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There’s always a few bad apples in every bunch, and 2025 proved to be no exception. While this year delivered plenty of standout cinema, it also served up its fair share of misfires that left audiences and critics scratching their heads. And while we never underestimate the immense time, labor, and creative passion it takes to bring a film to life, intention doesn’t always translate into execution.

From streaming releases that were clearly advertisements for the streamers and mistook spectacle for substance to indie efforts that struggled to find their voice or justify their ambition, these films simply failed to connect on a creative or emotional level. Whether due to uneven storytelling, lackluster performances, questionable creative choices, or an inability to live up to their own potential, each title on this list missed the mark in ways that were hard to ignore.

Compiled from a select group of esteemed film critics, this list isn’t meant to tear down the craft but to honestly reflect the year’s most disappointing cinematic experiences. Even in a strong year for movies, not every release can be a winner and these are the films that, unfortunately, fell flat.

Jamie Broadnax’s Worst of 2025

Rabbit Trap

I screened this film at Sundance and walked out of the theater having no idea what this movie was about. To be fair, I came in with a blank slate not reading much about the summary of the film, I just saw Dev Patel was the lead and that was enough for me to get a ticket to the screening. But when I watched this haunting folk-horror film about a reclusive musician who retreats to the Welsh countryside to escape the noise of modern life, I didn’t expect this movie to be…all over the place. It’s part horror. Part Irish folktale. Here’s the thing, if you have dense knowledge of Irish folklore, you will likely appreciate and may even love this film.  But if you’re more like me and know little to nothing about it, this film will leave you confused. There are weird plot holes like the fact that there’s this weird kid (Jade Croot) stalking this couple (played by Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen) and yet they feel trapped in their home, but never think to get into their vehicle and leave?  It’s little things like that which made me scratch my head while watching this. This movie just may not be for me, but it’s one of the worst I’ve seen this year and I’m sticking to that.

Love Hurts

I want better for Ariana DeBose. This is an Oscar-winning actress that somehow has ended up in one trainwreck of a film after another soon after getting her gold statue. From Argyle, to Kraven: The Hunter and now Love Hurts she needs a win. What’s worse is this is the first leading role for Ke Huy Quan and I’m so sorry, but this was just awful. From the action sequences that look like they were AI-generated to the cheesy dialogue, it was just too much.  I felt like this movie was trying too hard. Perhaps if it was more self-aware and campy (the way Roadhouse was) it would have been a better film. But the movie wasn’t trying to be campy. It was deadly serious with its dramatic moments and working overtime to deliver those humorless punchlines.  This movie just didn’t do it for me. They could have kept this one in the drafts.

Holland

I saw this movie at SXSW and when I left the theater with my colleague we both looked at each other with a WTF look on our faces.  Seriously, what did we just watch?  Nicole Kidman stars as Nancy, a meticulous schoolteacher whose seemingly idyllic life with her husband (Matthew Macfadyen) begins to unravel when she suspects a dark secret lurking beneath their carefully curated routine. So I came in thinking okay maybe Twin Peaks meets Stepford Wives? Gael García Bernal plays Dave, Nancy’s co-worker,  who uncovers some disturbing truths that challenge her sense of reality and safety. My biggest issue with this movie was its pacing. It’s really slow. And once the film finally gets to the point you really don’t care. The plot twist is weird, but it also feels random and doesn’t make much sense.  It’s kind of tragic because this ensemble of actors and their talent are completely wasted in this movie. 

