Roger Ebert's Most Hated
by peter1-8 | created - 18 Dec 2010 | updated - 04 Jan 2012 | PublicThe following includes all the movies that appear on Roger Ebert's list of most hated films, plus several others that he wrote extremely scathing reviews of. Snippets from his reviews are included in quotation marks.
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101. Mother's Day (1980)
Unrated | 91 min | Comedy, Horror, Thriller
Two brothers kidnap and brutalize three women for the pleasure of their demented mother.
Director: Charles Kaufman | Stars: Tiana Pierce, Nancy Hendrickson, Deborah Luce, Frederick Coffin
Votes: 6,204
"Mother's Day" is the latest reprehensible specimen of the geek film, so-called because such films are about the activities of that subcategory of humans formerly found in the carnival sideshows, biting the heads off chickens... The question, of course, of why anybody of any age would possibly want to see this film remains without an answer."
102. My Life in Ruins (2009)
PG-13 | 95 min | Comedy, Romance
A disgruntled tour guide in Greece gains an unexpected new outlook on life thanks to one of the people on what she intends to be her last tour.
Director: Donald Petrie | Stars: Nia Vardalos, Richard Dreyfuss, Rachel Dratch, Alexis Georgoulis
Votes: 20,869 | Gross: $8.66M
"Nia Vardalos plays most of "My Life in Ruins" with a fixed toothpaste smile, which is no wonder, because her acting in the film feels uncomfortably close to her posing for a portrait. Rarely has a film centered on a character so superficial and unconvincing, played with such unrelenting sameness. I didn't hate it so much as feel sorry for it... There is, in short, nothing I liked about "My Life in Ruins," except some of the ruins..."
103. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)
PG-13 | 130 min | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
After Edward leaves because of an incident involving Bella, Jacob Black becomes her best friend. But what Bella doesn't realize is that Jacob also has a secret that will change their lives suddenly.
Director: Chris Weitz | Stars: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Christina Jastrzembska
Votes: 300,121 | Gross: $296.62M
"The characters in this movie should be arrested for loitering with intent to moan. Never have teenagers been in greater need of a jump-start. Granted some of them are more than 100 years old, but still: their charisma is by Madame Tussaud... sitting through this experience is like driving a tractor in low gear though a sullen sea of Brylcreem."
104. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)
PG | 105 min | Adventure, Comedy, Family
Security guard Larry Daley infiltrates the Smithsonian Institution in order to rescue Jedediah and Octavius, who have been shipped to the museum by mistake.
Director: Shawn Levy | Stars: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Amy Adams, Hank Azaria
Votes: 212,817 | Gross: $177.24M
"Oh, did I dislike this film. It made me squirm. Its premise is lame, its plot relentlessly predictable, its characters with personalities that would distinguish picture books, its cost incalculable (well, $150,000,000). Watching historical figures enact the cliches identified with the most simplistic versions of their images, I found myself yet once again echoing the frequent cry of Gene Siskel: Why not just give us a documentary of the same actors having lunch?"
105. Night of the Living Dead (1990)
R | 92 min | Horror
When the unburied dead return to life and seek human victims, seven refugees shelter in a house in the Pennsylvanian countryside.
Director: Tom Savini | Stars: Tony Todd, Patricia Tallman, Tom Towles, McKee Anderson
Votes: 45,511 | Gross: $5.84M
"The discovery of the people in the basement leads to the movie's longest-running non-event, a bitter fight between Towles and the others about whether they should all hide out in the basement, or stay upstairs. Todd says no to the basement. Towles says yes, frothing at the mouth. They scream at each other in confrontations in which the overacting is so ludicrous, it gets bad laughs. Towles is an actor who can indeed be chilling; he is unforgettable playing Otis, the mass murderer's slack jawed friend, in "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer." But here, like all of the other actors, he is wasted on a film that confuses screaming with emotion."
106. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
R | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
The spectre of a disfigured man haunts the children of the parents who murdered him, stalking and killing them in their dreams.
Director: Samuel Bayer | Stars: Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Katie Cassidy
Votes: 107,515 | Gross: $63.08M
"I stared at "A Nightmare on Elm Street" with weary resignation. The movie consists of a series of teenagers who are introduced, haunted by nightmares and then slashed to death by Freddy. So what? Are we supposed to be scared? Is the sudden clanging chord supposed to evoke a fearful Pavlovian response? For Rufus, maybe, but not for me. Here, boy."
107. North (1994)
PG | 87 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Sick of the neglect he receives from his mom and dad, a young boy leaves home and travels the world in search of new parents.
Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: Elijah Wood, Bruce Willis, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Votes: 14,760 | Gross: $7.14M
"I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."
108. The Nutcracker: The Untold Story (2010)
PG | 110 min | Action, Family, Fantasy
In 1920s Vienna, a young girl receives a magical doll on Christmas Eve.
