A few weeks ago, I made a list of my Top 10 Favorite Films, and a friend of mine suggested that I make my own Worst Movies list, because they’re more fun and everyone loves to commiserate in bad movies. I obviously haven’t seen all movies or even a lot of all of the movies, so my list will probably be different from yours.

I’ve decided to split the list into three categories: “Just Plain Bad," “Fun in a Group," and “Could Have Been Good," since some of the movies on this list are not nearly as bad as others.

Here we go!

Just Plain Bad

Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

Being a fan of the horror genre, I understand that the measures for a ‘good movie’ and ‘good horror movie’ are slightly skewed, but holy guacamole, is this movie terrible. There are good ("It Follows," "The Conjuring") and there are bad horror movies ("Purge," "Ouija," "Annabelle"), and then there’s this movie, which is on a whole different level. The plot is random, the acting is uninspired, and the top-billed actor (Jesse McCartney) is in the movie for all of maybe 30 minutes.

Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

Now, it’s been a while since I’ve seen this movie, but even as a child I understood that there was little right with this movie. The fact that it was based on the role-playing game has little to do with the actual plot of the movie, and, oh man, is this plot bad. Like, Jeremy Irons as the bad guy kind of makes sense, but why is Marlon Wayans in this movie? And the entire design of Damodar’s character with the red ears, blue lipstick, and all. Just bad overall.

Wild Wild West (1999)

This is probably one of the more popular choices on my list, but regardless, this is arguably both Will Smith and Kenneth Branagh’s worst movies of their careers. The plot is hokey, the effects are actually pretty good for the time, but the whole concept of steampunk West feels almost too fantastical. Maybe if the story was portrayed more seriously or was not a comedy at all, this could have been good, but otherwise, it wasn’t very good. And yet, the song for the movie was even worse.

Darkman (1990)

Sam Raimi? Liam Neeson? Frances McDormand? What could go wrong? Everything. It’s cheesy, but in the campy 90’s way, like “Batman & Robin." It was probably good for the time, but now, it just seems so over the top that it should be considered a comedy, not an action movie. Thankfully, all of them have gone on to do better things.

The Last Airbender (2010)

Everyone who’s seen this movie will agree that it completely deserves to be on this list. Consider the poor casting and the completely random screenplay that had close to ten hours of source material to work with and decided to somehow add or change major plot points across the board. This could technically be in the “Fun in a Group” section, if a group of fans were masochistic and wanted to torture themselves for two hours.

Fun to Watch in a Group

The Yellow Wallpaper (2012)

I had to watch this movie for a class, and after reading the 6000-word story, I was wondering how a story that short could be turned into a two-hour long movie. The answer was to turn it into a thriller that had very little to do with the original story. Even if you divorce the original story from this movie, the plot makes so little sense and the acting is so wooden that I wonder why no one questioned why anything was happening during the filming. This is a borderline between “Fun in a Group” and “Just Plain Bad."

The Room (2003)

The piece de resistance of bad cinema; if you haven’t seen it, you’ve probably heard about it or seen something from it on the internet somewhere. There isn’t much I can say about this raging dumpster fire of a movie that hasn’t already been said by someone else, so if you’re even slightly interested, I highly suggest getting a group of friends together and ripping apart this terrible movie. It’ll be quite the time.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008)

Another universally accepted bad movie, if you can get past the repetitive and ear-scarring bird sound effects, this is another one that you and your friends can have a lot of fun with. It’s almost as bad as “The Room” in most respects, but has the added bonus of probably the worst special effects you will ever see. Have fun.

Outcast (2014)

Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen? Sign. Me. Up. While there are actually some good things about this movie (for example, the scouts who found places to shoot did a great job of finding landscape areas that were very pretty), the acting is all over the place. Christensen is actually bearable for much of it until Cage shows up, at which point the movie jumps off the rails and never comes back. Grab your friends and enjoy the Cage as the White Ghost.

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

Aliens want to stop humans from making a doomsday machine, so they start turning them into zombies. Yes, that’s the plot. It was made in 1959, so the effects are practical but not great, and that would be forgivable if the plot made a lick of sense and had any kind of continuity to it. This is usually paired along with “The Room” and “Birdemic” as one of the worst movies ever made. It’s a blast from the past.

Could Have Been Good

Sucker Punch (2011)

When I saw trailers for this back when it came out, it looked really cool—and that’s still true now. The stylization of the movie and the way it was shot are both well done, and the soundtrack for it is (mostly) great as well. But the story is so needlessly convoluted. They could have been like ”Pacific Rim” and just made a fun movie that you didn’t have to think about a lot, and that would’ve been better than this overly complex plot that explained very little. It’s like the teenage version of “Inception,” but no one can die inside the dreams; they just stand back up when giant samurai robots hit them with giant katanas.

World War Z (2013)

Now, I’m not saying that this is one of the worst movies ever made, but considering the potential it had and the amount of money that was poured into it, it should have been a much better movie than it was. The plot is kind of all over the place, and Brad Pitt feels tired for much of the movie, both of which make more sense when you find out there some scenes were reshot three or four times because the screenplay kept getting rewritten. I don’t by any means hate this movie, but I’m really disappointed in how the final product ended up. It’s still an entertaining movie, but entertaining doesn’t always equal good.

Push (2009)

I would like to begin this by saying that I actually love this movie. I know, I know; it doesn’t really make sense for me to be putting this on my worst movies list. But I can say this is a bad movie but I still enjoy it despite its flaws, which is better than saying “this is a good movie because I like it.” While the world that is created is really cool and the soundtrack is fantastic, the way they choose to end the movie is kind of dumb, and while that didn’t ruin the whole movie for me, it is still a pretty bad ending. There was so much put into the world that I wish it had been made into a miniseries and not a movie because there’s a lot of the story that is only used once and it would be cool to see it in a bigger role.

Knowing (2009)

Oh man, this movie. I was on board when this first came out. It looked awesome. But the whole story is so implausible, while trying to seem realistic, and the ending is so bad that I have officially decided that movies that end with aliens are almost universally bad. Like “Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Anyway, maybe if the ending had been better, this would have been good.

Battleship (2012)

Another movie based on a game, like “Dungeons & Dragons," that didn’t pan out as well as it really could have. Actually, have there been any movies based on games or video games that have actually been good thus far? (Holding out for "Assassin’s Creed" and "Warcraft.") Anyway, the tie-in to the board game with buoys was kind of dumb, and overall, the action just felt like stock footage from the “Transformers” movies, which could have easily made it on this list as well.

“Das Jus Me Doe” – the1janitor

What are the worst movies that you have ever seen?

Do you agree with my list? Or do you like these movies?

Let me know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading!