Special Report

Worst Movies You Can Watch on Netflix Right Now

wutwhanfoto / Getty Images

Even as the days get longer and spring gets that much closer, much of America is still captive to winter. Spending more nights inside means more opportunities to stream movies on Netflix.

Big-budget flicks that were huge hits can be found on the streaming platform this month These include “The Dark Knight” (the second installment of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy) and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” – the first sequel to “The Terminator,” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

But not all of Netflix’s films have been blockbusters, or have found favor with critics and/or audiences. Unless you’re a fan of their stars or feel like watching something substandard just to pass the time, some movies on the platform are probably better off being avoided. (On the other hand, these are the best movies to stream on Netflix this month.)

To determine the worst things to watch on Netflix this February, 24/7 Tempo developed an index using average ratings on IMDb, an online movie database owned by Amazon, and a combination of audience scores and Tomatometer scores on Rotten Tomatoes, an online movie and TV review aggregator, weighting all ratings equally. We considered only movies streaming on Prime that had at least 5,000 audience votes on either IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes as of February, and ruled out documentaries. (Data on streaming availability, current as of this month, comes from the streaming guide Reelgood, and directorial and cast credits are from IMDb.)

Click here to see the worst movies to watch on Netflix right now

Among the Netflix misfires are films in which Oscar winners Ben Kingsley, Christian Bale, and Ben Affleck appear. Director Lasse Hallström, who’s been nominated for three Academy Awards, is responsible for two love stories on this list that did not resonate with critics. Other Oscar-nominated directors whose movies appear here   include Scott Hicks, Neill Blomkamp, and M. Night Shyamalan. (Here are the 20 worst romance movies ever made.)

Courtesy of Summit Distribution

25. Sеx Drive (2008)
>IMDb user rating: 6.5/10 (85,942 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 58% (74,338 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 46% (111 reviews)
>Directed by: Sean Anders

“Sеx Drive” is about teen who swipes his brother’s car to visit a girl he met online who lives in another part of the country. Critics said the film was funny for raunch entertainment aimed at teens but its appeal does not extend beyond that demographic.

[in-text-ad]

Courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment

24. Tears of the Sun (2003)
>IMDb user rating: 6.6/10 (117,564 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 69% (119,786 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 33% (155 reviews)
>Directed by: Antoine Fuqua

Bruce Willis stars as the leader of a group of soldiers tasked with rescuing health workers tending those wounded during a conflict in an African country. David Ansen of Newsweek said the film is “… hopelessly steeped in stale Hollywood action conventions.”

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

23. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
>IMDb user rating: 6.7/10 (202,744 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 69% (32,081 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 31% (275 reviews)
>Directed by: Guy Ritchie

“King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” stars Charlie Hunnam as the legendary English monarch. Some critics thought Guy Ritchie’s version of the legend pulled it away from its foundation. Drew Dietsch of Fandom said the movie was “a good production with some eccentric style, but a mostly bland and unfocused fairy tale reappropriation.”

Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

22. The Interview (2014)
>IMDb user rating: 6.5/10 (316,680 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 48% (64,490 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 51% (154 reviews)
>Directed by: Evan Goldberg

Seth Rogan and James Franco play the team behind a successful tabloid television show who discover that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is a fan of the program and arrange to interview him. The CIA intervenes and recruits them to assassinate the despot. The movie was controversial and upset the North Korean government. Emily VanDerWerff of Vox said that “even the film’s most ardent champions would likely concede that ‘The Interview’ is a spectacularly weird film to end up at the center of a free speech brouhaha.”

[in-text-ad-2]

Courtesy of FilmDistrict

21. Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)
>IMDb user rating: 6.6/10 (162,370 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 57% (91,919 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 39% (129 reviews)
>Directed by: James Wan

In this sequel to the original “Insidious,” in which a family battled a malevolent spirit that had possessed their son, the spirit now possesses the father. Critics said the film lacked suspense, and Donald Clarke of the Irish Times called it “confused and crudely staged.”

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

20. Osmosis Jones (2001)
>IMDb user rating: 6.3/10 (34,233 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 41% (62,725 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 55% (110 reviews)
>Directed by: Bobby Farrelly

A mix of live action and animation, “Osmosis Jones” is an adventure/comedy about a white blood cell (Chris Rock) combating a virus (Laurence Fishburne) inside the body of a character played by Bill Murray. There’s plenty of director Bobby Farrelly’s gross-out humor. Critics praised the film’s inventiveness and sly references to other films, though some like Danny Graydon of BBC.com called it a “vastly underachieving diversion.”

[in-text-ad]

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

18. The Longest Yard (2005)
>IMDb user rating: 6.4/10 (169,218 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 62% (32,774,364 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 31% (170 reviews)
>Directed by: Peter Segal

This remake of the 1970s film that starred Burt Reynolds, about inmates playing prison guards in football, failed to improve on the original. Adam Sandler played the lead as the disgraced quarterback who lands in jail. Michael Compton of the Bowling Green Daily News said “Unlike the original, this version lacks that gritty edge that made it so effective.

Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

18. Chappie (2015)
>IMDb user rating: 6.8/10 (239,232 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 56% (49,874 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 32% (227 reviews)
>Directed by: Neill Blomkamp

In the future imagined by this film, mechanized police patrol the streets to keep humans in line. One robot, Chappie, is grabbed by humans and reprogrammed to try to understand human behavior. Critics thought the film’s ideas were too big for director Neill Blomkamp to explain. Angie Ham of Slashfilm said “The larger story is positively riddled with plot holes, and any sense of subtlety seems to have fallen right through them.”

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

17. Project X (2012)
>IMDb user rating: 6.6/10 (196,153 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 61% (95,375 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 28% (139 reviews)
>Directed by: Nima Nourizadeh

“Project X” is about three teens who intend to hold the most epic party ever, but aren’t ready for the consequences. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes dismissed the film as “unoriginal, unfunny, and all-around unattractive … predictably mean-spirited debauchery.”

[in-text-ad-2]

Courtesy of Film & TV House

16. The Giver (2014)
>IMDb user rating: 6.5/10 (115,257 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 55% (56,256 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 35% (170 reviews)
>Directed by: Phillip Noyce

“The Giver” stars Jeff Bridges in the title role, as an old man who’s the sole keeper of the community’s memories, some of which hold perilous truths. Richard Crouse said the film had “big ideas about individual freedoms, memory, traditions and customs. Important themes one and all, but they’re wrapped in a movie that does not do them justice.” The cast also included Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes, and Alexander Skarsgård.

Courtesy of GEM Entertainment

15. Dead Man Down (2013)
>IMDb user rating: 6.5/10 (66,342 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 47% (21,085 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 41% (106 reviews)
>Directed by: Niels Arden Oplev

Colin Farrell plays a gang member who infiltrates a criminal organization to kill the leader, who ruined his formerly happy life. His plans are disrupted when a neighbor uncovers his secret and threatens to expose him unless he helps her with her own revenge. Some critics hailed it as a modern noir, but others like Robbie Collin of the Daily Telegraph said it was “too dull to function as a thriller and too silly to qualify as anything else.”

[in-text-ad]

Courtesy of Fathom Events

14. Batman: The Killing Joke (2016)
>IMDb user rating: 6.4/10 (52,924 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 50% (10,384 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 39% ( 41 reviews)
>Directed by: Sam Liu

This animated film about the Caped Crusader, voiced by Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, focuses on the origins of the Joker. Critics said the story “adds little to its iconic source material, further diminished by some questionable story additions.”

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

12. Terminator Salvation (2009)
>IMDb user rating: 6.5/10 (351,122 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 54% (885,217 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 33% (282 reviews)
>Directed by: McG

In a sequel to the Terminator series, the first not to feature Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christian Bale plays John Connor in a story set in the then-future of 2018, involving the conflict between humanity and Skynet’s network of machines. Evan Williams of The Australian said “for once I found myself hankering for Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

12. The Lucky One (2012)
>IMDb user rating: 6.5/10 (104,513 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 67% (193,841 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 20% (148 reviews)
>Directed by: Scott Hicks

Zac Efron plays an Iraq War veteran who carries a photo of a woman he doesn’t know, but who he believes kept him alive. He meets her at her workplace, and though she mistrusts him, a romance begins. Critics were fairly vicious toward the film. Jessica Lambert of Little White Lies was typical: “Romance isn’t dead, but films like this are giving it a bad name.”

[in-text-ad-2]

Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

11. Last Action Hero (1993)
>IMDb user rating: 6.4/10 (144,199 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 47% (196,995 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 40% ( 50 reviews)
>Directed by: John McTiernan

An action-comedy that spoofed the action genre, “Last Action Hero” stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Austin O’Brien. Tom Hibbert of Empire Magazine said the film was “an attempt to be both a high-octane actionfest and a satire on such films, the result of which is the weirdest concoction: the metaphysical blockbuster.”

Courtesy of Constantin Film

10. Polar (2019)
>IMDb user rating: 6.3/10 (82,028 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 69% (2,555 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 19% ( 47 reviews)
>Directed by: Jonas Åkerlund

Mads Mikkelsen plays an assassin who wants to retire but is targeted by his former employer who considers him a liability. “Polar is almost two hours of sensory overload that attempts to be a slick and gritty thriller but comes off as a brash, cluttered and crude film,” said Carolyn Mauricette of Cinema Axis.

