The 10 Worst Movies of All Time, According to Roger Ebert

The Usual Suspects

1995 · Crime, Drama, Mystery · 1h 46m

The Oscar-winning twist movie Ebert couldn't stand.

Yes, that one

The Usual Suspects is the surprise on this list. It won two Oscars, made Kevin Spacey's career and gave the world one of the most famous twist endings ever filmed. Roger Ebert gave it a star and a half. Five criminals meet in a police lineup, pull off a job together and end up working for a crime lord nobody has ever seen. Ebert found the plotting so deliberately confusing that he simply stopped caring.

"To the degree that I do understand, I don't care"

That line from his review sums up his problem: a puzzle film where the puzzle mattered more than the people. Most viewers disagreed, and the film has only grown in reputation. Watch it again and decide for yourself whether the twist holds the whole thing up or papers over the cracks.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 21 Oct 2026

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Armageddon

1998 · Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi · 2h 31m

Ebert called it an assault on the eyes, the ears and the brain.

Bruce Willis saves the world

Armageddon was one of the biggest hits of 1998, and Roger Ebert hated every minute of it. An asteroid the size of Texas is heading for Earth, so NASA hires a team of oil drillers led by Bruce Willis to fly up and blow it apart from the inside. Ebert gave it one star and put it on his list of most hated films, mocking everything from the science to the editing.

The review is better than the film

He joked that even an object the size of the big Wal-Mart outside Abilene would wipe us out, so why bother with Texas. His real complaint was the editing: scenes cut so fast that nothing on screen ever settles long enough to mean anything. Audiences didn't care, and it made over half a billion dollars. Ebert's review has aged better than the movie.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 21 Oct 2026

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Spice World

1998 · Comedy, Family, Music · 1h 33m

Five Spice Girls, a London bus and half a star.

Girl power, minus the plot

Spice World arrived at the very peak of Spice Girls mania, and it's basically a very long music video with celebrity cameos. The five of them ride around London in a Union Jack bus, prepare for a big concert and dodge a scheming newspaper boss. It was a huge hit. Roger Ebert gave it half a star.

"Different names"

His review asked what you can say about five women whose main distinguishing feature is that they have different names. It was cruel, but it was also the point: the film never gives any of them anything to do beyond being themselves. For fans who were there in 1997, it's pure nostalgia. For everyone else, Ebert's review is the best part.

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Catwoman

2004 · Action, Crime, Fantasy · 1h 44m

Halle Berry collected her Razzie in person, holding her Oscar.

A superhero movie that missed everything

Catwoman came out two years after Halle Berry won the Best Actress Oscar, and it was supposed to launch a franchise. Instead it threw out the Batman connection, reinvented the character as a cosmetics company designer brought back to life by cats, and filled the screen with computer-generated rooftop leaps. Ebert put it on his list of most hated films.

The best part was the Razzies

The film bombed, and Berry did something nobody expected. She turned up to collect her Worst Actress Razzie in person, holding her real Oscar in the other hand, and gave one of the funniest acceptance speeches ever. That speech is far better than anything in the movie, and it's the reason people still talk about Catwoman at all.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 21 Oct 2026

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Battlefield Earth

2000 · Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi · 1h 57m

John Travolta's passion project, and one of the most famous flops ever.

Travolta's dream project

John Travolta spent years trying to get Battlefield Earth made, based on the novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. In the year 3000, giant aliens called Psychlos have enslaved humanity, and Travolta plays their security chief in dreadlocks and platform boots. Nearly every shot is tilted at an angle, a choice that has become a running joke about the film ever since.

One of the worst movies of all time, by Ebert's count

Ebert's review is one of his most quoted. He noted that the aliens had mastered the hyperdrive but not the manicure, and called the experience like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It won a pile of Razzies and lost a fortune. It's regularly named among the worst films ever made.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 21 Oct 2026

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Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

2005 · Comedy · 1h 23m

"Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."

A feud in the newspapers

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo is a sequel nobody asked for, with Rob Schneider back as a fish tank cleaner turned male escort, now working his way around Amsterdam. The story behind Ebert's review is better than the film. A Los Angeles Times critic had mocked Schneider, and Schneider took out ads in trade papers attacking the critic for never having won a Pulitzer Prize.

Ebert had a Pulitzer

Ebert had won a Pulitzer, so he answered in his review: as a Pulitzer winner he was qualified to say it, and the line he used was simple. Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks. He even turned it into the title of a book. Years later, when Ebert was seriously ill, Schneider sent him flowers, and Ebert wrote warmly about the gesture. The review is a classic. The film is not.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 21 Oct 2026

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Mad Dog Time

1996 · Comedy, Crime, Drama · 1h 33m

Ebert said a blank screen would have been more entertaining.

An all-star gangster disaster

Mad Dog Time had a cast most directors would dream of: Jeff Goldblum, Richard Dreyfuss, Gabriel Byrne, Ellen Barkin, Diane Lane and Gregory Hines, plus cameos from Billy Idol and Burt Reynolds. It's a gangster film set in a world of rival crime bosses who mostly sit around talking and shooting each other. Almost nobody saw it, and the few who did mostly agreed with Ebert.

The most famous zero-star review

His review opened with one of his most quoted lines: it was the first movie he had ever seen that did not improve on the experience of watching a blank screen for the same length of time. He added that the film should be cut into free ukulele picks for the poor. It's now remembered almost entirely for that review.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 21 Oct 2026

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Freddy Got Fingered

2001 · Comedy · 1h 27m

Tom Green's shock comedy, and Ebert's angriest review.

Barrels and the bottom of them

Freddy Got Fingered was Tom Green's first and only movie as a director, about a 28-year-old aspiring cartoonist who moves back in with his parents and wages war on his father. It is built entirely out of gross-out stunts, many involving animals. Ebert gave it zero stars and wrote that the movie didn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as barrels, never mind the bottom of them.

A cult favourite anyway

It swept the Razzies, and Green showed up in person to collect them, rolling out his own red carpet and playing a harmonica on stage. In the years since, it has picked up a cult following among people who see it as a deliberate attack on studio comedy. Ebert never changed his mind.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 21 Oct 2026

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Caligula

1980 · Drama, History · 2h 36m

One of the few films Ebert walked out of.

A Roman epic gone wrong

Caligula had Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren and Peter O'Toole, a script by Gore Vidal and a budget funded by Penthouse magazine. Then the producer shot extra explicit scenes behind the director's back and cut them in, and nearly everyone involved disowned it. It tells the story of the Roman emperor whose reign became a byword for madness and excess.

"Sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash"

Ebert walked out after two hours, one of very few times he ever left a film early, and gave it zero stars. His review called it sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. Decades later, a new version was rebuilt from unused footage to get closer to what the filmmakers intended. The original remains one of the most notorious films ever released.

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