Comic book movies are big business for Hollywood. The 2019 Marvel blockbuster Avengers: Endgame, was liked by critics: It has a “generally favorable” Metacritic Metascore of 78. And with more than $2.8 billion in worldwide receipts, it has now claimed the title of the highest-grossing movie of all time from James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar.
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It’s not just Marvel cranking out the hits, either. DC Comics’ last major release, Joker, became the first R-rated film to gross more than $1 billion at the box office. Its critical reviews have been mixed: The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw called it “the most disappointing film of the year.” But the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has nominated it for 11 awards at the 92nd Oscars, more than any other 2019 movie. It wound up winning two: Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix) and Best Original Score (Hildur Guðnadóttir).
Comic book movies haven’t always been synonymous with big box offices and critical acclaim. Marvel’s 1986 film Howard the Duck was an infamous flop across the board. Nic Cage has put in two almost equally terrible performances as Ghost Rider that left moviegoers yawning. And don’t even get us started on all the terribad Fantastic Four movies, with each sequel and reboot seemingly worse and more unwatchable than the last.
And hey, if we’re being honest, there are plenty of recent comic book-sourced stinkers, too. Johnny Oleksinski of the New York Post called Hellboy, the 2019 Neil Marshall-directed film with David Harbour in the titular role, an “awful, disgusting, unfunny, idiotically plotted comic book flick that offends the senses as much as the rankest subway car on the hottest summer day.” Ouch.
And critics weren’t much nicer about 20th Century Fox’s forgettable Dark Phoenix, starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Sophie Turner and more. “The film settles for soft-peddling rehashed themes of belonging, where misunderstood mutants struggle once again to be accepted. We’ve been here before, and it was better the first time.”
But as bad as those movies are, they pale in comparison to the truly terrible. But don’t take our word for it. We’ve compiled a list of 40 movies based on comic books, and then ranked them all via their Metascores, a unique metric used by Metacritic that provides a weighted average of the most respected movie critics in the industry.
Find out where these movies rank in our countdown of the worst comic book-based movies of all time.
40. Spider-Man 3
The insanely big-budget Spider-Man 3 ($250 million) features New Goblin, Sandman, Venom, and one very bizarre scene where Peter Parker dances through the streets of New York City. Unfortunately, the film spends a lot of time making Parker look like a total jerk.
Metacritic Score: 59
39. X-Men: The Last Stand
This 2006 film stitches together a couple of comic book plots, including The Dark Phoenix Saga storyline and its resurrection of Jean Grey as Phoenix. TV Guide Magazine‘s Maitland McDonagh called the movie “vaguely hollow and unsatisfying.”
Metacritic Score: 58
37. Thor (tie)
This fourth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) introduced Chris Hemsworth as Thor, the son of Odin, stripped of his powers and sent to live on Earth. The Chicago Tribune‘s Michael Philips noted the first 25 minutes are tough to watch, but it gets better… until the end.
Metacritic Score: 57
37 Iron Man 2 (tie)
Robert Downey Jr. reprises his role as billionaire Tony Stark in this “better-than-average follow-up” (said San Francisco Chronicle’s Amy Biancolli) that, unfortunately, pales in comparison to the original.
Metacritic Score: 57
36. Watchmen
Based on the DC Comics series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen is set in an alternate version of the year 1985, where heroes exist and Nixon is still president. The comic gained acclaim, but movie critics were more divided.
Metacritic Score: 56
35. Man of Steel
In this Superman origin story, directed by Zack Snyder and starring Henry Cavill as the titular Man of Steel, General Zod attempts to turn Earth into a new Krypton and destroy humanity in the process. New York Magazine’s David Edelstein called the movie “pleasure-free.”
Metacritic Score: 55
33. Thor: The Dark World (tie)
Tom Hiddleston reprises his role as trickster Loki in this 2013 sequel, though this time as Thor’s ally against Malekith the Accursed (Christopher Eccleston). “If only all of Thor: The Dark World could capture the magic of its last act,” mused Film.com‘s Kate Erbland, “the film wouldn’t feel like such a chink in Marvel’s otherwise solid armor.”
