
The 25 most widely watched but universally hated movies of all time
The 25 most widely watched but universally hated movies of all time
Every now and again, Hollywood turns out a film that just about everyone loves to hate. In 2024, movie watchers panned flops like "Joker: Folie à Deux," "Here," and—who could forget—"Madame Web." Despite having A-list stars like Lady Gaga and Tom Hanks, backing from a major studio like Marvel, or an established director like Robert Zemeckis, these films still managed to disappoint critics and audiences alike. Both "Joker: Folie à Deux" and "Madame Web" were up for the dubious honor of Worst Picture at the 2025 Golden Raspberry Awards—better known as the Razzies—but on March 1, 2025, it was "Madame Web" and its star, Dakota Johnson, who earned ignominious trophies.
Notably, many universally disliked movies are either sequels or adaptations, proving that attempts at continuing franchises often fall flat on their faces. "A Minecraft Movie," an April 2025 adaptation of the beloved pixelated video game, was critically panned. So was the July 2025 sequel "Jurassic World: Rebirth," which earned a Metacritic score of 50. Still, over the years, sequels and reboots have garnered enormous attention despite—or most often because of—their sheer terribleness.
In honor of truly despised bad cinema, Stacker has accumulated a list of the most widely watched but universally hated movies of all time. For the data, Stacker searched IMDb for movies with over 50,000 user ratings and ranked the top 25 films, counting down from worse to worst. Ties were broken by votes.
You will find plenty of franchise entries on this list, along with multiple examples of video game adaptations. With that said, some of these movies still have their fair share of fans today, an important reminder that some of the movies critics consider the worst are far from hated when it comes to everyone else.
Without further delay, here are the most widely watched but universally hated movies of all time.

#25. Norbit (2007)
- Director: Brian Robbins
- IMDb user rating: 4.1
- Metascore: 27
- Runtime: 102 minutes
In 2008, "Norbit" was simultaneously nominated for eight different Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies), including Worst Actor, Worst Director, and Worst Picture, while also being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Makeup. The comedy stars Eddie Murphy as Norbit, a likable orphan; Murphy as Rasputia, Norbit's overweight wife; and Murphy as Mr. Wong, an orphanage owner. While Murphy is undeniably funny, The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the comedy of the film features "painfully predictable jokes [that] revolve around just about every lame stereotype in the book."

#24. Street Fighter (1994)
- Director: Steven E. de Souza
- IMDb user rating: 4.0
- Metascore: 34
- Runtime: 102 minutes
"Street Fighter" was another video game adaptation of the '90s, but unfortunately, this film was received as poorly as the infamous "Super Mario Bros." a year prior. Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Colonel Guile, a hero of the Allied Forces, "Street Fighter" tracks the rise of the evil General Bison (Raul Julia), who blackmails the government for $20 billion. The film's tone strays from the game, coming across as campy in both humor and visuals, which only ostracizes its core audience—however, Julia's performance is leagues above those of his co-stars and makes the film almost worth watching.

#23. The Cat in the Hat (2003)
- Director: Bo Welch
- IMDb user rating: 4.0
- Metascore: 19
- Runtime: 82 minutes
Shortly after Ron Howard's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" came this obnoxious Dr. Seuss adaptation from Bo Welch. The former was box office gold. The latter was a critical flop, with the Golden Raspberry Award to show for it. Lauded primarily for its crude content, over-the-top performances, and ADD-like pacing, it butchered the story's legacy in more or less every single frame.

#22. The Last Airbender (2010)
- Director: M. Night Shyamalan
- IMDb user rating: 4.0
- Metascore: 20
- Runtime: 103 minutes
M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender" represented a departure for the director, best known for thrillers with twist endings. Yet it still fell into many of the same traps as his worst efforts to date. Among the gravest offenses was that, despite an intriguing premise and visually enticing trailer, the film was utterly boring.

#21. Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)
- Director: Jan de Bont
- IMDb user rating: 3.9
- Metascore: 23
- Runtime: 121 minutes
The absence of Keanu Reeves was greatly felt in this maligned sequel, which put the action at sea and relied on far too many cliches. Pair that with blatantly bad dialogue, and you end up with a movie that should have called it quits as soon as Reeves did.

#20. The Love Guru (2008)
- Director: Marco Schnabel
- IMDb user rating: 3.8
- Metascore: 24
- Runtime: 87 minutes
"The Love Guru" has its place in the quirky-character-played-by-Mike-Myers canon, although unlike "Austin Powers," this installment fell flat on its face. Myers plays Guru Pitka, a spiritual leader trained in India despite his American heritage, who becomes involved with the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team to fix the star player's failed marriage. The plot was buried beneath layers and layers of sex-based jokes. There were a surprising amount of bigger-name actors in the film, including Sir Ben Kingsley, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, and of course, uncomfortable cameos from Val Kilmer and Mariska Hargitay.

