The worst movies of 2025

And how was your year?

For those of us who turn to Hollywood for escapism, some of 2025’s best movies did not provide much respite. (I’m looking at you, “One Battle After Another.”)

But in this season of best-of lists, maybe there’s a measure of schadenfreude, if not solace, to be found in other people’s failures. I’m talking about the perverse pleasures of reading about the cinematic bombs of the past year: the trash heap of movies so bad that they couldn’t muster more than a star and half from our critics.

Revel in the The Washington Post’s annual parade of turkeys. If you’re brave enough to demand more evidence, we’ve included information on where you can watch them.

“The Accountant 2”

“I-love-you-man badinage, kids in jeopardy and a line dance set to Steve Earle are just some of the most brazen attempts to recruit the audience in a film that is little more than a delivery system for supercool knife fights, really awesome fistfights and, of course, magically survivable gunfights.” (Prime Video) — Ann Hornaday

“The Alto Knights”

“Although the fact-based story was written by Nicholas Pileggi, acclaimed for his work chronicling organized crime as co-writer and/or producer of such classic mob movies as ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘The Irishman,’ the new film proceeds with all the plodding style and slack suspense of a cable TV documentary about a falling-out between members of a heavy metal hair band. Call it ‘Behind the Murders.’” (HBO Max) — Michael O’Sullivan

“Americana”

“Written and directed by Tony Tost, a successful TV writer-producer (‘Poker Face,’ ‘Damnation’) making his big-screen debut, ‘Americana’ is very much a sun-parched ‘Fargo’ wannabe with a side helping of Tarantino. The plot features a motley assortment of colorful characters chasing after a valuable Native American artifact, a high body count and a screenplay that wrings every bit of wryness from the dialogue until it’s just about wrung out.” (Apple TV, Google Play, Prime Video, YouTube) — Ty Burr

“Anaconda”

“The problem comes into clear focus when the credits reveal this ‘Anaconda’ was hatched by writer-director Tom Gormican and co-writer Kevin Etten, the duo behind 2022’s not-that-funny, still-funnier-than-this ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.’ That film featured Nicolas Cage as himself, making a plot point of the star’s financial woes and late-career lack of discernment. Gormican and Etten were also two of the five credited writers on last year’s grim straight-to-Netflix lega-sequel ‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,’ which is to say they have lots of experience making things that ought to be much more fun than they are.” (In theaters) — Chris Klimek

“Anemone”

“It’s a simple story with plenty of meat on its bones, so why is ‘Anemone’ such a chore to watch? Plainly put, the movie is done in by portentous, heavy-handed direction, an insistence on greater meaning that, because it isn’t backed up by anything, squeezes the life out of the film. Great yawning silences fill the spaces between the actors’ lines, the score by Bobby Krlic is a thick blanket of industrial-strength shoegaze rock, and surreal touches like a giant salmon and some kind of phosphorescent deer only serve to confuse the issue. At a full two hours, the ponderousness becomes unbearable.” (Peacock) — T.B.

“Another Simple Favor”

“Written by the first film’s Jessica Sharzer with Laeta Kalogridis (‘Shutter Island’), and based on characters in Darcey Bell’s original 2017 novel, it is a cringe contest of forced banter, bald exposition, dialogue that sags rather than snaps and plot developments that don’t twist so much as spiral into incredulity like a failed SpaceX launch.” (Apple TV, Google Play, Prime Video, YouTube) — T.B.

“Bride Hard”

“As the title suggests, ‘Bride Hard’ tries to mash together the bridesmaid comedy genre with an action thriller, sort of like peanut butter and chocolate but with ice cream and Brussels sprouts. [Rebel] Wilson plays Sam, who was BFFs with Betsy (Anna Camp, ‘True Blood’) in childhood before presumably moving to Australia, which would explain the otherwise unexplained accent. Now Betsy’s getting married, but in the intervening years, Sam has become a superspy for an unspecified government agency, and her missions conflict with her desire to be Betsy’s maid of honor.” (Hulu) — T.B.

“Captain America: Brave New World”

“It’s easier to just tell you who’s in the movie than try to explain what happens in it. Here goes: Giancarlo Esposito spitting campy nails as the villainous Sidewinder; Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley, a former super soldier much mistreated by the U.S. government; Tim Blake Nelson with a chewing-gum hairdo as supervillain Samuel Sterns, who (checks notes) is ‘a cellular biologist who was accidentally cross-contaminated with the blood of Bruce Banner in ‘The Incredible Hulk’; Xosha Roquemore as the head of the president’s Secret Service team. All do what they can with the dull, declamatory lines of dialogue they’re forced to spout.” (Disney+) — T.B.

“Eddington”

“The characters all seem drawn from the same stacked deck: As the beleaguered Joe, [Joaquin] Phoenix delivers one of his now-familiar recessive, grumbling performances as a man hoist on his own confidently noble petard (his political rhetoric is limited to criticizing the government for ruining people’s days, and calling for ‘freeing each other’s hearts’). [Emma] Stone is utterly wasted as Louise, who makes weird-looking dolls for weird-looking dolls’ sake. [Pedro] Pascal’s mayor is probably the movie’s most vividly drawn figure, but like all his peers he exists in a world that feels like it’s been filmed through algae-covered glass. For a movie drenched in foreboding menace, there’s very little narrative tension in ‘Eddington,’ a problem [filmmaker Ari] Aster solves with an intrusive sound design and dissonant, clanging piano chords.” (HBO Max) — A.H.

