The Worst Movies of 2023

Horror - directed by Emma Tammi

Wildly successful despite its lousy critical reception, the first film adaptation of the 2014 videogame stars Josh Hutcherson as the overnight security guard at a Chuck E. Cheese-like pizza parlor. If you think that's an easy job, well, you haven't noticed that the restaurant's creepy animatronic characters are walking around under their own power. Despite streaming on Peacock the same day it opened in theaters, Freddy's was an unexpected box office hit—grossing nearly $300 million—and will likely be getting a sequel in the near future.

"Unfortunately, this adaptation of the popular 2014 video game fails at delivering scares or cheeky laughs, resulting in a tedious experience that relies heavily on horror's most cliched tropes." —Tim Grierson, Screen Daily

Rom-com/Drama - directed by James C. Strouse

An English-language adaptation of the 2016 German rom-com Text for You (in turn an adaptation of a Sofie Cramer novel), Love Again finds Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Sam Heughan embarking on a new romance after a virtual meet-cute through a wrong-number text message. Céline Dion also stars (as a version of herself), but even her name on the poster failed to generate much box office business. And critics complained that the second half of the rom-com formula (the comedy, that is) was missing.

"The plot of Love Again is so over-familiar I stopped streaming it not once but thrice to make certain I'd never seen it before." —Roger Moore, Movie Nation

Sci-fi/Action-adventure – directed by Zack Snyder

Star Wars, it isn't.  Director Zack Snyder's just-released Netflix film is the first half of a big-budget, two-part sci-fi epic (to be followed by Part 2 in April) that finds a peaceful colony at the edge of the galaxy threatened by invading forces. Enter the reluctant hero: A young woman with a mysterious past (Sofia Boutella) heads to nearby planets to recruit warriors to come to her colony's defense. Charlie Hunnam, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Fisher, Michiel Huisman, Djimon Hounsou, Corey Stoll, Cary Elwes, and Jena Malone also star. The story has its origins in a Star Wars feature that Snyder was developing over a decade ago, though the final product is less family friendly than the Lucasfilm franchise—and also, apparently, much worse: It's the lowest-scoring film in Snyder's career to date.

"It's hard to be even morbidly curious, let alone excited, about any future iterations or installments of a franchise so determined to remix a million things you've seen before into one thing you'll wish you'd never seen at all." —David Ehrlich, IndieWire

Action/Horror/Thriller - directed by Nick Cassavetes

It's not the worst film to date for the son of the legendary director John Cassavetes, but it's close. (The answer to your inevitable question: This one scored lower.) In the crime thriller God Is a Bullet (based on Boston Teran's novel), Game of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays a police detective who decides to take the law into his own hands after his ex-wife is murdered and their daughter is taken kidnapped by a cult. Critics found it a nihilistic slog.

"The misogyny of the movie's risibly sadistic villains is only one distasteful thread in this sleazy saga of rescue and revenge." —Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

Fantasy/Horror - directed by Lindsey Beer

One of two Stephen King-inspired films to qualify for this list—and it's definitely not King's fault— streaming-only Bloodlines serves as a prequel to the 2019 film Pet Sematary, which was in turn based on the 1983 novel by King. The directorial debut for screenwriter Lindsey Anderson Beer failed to impress critics with its original story set (mainly) in the year 1969 and featuring details not found in King's novel.

"The generic moniker proves accurately foreboding for the run-of-the-mill film, one that desperately latches onto the goodwill of a familiar title but has nothing meaningful to add to its legacy." –Trace Sauveur, Paste

Action/Thriller - directed by Scott Waugh

The fourth, final, and expendablest film yet in the over-the-hill action-movie franchise last seen in 2014, Expend4bles was one of the year's biggest box office duds upon its release in September, making back just half of its $100 million production budget. After first opting out, Sylvester Stallone ultimately did return to star alongside Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, and Randy Couture one last time, while newcomers included 50 Cent and Megan Fox. Most of them have little interesting to say or do in an instantly forgettable film.

"This is true 21st-century trash: a movie in which the action itself is expendable." —Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Action/Thriller - directed by Neil LaBute

Since impressing critics with his 1997 indie debut In the Company of Men, writer-director Neil LaBute has experienced the full spectrum of review scores thanks to a filmography that is scattershot at best. But he hit a career low in 2023 with the generic action-horror hybrid Fear the Night, which finds a group of women (led by Maggie Q's Iraq War veteran Tess) at a remote bachelorette party fighting back against a group of attackers.

"As for LaBute, a once incisive chronicler of male cruelty and ineptitude, his continued dabblings in genre are lamentable. Perhaps the kindest thing to do is pretend this dud never happened." — Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

Documentary - directed by Chris Radtke and Stephen Gray

First-time feature directors Stephen Gray and Chris Radtke attempt to make the case for the existence of an afterlife with a documentary laced with interviews of survivors of near-death experiences. Despite an attempt to spruce up their stories with sci-fi-like special effects, the filmmakers fail to make a compelling case (or an entertaining movie), according to reviewers.

