The 10 Worst Movies Released Since ‘The Room,’ Ranked
Bad cinema peaked with 2003’s The Room. Those who deny it are just chickens (cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep). It did not, however, end there. From modern so-bad-they’re-good classics to films that are just plain awful and virtually unwatchable, there have been plenty of post-The Room bad movies guaranteed to satisfy the cinematic palate of even the most demanding fan of bottom-of-the-barrel films.
Making movies this awful is almost an art unto itself. To be able to create something so lazily written, so visually unappealing, so poorly performed, and so lacking in redeeming qualities all-around is such a feat that it’s unsurprising that many cinephiles love to watch and dissect bad cinema. Sure, The Room changed the rules of the game, but that isn’t to say that there haven’t been plenty of equally atrocious films released after it.
10
‘Disaster Movie’ (2008)
Over the course of the 2000s, Hollywood went through a bit of a parody phase. More and more of these films were coming out every year, and they somehow only kept getting worse. They reached the epitome of their awfulness with Disaster Movie, a film which apparently missed the memo that parody films are supposed to be, at the very least, funny.
Of course, for those who love potty humor, pointless pop culture references, and racist jokes, Disaster Movie should actually be a fine experience—but everyone else is better off avoiding it like the plague. With only a measly 1% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, this is undoubtedly one of the worst comedy movies of all time, about as close as society can get to cinematic cancer.
9
‘Alone in the Dark’ (2005)
No list of the worst anything related to movies can ever be complete without throwing Uwe Boll a shoutout. This infamous filmmaker is behind several of the worst movies of all time, all of them an affront to the Seventh Art, but his magnum opus (if magnum opus meant “absolute worst of the worst”) is arguably Alone in the Dark. Based on the video game series of the same name (which it’s also an affront to), it’s as terrible as video game adaptations come.
Whether it’s the atrocious action, the unappealing tone, the completely nonsensical story, or the fact that the film is so dark that you can barely see a thing, there’s plenty to hate about Alone in the Dark. It, too, sports a 1% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s very well deserved. It’s completely inept in practically every level of filmmaking imaginable, and it doesn’t even have the decency to be somewhat fun in the process.
8
‘Double Down’ (2005)
Tommy Wiseau walked so Neil Breen, the new king of bad cinema, could run. Breen has made some of the most gleefully and delectably atrocious movies of the 21st century—many of them thoroughly enjoyable, others… not so much. Sadly, Breen’s fans tend to agree that if there is one chapter of his filmography that can be skipped, it’s Double Down.
With a rating of 4 out of 10, Double Down is Breen’s lowest-rated movie on IMDb, and it’s not the least bit hard to see why. While other Breen gems like Fateful Findings are among the most rewatchable so-bad-they’re-good movies of recent years, this one’s just a rambling mess that makes it a genuine challenge to find any real enjoyment in its craziness.
7
‘Attack Force’ (2006)
Yet another individual without whom no list of the worst films in any category would be complete, Steven Seagal was once a genuinely respected and admired action star, before his reputation collapsed and he started to appear in deplorable project after deplorable project. But while the category of “worst Steven Seagal movie” is one with many strong candidates, there’s one that stands out above the rest: the straight-to-video flop Attack Force.
With egregiously clunky visuals, a nigh-unwatchable Seagal performance, and some of the worst action sequences ever filmed, Attack Force is an absolute monstrosity that not even Seagal’s (partly ironic) cult following is able to enjoy. It’s not even entirely a Steven Seagal movie, as much of the actor’s dialogue was overdubbed with a voice double, which is nothing if not proof that even he knew he was starring in a sad excuse for a movie.
6
‘2025: The World Enslaved by a Virus’ (2021)
Religious cinema, and Christian cinema in particular, can be absolutely fantastic when a filmmaker sets their mind to it; but it can also provide some of the most laughably awful movies in history. Case in point for the latter: 2025: The World Enslaved by a Virus, one of the worst movies of all time, a production that achieves the almost-admirable feat of offering not a single redeeming quality.
You could hand a group of first-graders a cheap camera and they could probably make a film with a more coherent plot, better acting, less ugly visuals, and definitely much less of a “victim card” feeling. The World Enslaved by a Virus isn’t just bad: It’s embarrassing, and so dumb in virtually every aspect imaginable that the titular virus ends up being a lethal case of cringe.
