Examples: Jack and Jill (2011), The Human Centipede 2 (2011). These films are condemned for being actively unpleasant—Sandler’s regressive humor or shock-value gross-out. Badness here is not about technical errors but about violating unwritten rules of good taste (e.g., no dignity, excessive cruelty).
Bad cinema, taste cultures, film criticism, cult films, digital media, paracinema.
The 20 films fell into three non-exclusive categories:
While a box office success, it was savaged as "one of the worst movies ever made" by critics featured on Rotten Tomatoes for its wooden acting and lack of chemistry. The Timeless "Worst Ever" Contenders taste of cinema the 20 worst movies ever made 2015
Examples: Battlefield Earth (2000), The Last Airbender (2010), Gigli (2005). Here, badness stems from a disconnect between resources and outcome. Taste of Cinema attacks these films for being both expensive and incompetent, framing them as evidence of studio or director arrogance. Unlike low-budget bad films, these are treated with genuine contempt.
Notably, the 2015 list is heavily skewed toward post-1980 films, with only Ed Wood’s 1959 Plan 9 representing earlier cinema. This reflects the recency bias of online listicles but also the changing nature of “badness”—before home video, truly obscure bad films were inaccessible. The internet democratized bad film discovery.
The 2015 film cycle itself was notoriously brutal, providing fresh entries for the "all-time worst" hall of fame: Examples: Jack and Jill (2011), The Human Centipede 2 (2011)
Other movies on the list include (2000), The Last Airbender (2010), The Happening (2008), and Gigli (2003), among others.
The list includes a mix of films from various genres and decades, showcasing a range of movies that have been panned by critics and audiences alike. Some of the movies on the list are:
The study analyzes the full text of the Taste of Cinema list published in 2015 (retrieved via the Wayback Machine). Each film entry was coded for: Bad cinema, taste cultures, film criticism, cult films,
Almost all directors on the list are male. Films by female directors rarely appear in “worst ever” compilations, perhaps because low-budget female-directed films are less circulated or because critical opprobrium targets a certain kind of male failure (e.g., vanity projects, overblown epics). This gap points to a latent bias in bad-film discourse.
Critics from Business Insider and Reddit communities frequently labeled this sequel as "mean-spirited" and one of the worst comedies ever made.
In 2015, the website Taste of Cinema , known for its curated lists of art-house and genre films, published an article titled “The 20 Worst Movies Ever Made.” The list included familiar punching bags—Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space , Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen , and Tommy Wiseau’s The Room . At first glance, the list appears to be a standard exercise in critical dismissal. However, its appearance on a site associated with discerning taste raises a central question: What cultural work does the “worst movies” list perform?