The 44 worst movies made by iconic directors - from Spielberg to Scorsese
Alejandro G. Iñárritu — "Biutiful" (2010)
Guillermo del Toro — "Blade II" (2002)
Critic score: 57%
What critics said: "The only dread it inspires is in the possibility that its director prefers turning human flesh into CGI-enhanced mush over exploring genuinely frightening material." — The Village Voice
Sergio Leone — "The Colossus of Rhodes" (1961)
Critic score: 57%
What critics said: "This ludicrous costume epic complete with hambone acting is interesting to film buffs because it is an early work by the king of the spaghetti Westerns, director Sergio Leone." — TV Guide
David Lynch — "Dune" (1984)
Critic score: 56%
What critics said: "This movie is a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time." — Chicago Sun-Times
Wes Anderson — "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" (2004)
Critic score: 56%
What critics said: "If there's anything more tiresome in film today than hip irony, it is forced irony, and here comes a boatload." — New York Daily News
Sofia Coppola — "Marie Antoinette" (2006)
Critic score: 56%
What critics said: "Although it is purposely devoid of substance, it is still devoid of substance." — Detroit Free Press
George Lucas — "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" (1999)
Critic score: 55%
What critics said: "Too busy and talky by half, overpopulated by a baffling array of aliens and robot 'droids,' 'The Phantom Menace' fails to engage the audience in its mythic quest 'to restore balance to the Force.'" — Toronto Star
Joel and Ethan Coen — "The Ladykillers" (2004)
Critic score: 55%
What critics said: "Most of this stuff isn't worthy of the Farrelly brothers, let alone the Coen brothers." — Ebert & Roeper
Werner Herzog — "Invincible" (2002)
Critic score: 54%
What critics said: "Feels less like a change in [Herzog's] personal policy than a half-hearted fluke." — Boston Globe
Alexander Payne — "Downsizing" (2017)
Critic score: 51%
What critics said: "The film, having launched a sprightly comic conceit, lets it glide away." — The New Yorker
Howard Hawks — "A Song is Born" (1948)
Critic score: 50%
What critics said: "The whole picture, which is done in color (we don't know why), reflects the tedium resulting from the restriction of Mr. Kaye." — The New York Times
Jean-Luc Goddard — "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968)
Critic score: 50%
What critics said: "The politics are as muddled as the art is (deliberately?) amateurish." — TV Guide
Richard Linklater — "Bad News Bears" (2005)
Critic score: 48%
What critics said: "More irksome is the ordained focus on plot undulation and simplistic motivation, as if nobody remembered that the first film was a social satire." — Village Voice
Martin Scorsese — "Boxcar Bertha" (1972)
Critic score: 48%
What critics said: "'Promising juvenilia' is about the most one can say for it." — Chicago Reader
David Fincher — "Alien 3" (1992)
Critic score: 46%
What critics said: "Good acting has salvaged many a poor script in the past, but not here." — Time Out
Terrence Malick — "Knight of Cups" (2016)
Critic score: 45%
What critics said: "Light on story line, 'Knight of Cups' offers images closer to the visual tableaux of coffee table photography books than typical drama." — Minneapolis Star Tribune
Ang Lee — "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" (2016)
Critic score: 45%
What critics said: "A gifted director ruining a good book by literalizing what a writer made us visualize for ourselves." — Boston Globe
David Cronenberg — "M. Butterfly" (1993)
Critic score: 45%
What critics said: "When John Lone parades around in mascara and speaks in an asexual monotone, the film audience discovers itself staring at John Lone's whiskers underneath his makeup." — FilmCritic.com
Federico Fellini — "La Casanova de Fellini" (1976)
Critic score: 43%
What critics said: "An ordeal rather than a pleasure, a spectacle that cries out to be endured rather than enjoyed, 'Casanova,' may be the perfect consummation of the distasteful conception Fellini had in mind." — The Washington Post
Mike Nichols — "What Planet Are You From?" (2000)
Critic score: 42%
What critics said: "Actual abduction may be preferable to the movie of the same name, but only if your kidnappers don't torture you by forcing you to watch it." — New York Post
Ava DuVernay — "A Wrinkle In Time" (2018)
Critic score: 40%
What critics said: "Disney's version of the Madeleine L'Engle young-adult novel is a magical mystery tour minus the magic and mystery, and a great disappointment, since there were so many reasons to root for the film's success." — Wall Street Journal
Alfonso Cuarón — "Great Expectations" (1998)