5
‘The Hottie & the Nottie’ (2008)
Starring Paris Hilton, The Hottie and the Nottie is one of the unfunniest 2000s comedy movies, and that’s saying an awful lot. It’s a raunchy rom-com about a woman who agrees to go on a date with a man only if he finds a suitor for her unattractive best friend. Painfully misogynistic and crass in equal measure, it’s an absolutely inept gross-out comedy with a deplorable performance by Hilton at its helm.
The humor is painfully trite and constantly offensive (a killer combo that should be perfectly able to make absolutely no one laugh).
Nothing about The Hottie and the Nottie works. The humor is painfully trite and constantly offensive (a killer combo that should be perfectly able to make absolutely no one laugh), the writing is abysmal, and the movie’s badness isn’t even silly enough for it to be camp—it’s just plain atrocious.It’s an absolutely disgusting movie, and it’s not even ironically worth watching.
4
‘Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2’ (2004)
The original Baby Geniuses was so awful that those poor few who had to be subjected to its ugliness couldn’t fathom a world where a worse movie could possibly exist. But director Bob Clark was apparently a cruel, sadistic man, which is probably why he unleashed Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 on unsuspecting victims five years after the original’s release.
Baby Geniuses 2‘s score of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes is itself an achievement. It is, indeed, one of the worst movies of the 2000s by far, full of excruciatingly unfunny humor and completely artless filmmaking. It’s such a nonsensical and intellect-killing romp that it shouldn’t even be watched by the young target audience it’s aimed at. Eating dirt would genuinely be a more productive use of their time and attention.
3
‘Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas’ (2014)
Yet another example of Christian cinema gone horribly wrong, Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas has gone down in history as one of the most unwatchable movies ever made, and for good reason. Starring—you guessed it—Kirk Cameron, this sorry excuse for a Christmas flick became the lowest-rated movie on IMDb just a month after its release, and it kept that record for a good, long while.
No matter how desperately Cameron tried to claim that the film’s negative reception was part of a big atheist conspiracy, Saving Christmas is just bad. The acting (particularly Cameron’s) is painfully awful, and the story makes absolutely no sense. Instead, the film—which is arguably the worst holiday film ever made—feels like little more than Cameron encouraging people to use Christmas as an excuse to shop, shop, shop.
2
‘Birdemic: Shock and Terror’ (2010)
Back in 1963, Alfred Hitchcock proved with The Birds that these beautiful winged creatures could also serve as monstrous villains for a great horror film. The thing is that James Nguyen is no Hitchcock, and so, Birdemic: Shock and Terror is no The Birds. Instead, it’s one of the most hilariously abysmal movies ever made.
Thankfully, Birdemic isn’t just bad: Much like The Room, it’s so terrible that it’s absolutely hilarious. It’s stupid, it’s clichéd, it’s visually unappealing, and the writing makes next to no sense–but it does all of that perfectly. It’s one of the worst movies of the last half-century, yes, but it defies traditional criticism in that, no matter how awful it is, it’s an irresistible blast of fun from start to finish.
1
‘Foodfight!’ (2012)
Foodfight! transcends the boundaries of the Seventh Art. It’s not just bad; it’s not just so weird that it’s almost surreal; it’s not just the dumbest and most nonsensical idea anyone’s ever had for an animated film: It’s ungodly. Over the years since its release, many have referred to it as the single worst film of the 2010s, and it’s frankly quite hard to convincingly disagree with them.
Foodfight! defies all manner of descriptions. Its half-baked visuals are pure nightmare fuel, its script makes so little sense that it almost operates on somewhat-convincing dream logic, and its cast (featuring the likes of Charlie Sheen and Eva Longoria) is so stacked that you have to wonder where the hell all that budget came from. Foodfight!, by any and all stretches of the word, makes no sense, and that’s what makes it one of the most unwatchable animated movies ever made. The Room may be awful, but this is on a different category.
Foodfight!
- Release Date
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June 15, 2012
- Runtime
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91 minutes
- Director
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Lawrence Kasanoff
- Writers
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Brent V. Friedman, Rebecca Swanson