Director: Andrey Konchalovskiy | Stars: Richard Philipps, Fernanda Dorogi, Kriszta Dorogi, Dániel Mogács
Votes: 4,178 | Gross: $0.20M
"From what dark night of the soul emerged the wretched idea for “The Nutcracker in 3D”? Who considered it even remotely a plausible idea for a movie?... “The Nutcracker in 3D” easily qualifies as one of the most preposterous ideas in the history of the movies. It isn't a story, it's a gag line for one of David Letterman's “Top 10 Lists” (No. 9, “It's a Horrible Life”; No. 8, “A Christmas Carol in Hell”)."
109. Old Dogs (I) (2009)
PG | 88 min | Comedy, Family
Two friends and business partners find their lives turned upside-down when strange circumstances lead them to be the temporary guardians of 7-year-old twins.
Director: Walt Becker | Stars: Robin Williams, John Travolta, Seth Green, Kelly Preston
Votes: 39,578 | Gross: $49.49M
"Old Dogs" is stupefying dimwitted. What were John Travolta and Robin Williams thinking of? Apparently their agents weren't perceptive enough to smell the screenplay in its advanced state of decomposition, but wasn't there a loyal young intern in the office to catch them at the elevator and whisper, "You've paid too many dues to get involved with such crap at this stage in your careers."
110. The Other Sister (1999)
PG-13 | 129 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A mentally challenged young woman seeks independence by obtaining her own apartment and attending college while her family plans her sister's wedding.
Director: Garry Marshall | Stars: Juliette Lewis, Diane Keaton, Giovanni Ribisi, Tom Skerritt
Votes: 13,066 | Gross: $27.80M
"``The Other Sister'' is shameless in its use of mental retardation as a gimmick, a prop and a plot device. Anyone with any knowledge of retardation is likely to find the film offensive. It treats the characters like cute little performing seals--who always deliver their ``retarded'' dialogue with perfect timing and an edge of irony and drama. Their zingers slide out with the precision of sitcom punch lines."
111. Pearl Harbor (2001)
PG-13 | 183 min | Action, Drama, Romance
A tale of war and romance mixed in with history. The story follows two lifelong friends and a beautiful nurse who are caught up in the horror of an infamous Sunday morning in 1941.
Director: Michael Bay | Stars: Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett, William Lee Scott
Votes: 351,904 | Gross: $198.54M
"Pearl Harbor" is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialog, it will not be because you admire them."
112. The Perfect Man (2005)
PG | 100 min | Comedy, Family, Romance
A lonely mother begins receiving romantic e-mails from a secret admirer, unaware that this perfect man is really a creation of her daughter who is trying to cheer her up.
Director: Mark Rosman | Stars: Hilary Duff, Heather Locklear, Aria Wallace, Chris Noth
Votes: 32,083 | Gross: $16.25M
"The Perfect Man" takes its idiotic plot and uses it as the excuse for scenes of awesome stupidity... "The Perfect Man" crawls hand over bloody hand up the stony face of this plot, while we in the audience do not laugh because it is not nice to laugh at those less fortunate than ourselves, and the people in this movie are less fortunate than the people in just about any other movie I can think of, simply because they are in it."
113. The Princess Diaries (2001)
G | 115 min | Comedy, Family, Romance
Mia Thermopolis has just found out that she is the heir apparent to the throne of Genovia. With her friends Lilly and Michael Moscovitz in tow, she tries to navigate through the rest of her sixteenth year.
Director: Garry Marshall | Stars: Julie Andrews, Anne Hathaway, Hector Elizondo, Heather Matarazzo
Votes: 163,654 | Gross: $108.25M
"Haven't I seen this movie before? "The Princess Diaries" is a march through the swamp of recycled ugly duckling stories, with occasional pauses in the marsh of sitcom cliches and the bog of Idiot Plots. You recall the Idiot Plot. That's the plot that would be solved in an instant if anyone on the screen said what was obvious to the audience. A movie like this isn't entertainment. It's more like a party game where you lose if you say the secret word."
114. The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004)
G | 113 min | Comedy, Family, Romance
Now settled in Genovia, Princess Mia faces a new revelation: she is being primed for an arranged marriage to an English suitor.
Director: Garry Marshall | Stars: Anne Hathaway, Callum Blue, Julie Andrews, Hector Elizondo
Votes: 88,954 | Gross: $95.17M
"In this case, I am not a young girl, nor have I ever been, and so how would I know if one would like it? Of course, that's exactly the objection I get in e-mails from young readers, who complain that no one like me can possibly like a movie like this. They are correct. I have spent a long time, starting at birth and continuing until this very moment, evolving into the kind of person who could not possibly like a movie like this, and I like to think the effort was not in vain."
115. Resident Evil (2002)
R | 100 min | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
A special military unit fights a powerful, out-of-control supercomputer and hundreds of scientists who have mutated into flesh-eating creatures after a laboratory accident.
