX7sg-6Q94) .


Not only did I see Liquid Sky in the theatre, I even bought the soundtrack album back in the 1980's!

I don't recommend doing either now, except as historical research.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

To me, the worst film will always be Plan 9 From Outer Space. Ed Wood thought he was a visionary making the greatest movie of all time, and Plan 9 is not only awful, but transcendently awful. This is no poorly-made sequel or ill-conceived vanity project — it's terrible filmmaking as an art form.
For weeks after seeing that movie, my friends and I would randomly greet one another with "VITAMINS!" as per the hilariously bad creepy announcer bit at the end.

[Silver Swift]

If I can refer back to the OP for a second:


And certainly one could make the argument that something like New Year's Eve is an exceptionally bad film from amongst major studio films. But that's just the problem. The statement isn't "the worst mainstream film ever", it's "the worst film ever".

I'm afraid I fail to see the problem here. Yes, the phrase "the worst film ever" has started to mean something like "a bad movie compared to other, recent, mainstream movies", but people using language in a not-quite-literal way for long enough that the commonly understood meaning changes happens all the time. People like using metaphors and hyperbole to add emphasis to their statements.

Language usage changes, it happens. It's true that sometimes the change is for the worse (looking at you there, people that use the word literally figuratively), but honestly, I think this particular change is mostly harmless.


The problem now is that we can't use a juicy, heavy statement like "worst film of all time" because it's been so overused and overexposed that it has no weight.

Is this really that big of a problem? Almost nobody ever has a conversation about what is literally the worst thing someone has stamped the label movie on and in those rare corner cases where you do want to have that conversation a one or two sentence clarification should clear up any potential misunderstandings. Just let the people that want to criticize movies have their hyperbole, it gives them a tool to add emphasis to their statement and it doesn't meaningfully detract from the conversation you want to have.

[Giggling Ghast]

For weeks after seeing that movie, my friends and I would randomly greet one another with "VITAMINS!" as per the hilariously bad creepy announcer bit at the end.

Of course you'd find that funny, with your stupid minds! Stupid! STUPID! :smalltongue:

[eggynack]

Is this really that big of a problem? Almost nobody ever has a conversation about what is literally the worst thing someone has stamped the label movie on and in those rare corner cases where you do want to have that conversation a one or two sentence clarification should clear up any potential misunderstandings. Just let the people that want to criticize movies have their hyperbole, it gives them a tool to add emphasis to their statement and it doesn't meaningfully detract from the conversation you want to have.
Yeah, as a literal term, worst film ever isn't even all that useful. There can technically only be one of those, and, as noted, it's probably some piece of crap no one's ever heard of. What word juice are we really preserving by forcing people to be technically accurate with this phrase? Do we gain anything by being all like, "Harumph, technically the worst film of all time is Click, which means this conversation is in error." I mean, the conversation could gain something, because then we could talk about how bad Click is, but it's not gaining something by invoking the technical side of it.

[Razade]

Manos, while "only" #5, has the distinguished honor of having been there the longest. The only reason people have seen it is due to it being mst3k's pilot episode.


Manos, The Hand of Fate, was not the pilot episode of MST3K.

The Green Slime was their demo, as close to a pilot as they could get for the small time station they originally aired on. Invaders from the Deep was their first aired episode. The Crawling Eye was their first episode on cable, on The Comedy Channel (which became Comedy Central) and their first episode on Comedy Central was Cave Dwellers. Manos, The Hand of Fate was the last episode of Season Four which aired originally in 1993. By that point MST3K had been on the air on various channels for half a decade.

[Calthropstu]

Manos, The Hand of Fate, was not the pilot episode of MST3K.

The Green Slime was their demo, as close to a pilot as they could get for the small time station they originally aired on. Invaders from the Deep was their first aired episode. The Crawling Eye was their first episode on cable, on The Comedy Channel (which became Comedy Central) and their first episode on Comedy Central was Cave Dwellers. Manos, The Hand of Fate was the last episode of Season Four which aired originally in 1993. By that point MST3K had been on the air on various channels for half a decade.

Huh. Netflix had it listed as episode #1.

[tomandtish]

Huh. Netflix had it listed as episode #1.

May depend on where you are located. For OLD MST 3K, mine is showing one season (called season 2) with Manos in slot 13. Looks more like they just have a compilation of episodes from various seasons.

