THE WORST MOVIES OF 2025
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
So it’s that time of year again. Time to sharpen the knives, crack the knuckles, and put together the lists: the best movies of the year and, of course, the worst movies of the year.
I know people love to get mad about these lists. They love to argue, they love to scream, they love to send me emails that start with “How could you possibly...?”
But listen: I’ve been a professional film critic for 40 years. March 5th, 2025 was my actual 40-year anniversary of doing this job for real. Four decades of screenings, junkets, festivals, popcorn, migraines, and more bad movies than any one human being should be asked to endure.
And by the way (quick plug) if you want to relive some of that history with me, my book 40 Years, 40 Films is out now from Eckhartz Press. It’s a great gift. It’s the holidays. You should buy one. Or ten.
Now, every year when I put these lists together, I always have that moment where I realize, yet again, that I don’t seem to line up with the majority of other critics or the majority of the moviegoing public.
And I swear to God, it is never on purpose. I’m not doing some “contrarian” thing. I’m not trying to stir the pot. I’m not trying to be the one guy standing in the corner going, “Actually…” I just genuinely don’t like a lot of the movies that everybody else seems to be worshipping.
And 2025 was a prime example of that. I mean, people are losing their minds over Hamnet: I think it’s a bad movie. They’re going wild for Train Dreams: I don’t get it. The Long Walk? Nope. Sorry, Baby: an absolute darling of critics everywhere, but completely baffling to me.
Then you’ve got Weapons and Sinners, which are both horror movies, both embraced by critics, both loved by the internet, but to me?
Weapons is a moronic, simplistic mess wrapped around a premise that collapses the moment you touch it, and Sinners is basically a blender filled with ripped-off scenes from The Thing, Evil Dead, Phantasm, Crossroads, and From Dusk Till Dawn. And the worst part? All of those movies are infinitely better than the one trying to copy them.
Now again, to be clear, neither Weapons nor Sinners made the worst list, so they’re not in the bottom 20. But I’m absolutely baffled by the love. High-profile nominations, critics groups losing their minds, people telling me I’m wrong. Fine. But I’m not. They’re not good. End of story.
This is one of those years where there are going to be multiple movies on my bottom 20 list (the worst of the year) that some people actually liked. Maybe even loved. Maybe they’ll be on other critics’ top 10 lists.
Maybe studios are still mailing out screeners with little gold-embossed “For Your Consideration” cards. Doesn’t matter. These movies stunk. And I promise you, I’m not being cute about it. I’m being honest.
You might see a title on the list and go, “Oh come on, that wasn’t THAT bad.” Well, guess what? To me, it was.
2025 as a whole? Not a great year for movies. A handful of great ones, sure. A decent amount of good ones. But long stretches (long miserable stretches) of absolute dreck. There were weeks where the only thing playing in theaters was garbage.
Just wall-to-wall disappointment. So narrowing this down to 20 was actually easy. The challenge was deciding which terrible movie was more terrible than the other terrible movie.
But before I get to the best (and that list will be out in two days) I always have to take out the trash first. It is a holiday tradition. Clear the slate, dump the garbage, and then we can celebrate the good stuff.
So here we go. These are the 20 absolute worst films of 2025. The bottom of the barrel. The sludge. The movies that wasted my time, wasted my money, and wasted my brain cells.
Let’s get into it.
THE 20 WORST MOVIES OF 2025 (in order of least preferred):
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