War Of The Worlds

This is by far not only the worst movie of 2025. This is the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Ice Cube stars as Will Radford, a Department of Homeland Security surveillance and threat assessment expert who watches an extraterrestrial attack unfold through computer and phone screens. As mysterious machines attack Earth. This movie is basically an Amazon Prime ad. From the constant use of delivery drones, to the order placement page, to the actual Amazon delivery driver as a character in the film, Amazon Prime Video (the distributor of the movie) created an entire ad out of a feature film. That’s only the icing on the cake. Ice Cube gives a dreadful performance as Will Radford as he sits in his chair during the film and has to react to the dangers of what’s happening around him.  Apparently this was filmed during covid so that’s why he’s sedentary. The problem is, Ice Cube has no range. So his reactions offer nothing emotionally to the story. There’s even one scene where he’s off camera and you can tell he’s literally reading from the script. It’s awful. The best thing about War Of The Worlds is it became a literal meme on social media and was universally panned by critics and fans alike.

Wayne Broadway’s Worst of 2025

The Monkey

In fairness to The Monkey and all other films on my “Worst Of” list, I had earlier made a commitment to myself that I wouldn’t watch clear-cut crap as much as I could help it. Meaning, things like Amazon’s meme-worthy The War of the Worlds remained off my radar, and I consider it an exercise in self love that I still refuse to view it. That said, the films that do make this list are bad for failing to live up to the potential I saw in them. I’m not mad; I’m just disappointed. Take, for example, Osgood Perkin’s The Monkey. Directed by the same mind behind the well-received Longlegs and an adaptation of Stephen King’s short story, The Monkey had all the makings of a potential horror classic. But, beyond the creative kills, there was no there there. The story is bland and forgettable, and the characters don’t have much to do besides die. In other films, like this year’s fantastic Final Destination entry, the latter might not be an issue. But this film is at its core a family drama, and the drama falls flat. 

Jurassic World Rebirth

In short, life should stop finding a way. The mad scientists at Universal should learn the same lessons as those at InGen and BioSyn and leave the fossils of an epic past to rest in peace. Viewers of this latest iteration gained nothing—no deeper insight in the “Jurassic Park” world, no love for the new, paper-thin characters, no sense that anything was accomplished other than a bland highway robbery that netted the perpetrators nearly a billion dollars. The worst part is that our collective hope that maybe this time they’ll get it right got us into movie theater seats to watch a short film about a lost family and a discarded video game plot about mercenaries get mashed together for two hours and some change. I’m always happy to see Mahershala Ali working, and Scarlett Johansson does what she can with the materials given to her, but there is little these charismatic and talented actors can do to enliven this latest entry in a decaying franchise. 

I Know What You Did Last Summer

For suspense fans that want to watch Chase Sui Wonders play a member of a friend group dissolving because of mutual mistrust amid a murder mystery, I suggest watching 2022’s “Bodies Bodies Bodies.” That movie has everything 2025’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer” re-quel thinks it has: engaging characters, sharp dialogue, and a well-earned twist ending. Pity the poor folks like myself who were enticed by the excellent trailer that, at the very least, promised a return to form for the franchise. It’s also likely that a “return to form” doesn’t mean much for a franchise whose original film holds a paltry 47% on Rotten Tomatoes. But still, there was hope and unearned faith that something special might happen here. After all, “Final Destination Bloodlines” is arguably better than 90% of what came before it. But that hope was horribly misplaced. What audiences got was a script that seemed stitched together from last-minute rewrites and frantic responses to the whims of screening focus groups. The mid-credits scene teases a sequel. Let’s pray this film’s box office profits don’t come back to haunt us next summer. 