“Ella McCay”

“[Filmmaker James L.] Brooks squeezes this heap of clutter into a pretty package, thanks to cinematographer Robert Elswit, whose impressive résumé includes an Oscar win for ‘There Will Be Blood.’ Together, they create an atmosphere of nostalgia, unsubtly hammered home by a sappy score from Hans Zimmer (who previously collaborated with Brooks on films including ‘As Good As It Gets’ and ‘Spanglish’). It’s enough to trick yourself into thinking you’re having a good time, until something snaps you out of it. Your heart warms as Ella bonds with her brother over their abnormal childhoods, for instance, and then freezes over as she launches into some weird stump speech about children’s dental hygiene.” (In theaters) — Sonia Rao

“Hurry Up Tomorrow”

“Abel Tesfaye, the singer and sometime actor (‘The Idol’) better known as the Weeknd, has called ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’ a ‘love letter’ to his fans in an interview with the New York Times. Tesfaye, as he’s credited here, co-wrote the movie, and also produced it, stars in it and, with Daniel Lopatin, composed the music for it. Well, he got the love letter part right. But anyone not already in the tank for the 35-year-old, Toronto-born musician — whose undeniable gift for electronic R&B is showcased on his latest album, also titled ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’ — is unlikely to be persuaded of anything by the movie, except the performer’s tedious self-regard.” (Apple TV, Google Play, Prime Video, YouTube) — M.O.

“Juliet & Romeo”

“Panning a movie like ‘Juliet & Romeo’ is a little like kicking a puppy. A puppy that chews the furniture, soils the rugs and projectile vomits on the guests, but a puppy nevertheless. This maladaption of William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ only wants to please its target audience of early-middle-school girls by replacing iambic pentameter with lots and lots of pop songs, swooning with plastic sentiments and machine-tooled harmonies. Replace the Bard with a Top 40 production team and his soliloquies with sub-Swiftian lyrics (Taylor, not Jonathan) and you can imagine the results. This isn’t a movie, it’s a prom theme.” (Apple TV, Prime Video, YouTube) — T.B.

“Love Hurts”

“Director Jonathan ‘JoJo’ Eusebio is, like [David] Leitch and [Chad] Stahelski before him, a veteran stunt player, fight coordinator and second-unit director who has graduated to the big chair. [Ke Huy] Quan is himself an experienced fight coordinator and martial artist, skills he drew upon during his long dry spell as an actor. All that would lead us to believe that the fight scenes, at least, would be something special. But they’re the same old quasi-ironic same old: brutal violence played for comedy, often with a ’70s soul classic — Barry White’s ‘You’re the First, the Last, My Everything,’ in one instance — soundtracking the carnage to remind us how hilarious it all is. That gag was old when ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’ used it 20 years ago.” (Prime Video) — C.K.

“Novocaine”

“The weightless repetition and lack of real stakes make this high-concept dud a slog, and that’s saying something in an overlong film stuffed with stabbings, one-liners and fingernail trauma. Nathan Caine might not feel pain, but after sitting through ‘Novocaine,’ we sure do.” (Prime Video) — Jen Yamato

“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t”

“With certain genres, it doesn’t matter when the plot mechanics barely make any sense. The whole point is getting to see popular actors run around together; when they have fun, the audience does, too. But the thrill of stage magic in particular relies on the successful revelation of its intricate mapping. Director Ruben Fleischer (‘Zombieland’), who is new to the franchise, and an army of also-new screenwriters — Seth Grahame-Smith, Michael Lesslie, Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, working off a story by Eric Warren Singer — fail in this regard.” (Rent) — S.R.

“Opus”

“Every now and then, a movie comes along to remind you that making a movie is harder than it looks. ‘Opus,’ the feature debut of writer-director Mark Anthony Green, appears to have a lot going for it on the surface: an up-and-coming young actress [Ayo Edebiri] in the lead, an admired older star [John Malkovich] as backup, a score by a pop music survivor [Nile Rodgers]. What it doesn’t have is a story that makes a lick of narrative sense, characters a viewer cares about, laughs to match its jokes, chills to match its scares, or an emotional connection to anything that happens on-screen. It isn’t even a disaster; that, at least, might be interesting.” (HBO Max) — T.B.

“Unstoppable”

“‘Unstoppable,’ a lackluster biopic about the rise of one-legged Arizona State wrestler Anthony Robles, wears its heartstring-tugging ambition on its sleeveless unitard. But as much as this uplifting drama fashions itself in the image of ‘Rocky’ — packing in references to the Italian Stallion and bookending the tale in Philadelphia — it has more in common with the parodying antics of ‘Talladega Nights’ than Sylvester Stallone’s sports movie standard.” (Prime Video) — Thomas Floyd