Recently I shared my Top 10 films of 2024 (you can check them out HERE). Today is a far less joyous occasion. As I’ve often done in the past, today I’m sharing my choices for the five worst movies I saw this past year. It’s sad to say but there were quite a lot to choose from. But who takes these things seriously anyway? So without further ado, here are my picks. Enjoy….I guess.
Dishonorable Mentions: “Babygirl”, “Dirty Angels”, “Red One”, “Lonely Planet”, “The Killer’s Game”, “Tarot”, “Kinds of Kindness”, “The Crow”, “The Union”, “A Family Affair”, “The Exorcism”, “Something in the Water”, “Sunrise”, “Mean Girls”, “The Apprentice”
#5 – “Space Cadet”
The premise of “Space Cadet” isn’t very encouraging. Then you actually watch the movie and realize it’s worse than expected. “Space Cadet” is absurd in all the wrong ways. You do feel for Emma Roberts who does everything she can to make us laugh or at least care about what we’re seeing. Sadly, her efforts are in vain as the material is just too bad for her or anyone else to overcome.
#4 – “Anora”
I know, I know. People love this thing which may lead some to accuse me of being a contrarian. But nothing could be further from the truth. I left the theater with the same opinion I have now – “Anora” is a messy and shallow grind. It’s a numbingly exhausting 140 minutes spent with annoying characters with practically no meaningful depth. And good luck finding an emotional core amid the endless yelling, constant arguing, and (at times) brain-melting dialogue.
#3 – “Madame Web”
It certainly wasn’t a great year for superhero movies. Sony’s SpiderVerse had an especially tough time led by the train-wreck that was “Madame Web”. I feel bad for Dakota Johnson who I’m sure received a nice paycheck but who didn’t exactly get a career boost with this one. The movie was risky from the start. But I can’t imagine many expected such catastrophic results. Bland story, bland protagonists, a bland villain, and bland action. That’s not a winning formula.
#2 – “The Strangers: Chapter 1”
I really responded to 2008’s home invasion horror film “The Strangers”. Sadly “The Strangers: Chapter One” captures none of what made the original successful. It’s essentially a stripped-down version of the original film that has us spending most of the running time waiting for something to happen. There’s barely enough material here to fill a 30-minute pilot episode much less a feature length movie. And when something FINALLY does happen, it isn’t worth the wait.
#1 – “Mea Culpa”
Tyler Perry’s self-branded feature “Mea Culpa” clearly wants to be a legal, psychological, and erotic thriller all wrapped into one. The problem is the film isn’t remotely thrilling in any imaginable way. Instead, this astonishingly bad, completely hollow, and downright trashy straight-to-streaming debacle only gets by on its handful of unintentional laughs. There’s certainly talent in the cast, but sadly they’re trapped in a no-win situation. And so is the audience.
Keith & the Movies 
Haven’t seen any of these though I do want to see Anora but…. goddamn…. Madame Web must be a total trainwreck. If I was the head at Sony, I’d be embarrassed at what my studio has been putting out and I’d fire everyone. But no… he claims that they’re great and doing well on Netflix… only because audiences were curious and realized that they’re shit. I saw the Honest Trailer for this fucking film and…. it was worse than I thought.
And there was such potential with the SpiderVerse. But they pretty much flubbed the whole thing.
How can you make a Spider-verse movie w/o Spider-Man? That was fucking stupid. They need to teach that as a course in film school on WHAT NOT TO DO! Imbeciles!
Glad I haven’t seen any of these!
You are a lucky soul. LOL
Sorry to hear that Babygirl is a contender for worst. I saw the trailer at the theater when I went to see Heretic and it looked kinda good. With Nicole and her plastic surgery frozen face, why would I think it would be lol. I knew Madame Web would be horrible so skipped it. I just don’t like Dakota Johnson.
Babygirl was really close to making my Top (or is it bottom) 5. It’s such an incredibly shallow movie that completely fumbles its message.
😦 I see you didn’t have Blink Twice in there???
LOLOL. No, it had a few redeeming qualities. LOLOL
lol
Have only seen one of these. I did watch Beetlejuice Beetlejuice last night on DVD, that would make my bad list. I was pretty much checked out by the end – Wait? The movie is over? I had to rewind to catch the final few minutes. Just too many story threads going all over the place.
There is an overrated category of movies, I’ve started thinking there should be an overhated category. I did see Madame Web, on DVD again, not that it’s good or anything, but I didn’t think it was offensively bad either, had heard so much negative about it by the time I watched it that I expected something bad along the lines of Battlefield Earth, wasn’t that level of bad.
MW was pretty dreadful for me. More baffling bad than offensively bad. LOL
Space Cadet was almost so bad it was good, it just couldn’t make it over the hump. It also helped my entertainment factor since she reminded me of a friend of one of my daughters years ago. Everything she touched turned into a train wreck but then worked out in the end.
Unfortunately I didn’t have that connection to help me through it. It might have helped. LOL
Hi Keith! Glad I haven’t seen any of these though I’m curious about ANORA. For me, the worst movie I saw was Unfrosted on Netflix, ugh!
Did you see Emilia Perez? Haven’t seen it either, not that interested after seeing all the controversies and dismal reviews, ahah.
Hey Ruth! I have seen EMILIA PEREZ. Not a fan. To be honest, it’s a pretty bizarre movie.
Yeah, even more bizarre that it got 13 Oscar nominations!! 😬
Yep, baffling. But to be honest, I’ve been so out of line with this years awards favorites – more than any other year I think.