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Worst Films of 2023

Unlike the year before, 2023 actually turned out to be a great year for cinema. So many amazing films were released this year. Still, every year has their bad eggs and this one had them in abundance. The worst movies on this list represent the weakest from their directors or genres, all of them feeling unnecessary and pointless. Here are the worst movies of 2023.

5. Red, White & Royal Blue

Red, White & Royal Blue is wildly entertaining, I will give it that. You can have a lot of fun with this movie if you accept its undeniable trashiness. But this was still a film that was not just a shameless pro-Democrat and pro-British royalty propaganda, but also a rom-com that dealt with so many clichés and stereotypes, rendering it entirely predictable and tiresome. I get why some may like it, but for me this bland waste of time easily lands on this worst list for 2023.

4. Rebel Moon

Rebel Moon is a mediocre space opera that features strong VFX, fun action scenes and some solid world building, but it suffers from lifeless dialogue, poor characterization and a script that borrowed so many elements from other franchises, feeling stale and unoriginal throughout. It’s one of the worst Zack Snyder movies and one of the biggest failures of the year.

3. Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken

It’s unfortunate to witness a DreamWorks Animation movie on this list, but the studio is in a dire situation. They need to break away from this cycle of mediocre output sooner rather than later. This is a colorful and somewhat charming flick, but one that featured bad dialogue, terrible characterization and a plot that was pretty much recycled from Pixar’s ‘Turning Red’, making it entirely disposable.

2. Shazam! Fury of the Gods

The first Shazam! movie just might be the best DCEU film. Imagine my disappointment, then, that the sequel turned to be one of their worst. In what was a truly terrible year for superhero cinema, this sequel was among the worst of the bunch as it threw away the simplicity and childlike wonder of the original in favor of messy storytelling with too many underdeveloped characters and uninspired plot points. It has its fun moments, but for the most part it’s a huge downgrade in quality from the original.

1. Infinity Pool

Infinity Pool is another mediocre movie from David Cronenberg that is clearly the case of style over substance, but even in its visuals and score it felt bombastic and overwhelming. It’s a SF horror that is just too grotesque and exhausting to bear with no depth behind its admittedly intriguing concept whatsoever. By this point, whenever I see a David Cronenberg film, I should expect the worst as the apple has clearly fallen far away from the tree in this case. It’s the worst movie I saw all year.

Honorable Mentions:

The Killer – Yes, I have to put a David Fincher movie in the honorable mentions. While it’s well made of course, it felt more as a tired, uninspired action flick than a rich psychological thriller. It’s his career-worst feature.

Magic Mike 3 – While I actually liked this film to a degree as it was fun and charming, the script was quite bad and it simply wasn’t sexy enough for a Magic Mike movie.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – Ant-Man 2 was easily their worst release this year. It has its fun moments and solid world building, but the plot was poor and the effects were horrendous. It’s such a messy sequel that really did not work.