[Cikomyr]

Strange. I find sad that people dont consider Battlefield Earth to be part of the discussion. It ranks at least as bad as The Last Airbender, if not way worse.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

{Scrubbed}

[Mightymosy]

And then you post to make sure it lives longer? :smallredface:

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

{Scrubbed}

[theMycon]

{Scrubbed}
Every day I pray someone will come up with a candidate for Worst Film Ever I haven't seen.

At least you aren't alone in your pain.

[Mightymosy]

Three minuts longer, man, three minutes longer :smallsmile:

Sorry, the last minute is on me :smallsmile:

[The Glyphstone]

No one is forcing you to keep posting in it. You can just ignore it and go about your life (with a recommended stop by the Forum Rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?f=24&a=1) for a refresher, just to the safe.)

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

{Scrubbed}

[Mightymosy]

Well, my thread was "locked for review", and that "review" will go on until everyone has forgotten it ever existed, if I were to guess.

Wanna trade threads?
:smallcool:

[The Glyphstone]

{Scrubbed}

Except it's not your thread. You started it, but the OP of a thread has no claim to ownership.

Specifically, the portion of the forum rules you might want to re-read is the section about Trolling, and where threadcrapping is defined as Trolling. Hint, Hint..

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

{Scrubbed}

[Tvtyrant]

I think there is also a whole category of "movies so good they are bad." Burn After Reading, There Will be Blood and No Country for Old Men were all highly polished and well done, but I would watch dreck like Piranha before rewatching them.

[Celestia]

Movies are entertainment, and, thus, the worst movie ever would be one that fails to entertain. Poorly made or stupid movies can still be fun to watch, especially with friends riffing it. In my life, I have watched hundreds of movies (possibly even over a thousand), and only one has been so mind-numbingly boring that it actually pit me to sleep. I dont remember what it was called, but it was a documentary about haunted buildings in Wisconsin. To me, that's the worst movie ever.

[joggler45]

I think there is also a whole category of "movies so good they are bad." Burn After Reading, There Will be Blood and No Country for Old Men were all highly polished and well done, but I would watch dreck like Piranha before rewatching them.

No Country for Old Men turn to be a great movie indeed.

[Knaight]

I think there is also a whole category of "movies so good they are bad." Burn After Reading, There Will be Blood and No Country for Old Men were all highly polished and well done, but I would watch dreck like Piranha before rewatching them.

I suspect two of these are less so good they're bad and more a matter of you not liking a particular director - that's two Coen Brothers' movies in there, including the deeply enjoyable masterpiece Burn After Reading.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I dont remember what it was called, but it was a documentary about haunted buildings in Wisconsin. To me, that's the worst movie ever.

Either you haven't seen Barbarian (2003) or I really need to avoid watching that documentary some time.

[Tvtyrant]

No Country for Old Men turn to be a great movie indeed.


I suspect two of these are less so good they're bad and more a matter of you not liking a particular director - that's two Coen Brothers' movies in there, including the deeply enjoyable masterpiece Burn After Reading.

Saying you enjoyed it doesn't invalidate my point. I love a lot of Coen Brothers films, Burn After Reading felt like a very stylish retread. Plot consisting of misunderstandings, anti-climactic none ending, nostalgia for the cold war ("Why would she go to the Russians?" "Blowback. There's a lesson in here somewhere.")

[Razade]

I think there is also a whole category of "movies so good they are bad." Burn After Reading, There Will be Blood and No Country for Old Men were all highly polished and well done, but I would watch dreck like Piranha before rewatching them.

I'd watch those before watching Piranha. There Will be Blood was so amazing, so well put together, I go back and watch the scenes at the church and the end scene at least once a week. Just...wow.


Huh. Netflix had it listed as episode #1.

That doesn't mean its the pilot.


Movies are entertainment, and, thus, the worst movie ever would be one that fails to entertain. Poorly made or stupid movies can still be fun to watch, especially with friends riffing it. In my life, I have watched hundreds of movies (possibly even over a thousand), and only one has been so mind-numbingly boring that it actually pit me to sleep. I dont remember what it was called, but it was a documentary about haunted buildings in Wisconsin. To me, that's the worst movie ever.

Some of my favorite movies were ones I was not entertained by. Movies aren't just entertainment, that reduces them to a basal thing. Movies are movies, and some are enjoyable and others aren't. That doesn't mean they're bad.

[Tvtyrant]

I'd watch those before watching Piranha. There Will be Blood was so amazing, so well put together, I go back and watch the scenes at the church and the end scene at least once a week. Just...wow.


