A line I get a lot is, “Being a movie critic must be the best job in the world.”
You’d think!
But Hollywood so often has other ideas.
Even considering that there are always far more dogs released annually than winners — check out my best-of-the-year list for those — 2025 was a real doozy.
The horrific torture was spread across all genres — romantic comedy, science fiction, family and serious drama — and budgets. Some cost $320 million, some look like they cost 320 pesos.
One made me Google: “Does my health insurance plan cover ‘Smurfs’?”
Here are the five worst films of 2025.
‘The War of the Worlds’
Amazon’s atrocity made peeved viewers question the accuracy of its streaming service’s name. Prime Video? Perhaps Choice or Select would be a better fit. Canner maybe. “War of the Worlds,” which was made during Covid and then locked away for years only to break out to terrorize viewers in June, was a 90-minute Zoom call with Ice Cube. In an otherwise empty office, he saves earth from an alien invasion from his desk. Optometrist waiting rooms are more exhilarating. Forget 2025 — this is one of the lousiest of the decade.
‘Smurfs’
I smurfing loathed it. Some might say it’s mean to award zero stars to the tiny, talking, blue, Belgian gnomes that were created in the 1950s. You say mean, I say fun! Surely if someone could turn Legos into a clever, emotional hit movie, these filmmakers could do much better than having James Corden play “No Name Smurf,” an unbelievably stupid character who goes on an agonizing quest to find his purpose.
‘A Big Bold Beautiful Journey’
I can’t write the perfect word to describe this offensively bad romantic comedy, which revolves around a magic car. But know that it rhymes with “Chitty Chitty.” The star power of Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell was not nearly enough to salvage the sappy turd, the cliched script of which was practically a pile of the worst motivational posters ever Scotch Taped together.
‘The Electric State’
Since “Avengers: Endgame,” Anthony and Joe Russo have directed exclusively awful movies. It’s practically in their contract. The worst yet was also, somehow, one of the most expensive films ever made — with a reported cost of $320 million. Why did it take such a staggering amount of money to have Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown pal around with extremely annoying robots that look like the Bob’s Big Boy mascot on Netflix? Beats me.
‘Ella McCay’
This one stung. James L. Brooks is a comedy icon who gave us “Broadcast News,” “Terms of Endearment” and “The Simpsons.” And for his first film in 15 years, he pumps out the unwatchable “Ella McCay,” which is even worse than “Spanglish.” The movie turns seasoned actors like Jamie Lee Curtis into hammy amateurs. And the screenplay — with details as specific as Ella becomes governor of “the state she was born and raised in” — has been mocked to high heaven on social media for weeks. And rightly so.
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