Scraping the bottom of the barrel: What is the worst movie of all time?
No filmmaker – not even the consistently risible Uwe Boll – sets out with the intention of making the worst movie ever. However, the detestable filmography accrued by the wretched director of bargain basement dreck would state a rather compelling case to the contrary.
Anyone who picks up a megaphone has a distinctly high chance of accidentally helming a panned movie, and there are very few exceptions to have proven the rule. Everybody has at least a handful of features they believe are completely and utterly abhorrent, but what is the worst movie ever?
Cinema history has given rise to cringe movies, dumb movies, stupid movies, miscalculated movies, offensive movies, unfunny movies, and many more that scrape the very bottom of the cynical barrel, but surely one of them has to be deemed the worst of the worst, a black mark against the medium that will live forever as the pre-eminent example of what not to do?
It’s a tall order to separate the wonky wheat from the chastening chaff, but based on a variety of factors that have been integral to the art form since the advent of the moving image, it’s time to get definitive and name and shame the single worst film that’s ever existed.
Is The Room the worst movie of all time?
In a word, no. From a technical, creative, and artistic perspective, The Room is thoroughly terrible, but it doesn’t fit the criteria to be named as the worst ever. Tommy Wiseau massively overestimates his talents when he’s incapable of doing anything to even a competent degree, but the film has its fans.
The most insufferable movies cinema has to offer don’t have any redeeming qualities whatsoever, so no matter how shoddily made, poorly lit, excruciatingly performed, or ham-fistedly directed it is – and The Room is all of those things and many more – it’s too damned popular to claim the title for itself.
Some features are so bad they’re good, and then there’s The Room. It’s taken on a life of its own and become a cult classic that plays to packed houses of spoon-throwing devotees, which means it can’t quantifiably be named as the worst when there are a lot of people willing to die on the hill defending it.
What movie has won the most awards for being awful?
Every year since 1981, the Golden Raspberry Awards have handed out trophies in a number of categories honouring the worst cinema has had to offer over the previous 12 months, but only once in the ceremony’s entire history has there been a complete clean sweep.
Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill emerged victorious in every single one of the ten categories on offer at the 32nd edition of The Razzies, with Sandler setting another benchmark by accruing six individual nominations for his contributions as the star, co-writer, and producer of the turgid comedy.
No feature before or since has ever replicated the success of Jack and Jill, which stands tall as the most awards-laden bad movie in history. It still isn’t the worst of all time, though, and only part of that is down to Al Pacino and his glorious ‘Dunkaccino’ sequence.
The worst movie of all time
At its essence, cinema has the power to educate, inform, entertain, enthral, and transfix. Many of the greatest movies ever made exist as inspired bursts of creativity, invention, and imagination, with no other purpose than using the art form as a means to tell an incredible story laced with stunning imagery, told without a shred of ill will, no sign of any ulterior motives, or active disdain for the audience.
In theory, any feature that does the exact opposite of all of those things should realistically be considered the nadir of the motion picture, which is why The Emoji Movie is the worst movie of all time.
It’s a soulless, shameless, and blatantly empty exercise in corporate synergy that doesn’t appeal to anyone above the age of three and was created explicitly for means of turning the brains of its viewership into phone-addicted mush.
The Emoji Movie is cold, calculated, heartless, and a harrowing example of borderline technological propaganda that was created, funded, and released to ram home the virtues of downloading and using the mind-numbing array of apps featured prominently throughout. It’s nowhere close to being a movie in the truest sense, but it seems thrilled by its status as a pandering, idiotic, brand-driven drive to boost downloads and nothing more.
It’s the antithesis of what cinema is supposed to be and why it was created in the first place, and there’s no other flick that’s so transparently hollow, precision-engineered for cynical reasons, or irredeemably unwatchable than The Emoji Movie.
