20 Of The Worst Movies That Never Should Have Been Made

Movies are always going to spark debate. One person’s favorite cult classic can be another person’s biggest waste of two hours, and even critically acclaimed films can divide audiences. But every so often, a movie comes along that seems to bring viewers together for all the wrong reasons. These are the films that miss so badly, whether because of awkward dialogue, poor effects, confusing plots, or baffling creative choices, that their reputations become almost impossible to escape.

Of course, not every box-office disappointment deserves to be remembered as one of the worst. Plenty of good movies fail because of bad timing, weak marketing, or tough competition. The films on this list, though, earned their place for reasons that go beyond ticket sales. From infamous flops to movies that critics and audiences still point to as cautionary tales, these are 20 of the worst movies that never should have been made.

Released in theaters in 2000, with a 0% score on the Tomatometer, "3 Strikes" takes place in a world where the government has adopted a three-strikes system for people who commit crimes, involving serious penalties for people who reach the third strike. The main character, Rob, has two strikes and is trying to improve his life when he and his friend are pulled over for a traffic infraction and his friend fires shots at the police. Rob escapes from the altercation but he’s now a wanted man and he must clear his name or he’ll receive his third strike.

This film was released in 2016 and has the distinct privilege of earning both an awful Tomatometer (0% score) and an audience rating (12%). "Cabin Fever" follows a group of young adults who face an outbreak of a flesh-eating virus while staying in a cabin in the woods. According to critics (and apparently audiences), it is one of the worst movies of all time.

The audience score for this film is middling on Rotten Tomatoes, with the movie having a 42% audience score, but that's significantly better than the 0% Tomatometer score it has. There were no positive reviews.

"Problem Child" follows a young couple who are struggling to have children. They adopt a young boy who seems to bring problems with him wherever he goes. Critics found the movie’s humor to be mean-spirited, damaging its ability to be funny at best and being genuinely unpleasant to watch at worst.

This unique take on the Western formula follows a group of disillusioned settlers who have decided they don’t like living in the Wild West anymore. They hire a wagon master to take them back East to where they came from but the railroad investors in the West don’t want them telling people that the West isn’t glory and riches like they believed so the investors do their best to stall the group and prevent them from returning to the East.

Unfortunately, "Wagons East" wasn’t that great of a movie and has a 0% Tomatometer score. Even audiences weren’t taken with it, as it has a mere 32% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

This movie picks up where its predecessor "The Blue Lagoon" left off. In "Return to the Blue Lagoon" more kids are exploring their young adulthood without any type of parental or societal oversight and ultimately, the movie falls into the same trap as the first one: it essentially revolves around barely clothed teenagers which can be alienating regardless of your age bracket. This sequel has a 0% Tomatometer score and a 41% audience score, making it easily one of the worst films of all time regardless of your intention when watching it.

This 2010 film is another take on the classic ballet and has us following Mary, a young girl from Vienna, Austria who finds Christmas to be a boring affair. Her uncle brings her an enchanted nutcracker named NC, which comes to life on Christmas night, and whisks Mary away to his magical land of fairies and talking toys.

The kingdom that NC is from is under threat by the devious Rat King and Mary must unite with her newfound companions to save NC when he is kidnapped. "The Nutcracker" is meant to be a children’s movie, but critics hated it and, based on its 27% audience score, so did the children.

Based on the book of the same name, "London Fields," released in 2018, follows a clairvoyant young woman, Nicola Six, who has been haunted by a prophecy of her death by murder. She starts love affairs with three separate and unique men, one of whom will be the man who kills her.

The book was well-received and acclaimed, but the movie misses the mark, and critics find it had a severe and irretrievable deviation from the source material. Audiences found it slightly more acceptable, giving it a total 32% audience score, but it has a 0% Tomatometer score.

This action-thriller released in 2018 follows an MI6 agent who has recently lost his American counterpart. He and his team must race against the clock as they try to stop a madman from unleashing stolen chemical weapons on the public. Critics hated "Stratton," earning it a 0% Tomatometer score. They criticized the poor casting choices, bad acting, and uninspired screenwriting, and some critics felt the actor for the main role failed to hit the mark of bringing the loneliness that must follow the loss of a professional partner in such a field to life.

The 2016 film "Dark Crimes" earned a 0% Tomatometer score and a disappointing 30% audience score. The story follows a detective who becomes suspicious of an author when he realizes the books the author is writing closely resemble the details of an unsolved murder case. While the premise of the film is rather intriguing, it fails to deliver. Even the prime casting choices (Jim Carrey) weren’t enough to carry the middling screenplay choices.

If you do not like Adam Sandler, you will not have a good time watching "The Ridiculous 6". His movies often rely on offensive humor and the characters in his movies tend to feel outdated and overplayed. This is his take on the Western formula and like most Adam Sandler movies, the humor is offensive, and the characters are one-dimensional and grating, especially the female ones. It has a 0% Tomatometer score and a 36% audience score.