Critic score: 38%
What critics said: "A meandering, stilted movie." — San Francisco Chronicle
Tim Burton — "Dark Shadows" (2012)
Critic score: 37%
What critics said: "This is not so much a coherent movie as it is a long, expensive joke in search of a purpose." — The New Yorker
Kathryn Bigelow — "The Weight of Water" (2001)
Critic score: 35%
What critics said: "A boring, pretentious muddle that uses a sensational, real-life 19th-Century crime as a metaphor for -- well, I'm not exactly sure what -- and has all the dramatic weight of a raindrop." — Detroit Free Press
Jonathan Demme — "Last Embrace" (1979)
Critic score: 33%
What critics said: "Belabored imitation Hitchcock." — Las Vegas Review Journal
Steven Soderbergh — "The Good German" (2007)
Critic score: 32%
What critics said: "There's a line between homage and mimicry, and Soderbergh has crossed it." — Houston Chronicle
Woody Allen — "Wonder Wheel" (2017)
Critic score: 31%
What critics said: "'Wonder Wheel' will strike fans as an embarrassment and doubters as further evidence of decline - proof of Allen's lack of interest or engagement in a world beyond his shrinking artistic comfort zone." — Boston Globe
Peter Jackson — "The Lovely Bones" (2009)
Critic score: 31%
What critics said: "Jackson seems more at home in the afterlife than in this one, rendering this off-kilter project creepy and pretentious." — CNN
Alfred Hitchcock — "Juno and the Paycock" (1930)
Critic score: 27%
What critics said: "A fairly deadly case of canned theater that's pretty close to what Hitchcock many years later would refer to as 'photographs of people talking.'" — Chicago Reader
Steven Spielberg — "Hook" (1991)
Critic score: 29%
What critics said: "The exposition is so underlined and re-underlined, you could teach yourself to fly waiting for something to happen." — The Washington Post
Ridley Scott — "A Good Year" (2006)
Critic score: 25%
What critics said: "Russell Crowe has many talents, but a gift for light comedy is not one of them." — Rolling Stone
Robert Altman — "Ready to Wear" (1994)
Critic score: 25%
What critics said: "This sluggish, overlong, halfhearted satire feels like a movie that wanted to go somewhere but never got there." — ReelViews
Clint Eastwood — "The 15:17 to Paris" (2018)
Critic score: 25%
What critics said: "A single act of heroism can truly transform a life, but that action does not necessarily make for a transformative motion picture." — Los Angeles Times
Roman Polanski — "Diary of Forbidden Dreams" (1973)
Critic score: 22%
What critics said: "I wonder how much Carlo Ponti gave Roman Polanski to make 'Diary of Forbidden Dreams.' Ten cents would have been excessive." — Chicago Sun-Times
Danny Boyle — "The Beach" (2000)
Critic score: 20%
What critics said: "'The Beach' is the kind of literary rubbish that makes you trace the patterns in the carpet while you're supposed to be watching the screen." — Observer
Spike Lee — "She Hate Me" (2004)
Critic score: 19%
What critics said: "Succeeds in finding something to offend almost everybody." — Orlando Sentinel
Ingmar Bergman — "All These Women" (1964)
Critic score: 17%
What critics said: "Ingmar Bergman, who has tackled religion, sin, sex, music and muddled mores in elliptical but artistically distinguished film style, appears to be confused by comedy and color." — The New York Times
Sidney Lumet — "Gloria" (1999)
Critic score: 17%
What critics said: "Sidney Lumet-directed dud that sprung from the singularly bad idea of remaking John Cassavetes’ oddball 1980 character study." — Entertainment Weekly
Oliver Stone — "The Hand" (1981)
Critic score: 14%
What critics said: "Inescapably cheesy." — FilmCritic.com
Quentin Tarantino — "Four Rooms" (1995)
Critic score: 14%
What critics said: "The result is a batch of shrill, self-indulgent sketches that turn so wretched in spots you start to wonder if the filmmakers wanted them to be bad." — San Francisco Chronicle
Mel Brooks — "Dracula - Dead and Loving It" (1995)
Critic score: 11%
What critics said: "Either this is the lamest Mel Brooks comedy ever or it's too close to other contenders to make much difference." — Chicago Reader
Harold Ramis — "Club Paradise" (1986)
Critic score: 11%
What critics said: "A frenetically unfunny and charmless movie." — Los Angeles Times
Francis Ford Coppola — "Supernova" (2000)
Critic score: 10%
What critics said: "A mission that should have been aborted long ago." — Chicago Tribune
John Singleton — "Abduction" (2011)
What critics said: "Actual abduction may be preferable to the movie of the same name, but only if your kidnappers don't torture you by forcing you to watch it." — New York Post
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