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson | Stars: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Ryan McCluskey, Oscar Pearce
Votes: 288,541 | Gross: $40.12M
"Resident Evil" is a zombie movie set in the 21st century and therefore reflects several advances over 20th century films. For example, in 20th century slasher movies, knife blades make a sharpening noise when being whisked through thin air. In the 21st century, large metallic objects make crashing noises just by being looked at."
116. Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
R | 94 min | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Alice wakes up in the Raccoon City hospital after the area has been overrun by zombies, and must now make it out of the city before a nuclear bomb is dropped.
Director: Alexander Witt | Stars: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Eric Mabius, Oded Fehr
Votes: 210,006 | Gross: $51.20M
"But zombies themselves are not interesting, because all they do is stagger and moan. As I observed in my review of the first film, "they walk with the lurching shuffle of a drunk trying to skate through urped Slushees to the men's room.... Parents: If you encounter teenagers who say they liked this movie, do not let them date your children."
117. Saturn 3 (1980)
R | 88 min | Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi
Two lovers stationed at a remote base in the asteroid belt of Saturn are intruded upon by an anal-retentive technocrat from Earth and his charge: a malevolent eight foot tall robot.
Directors: Stanley Donen, John Barry | Stars: Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel, Ed Bishop
Votes: 10,491
"The level of intelligence of the screenplay of "Saturn 3" is shockingly low - the story is so dumb it would be laughed out of any junior high school class in the country - and yet the movie was financed... This movie is awesomely stupid, totally implausible from a scientific viewpoint, and a shameful waste of money. If Grade and Kastner intend to continue producing films with standards this low, I think they ought instead, in simple fairness, to simply give their money to filmmakers at random. The results couldn't be worse."
118. The Scarlet Letter (1995)
R | 135 min | Drama, Romance
An affair between a young woman and a pastor has disastrous consequences.
Director: Roland Joffé | Stars: Demi Moore, Gary Oldman, Robert Duvall, Lisa Andoh
Votes: 16,299 | Gross: $10.40M
"The film version imagines all of the events leading up to the adultery, photographed in the style of those "Playboy's Fantasies" videos. It adds action: Indians, deadly fights, burning buildings, even the old trick where the condemned on the scaffold are saved by a violent interruption. And it converts the Rev. Dimmesdale from a scoundrel into a romantic and a weakling, perhaps because the times are not right for a movie about a fundamentalist hypocrite. It also gives us a red bird, which seems to represent the devil, and a shapely slave girl, who seems to represent the filmmakers' desire to introduce voyeurism into the big sex scenes."
119. See Spot Run (2001)
PG | 94 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
A mailman takes care of a dog that, unbeknownst to him, is an FBI drug-sniffing superdog that has escaped from the witness protection program after becoming the target of an assassination.
Director: John Whitesell | Stars: David Arquette, Michael Clarke Duncan, Leslie Bibb, Joe Viterelli
Votes: 9,733 | Gross: $33.36M
"See Spot Run" is pitched at the same intellectual level as the earlier stories involving Spot, which I found so immensely involving in the first grade. There are a few refinements. The characters this time are named Gordon, Stephanie and James, instead of Dick and Jane. And I don't recall the Spot books describing the hero rolling around in doggy poo, or a gangster getting his testicles bitten off, but times change. The gangster is named Sonny Talia, in a heroic act of restraint by the filmmakers, who could have named him Gino with no trouble at all."
120. Sex and the City 2 (2010)
R | 146 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
While wrestling with the pressures of life, love, and work in Manhattan, Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte join Samantha for a trip to Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), where Samantha's ex is filming a new movie.
Director: Michael Patrick King | Stars: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon
Votes: 84,053 | Gross: $95.35M
"Some of these people make my skin crawl. The characters of "Sex and the City 2" are flyweight bubbleheads living in a world which rarely requires three sentences in a row. Their defining quality is consuming things. They gobble food, fashion, houses, husbands, children, vitamins and freebies. They must plan their wardrobes on the phone, so often do they appear in different basic colors, like the plugs you pound into a Playskool workbench."
121. She's Out of Control (1989)
PG | 90 min | Comedy
When an average-looking teenage girl gets a makeover, it's enough to make her father become overprotective of her.
Director: Stan Dragoti | Stars: Tony Danza, Catherine Hicks, Wallace Shawn, Dick O'Neill
Votes: 4,895 | Gross: $12.07M
"What planet did the makers of this film come from? What assumptions do they have about the purpose and quality of life? I ask because "She's Out of Control" is simultaneously so bizarre and so banal that it's a first: the first movie fabricated entirely from sitcom cliches and plastic lifestyles, without reference to any known plane of reality."
122. The Skulls (2000)
PG-13 | 106 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A senior at an ivy league college, who depends on scholarships and working on the side, gets accepted into the secret society The Skulls. He hopes it betters chances at Harvard but The Skulls is not what he thought and comes at a price.