It's hard to think that this is related to the original summer blockbuster, "Jaws", but this fourth - and final - installment of the great white shark saga follows Chief Brody's widow, Ellen, whose family is just cursed with shark attacks. At the film's start, Ellen’s son is killed by a massive great white shark. She then visits her other son in the Bahamas to recover from her loss, when she meets a guy named Hoagie Newcombe.

Ellen and Hoagie enjoy a flirtation when behold! A giant shark appears off the coastline and there’s more disjointed shark attack-related stuff. "Jaws The Revenge" received a 0% Tomatometer score. This movie doesn’t make any sense and has a disjointed story and poor screenwriting.

"The Last Days of American Crime" is set in a world where the government is set to broadcast a signal that will end crime. The story’s main characters use this to plan a massive heist before the signal is broadcast. But what really made this movie unpopular was that its release was around the same time as the George Floyd protests and the movie is quite violent and depicts police brutality.

Its release was poorly timed, making the film appear tone-deaf but critics described the film as a punishment in and of itself. It has a 0% Tomatometer score and just 22% in its audience score, indicating that no one liked it. Ultimately, these factors along with its poor writing and weak characters influenced its reception as one of the worst movies of all time.

The 2003 film "Gold Diggers" is an attempt at the age-old comedy trope of inheritance/insurance scams. It follows two broke men, Calvin and Leonard, who get arrested after trying to rob two rich elderly women, but the women have a change of heart after the boys are arrested and drop the charges, inviting the boys to their mansion. Critics hated it for being mean-spirited, unfunny, and played out. Audiences didn’t like it much better as the movie has just a 21% audience score.

A sequel to the 1999 film, "Baby Geniuses," "Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2" is just - or even worse - than the first film. No one liked "Baby Geniuses." The movie follows a group of babies with superpowers as they try to stop a media mogul from using television to alter children’s minds. It was meant to be a children’s movie, but not even children should be subjected to this awful film.

Roberto Benigni made an adaption of Pinocchio in 2002 that just flopped. On the surface, it’s a pretty cut-and-dry Pinocchio adaptation that follows the source material very faithfully. That can be a positive for people who are looking for that. However, it’s all downhill from there.

A large part of the criticism of Benigni’s "Pinnochio" is that it casts Roberto Benigni as Pinocchio, which many critics found distasteful as he’s perhaps not as young for the role. If you’re going to watch it, we recommend watching it in Italian with English subtitles. Horrible dubs and casting choices aside, the movie is relatively unremarkable.

The 2018 film "Gotti" follows a young man named John Gotti. Raised on the streets of New York City, John finds himself on the wrong side of the law, working for the Gambino crime family. Eventually, he rises through the ranks and becomes the head of the family but his wife makes him promise that he will never expose their children to his profession, wanting their children to grow up normally.

John breaks that promise when his son becomes his Capo. Critics found the movie hard to watch, noting that the costume design for John Travolta’s character, John Gotti, is terrible.

This film gives us literary agent Jack McCall (Eddie Murphy) whose silver tongue allows him to quickly and easily close deals with clients. However, when he seeks out Dr. Sinja (Cliff Curtis), the doctor sees through his schemes. Following the encounter, a mysterious tree appears in McCall’s yard. Dr. Sinja explains that the tree is connected to him; every time McCall says a word, a leaf falls off the tree and when the final leaf falls, Jack will die.

With only one thousand leaves left on the tree, McCall needs to learn to communicate without speaking or the worst will come to pass. Critics found the choice to cast Eddie Murphy, a notoriously loud-mouthed comedian, as a tongue-tied, quiet protagonist a terrible option, and not being able to make use of his primary comedic tools left a negative mark.

This film about rapture takes us into a world where everything and everyone is thrown for a loop when hundreds of thousands of people vanish without a trace, leaving behind only their clothing. The sudden rapture causes car crashes, planes dropping out of the sky, and other major tragedies as people disappear into thin air.

Critics didn’t like much about "Left Behind," from the corny music and poor screenwriting to the terrible VFX. They also made fun of the fact that the whole movie is essentially just a man trying to land a plane.

In the film "One Missed Call," we follow a woman who witnesses two friends die in tragic accidents, but days before the incidents, the two victims received phone calls in which they heard their final moments. The police don’t believe it, but one detective decides to work with the main character to unravel the incidents. Critics found the movie boring, and what could have been an excellent American J-horror remake movie ended up being cliche and overplayed instead.

"Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" is a perfect movie if you simply want all action. Unfortunately, that's about all it offers, with nothing of substance. There is so little to this movie that it is almost impossible to even write a mini-review of it because there’s nothing to say about it.