#19. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
- Director: Sidney J. Furie
- IMDb user rating: 3.7
- Metascore: 24
- Runtime: 90 minutes
Middle-aged adults who enjoyed this film as kids are in for quite the disappointment should they choose to revisit it. Loaded with bad special effects, it pits the titular man of steel (Christopher Reeve) against a radioactive nemesis named Nuclear Man. Anyone not wearing Superman underwear has no excuse for sticking around until the end credits.

#18. The Wicker Man (2006)
- Director: Neil LaBute
- IMDb user rating: 3.7
- Metascore: 36
- Runtime: 102 minutes
The original "The Wicker Man" from 1973 earned its place in cinema history as an exemplary piece of folk horror—2006's "The Wicker Man," however, falls flat as horror and instead becomes a lackluster dig at other religions. The basic plot between the two is the same: a young girl goes missing on an isolated island, and the protagonist comes to investigate. LaBute's film stars Nicolas Cage, the officer in search of a young girl. His performance in the film is notoriously unhinged, leading to his character's quote, "No, not the bees! Not the bees!" becoming an internet meme.

#17. Batman & Robin (1997)
- Director: Joel Schumacher
- IMDb user rating: 3.7
- Metascore: 28
- Runtime: 125 minutes
"Batman & Robin" is the fourth installment in the '90s "Batman" series, yet it has a distinctly different tone than Tim Burton's first two films. Joel Schumacher's vision opted for the colorful stylized camp of the superhero's 1960s television show as opposed to the darker violent world of Burton—one has to imagine this change was to make the film more marketable to all ages. Unfortunately, this film failed to perform upon release and was destroyed critically, causing this franchise to come to a grinding halt until eight years later when Christian Bale's version of the anti-hero restored the franchise's viability.

#16. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
- Director: John R. Leonetti
- IMDb user rating: 3.6
- Metascore: 11
- Runtime: 95 minutes
By staying true to its source, 1995's "Mortal Kombat" was among the better video game-to-film adaptations of its time. The sequel, however, was a pure cash grab brimming with bad graphics and redundant action sequences. Extreme fighting never felt so monotonous as it does here, no matter how much cheesy electronic music is involved.

#15. The Room (2003)
- Director: Tommy Wiseau
- IMDb user rating: 3.6
- Metascore: 9
- Runtime: 99 minutes
Tommy Wiseau's famous folly is shrouded in mystery, such as how it ever found an audience. The story involves a sex-packed love triangle between three urban dwellers or something like that. Bankrolled by Wiseau himself, it's reportedly grossed more than $30 million to date.

#14. Scary Movie V (2013)
- Directors: Malcolm D. Lee, David Zucker
- IMDb user rating: 3.5
- Metascore: 11
- Runtime: 86 minutes
The "Scary Movie" franchise reached an embarrassing nadir with this crude collage of cheap pop culture references. Parodying "Paranormal Activity" and other horror flicks, it conjures neither scares nor laughs. What is scary is that the film earned just under $80 million at the worldwide box office.

#13. The Emoji Movie (2017)
- Director: Tony Leondis
- IMDb user rating: 3.4
- Metascore: 12
- Runtime: 86 minutes
As it turns out, movies featuring talking emojis don't make for the greatest of films. "The Emoji Movie" learned that the hard way, evidenced by its ultra-low IMDB score of 3.4. According to actor T.J. Miller, it was the "fastest-produced animated film in history." Well, it showed.

#12. Catwoman (2004)
- Director: Pitof
- IMDb user rating: 3.4
- Metascore: 27
- Runtime: 104 minutes
Halle Berry's star power wasn't enough to save this action flick from the doldrums of bad moviemaking. Thanks to inane dialogue and clunky directing, the naughty comic book character landed on the screen with a dull thud. Berry regrets nothing and certainly not the paycheck.

#11. Jack and Jill (2011)
- Director: Dennis Dugan
- IMDb user rating: 3.3
- Metascore: 23
- Runtime: 91 minutes
No stranger to making terrible movies for lots of money, Adam Sandler delivered his worst one to date. Tackling dual roles, he plays both a middle-of-the-road family man and the man's overbearing sister. Films don't get much more cloying than this one.

