The Ten Worst Films of 2024
I saw a whole lot of bad movies in 2024. More than two dozen were in contention for this list of the year’s ten worst films. How does one rank levels of badness? My answer, for this year at least, was to prioritize suffering. I asked myself, “Which movies left me feeling most anguished as I watched them?” Many of these had potential that was left unfulfilled. Others were the result of amateurish filmmaking. All of them made me breathe a sigh of relief when they were over and the misery could come to an end. These are my picks for the ten worst films of 2024:10. Subservience - Megan Fox playing a fembot who seduces the father of the family she works for could have been fun if the movie did anything more than the completely obvious with it. The bigger sin, though, is spending an inordinate amount of time on a worthless subplot about sabotage at a construction site. Just what we want!
9. Harold and the Purple Crayon - Crockett Johnson’s charming children’s book is a celebration of imagination – a trait this dumb slapstick comedy has exactly zero of. Zachary Levi overdoes it playing a man-child, to the point where you want to use the magical purple crayon to draw a portal for him to fall into and never return from.
8. Dear Santa - I’m a huge Farrelly brothers fan, but they’ve clearly lost their way. There’s a clever premise here – little boy misspells “Santa” and ends up sending a letter to Satan – but the movie takes no advantage of its possibilities. Star Jack Black is certainly game for shenanigans. Unfortunately, the predictable screenplay keeps him in watered down mode. A subplot about a dead child, meanwhile, is manipulative in the most shameful way.
7. My Penguin Friend - In 2016, a man from Brazil went viral because he discovered and cared for a wayward penguin who spent the next eight years making an annual 5,000-mile swim to visit him. That’s not enough story to sustain a feature-length movie, as the thin, cloying screenplay makes abundantly clear.
6. French Girl - Zach Braff and Vanessa Hudgens star in this pathetic rom-com/Meet the Parents rip-off that trots out every tired cliché imaginable, to tedious effect.
5. Joker: Folie a Deux - I thought the first Joker was terrible, but it looks like The Dark Knight compared to this misfire. Boring, overlong, and filled with tepid musical numbers, this sequel is so bad that it marks one of the low points in comic book cinema. Even Catwoman was more entertaining.
4. Strictly Confidential - Despite having no prior filmmaking experience, Damian Hurley (son of Elizabeth) was given the greenlight to make this ineptly written psychosexual melodrama that shows no understanding of storytelling or character development. On a creepier level, Hurley cast his famous mother as a sexpot who wears revealing clothing and participates in heavy-duty make-out sessions. Gross.
3. Prom Dates - This one could be useful in film school class to teach students how not to make a comedy. Aside from mistaking crassness for wit, the picture rushes through its unfunny jokes, ensuring they land with an even bigger thud.
2. Unfrosted - Jerry Seinfeld is one of the funniest people on the planet, which is why it’s a surprise that his directorial debut is so unfunny. It’s ostensibly based on the story of how Pop Tarts were invented. Rather than sticking with that idea, Seinfeld relies on an excess of cheap breakfast food gags and unnecessarily broad humor. I don’t think I laughed a single time.
And my choice for the Worst Film of 2024 is:
1. Lumina - This independently-produced sci-fi clunker stands alongside Tommy Wiseau’s The Room and Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space as one of the most incompetent movies ever made. Amateurish acting, atrocious writing, leaden direction, and cheap visual effects combine to make two hours of sheer torture. Infinitely more entertaining than the movie itself are the bizarre conspiracy theories director Gino McKoy has unleashed on the Lumina Facebook page to explain his film’s 0% Rotten Tomatoes score and apparently disastrous box office business. He has claimed that the 18 critics who posted their reviews to RT – and that includes me – were paid by the major studios to trash his film. (This is not even remotely true.) McKoy also claims theater chains like AMC and Regal sabotaged Lumina’s release at the behest of the studios. Of course, if they really wanted to sabotage it, they could have simply refused to book it in any of their locations. No chain is forced to exhibit any particular movie.
Runners-up: Afraid, Back to Black, Borderlands, Boy Kills World, Cellar Door, Founders Day, The Image of You, Kraven the Hunter, Reagan, Red One, Sleeping Dogs, Tarot, The Underdoggs, Venom: The Last Dance, Werewolves
© 2024 Mike McGranaghan