Director: Rob Cohen | Stars: Joshua Jackson, Paul Walker, Hill Harper, Leslie Bibb
Votes: 33,718 | Gross: $35.05M
"The Skulls" is one of the great howlers, a film that bears comparison, yes, with "The Greek Tycoon" or even "The Scarlet Letter." It's so ludicrous in so many different ways it achieves a kind of forlorn grandeur. It's in a category by itself."
123. Snake Eyes (1998)
R | 98 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A shady police detective finds himself in the middle of a murder conspiracy at an important boxing match in an Atlantic City casino.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, John Heard, Carla Gugino
Votes: 86,772 | Gross: $55.59M
"If Brian De Palma were as good at rewriting as he is at visual style, ``Snake Eyes'' might have been a heck of a movie. He isn't, and it isn't. It's the worst kind of bad film: the kind that gets you all worked up and then lets you down, instead of just being lousy from the first shot."
124. Sorority Boys (2002)
R | 93 min | Comedy
Strapped for cash, three fraternity playboys make one last attempt to live the high life - cheaply - by masquerading as girls. But their chauvinistic ways come back to haunt them as they get a crash course in the opposite sex.
Director: Wallace Wolodarsky | Stars: Barry Watson, Harland Williams, Michael Rosenbaum, Melissa Sagemiller
Votes: 16,255 | Gross: $10.20M
"I should be a good sport and go along with the joke. But the joke is not funny. The movie is not funny. If it's this easy to get a screenplay filmed in Hollywood, why did they bother with that Project Greenlight contest? Why not ship all the entries directly to Larry Brezner, Michael Fottrell and Walter Hamada, the producers of "Sorority Boys," who must wear Santa suits to work?"
125. Sour Grapes (1998)
R | 91 min | Comedy
Evan and Ritchie see their friendship go sour after one wins a slots jackpot with two quarters bummed from the other.
Director: Larry David | Stars: Steven Weber, Craig Bierko, Jack Burns, Viola Harris
Votes: 3,074 | Gross: $0.22M
"How to account for the fact that Larry David is one of the creators of "Seinfeld''? Maybe he works well with others. I can't easily remember a film I've enjoyed less. "North,'' a comedy I hated, was at least able to inflame me with dislike. "Sour Grapes'' is a movie that deserves its title: It's puckered, deflated and vinegary. It's a dead zone."
126. Spice World (1997)
PG | 93 min | Comedy, Family, Music
World-famous pop group the Spice Girls zip around London in their luxurious double-decker tour bus having various adventures and performing for their fans.
Director: Bob Spiers | Stars: Mel B, Emma Bunton, Melanie C, Geri Horner
Votes: 37,849 | Gross: $29.34M
"The Spice Girls are easier to tell apart than the Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that is small consolation: What can you say about five women whose principal distinguishing characteristic is that they have different names? They occupy "Spice World" as if they were watching it: They're so detached they can't even successfully lip-synch their own songs."
127. The Spirit (2008)
PG-13 | 103 min | Action, Crime, Fantasy
Rookie cop Denny Colt returns from the beyond as The Spirit, a hero whose mission is to fight against the bad forces in Central City.
Director: Frank Miller | Stars: Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Jaime King
Votes: 62,849 | Gross: $19.78M
"The Spirit" is mannered to the point of madness. There is not a trace of human emotion in it. To call the characters cardboard is to insult a useful packing material. The movie is all style -- style without substance, style whirling in a senseless void. The film's hero is an ex-cop reincarnated as an immortal enforcer; for all the personality he exhibits, we would welcome Elmer Fudd."
128. The Spy Next Door (2010)
PG | 94 min | Action, Comedy, Family
Former C.I.A. spy Bob Ho takes on his toughest assignment to date: looking after his girlfriend's three kids, who haven't exactly warmed to their mom's beau.
Director: Brian Levant | Stars: Jackie Chan, Amber Valletta, Billy Ray Cyrus, Madeline Carroll
Votes: 46,930 | Gross: $24.27M
"Truth in reviewing requires me to report that "The Spy Next Door" is precisely what you would expect from a PG-rated Jackie Chan comedy with that plot. If that's what you're looking for, you won't be disappointed. It's not what I was looking for. There are things you learn from movies like this. (1) All kids know how to use weapons better than Russian mobsters. (2) A villainess in a spy movie always dresses like a dominatrix. (3) Hummers are no help. (4) Kids always hate the guy their mom is dating until they survive in battle with him, and then they love him. (5) Whenever an adult turns away, a small child will instantly disappear. The smaller the child, the more agile. (6) Even in New Mexico, Russian gangsters wear heavy long black leather coats, which they just bought in the duty-free shops at Heathrow. These, added to their 6-foot-5-inch heights and goatees, help them blend in. (7) The mole in the CIA is always the white boss, never the Latino."
129. Stargate (1994)
PG-13 | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
An interstellar teleportation device, found in Egypt, leads to a planet with humans resembling ancient Egyptians who worship the god Ra.