Jeanine T. Abraham’s Worst of 2025

One Battle After Another

The press tour for One Battle After Another was a thing of beauty. Not one, but three spectacularly dynamic female actors, Teyana Taylor (Perfidia), Regina Hall (Deandra), and newcomer Chase Infiniti (Willa) were out in front promoting this film as an action film about Black revolutionaries. I was super pumped to see them light up the screen. The trailer featured Leonardo DiCaprio (Bob) and was epic. I was excited in the first scene where I saw Wood Harris (The Wire) up front and center as one of the revolutionaries. I was dialed in and ready to be sucked into a film that was about Black power. But unfortunately, One Battle After Another does not center the Black revolutionary movement. It’s a film about white men with fetishes for Black women, (there is actually a character named “Junglepussy” in this film), white men who will do anything to maintain white supremacy, and white men like Bob who shirk their responsibility to change the racist systems their forefathers left, leaving it to their mixed children to battle while they sit home on the couch and smoke weed and objectify Black women. It’s totally fine for a white male filmmaker to make a film from his perspective, but don’t place the Black women out in front of the press tour, social media marketing, and advertising, making the film seem as if it’s something it’s not. The thing is, One Battle After Another is technically a compelling film with interesting characters, it’s funny, and the action scenes are filmed in surprising and unique ways. Which makes it worse because they could have promoted the film to its intended audience, but they chose not to. I was expecting a Black female-led film, and I was inundated with toxic white male stories, the portrayal of revolutionaries from marginalized communities as snitches, cowards, and horrible mothers. I saw this film with a majority Black audience, and a bunch of people walked out.  For leading me to think I was going to see a Black woman positive satire/action/comedy about revolution, and then showing me a satire about white supremacy and fetishizing Black women, One Battle After Another was one of my worst films of 2025.

Highest 2 Lowest

Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest leaves you wondering what ever happened to the brilliant young man who wrote and directed Do the Right Thing? Based on Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic, High and Low, Lee sets the story in Brooklyn and makes the main character David King (Denzel Washington) a music industry mogul. Instead of giving tension, style, and a compelling story, this film served stale vibes, boring speeches, and the cinematic equivalent of someone shaking you by the shoulders, yelling, “DID YOU GET IT?”  Every Spike Lee trademark is in Highest 2 Lowest, as he pulls out all the stops, desperately trying to be deep, but it all just falls short.  Everyone is super intense, with no subtlety whatsoever, and the film is too long, tedious, and you can see what’s coming from a mile away. The age gap between Denzel Washington’s David King and Ilfenesh Hadera’s Pam King is distracting. Why are all of the love interests light-skinned? The character playing Denzel’s son even describes a girl he’s interested in as a light-skinned Zendaya.  Most of the characters speak exclusively in declarations, slogans, and dramatic pauses. A$AP Rocky (a.k.a Rakim Mayers) is in two of my worst films of 2025, and his characters in both films are the same stereotype. There was music playing in the background in weird moments, which was distracting. You can pack talent like Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction), NYC theater icon LaChanze (the only Dark skinned Black woman with lines in the film, who was, of course, a cop), and Wendell Pierce (The Wire), but even that level of talent can’t make a terrible script like this worth watching. Highest 2 Lowest was a total fail.

Straw 

Watching Straw is like being trapped in a locked escape room, and the only key is suffering. Janiyah Wiltkinson (Taraji P. Henson, Hustle and Flow) is a single mom/ grocery store worker on the worst day of her life. Straw doesn’t really build tension; it takes a shovel and dumps it on you every five minutes.This movie is a series of scenes in which people give melodramatic monologues, snot-cry, and yell and scream at one another over and over for an hour and forty-five minutes. Not one moment in this film felt authentic, writing or acting. From the wigs, makeup, and costume design to the set design and props, everything looked cheap and thrown together. Every single actor in Straw could lead a master class in acting for a Tyler Perry film. The holes in the plotlines are so big you could drive several trucks through them. I wonder, at what point in the history of American cinema will Black filmmakers step away from the lazy tactic of minstrelsy?  Apparently, never because there’s an audience. If you enjoy trauma porn, hate subtle, realistic storytelling, loathe seeing Black people connected to joy, and support anything Tyler Perry puts on screen because he’s Black,Straw is the perfect film for you.