I can't tell if that is exaggeration or you are the biggest Daniel Day Lewis fan of all time.

I definitely thought the acting was good in all of the movies I listed, and they were well put together. They all shared the quality of matching a script I felt like I had watched before, where even the shocking parts were timed where you expected something shocking to happen. I came out feeling like I had seen that exact movie before, nearly beat for beat.

At least with bad movies they miss their timing from time to time. Like listening to classic music and sometimes it is harmonically perfect but also formulaic, while bad music can be surprising. I don't know that I am making my point very articulately.

[Aedilred]

I do know what TVTyrant means, I think. I felt this about Gosford Park and Blade Runner 2049 as well as a few others that slip my mind. The film is so polished and well-executed that it doesn't quite hook you and you spend the whole time admiring it rather than enjoying it. It stands up to dispassionate critical observation but doesn't prompt the visceral emotional response that I think art should, on at least some level.

That said, I would never place No Country for Old Men in that category. The structure and formula of that is almost deliberately subversive to the point that if it feels like it's hitting familiar beats it's only because it's subsequently been imitated (not sure to what extent it has been, though?) Major characters die off-screen or out of shot; the fate of major characters is left unclear; there's only the most token of resolutions, and the moral of the story as monologued at the end amounts to little more than "You know what? Everything is terrible".

I can understand why people wouldn't like it but predictable it was not.

Nor for that matter would I say it about There Will Be Blood: the magnetism of Daniel Day-Lewis's performance is enough to punch through any veneer of over-perfection.

I don't like Burn After Reading as much as I feel I ought to. I like black comedy (I loved The Death of Stalin). I like absurdist and screwball and even fairly crude comedy when done well. Two of my favourite films - not just comedies - are Amélie and South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut. While there are bits in Burn After Reading that I enjoyed it felt just a little too arch, I think, and seemed to threaten punchlines that never quite arrived.

I know it makes me a philistine but my favourite Coen Brothers comedy is still Intolerable Cruelty, which is the one film of theirs everyone seems to hate.

[Celestia]

Some of my favorite movies were ones I was not entertained by. Movies aren't just entertainment, that reduces them to a basal thing. Movies are movies, and some are enjoyable and others aren't. That doesn't mean they're bad.
Movies are exactly entertainment. There's no point in watching a movie if it doesn't entertain you. Perhaps you just don't understand what I mean by that. I'm not saying that all movies should be action-packed spectacles or anything like that. There are many ways that movies can be entertaining, and what counts as entertainment varies from person to person. One thing for sure, though, is that if you liked a movie, then it entertained you in some capacity. Unless, of course, you're a masochist who likes being bored, but then, that would still be some form of entertainment, wouldn't it? Liking a movie and not being entertained by it is an oxymoron.

[Cikomyr]

Either you haven't seen Barbarian (2003) or I really need to avoid watching that documentary some time.

Oh man, that was one of the best bad movies i have ever seen.

[joggler45]

Oh man, that was one of the best bad movies i have ever seen.

This movie is one on my top list of bad movies I've seen.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Oh man, that was one of the best bad movies i have ever seen.

I can see that for some parts, like to some people maybe the off-brand ewok sidekick specialized in healing humans is silly rather than super annoying, and the practice scenes consisting of a single sort of cool sword move again and again because apparently teaching this guy sword fighting was harder than they thought are also kind of comical. It just didn't work for me, no fun at all. The orchestrated mass rape scene about halfway in depicted as something fun, even if concocted by the evil king, finished it off. Yet I kept watching, awed by the horror that was a product people had genuinely tried to make fun failing at every step. Fascinated by its badness in an unfun way.

I mean, I didn't like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, so I'm probably not the best judge of so bad that they're good movies. But still, this one managed to do worse than simply not impressing and boring me.

(It didn't help that I saw it from a second hand DVD 3-movie pack which also contained a serious movie about soldiers trapped by the enemy waiting to be bombarded. That didn't really put me in the mood for this film somehow, even though that one was a rather bland movie itself.)

[Razade]

I can't tell if that is exaggeration or you are the biggest Daniel Day Lewis fan of all time.

It's...a level of exaggeration. I watch the scenes a lot. They're masterpieces and I actually find a lot of inspiration for Tabletop games from watching just how they're acted out. Really good for villains. Gets me in the mindset.


