While 2024 has been a great year for cinema, there has still been a number of new releases that have fallen way short of the mark. I often avoid those that have been given bad press, with universal negative reviews, but some still manage to slip through the cracks, some of which being a result of disappointment more than anything. This has seen the like of “Joker: Folie a Deux” become overhated this past year, and while I found it to be troublesome, it is not close to being one of the worst movies of the year.
Films widely considered to be amongst the worst of the year that I have not watched include; “Kraven the Hunter”, “Madame Web”, “Borderlands”, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2”, “Mickey’s Mouse Trap” and “Reagan”, among others, so don’t expect any of these to appear on my list.
Let me know some of you least favourite movies of the year in the comments, my ten worst films of 2024 are as follows:
10. Mean Girls

Dir: Samantha Jayne, Arturo Perez Jr.
Cast: Angourie Rice, Renee Rapp, Auli’i Cravalho, Christopher Briney
Synopsis: New student Cady Heron gets welcomed into the top of the social food chain by an elite group of popular girls called the Plastics, ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George. However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend, she soon finds herself caught in their crosshairs.
9. Argylle

Dir: Matthew Vaughn
Cast: Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson
Synopsis: Reclusive author Elly Conway writes best-selling espionage novels about a secret agent named Argylle who’s on a mission to unravel a global spy syndicate. However, when the plots of her books start to mirror the covert actions of a real-life spy organization, the line between fiction and reality begin to blur.
8. Megalopolis

Dir: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, Dustin Hoffman
Synopsis: A conflict between Cesar, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare.
7. Jackpot!

Dir: Paul Feig
Cast: Awkwafina, John Cena, Ayden Mayeri, Donald Elise Watkins, Sam Asghari, Simu Liu
Synopsis: In the near future, a ‘Grand Lottery’ has been newly established in California – the catch: kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot.
6. Our Little Secret

Dir: Stephen Herek
Cast: Lindsay Lohan, Ian Harding, Tim Meadows, Jon Rudnitsky, Henry Czerny, Judy Reyes, Chris Parnell, Kristin Chenoweth
Synopsis: After discovering their significant others are siblings, two resentful exes must spend Christmas under one roof while hiding their romantic history.
5. Imaginary

Dir: Jeff Wadlow
Cast: DeWanda Wise, Tom Payne, Taegan Burns, Pyper Braun, Veronica Falcon, Betty Buckley
Synopsis: When Jessica moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter, Alice, finds a stuffed bear named Chauncey. As Alice’s behavior becomes more and more concerning, Jessica intervenes only to realize that Chauncey is much more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be.
4. Night Swim

Dir: Bryce McGuire
Cast: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon
Synopsis: Forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness, former baseball player Ray Waller moves into a new house with his wife and two children. He hopes that the backyard swimming pool will be fun for the kids and provide physical therapy for himself. However, a dark secret from the home’s past soon unleashes a malevolent force that drags the family into the depths of inescapable terror.
3. Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver

Dir: Zack Snyder
Cast: Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, Anthony Hopkins
Synopsis: A colony on the edge of the galaxy fights for survival against a tyrannical ruling force, relying on the efforts of a small group of rebels.
2. Unfrosted

Dir: Jerry Seinfeld
Cast: Jerry Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Max Greenfield, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer
Synopsis: In 1963, Kellogg’s and Post, sworn cereal rivals, race to create a pastry that will change the face of breakfast forever.
1. Lift

Dir: F. Gary Gray
Cast: Kevin Hart, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ursula Corbero, Billy Magnussen, Jacob Batalon, Jean Reno, Sam Worthington
Synopsis: A master thief is wooed by his ex-girlfriend and the FBI to pull off an impossible heist with his international crew on a 777 passenger flight from London to Zurich.

While neither were great by any stretch of the imagination I enjoyed both Argylle and Lift. But I had heard lots of bad about Argylle so my expectations were very minimal and I hadn’t even heard of Lift before I saw it.
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Thanks for the list. I will give them a miss. I would add Gladiator 2 to the list. It just didn’t come close to the first one.
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I thought Gladiator II was mid, but nowhere near as bad as these
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I guess I was just disappointed with it. I only stayed until the end to see Denzil Washington. He was excellent as always.
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For my wife and I you can add “Heretic” to the list – after a promising start it turned into a very ugly story of unnecessary suffering and pain for innocent characters for no purpose…we actually felt awful after watching it, and it got many strong reviews
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Not yey seen Heretic but I had hward good things mostly so thats a shame
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So did we! Look sometimes things don’t click and it didn’t for us and we love A24 films!
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I share 3 of these – Lift, Imaginary and Megalopolis – but I did have a different Logan film, Irish Wish, in my list. Never saw Night Swim, Rebel Moon, Unfrosted or Jackpot! Only be I’d disagree with you on is Argylle which although silly I quite enjoyed. My top 10 here – https://youtu.be/M0LKEb6egzc
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Add Babygirl to the list – an offensively awful film: zero character motivation, constant humiliation for Nicole Kidman – not one single believable moment a pretentious embarrassment for all concerned – truly one of the worst we have ever seen
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Ill probably watch it after it releases here next weekend if I get chance and see how I feel about it
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The only one on this list I watched was Mean Girls, but I hatedddd it. It took everything brilliant about the 2004 film (the witty and flawed characters, clever plot, analysis of female relationships, etc.) and chucked it out the window. Not to mention Cady’s poor casting (she looked the part but couldn’t sing the part).
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That’s a rough list. I salute you for giving those all a watch.
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I try and watch as much as I can
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Same.
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