Director: Roland Emmerich | Stars: Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson, Viveca Lindfors
Votes: 205,154 | Gross: $71.57M
"It is also the kind of movie where the sun god Ra, who has harnessed the ability to traverse the universe at the speed of light, still needs slaves to build his pyramids. And where the local equivalent of a Nubian princess is sent into the chamber of the Earth visitors, to pleasure them. Don't tell me there aren't any coincidences. The movie "Ed Wood," about the worst director of all time, was made to prepare us for "Stargate."
130. The Statue (1971)
R | 84 min | Comedy
A Nobel Prize-winning professor suspects his wife of infidelity when she makes and unveils an 18-foot statue of him with private parts recognizably not his own.
Director: Rod Amateau | Stars: David Niven, Virna Lisi, Robert Vaughn, Ann Bell
Votes: 313 | Gross: $0.22M
"In addition to being one of the worst movies ever perpetrated, "The Statue" is based on one of the two or three worst ideas ever conceived for a movie. How it managed to get past the office mimeograph machine, much less get read, financed, produced, acted in and even released, is a mystery maybe only that helpful stranger, with his boundless optimism for bad plots, could explain... I walked out."
131. Staying Alive (1983)
PG | 93 min | Drama, Music, Romance
Five years later, Tony Manero's Saturday Night Fever is still burning. Now he's strutting toward his biggest challenge yet: succeeding as a dancer on the Broadway stage.
Director: Sylvester Stallone | Stars: John Travolta, Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes, Steve Inwood
Votes: 17,604 | Gross: $64.89M
"Like the Rocky movies, "Staying Alive" ends with a big, visually explosive climax. It is so ludicrous it has to be seen to be believed. It's opening night on Broadway: Tony Manero not only dances like a hero, he survives a production number of fire, ice, smoke, flashing lights and laser beams, throws in an improvised solo -- and ends triumphantly by holding Finola Hughes above his head with one arm, like a quarry he has tracked and killed. The musical he is allegedly starring in is something called "Satan's Alley," but it's so laughably gauche it should have been called "Springtime for Tony." Stallone makes little effort to convince us we're watching a real stage presentation; there are camera effects the audience could never see, montages that create impossible physical moves and -- most inexplicable of all -- a vocal track, even though nobody on stage is singing. It's a mess. Travolta's big dance number looks like a high-tech TV auto commercial that got sick to its stomach."
132. Stealth (2005)
PG-13 | 121 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Deeply ensconced in a top-secret military program, three pilots struggle to bring an artificial intelligence program under control before it initiates the next world war.
Director: Rob Cohen | Stars: Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx, Sam Shepard
Votes: 56,277 | Gross: $32.12M
"'Stealth" is an offense against taste, intelligence and the noise pollution code -- a dumbed-down "Top Gun" crossed with the HAL 9000 plot from "2001." It might be of interest to you if you want to see lots of jet airplanes going real fast and making a lot of noise, and if you don't care that the story doesn't merely defy logic, but strips logic bare, cremates it and scatters its ashes. Here is a movie with the nerve to discuss a computer brain "like a quantum sponge" while violating Newton's Laws of Motion."
133. Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)
PG-13 | 87 min | Action, Comedy
A tough police sergeant's overbearing mother comes to visit him and begins to meddle in his life and career.
Director: Roger Spottiswoode | Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Estelle Getty, JoBeth Williams, Roger Rees
Votes: 44,764 | Gross: $28.41M
"`Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" is one of those movies so dimwitted, so utterly lacking in even the smallest morsel of redeeming value, that you stare at the screen in stunned disbelief. It is moronic beyond comprehension, an exercise in desperation during which even Sylvester Stallone, a repository of self-confidence, seems to be disheartened."
134. The Story of Us (1999)
R | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Ben and Katie Jordan are a married couple who go through hard times in fifteen years of marriage.
Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: Bruce Willis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Colleen Rennison, Jake Sandvig
Votes: 24,987 | Gross: $27.07M
"Rob Reiner's "The Story of Us" is a sad-sack movie about the misery of a married couple (Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer) who fight most of the time. Watching it is like taking a long trip in a small car with the Bickersons. I leave it to you to guess whether the movie has a happy ending, but what if it does? A movie like this is about what we endure while we're watching it, not about where it finally arrives."
135. Swing Kids (1993)
PG-13 | 112 min | Drama, Music
A group of teens adores forbidden music in Nazi Germany just before the outbreak of World War II.
Director: Thomas Carter | Stars: Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale, Frank Whaley, Barbara Hershey
Votes: 17,356 | Gross: $5.63M
"The screenplay is so murky, indeed, that I was never sure whether the Kids hated the Hitler Youth lads because they were Nazis, or simply because they didn't swing. At a time when civilization was crashing down around their ears and Hitler was planning the Holocaust, it doesn't make them particularly noble that they'd rather listen to big bands than enlist in the military. Who wouldn't?"
