Some movies get made with big budgets and high hopes, but end up as total flops that critics and audiences can’t stand. These are a few of the worst ones ever released, pulled from recent lists and reviews that highlight their epic failures. They actually hit theaters or streaming, proving bad films can still escape the cutting room floor.
Take War of the Worlds, the 2025 remake starring Ice Cube. Critics called it a hodgepodge of shoddy CGI and lifeless acting, like watching brain cells die one by one (https://www.metacritic.com/pictures/worst-movies-of-2025/). One reviewer said it feels like a two-hour Amazon ad with zero excitement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=546waxtu2Bw). It’s topped multiple worst-of lists for being historically bad, with nothing to like.
The Strangers: Chapter 2 bombed hard as a horror sequel. Reviewers labeled it a true disaster, one of the year’s weakest scares, dragging a franchise into four and a half hours of garbage across its parts (https://www.metacritic.com/pictures/worst-movies-of-2025/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=546waxtu2Bw). It has the gall to be part of a trilogy, but delivers zero thrills.
Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness earned spots on 2025’s bottom lists for being a plodding, pretentious mess. Despite one electric scene, the rest feels risible and unconvincing, making it one of the year’s worst productions (https://www.metacritic.com/pictures/worst-movies-of-2025/).
The Smurfs reboot lacked any charm, like a dented traffic cone with a tin-eared script. Papa Smurf gets kidnapped, Smurfette globetrots to save him, but it killed plans for more films with its dullness (https://www.metacritic.com/pictures/worst-movies-of-2025/).
Until Dawn turned a video game name into a joke, borrowing the IP but delivering a dark comedy unrelated to the source. Critics trashed it as shameless and forgettable (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=546waxtu2Bw).
Electric State wasted $300 million on a super stinker, landing in top-five worst spots alongside Snow White flops (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=546waxtu2Bw).
These picks come from ongoing tallies of cinematic disasters, like Wikipedia’s master lists of the worst films by century, which track flops with 0% Rotten Tomatoes scores and box office bombs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_films_considered_the_worst). Bad movies keep getting released, often with huge hype that crashes hard.
Sources
https://www.metacritic.com/pictures/worst-movies-of-2025/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=546waxtu2Bw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_films_considered_the_worst