Movies are exactly entertainment. There's no point in watching a movie if it doesn't entertain you. Perhaps you just don't understand what I mean by that. I'm not saying that all movies should be action-packed spectacles or anything like that. There are many ways that movies can be entertaining, and what counts as entertainment varies from person to person. One thing for sure, though, is that if you liked a movie, then it entertained you in some capacity. Unless, of course, you're a masochist who likes being bored, but then, that would still be some form of entertainment, wouldn't it?

So...whew...so much to unpack here. Aside from the condescension because of course if I don't agree with you I just don't get what you're saying. Like, what kind of idiot am I right?

I never even quantified how a movie has to be entertaining. I've already expressed a deep love for There Will Be Blood and there's no action packed spectacle there. I have a deep appreciation for an anime series called Mushi Shi and I wouldn't call it a romp by any means. All very human stories really, with very human levels of action. But I wouldn't say I was entertained by either of those examples. Because Entertainment = Enjoyment. Entertainment, mind, is certainly made to be enjoyed. They go hand and hand but I enjoy lots of things that aren't entertainment. Cooking isn't entertaiment and I enjoy that.

Now. If you had said "Movies are made to be enjoyed" we'd have no argument here..or less of one I guess. I'd say there are movies I like that I didn't enjoy (see TvTyrant's point). But you said they are entertainment, full stop. I wasn't entertained by The Grave of Fireflies. Or Schindler's List. Arrival, Contact, Dead Poet's Society, Pan's Labyrinthine (especially when the dude was being beaten to death by a wine bottle), Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Fargo, the list goes on. But you so cavalierly stated, objectively, that if I enjoyed these films I had to be entertained by them.

This just isn't the case. Those movies, I think most will agree, are dark and challenging and they raise questions and feelings that absolutely are not entertaining. Because, again, Entertainment isn't the same as Enjoyment.


Liking a movie and not being entertained by it is an oxymoron.

Yeah...no. See above for why your blanket, objective, black and white narrative is absurd.

[BeerMug Paladin]

It's hard to figure out what is the worst film I've seen. If I were to seriously consider it, it would have to share two qualities. I didn't enjoy it, and I don't remember it very well. I consider each of those to be fairly good indicators of "bad", but by their unique interplay, it's not likely to be a film that I could recall on the spot. Or even realize I have already seen if I was looking right at it.

The only thing that otherwise springs to my mind is 2001: A Space Odyssey, which thoroughly fails my usual metrics for quality. (I tend to judge movies' quality by considering whether or not I could recommend it to anyone, recommend it to few, not recommend it to anyone or recommend avoiding it. I can't picture even a hypothetical person I could recommend watch that "movie".)

Now. If you had said "Movies are made to be enjoyed" we'd have no argument here..or less of one I guess. I'd say there are movies I like that I didn't enjoy (see TvTyrant's point). But you said they are entertainment, full stop. I wasn't entertained by The Grave of Fireflies. Or Schindler's List. Arrival, Contact, Dead Poet's Society, Pan's Labyrinthine (especially when the dude was being beaten to death by a wine bottle), Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Fargo, the list goes on. But you so cavalierly stated, objectively, that if I enjoyed these films I had to be entertained by them.

This just isn't the case. Those movies, I think most will agree, are dark and challenging and they raise questions and feelings that absolutely are not entertaining. Because, again, Entertainment isn't the same as Enjoyment.
I think you and I may consider these words to have different definitions. I would much rather watch any of these listed movies for fun and entertainment purposes than any Marvel movie. Also, you forgot about Requiem For A Dream.

[Cikomyr]

I can see that for some parts, like to some people maybe the off-brand ewok sidekick specialized in healing humans is silly rather than super annoying, and the practice scenes consisting of a single sort of cool sword move again and again because apparently teaching this guy sword fighting was harder than they thought are also kind of comical. It just didn't work for me, no fun at all. The orchestrated mass rape scene about halfway in depicted as something fun, even if concocted by the evil king, finished it off. Yet I kept watching, awed by the horror that was a product people had genuinely tried to make fun failing at every step. Fascinated by its badness in an unfun way.


Oh man. I am so sorry.

I confused that movie with the 1987 Barbarians movie. That is one of the best bad movie i have ever seen.

Its glorious. In every fiber of its steroid-infused musclebound homoerotic bones.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I'll take your word for it, that one goes on the watch list.

[Celestia]

It's...a level of exaggeration. I watch the scenes a lot. They're masterpieces and I actually find a lot of inspiration for Tabletop games from watching just how they're acted out. Really good for villains. Gets me in the mindset.