136. Taste of Cherry (1997)
Not Rated | 95 min | Drama
An Iranian man drives his car in search of someone who will quietly bury him under a cherry tree after he commits suicide.
Director: Abbas Kiarostami | Stars: Homayoun Ershadi, Abdolhosein Bagheri, Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari, Safar Ali Moradi
Votes: 36,790 | Gross: $0.31M
"A case can be made for the movie, but it would involve transforming the experience of viewing the film (which is excruciatingly boring) into something more interesting, a fable about life and death. Just as a bad novel can be made into a good movie, so can a boring movie be made into a fascinating movie review."
137. Terror Train (1980)
R | 97 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Three years after a prank went terribly awry, the six college students responsible are targeted by a masked killer at a New Year's Eve party aboard a moving train.
Director: Roger Spottiswoode | Stars: Ben Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hart Bochner, David Copperfield
Votes: 13,855
"...The classic horror films of the 1930s appealed to the intelligence of its audiences, to their sense of humor and irony. Movies like "Terror Train," and all of its sordid predecessors and its rip-offs still to come, just don't care. They're a series of sensations, strung together on a plot. Any plot will do. Just don't forget the knife, and the girl, and the blood."
138. Thir13en Ghosts (2001)
R | 91 min | Fantasy, Horror
When Cyrus Kriticos, a very rich collector of unique things, dies, he leaves his house, fortune, and his prized collection of ghosts.
Director: Steve Beck | Stars: Tony Shalhoub, Shannon Elizabeth, Embeth Davidtz, Matthew Lillard
Votes: 93,847 | Gross: $41.87M
"The shatterproof glass cages, we learn, are engraved with ''containment spells'' that keep the ghosts inside. You can see the ghosts with special glasses, which the cast is issued; when they see them, we see them, usually in shots so maddeningly brief we don't get a good look. Our consolation, I guess, is that the cast has the glasses but we will have the pause button when ''13 Ghosts'' comes out on DVD. The only button this movie needs more than pause is delete."
139. Thor (2011)
PG-13 | 115 min | Action, Fantasy
The powerful but arrogant god Thor is cast out of Asgard to live amongst humans in Midgard (Earth), where he soon becomes one of their finest defenders.
Director: Kenneth Branagh | Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston
Votes: 900,467 | Gross: $181.03M
"Thor" is failure as a movie, but a success as marketing, an illustration of the ancient carnival tactic of telling the rubes anything to get them into the tent. "You won't believe what these girls take off!" a carny barker promised me and my horny pals one steamy night at the Champaign County Fair. He was close. We didn't believe what they left on... The story might perhaps be adequate for an animated film for children, with Thor, Odin and the others played by piglets. In the arena of movies about comic book superheroes, it is a desolate vastation. Nothing exciting happens, nothing of interest is said, and the special effects evoke not a place or a time but simply special effects."
140. Thunderbirds (2004)
PG | 95 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
When The Hood finds and invades International Rescue's secret base and traps most of the Tracy family, only young Alan Tracy and his friends can save the day.
Director: Jonathan Frakes | Stars: Bill Paxton, Anthony Edwards, Ben Kingsley, Brady Corbet
Votes: 14,479 | Gross: $6.77M
"This is a movie made for an audience that does not exist, at least in the land of North American multiplexes: Fans of a British TV puppet show that ran from 1964 to 1966. "While its failure to secure a U.S. network sale caused the show to be canceled after 32 episodes," writes David Rooney in Variety, "the 'Supermarionation' series still endures in reruns and on DVD for funky sci-fi geeks and pop culture nostalgists." I quote Rooney because I had never heard of the series and, let's face it, neither have you. Still, I doubt that "funky" describes the sub-set of geeks and nostalgists who like it. The word "kooky" comes to mind, as in "kooky yo-yos."
141. Tomcats (2001)
R | 95 min | Comedy
At the wedding of a friend, the remaining bachelors bet on staying single. Seven years later, one of the two remaining loses $51,000 in Vegas. He must get the other guy married to cash in and pay his debt or die. A cute woman helps him.
Director: Gregory Poirier | Stars: Shannon Elizabeth, Jerry O'Connell, Jake Busey, Horatio Sanz
Votes: 19,655 | Gross: $13.56M
"...Here is a comedy positioned outside the normal range of human response... The movie has other distasteful scenes, including a bachelor party where the star performer starts with Ping-Pong balls and works up to footballs. If the details are gross, the movie's overall tone is even more offensive. All sex comedies have scenes in which characters are embarrassed, but I can't remember one in which women are so consistently and venomously humiliated, as if they were some kind of hateful plague. The guys in the movie don't even seem to enjoy sex, except as a way of keeping score."
142. Tommy Boy (1995)
PG-13 | 97 min | Adventure, Comedy
After his auto-parts tycoon father dies, the overweight, underachieving son teams up with a snide accountant to try and save the family business.