"A repetitive slog that's only shape or narrative momentum comes from its slow unmasking as religious propaganda." —David Ehrlich, IndieWire

Comedy - directed by Charlie Day

The directorial debut from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Charlie Day (who also writes and stars), misfiring Hollywood satire Fool's Paradise wastes a strong ensemble cast that also includes Adrien Brody, Edie Falco, Jason Sudeikis, Jason Bateman, Ken Jeong, Kate Beckinsale, Common, John Malkovich, and the late Ray Liotta. The Bowfinger riff (rip-off?) finds a mute, mentally challenged man enlisted by a down-on-his-luck publicist to stand in for a famous Method actor (with whom he shares a strong resemblance) who refuses to leave his trailer during a film shoot.

"A satire that's neither sharp enough to make its industry skewering sting, nor sweet enough to compensate for its toothlessness." —Nick Schager, The Daily Beast

Action/Thriller - directed by Camille Delamarre

Another lackluster entry in the filmography of editor-turned-action-movie-director Camille Delamarre (The Transporter Refueled), Assassin Club stars Henry Golding as an elite assassin on a difficult assignment: He must kill seven of his colleagues around the world. The result comes nowhere close to matching the quality of the John Wick films on which it is so clearly modeled.

"Incompetent and mostly just quite boring, Assassin Club doesn't even have the good grace to be so-bad-it's-good. Rough, rough stuff." —John Nugent, Empire

Horror/Thriller - directed by John McPhail

Adapted from a 2017 Twitter thread by BuzzFeed writer Adam Ellis courtesy of Anna and the Apocalypse director John McPhail, Dear David is a supernatural horror film centering on, well, a BuzzFeed writer in the year 2017. (He's apparently haunted by ghosts, you see.) While the story may have been creepy in its original written form, the translation to film results in something akin to a lesser TV movie, according to reviewers—and one that definitely isn't scary.

"It is a boring paint-by-numbers ghost movie, a jumble of tropes borrowed from movies like 'The Ring,' and a poor facsimile of its influences." —Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times

Horror - directed by Kurt Wimmer

Finally released (both in theaters and on the Shudder streaming service) in early 2023 after first screening in 2020, writer-director Kurt Wimmer's reboot is actually the 11th film to be based on Stephen King's 1977 short story about a cult of demon-worshipping Nebraska children (dating back to the 1984 adaptation from Fritz Kiersch), but only the third to receive theatrical distribution. The score speaks for itself: Critics hated it.

"There's something particularly galling about the laziness of this one — its flimsy gestures toward topicality, the piecemeal nature of the whole thing — that makes its failures acutely horrifying." —Clint Worthington, Consequence

Action/Comedy - directed by Pierre Morel

The latest action film from the director of Taken is, unlike that movie, also a comedy—and that, more than anything, is why Freelance fails to live up to that previous title's success. Alison Brie and John Cena do their best as a journalist and her bodyguard on assignment in the fictitious, jungle-filled South American country of Paldonia, but anyone expecting a modern-day Romancing the Stone should temper those expectations. Critics complain that Morel is unable to make Freelance's disparate genres mesh (or make any of its characters likeable), and the result is one of 2023's box office bombs.

"Pierre Morel's uninspired work behind the camera goes hand in hand with the film's nondescript title, dragging viewers through a moodless, toothless action hybrid that, at its best, plays as forgettably inept even with ammunition flying in all directions." —Matt Donato, IGN

Drama - directed by Sean McNamara

Boasting relatively big stars (Dennis Quaid, Heather Graham) for a faith-based drama, the latest critical dud from director Sean McNamara (who has yet to receive a green Metascore for a single film) is based on a true story of a private airplane passenger (Quaid) who finds himself taking control of the plane and trying to land it with the help of an air traffic controller after the pilot dies from a heart attack.

"This is the film: Constantly rendered emotionless by decision-making both numbingly predictable and entirely inexplicable." —Anna McKibbin, Paste

Horror - directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield

Metacritic's Official Worst Movie of 2023

Oh Pooh. Perhaps the sole argument in favor of unlimited copyright protection, Blood and Honey takes the now-public domain characters from A.A. Milne's beloved children's books and puts them in a bloody slasher film. (Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet are now serial killers stalking female college students—a plot twist we don't quite recall from the books.) Shot in less than two weeks for a budget of under $100,000, Pooh was surprisingly successful at the box office, grossing north of $5 million despite (or because of) the negative press surrounding the film.

The filmmakers will get a rare chance at back-to-back #1 titles when a sequel to Blood and Honey arrives in February.

"What could've been a halfway decent dumb idea becomes a full-on nightmare of bad choices and terrible filmmaking." —Ross Bonaime, Collider