So...whew...so much to unpack here. Aside from the condescension because of course if I don't agree with you I just don't get what you're saying. Like, what kind of idiot am I right?

I never even quantified how a movie has to be entertaining. I've already expressed a deep love for There Will Be Blood and there's no action packed spectacle there. I have a deep appreciation for an anime series called Mushi Shi and I wouldn't call it a romp by any means. All very human stories really, with very human levels of action. But I wouldn't say I was entertained by either of those examples. Because Entertainment = Enjoyment. Entertainment, mind, is certainly made to be enjoyed. They go hand and hand but I enjoy lots of things that aren't entertainment. Cooking isn't entertaiment and I enjoy that.

Now. If you had said "Movies are made to be enjoyed" we'd have no argument here..or less of one I guess. I'd say there are movies I like that I didn't enjoy (see TvTyrant's point). But you said they are entertainment, full stop. I wasn't entertained by The Grave of Fireflies. Or Schindler's List. Arrival, Contact, Dead Poet's Society, Pan's Labyrinthine (especially when the dude was being beaten to death by a wine bottle), Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Fargo, the list goes on. But you so cavalierly stated, objectively, that if I enjoyed these films I had to be entertained by them.

This just isn't the case. Those movies, I think most will agree, are dark and challenging and they raise questions and feelings that absolutely are not entertaining. Because, again, Entertainment isn't the same as Enjoyment.



Yeah...no. See above for why your blanket, objective, black and white narrative is absurd.
You're literally just debating semantics and acting like your argument is somehow more profound and meaningful. You even admit as such with the bold comment. I already declared that the word entertainment means different things to different people, but you just brushed right past that because it would have let all the air out of your one and only point.

I haven't seen everything you've listed in this post, but the ones I have seen I would, in fact, call entertaining. Yes, they're dark and sometimes depressing, but that can be enjoyable, too. Not all movies are meant to be fun; some are meant to be emotional experiences. That can be a form of entertainment, too.

You're intentionally looking at one very restrictive meaning of the word that doesn't fit and then declaring that I must be wrong because it doesn't fit. No, that's on you.

[Razade]

Enjoyment and entertainment can mean the same thing, sure. Entertainment is often a category while the former are feelings however and while you might think that's semantic wank...language is used to understand people. I'm not here to quibble over labels, especially when you did not at all make it clear you were using the two interchangeably. That's on you. I can like something (and you can too!) and it not be Entertainment or enjoyable/entertaining. I can like something and not enjoy it. Working in a kitchen comes to mind. I like cooking but I don't enjoy it. Especially doing dishes.

[Cikomyr]

I'll take your word for it, that one goes on the watch list.

Dude. Here a picture of the dragon that appears in the movie. Its in spoilers, because its borderline NSFW


https://scontent-ort2-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/ad50b43b31f3b84213e45133b297902c/5B7C2332/t51.2885-15/s480x480/e35/c71.0.938.938/28764597_2119862188235879_7828935398683312128_n.jp g


I swear to you i am not making stuff up. Thats the dragon.

[sktarq]

I do know what TVTyrant means, I think. I felt this about Gosford Park and Blade Runner 2049 as well as a few others that slip my mind. The film is so polished and well-executed that it doesn't quite hook you and you spend the whole time admiring it rather than enjoying it. It stands up to dispassionate critical observation but doesn't prompt the visceral emotional response that I think art should, on at least some level.

That said, I would never place No Country for Old Men in that category. ...

I know it makes me a philistine but my favourite Coen Brothers comedy is still Intolerable Cruelty, which is the one film of theirs everyone seems to hate.

and this is why "worst film of all time" is always going to be a useless phrase. A fair part of its quality has to do with reaction it draws from the viewer. And different people have different reactions. Like for me Gosford Park is one of those movies I rewatch when I want something I know will connect. I find it a laugh riot. That said I found Death to Smoochie (which will always be linked to Gosford park for me due a double header date night on the big screen....VERY awkward date), Burn after Reading (why? why does anyone consider this funny? Why did friends who should know better put me though this), and South Park (I suppose it takes all kinds) to be painfully unfunny.
That doesn't mean they were bad movies per se (a lot of people really enjoyed them) but they certainly were bad movies for me to go to. Waste of bloody time...FOR ME.
What for some other person is a visual torture fest is quite possibly a deeply touching effecting work of high art reflecting on the human condition for me. ... see Wit (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243664/) for example.