[in-text-ad]

Courtesy of GEM Entertainment

9. Safe Haven (2013)
>IMDb user rating: 6.7/10 (107,583 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 67% (76,074 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 14% (147 reviews)
>Directed by: Lasse Hallström

Director Lasse Hallström has been nominated for three Academy Awards with a film résumé that includes “My Life as a Dog,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” and “The Cider House Rules.” “Safe Haven,” about a woman who moves to a town in North Carolina and falls in love with a widower, is not among his finest achievements. Critics dismissed it as “schmaltzy, predictable, and melodramatic,” adding that it “also suffers from a ludicrous plot twist.”

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

8. Collateral Beauty (2016)
>IMDb user rating: 6.8/10 (95,881 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 64% (22,360 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 14% (185 reviews)
>Directed by: David Frankel

In “Collateral Beauty,” an advertising executive played by Will Smith suffers a tragedy. He seeks answers from beyond by writing letters to Love, Death, and Time. He gets answers that steer him to the interconnectedness of the world. Despite the star power of Smith, Ed Norton, Kate Winslet, and Helen Mirren, “Collateral Beauty” failed among critics. “‘Collateral Beauty’ sets a record: it is probably the worst movie each of these fine actors will ever do,” proclaimed Paul Byrnes of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Courtesy of Screen Gems

7. Dear John (2010)
>IMDb user rating: 6.3/10 (143,475 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 55% (619,078 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 28% (138 reviews)
>Directed by: Lasse Hallström

In “Dear John,” Channing Tatum plays a soldier who meets a college student (Amanda Seyfried) and they fall in love. They become separated over the next seven years and are connected by their letters, which trigger unforeseen consequences. Some critics saw no chemistry between Tatum and Seyfried. Phelim O’Neill of the Guardian said “Their romance fizzles out in their letters to each other, and the plot gets lost in the post.”

[in-text-ad-2]

Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

6. Just Go with It (2011)
>IMDb user rating: 6.4/10 (230,398 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 59% (88,670 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 19% (139 reviews)
>Directed by: Dennis Dugan

This rom-com misfire stars Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston in a screwball comedy. Matt Joseph of We Got This Covered seemed to sum up critics’ opinions: “The silly story and crummy writing leave ‘Just Go With It’ feeling a bit unfinished and never quite hitting the right level, like a haphazard hodgepodge of poor ideas.”

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

5. Live by Night (2016)
>IMDb user rating: 6.4/10 (54,634 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 42% (13,369 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 34% (240 reviews)
>Directed by: Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck directed, co-produced, and starred in this Prohibition-era film about the son of a Boston policeman who became a mobster and is forced to flee Boston because he stole a gang leader’s money and his girlfriend. There’s plenty of violence in this stylish period piece, which critics found jumbled and misguided. David Edelstein of New York Magazine/Vulture said “You probably won’t turn it off when it comes on cable. But the material needs to be bigger, more momentous, as well as more intimate.”

[in-text-ad]

Courtesy of IPA Asia Pacific

4. Unthinkable (2010)
>IMDb user rating: 7.1/10 (85,881 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 66% (14,005 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 0% (2 reviews)
>Directed by: Gregor Jordan

In “Unthinkable,” Samuel L. Jackson plays a special operative who teams with an FBI agent portrayed by Carrie-Anne Moss to try and find three nuclear bombs set to explode in three different cities. The movie holds a respectable 66% score among audiences, but critics were unimpressed. One, Sean Axmaker, called the film “… a clumsy polemic that bounces between the boundaries of stage-play debate and torture porn spectacle as everyone argues over ethics.”

Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

3. The Ugly Truth (2009)
>IMDb user rating: 6.4/10 (210,596 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 60% (1,399,343 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 14% (175 reviews)
>Directed by: Robert Luketic

Katherine Heigl plays a lovelorn television producer in this rom-com that also featured Gerard Butler. Helen O’Hara of Empire Magazine said the movie is not as “risqué as it wishes it were, nor as likable as it should be.” “The Ugly Truth” is one of three films on the list with a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score of 14%.

Courtesy of Focus Features

2. Self/less (2015)
>IMDb user rating: 6.5/10 (94,788 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 46% (23,954 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 19% (143 reviews)
>Directed by: Tarsem Singh

“Self/less” is sci-fi mystery thriller(take your pick) about a billionaire, played by Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley, who can only beat cancer by moving his consciousness into a healthy body. Tim Robey of the Daily Telegraph said the film was “anonymously slick and rarely betraying a sense of humour, Self/less might not mind a discreet facelift, but it much more urgently needs a personality transplant.”

[in-text-ad-2]

Courtesy of Capitol Films

1. Chaos (2005)
>IMDb user rating: 6.5/10 (53,237 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 57% (21,174 votes)
>Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 0% (3 reviews)
>Directed by: Tony Giglio

Action film star Jason Statham is a detective teamed with a rookie cop tasked with stopping a master thief from draining the funds from a bank by using a computer virus modeled on chaos theory. Only three critics reviewed the film for Rotten Tomatoes. One of them, Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com, said the movie was “wholly lifeless.”

 

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.