Director: Peter Segal | Stars: Chris Farley, David Spade, Brian Dennehy, Bo Derek
Votes: 97,333 | Gross: $32.70M
"Tommy Boy" is one of those movies that plays like an explosion down at the screenplay factory. You can almost picture a bewildered office boy, his face smudged with soot, wandering through the ruins and rescuing pages at random. Too bad they didn't mail them to the insurance company instead of filming them."
143. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
PG-13 | 154 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
The Autobots learn of a Cybertronian spacecraft hidden on the moon, and race against the Decepticons to reach it and to learn its secrets.
Director: Michael Bay | Stars: Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel
Votes: 432,156 | Gross: $352.39M
"Michael Bay's "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" is a visually ugly film with an incoherent plot, wooden characters and inane dialog. It provided me with one of the more unpleasant experiences I've had at the movies... There is no style or wit in the dialogue... Shia LaBeouf is scarcely heroic, and his girlfriend has no particular function except to be in constant peril and (in two hilarious shots) stare thoughtfully into space as if realizing something."
144. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
PG-13 | 149 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Sam Witwicky leaves the Autobots behind for a normal life. But when his mind is filled with cryptic symbols, the Decepticons target him and he is dragged back into the Transformers' war.
Director: Michael Bay | Stars: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson
Votes: 428,583 | Gross: $402.11M
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination."
145. The Tuxedo (2002)
PG-13 | 98 min | Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi
A hapless chauffeur must take a comatose Secret Agent's place using his special gadget-laden tuxedo.
Director: Kevin Donovan | Stars: Jackie Chan, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jason Isaacs, Debi Mazar
Votes: 88,709 | Gross: $50.55M
"The movie is silly beyond comprehension, and even if it weren't silly, it would still be beyond comprehension... There's something engaging about Jackie Chan. Even in a bad movie, I like him, because what you see is so obviously what you get. This time he goes light on the stunts, at least the stunts he obviously does himself, so that during the closing credits, there are lots of flubbed lines and times when the actors break out laughing, but none of those spellbinding shots in which he misses the bridge, falls off the scaffold, etc. And some of the shots are computer-generated, which is kind of cheating isn't it, with Jackie Chan?"
146. Little Indian, Big City (1994)
PG | 90 min | Adventure, Comedy, Romance
The Parisian broker Stephan only needs the signature from his wife Patricia for their divorce - but she left 13 years ago for living with Amazonas Indians. Stephan finds her in the village ... See full summary »
Director: Hervé Palud | Stars: Thierry Lhermitte, Ludwig Briand, Patrick Timsit, Miou-Miou
Votes: 4,680 | Gross: $1.00M
"``Little Indian, Big City'' is one of the worst movies ever made. I detested every moronic minute of it. Through a stroke of good luck, the entire thirdreel of the film was missing the day I saw it. I went back to the screening roomtwo days later, to view the missing reel. It was as bad as the rest, but nothing could have saved this film. As my colleague Gene Siskel observed, ``If the third reel had been the missing footage from Orson Welles' `The Magnificent Ambersons,' this movie still would have sucked.'' I could not have put it bettermyself... If you, under any circumstances, see ``Little Indian, Big City,'' I will never let you read one of my reviews again."
147. Undead (2003)
R | 97 min | Action, Comedy, Fantasy
A quaint Australian fishing village is overcome by meteorites that turn its residents into the ravenous undead, leaving a small group of those unharmed to find a way out.
Directors: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig | Stars: Felicity Mason, Mungo McKay, Rob Jenkins, Lisa Cunningham
Votes: 14,806 | Gross: $0.04M
"Undead" is the kind of movie that would be so bad it's good, except it's not bad enough to be good enough... There is a sense in which movies like "Undead" ask only to be accepted as silly fun, and I understand that sense and sympathize with it. But I don't think the Spierig brothers have adequately defined what they want to accomplish. They go for laughs with dialogue at times when verbal jokes are at right-angles to simultaneous visual jokes. They give us gore that is intended as meaningless and funny, and then when the aliens arrive they seem to bring a new agenda. Eventually, the story seems to move on beyond the central characters, who wander through new developments as if mutely wondering, hey, didn't this movie used to be about us?"
148. The Usual Suspects (1995)
R | 106 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The sole survivor of a pier shoot-out tells the story of how a notorious criminal influenced the events that began with five criminals meeting in a seemingly random police lineup.
Director: Bryan Singer | Stars: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin
Votes: 1,145,772 | Gross: $23.34M
"The first time I saw "The Usual Suspects" was in January, at the Sundance Film Festival, and when I began to lose track of the plot, I thought it was maybe because I'd seen too many movies that day. Some of the other members of the audience liked it, and so when I went to see it again in July, I came armed with a notepad and a determination not to let crucial plot points slip by me. Once again, my comprehension began to slip, and finally I wrote down: "To the degree that I do understand, I don't care." It was, however, somewhat reassuring at the end of the movie to discover that I had, after all, understood everything I was intended to understand. It was just that there was less to understand than the movie at first suggests."