Bad depends on the person

[Alabenson]

I don't know if I would classify it as the worst film of all time, or even the worst film I've ever seen, but the worst film I've ever paid money to see would have to be The Green Hornet. There was no part of that film that remotely worked; every actor was terrible, the writing was awful, the jokes were unfunny and the characters were neither likable or interesting.

[Rogar Demonblud]

That describes a lot of Seth Rogen's stuff lately.

There have been some bad films listed here, but none are really contenders for the worst. You want bad? Heaven's Gate was so bad, it quite literally killed the studio that made it. It is the reason you see that line in the credits about the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals monitoring all the animal scenes. If there was a God of Cinema, that movie would have ended Warren Beatty's career.

You have to go well beyond that to get to the worst.

[Elanasaurus]

That describes a lot of Seth Rogen's stuff lately.

There have been some bad films listed here, but none are really contenders for the worst. You want bad? Heaven's Gate was so bad, it quite literally killed the studio that made it. It is the reason you see that line in the credits about the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals monitoring all the animal scenes. If there was a God of Cinema, that movie would have ended Warren Beatty's career.

You have to go well beyond that to get to the worst.Warren Beatty? Heaven's Gate? Are you sure?
:elan:

[candys]

The Last Airbender.

[thompur]

That describes a lot of Seth Rogen's stuff lately.

There have been some bad films listed here, but none are really contenders for the worst. You want bad? Heaven's Gate was so bad, it quite literally killed the studio that made it. It is the reason you see that line in the credits about the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals monitoring all the animal scenes. If there was a God of Cinema, that movie would have ended Warren Beatty's career.

You have to go well beyond that to get to the worst.

Yeah. no... Heaven's Gate is rated 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. And Warren Beatty had absolutely nothing to do with that film.
It did adversely affect Michael Cimino's carreer, since he both wrote and directed it, but even he recovered somewhat.

[comicshorse]

For me the 2012 ' The Sweeney' movie. Completely and utterly a 'made-by-committee' film with everything in it having been done before, and better, by others films. There was not one second of it that I enjoyed, it even threatened to taint my enjoyment of the original TV series

[Tvtyrant]

I'm renting The Mangler, I have heard great things about how bad it is. Killer washing machines.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yeah. no... Heaven's Gate is rated 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. And Warren Beatty had absolutely nothing to do with that film.
It did adversely affect Michael Cimino's career, since he both wrote and directed it, but even he recovered somewhat.

Recovered somewhat? He directed four more films, three of which never made back their budget, which led to the fourth going Direct-to-Video and the end of his career. He only had four films that weren't flops, and two of them were Clint Eastwood vehicles.

And since it seems you don't know, Warren Beatty is the guy who talked UA into giving Cimino all the rope in the world, no oversight in production and no interference in the editing. It probably says something that the movie wasn't considered good until someone else went and took almost an hour out of it.

Like I said, it's not the worst film ever. But it is the point where you start your search.

[DavidSh]

And since it seems you don't know, Warren Beatty is the guy who talked UA into giving Cimino all the rope in the world, no oversight in production and no interference in the editing. It probably says something that the movie wasn't considered good until someone else went and took almost an hour out of it.

I really thought you were confusing this with Ishtar. Do you have a source you can cite?

[theMycon]

I really thought you were confusing this with Ishtar. Do you have a source you can cite?

I've yet to meet someone who has actually seen Ishtar (outside of the original theatrical run) and not like it.

It's like SW Episode 6- it's a pretty good film, burdened with insanely high expectations.

[Knaight]

I'm renting The Mangler, I have heard great things about how bad it is. Killer washing machines.

This sounds like a bad movie on par with Ginger Dead Man. Which is about a gingerbread man horror monster.

[tomandtish]

I'm renting The Mangler, I have heard great things about how bad it is. Killer washing machines.


This sounds like a bad movie on par with Ginger Dead Man. Which is about a gingerbread man horror monster.

But you haven't really lived on the edge until you watch Mangler 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mangler_2) (and yes, I have done so).

[Tvtyrant]

But you haven't really lived on the edge until you watch Mangler 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mangler_2) (and yes, I have done so).

There is also apparently a third one? One Stephen King story can bear a lot of fruit.

Now I have to watch an undead gingerbread man thing too...

[theMycon]

Wait, they made a movie about a Steven King story that he didn't rip off from a Theodore Sturgeon story? That's gotta be horrible!

I might have finally found something worth watching here. Thank you both so very much!