Marty Supreme

Marty Supreme was like a spaztic fever dream. Take a bunch of wealthy people, put them in a period costume film, and promote the movie like it’s already gotten an Oscar, and you have Marty Supreme, the most overrated film of 2025. Timothée Chalamet plays Table Tennis Champion Marty Supreme on his quest to make enough money to pay his way to an international table tennis competition in Japan. This film has a lot of non-actors in leading roles, and it shows. Kevin O’Leary plays Milton Rockwell, a wealthy businessman who likes to humiliate people. O’Leary has said he’s playing himself, and I can see that. He is as unfunny, rude, and tiresome in this film as he is on his TV show Shark Tank. Director Josh Safdie ignores the actual racial dynamics of the 1950s, gives Marty a Black best friend, Wally (Tyler, the Creator), and places them in unrealistic situations as vehicles for comedy that were not funny. Gwyneth Paltrow’s Kay Stone is dull as dishwater and has zero chemistry with Marty. Earlier this year, she proudly proclaimed that she refused to use an intimacy coordinator, and it shows. The scenes of intimacy between this lackluster couple are sophomoric, bland, boring, and unbelievable. The script isn’t surprising; it’s just all over the place.  It’s disappointing because Chalamet is a talented actor but his work in this film feels labored. Instead of thinking I’m watching Marty, I am watching Timothée Chalamet act like someone from the 21st century wearing a 20th-century costume and running around New York City being annoying. The only interesting actor in this film is Odessa A’zion as Rebecca. The character is horribly written, clingy, codependent but even with what she was given A’zion has a spark that draws you in. Marty Supreme feels like a vanity project for multi millionaires to say, “Hey this acting stuff isn’t so hard! I’m rich enough to play myself!” Yet here’s the thing, we don’t have to say that the film is great cinema just because there are rich people in it.   

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Not wearing makeup and bad lighting do not make a killer performance. Rose Byrne is a fantastic actor, but watching her play Linda, the overwhelmed mother in this movie was like watching her perform a series of “I’m an annoying Karen mom” TikTok’s strung together. Linda is a working mother with a child who has a mysterious health problem. Her husband is always away working and Linda can’t handle her job as a therapist, and taking care of her child. Writer director Mary Bronstein’s script and direction made you hate Linda and made film feel disconnected. Like Nightbitch last year If I Had Legs I’d Kick You centers a woman with resources who can barely hold it together to raise one child. Both these women are unorganized and have so much support but are overwhelmed and the audience is supposed to have empathy for these frankly really bad mothers because they can’t handle motherhood. The film is supposed to be a comedy but it’s not funny. This is unfortunately another film with a bunch of famous celebrities from comedy and hip hop lending their images to an indie film that seems as if it’s just a rich persons therapy project. Every single actor in this film is over the top, it’s not at all funny and the ending was lackluster.

Chalice Williams’ Worst Films of 2025

The Man in My Basement

I truthfully couldn’t have been more disappointed in a  film than I was about The Man in My Basement because I sat down with some level of expectations. Willem Dafoe doesn’t miss, as he is one of the most talented and versatile actors ever to work in the industry. This film was, for lack of better word, pointless, as it built towards an abysmal conclusion. Right when you think you know where they are going with the plot, they say “sike” and leave you hanging. There were so many elements they could have tapped into for the overall “plot twist”, but even though they built them up, they never went toward any of them. There were several scenes that felt cringe and didn’t contribute to anything, such as Dafoe’s character going full frontal (what was the reason?!”), and Corey Hawkins’ having a moment with himself with a mask on (again, what was the reason?). Overall, I expected something deep with the way this film was set up, and got absolutely let down at every turn.

At the end of the day, lists like these are never about rooting for failure, but about holding the medium we love to a higher standard. Holland, One Battle After Another (which also appeared on our Best of List), and The Monkey each arrived with intriguing premises and creative promise, yet ultimately fell short of delivering the impact audiences and critics hoped for. Whether weighed down by muddled storytelling, uneven execution, or unrealized potential, these films serve as reminders that even the most anticipated projects can miss the mark. As always, we celebrate the risks filmmakers take, but we also recognize when those risks don’t pay off. Here’s hoping the lessons learned from these missteps lead to stronger, more compelling stories in the years to come.

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