149. The Village (2004)
PG-13 | 108 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A series of events tests the beliefs of a small isolated countryside village.
Director: M. Night Shyamalan | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Joaquin Phoenix, Bryce Dallas Howard
Votes: 277,858 | Gross: $114.20M
"The Village" is a colossal miscalculation, a movie based on a premise that cannot support it, a premise so transparent it would be laughable were the movie not so deadly solemn. It's a flimsy excuse for a plot, with characters who move below the one-dimensional and enter Flatland. M. Night Shyamalan, the writer-director, has been successful in evoking horror from minimalist stories, as in "Signs," which if you think about it rationally is absurd -- but you get too involved to think rationally. He is a director of considerable skill who evokes stories out of moods, but this time, alas, he took the day off."
150. The Waterboy (1998)
PG-13 | 90 min | Comedy, Sport
A waterboy for a college football team discovers he has a unique tackling ability and becomes a member of the team.
Director: Frank Coraci | Stars: Adam Sandler, Kathy Bates, Henry Winkler, Fairuza Balk
Votes: 178,437 | Gross: $161.49M
"Do I have something visceral against Adam Sandler? I hope not. I try to keep an open mind and approach every movie with high hopes. It would give me enormous satisfaction (and relief) to like him in a movie. But I suggest he is making a tactical error when he creates a character whose manner and voice has the effect of fingernails on a blackboard, and then expects us to hang in there for a whole movie."
151. We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993)
G | 72 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
A time traveling scientist goes back to prehistoric times and feeds dinosaurs a magic cereal that increases their intelligence - next they land in modern New York City for a series of comic adventures.
Directors: Phil Nibbelink, Simon Wells, Dick Zondag, Ralph Zondag | Stars: John Goodman, Charles Fleischer, Blaze Berdahl, Rhea Perlman
Votes: 16,074 | Gross: $9.32M
"We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story" is the kind of innocuous animated kiddie movie you maybe wouldn't mind seeing on Saturday morning TV. (At least, a kiddie might not mind. I would.) But it's too lightweight and flimsy for a theatrical film. It's shallow and kind of dumb, and the animation is routine, and the story isn't much, and the stakes are a lot higher these days in the featurelength animation game."
152. Wild Wild West (1999)
PG-13 | 106 min | Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi
The two best special agents in the Wild West must save President Grant from the clutches of a diabolical, wheelchair-bound, steampunk-savvy, Confederate scientist bent on revenge for losing the Civil War.
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld | Stars: Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek
Votes: 167,319 | Gross: $113.81M
"``Wild Wild West'' is a comedy dead zone. You stare in disbelief as scenes flop and die. The movie is all concept and no content; the elaborate special effects are like watching money burn on the screen. You know something has gone wrong when a story is about two heroes in the Old West, and the last shot is of a mechanical spider riding off into the sunset."
153. Wolf Creek (2005)
R | 99 min | Horror, Thriller
Three backpackers stranded in the Australian outback are plunged inside a hellish nightmare of insufferable torture by a sadistic psychopathic local.
Director: Greg McLean | Stars: Nathan Phillips, Cassandra Magrath, Kestie Morassi, John Jarratt
Votes: 78,380 | Gross: $16.19M
"I had a hard time watching "Wolf Creek." It is a film with one clear purpose: To establish the commercial credentials of its director by showing his skill at depicting the brutal tracking, torture and mutilation of screaming young women. When the killer severs the spine of one of his victims and calls her "a head on a stick," I wanted to walk out of the theater and keep on walking."
154. One Woman or Two (1985)
PG-13 | 97 min | Comedy, Romance
A scientist is busy searching for an ancient woman, and does not pay attention to modern ones. Until a day when a businesswoman decided to seduce him in order to use his sensational discoveries for commercial purposes.
Director: Daniel Vigne | Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Sigourney Weaver, Ruth Westheimer, Michel Aumont
Votes: 438 | Gross: $0.18M
"Add it all up, and what you've got here is a waste of good electricity. I'm not talking about the electricity between the actors. I'm talking about the current to the projector."
155. Battle Los Angeles (2011)
PG-13 | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
A squad of U.S. Marines becomes the last line of defense against a global invasion.
Director: Jonathan Liebesman | Stars: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan, Ramón Rodríguez
Votes: 185,199 | Gross: $83.55M
"Battle: Los Angeles" is noisy, violent, ugly and stupid. Its manufacture is a reflection of appalling cynicism on the part of its makers, who don't even try to make it more than senseless chaos. Here's a science-fiction film that's an insult to the words "science" and "fiction," and the hyphen in between them. You want to cut it up to clean under your fingernails... Young men: If you attend this crap with friends who admire it, tactfully inform them they are idiots. Young women: If your date likes this movie, tell him you've been thinking it over, and you think you should consider spending some time apart."
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