#10. 365 Days (2020)
- Directors: Barbara Bialowas, Tomasz Mandes
- IMDb user rating: 3.3
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 114 minutes
In what seems to be a twisted version of the fairytale "Beauty and the Beast," Netflix's "365 Days" follows a woman named Laura (Anna-Maria Sieklucka) getting kidnapped by Mafia lord Massimo (Michele Morrone) for 365 days until she falls in love with him. This is no thriller, however, and is instead billed as a sensual romance frequently compared to the "Fifty Shades of Gray" franchise, except with more graphic nudity and sexual assault. "365 Days'' broke several Netflix records due to the sheer amount of people watching across the globe, but is still one of the only movies to ever receive a zero in critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

#9. Cats (2019)
- Director: Tom Hooper
- IMDb user rating: 2.8
- Metascore: 32
- Runtime: 110 minutes
Based on an award-winning musical, this epic misfire depicts a humanlike cat tribe and their bizarre annual tradition. Something called "digital fur technology" helped turn the actors into cats and set the stage for a disastrous marketing rollout. The only viewers who weren't disappointed were the ones who went in expecting awfulness...and even they had occasional complaints.

#8. Date Movie (2006)
- Directors: Aaron Seltzer, Jason Friedberg
- IMDb user rating: 2.8
- Metascore: 11
- Runtime: 83 minutes
There was once a time when parodies were actually funny. The 2000s was not that time. Take "Date Movie" for instance, which puts romantic comedies in its crosshairs and misses the target by a wide margin. Despite the poor reviews, it still took in nearly $50 million at the domestic box office on an estimated budget of $20 million.

#7. Meet the Spartans (2008)
- Directors: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
- IMDb user rating: 2.8
- Metascore: 9
- Runtime: 87 minutes
Poking fun at movies like "300" and other sword-and-sandal epics, "Meet the Spartans" is yet another sterile parody from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. In addition to the obvious homages, it freely tosses in a healthy mix of pop culture references. Naturally, it made money.

#6. Laxmii (2020)
- Directors: Raghava Lawrence, Balakrishnan Thevar
- IMDb user rating: 2.5
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 141 minutes
While "Laxmii" should be acknowledged for foregrounding a transgender character/storyline, which is especially rare in Hindi cinema, the film is not a golden standard of representation. "Laxmii" is a horror comedy following a decidedly skeptical man named Asif (Akshay Kumar) who becomes possessed by Laxmii, a transgender woman insistent on revenge. This film fails to hit both its comedic beats and its scary beats, and the plot is weakened by unnecessary side stories and weak dialogue, making it a difficult watch despite its best intentions.

#5. Dragonball Evolution (2009)
- Director: James Wong
- IMDb user rating: 2.5
- Metascore: 45
- Runtime: 85 minutes
Based on the popular Japanese manga "Dragon Ball," "Dragonball Evolution" had big shoes to fill and a loyal yet protective fanbase to satisfy: needless to say, because it's on this list, it failed. Most notably, "Dragonball Evolution" whitewashed the characters, with the protagonist Goku, the side character Bulma, and the antagonist King Piccolo all being played by white actors. While there are several prominent Asian characters, they're forced to exist within the somewhat racist world of Asian stereotypes—not aided by the clunky dialogue and poorly-executed action sequences.

#4. Battlefield Earth (2000)
- Director: Roger Christian
- IMDb user rating: 2.5
- Metascore: 9
- Runtime: 118 minutes
John Travolta didn't do Scientology any favors when he produced and starred in 2000's epic failure, "Battlefield Earth." The movie deals with mankind's enslavement to a futuristic alien race. Ultimately, it was the audience who felt tortured.

#3. Epic Movie (2007)
- Directors: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
- IMDb user rating: 2.4
- Metascore: 17
- Runtime: 86 minutes
Like all the other parodies from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, "Epic Movie" earns its terrible reputation one lame joke at a time. It takes on the big franchises of its era and musters nary a laugh. Future historians might one day see this abomination and wonder if our society was suffering from some sort of cultural dementia. Then they'll notice that "Epic Movie" actually made money and have their suspicions confirmed.

#2. Son of the Mask (2005)
- Director: Lawrence Guterman
- IMDb user rating: 2.2
- Metascore: 20
- Runtime: 94 minutes
They say like father, like son, but "Son of the Mask" argues otherwise. The aggressively stupid sequel to 1994's "The Mask" sees Jamie Kennedy trying to fill Jim Carrey's shoes and failing miserably. No cult following in the world can put this box office dud in the black.

#1. Disaster Movie (2008)
- Directors: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
- IMDb user rating: 1.9
- Metascore: 15
- Runtime: 87 minutes
The team behind all the other insufferable 2000s parodies finally delivered a film worthy of its name: "Disaster Movie." This shoddy attempt at cinema tries to mock disaster flicks but mostly ends up mocking itself. An appearance by Kim Kardashian just makes a bad thing that much worse.
Data reporting by Lucas Hicks. Story editing by Carren Jao. Copy editing by Robert Wickwire. Photo selection by Elizabeth Ciano.