Metacritic Score: 54
33. Hulk (tie)
Not to be confused with the better film from 2008, this Ang Lee-directed affair stars Eric Bana as the big green superhero. The Washington Post movie critic Desson Thomson said he was confused as to whether he was watching “an art-house superhero film or a computer-generated ‘King Kong’.”
Metacritic Score: 54
32. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
The second film to star Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man finds our hero pitted against Doc Octopus and his dangerous, Oscorp-sponsored fusion reactor. Said The A.V. Club‘s A.A. Dowd, there’s too much plot crammed into the movie’s 142-minute runtime.
Metacritic Score: 53
31. X-Men: Apocalypse (tie)
In this X-Men film, powerful, god-like mutant Apocalypse awakens in the year 1983, hungry to again rule the world like he did in ancient Egypt. Critic Angelica Jade Bastien said the movie is a “confused, bloated mess.”
Metacritic Score: 52
30. Blade II (tie)
Wesley Snipes returns in this 2002 film as half-human, half-vampire Blade protects humanity from a new type of mutated vampires called Reapers. Said Salon‘s Laura Miller, the fight scenes “last way too long and look way too computer-generated.”
Metacritic Score: 52
29. Batman Forever
Directed by Joel Schumacher and produced by Tim Burton, this colorful 1995 Batman film stars Val Kilmer as the Caped Crusader. “Sometimes thrilling, but rarely inspired,” said Hal Hinson of the Washington Post, “it is thoroughly-almost perfectly-adequate.”
Metacritic Score: 51
28. Constantine
Based on DC Comics’ Hellblazer comic, this 2005 film stars Keanu Reeves as suicidal terminal cancer sufferer John Constantine, who can sense the presence of half-angels and half-demons. Variety‘s Brian Lowry criticized the film for getting bogged down “in a confusing narrative muddle.”
Metacritic Score: 50
26. Blade (tie)
Wesley Snipes stars in this dark superhero film about vampire hunter Blade as he fights to protect humanity from the return of vampire blood god La Magra. Chicago Tribune‘s Michael Wilmington panned the film as “often ridiculous, mostly poorly written and, surprisingly poorly acted too.”
Metacritic Score: 45
26. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (tie)
This 2007 sequel again stars Chris Evans and Jessica Alba (among others) as they battle — again — Doctor Doom. No Fantastic Four movie has been, well, fantastic, but this one is still the best of the bunch.
Metacritic Score: 45
24. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (tie)
In this 2016 DC film, Batman (Ben Affleck) holds a deep-seated distrust of Henry Cavill’s Superman, believing him to be a threat to Earth. Slate‘s Jonathan Fischer called the film “blunt, humorless and baffling.”
Metacritic Score: 44
24. Superman III (tie)
In this 1983 film from the Chris Reeves-as-Superman era, Clark Kent must battle an evil version of himself. Variety called it “a surprisingly soft-cored disappointment” that lacked the weight of its predecessors.
Metacritic Score: 44
22. Dark Phoenix
The third act of this Simon Kinberg-directed film was reshot in 2018 due to poor test screenings, but it may have already been too late to save it. Our own Brandon Davis called it “an underwhelming, visceral conclusion” to the X-Men franchise.
“Rather than being thought-provoking or streamlined, instead Dark Phoenix is a frustratingly anticlimactic, familiar tale of misunderstood mutants,” says Tim Grierson of Screen Daily.
Metacritic score: 43
22. The New Mutants (tie)
This movie is a home run on a conceptual level, says Comicbook’s own Charlie Ridgely, but the actual execution is hard to watch. “When this movie is good, it’s genuinely exciting,” Ridgely says. “But that excitement only takes up about 20 minutes of its run time.”
Metacritic Score: 43
20. Supergirl (tie)
This 1984 British film starring Helen Slater “makes a bad first impression,” said Newsweek‘s David Ansen, but he noted Supergirl winds up being “likably straightforward, guileless and sweet.”
Metacritic Score: 42
20. Daredevil (tie)
This early 2000s Marvel stinker stars Ben Affleck as the titular blind crime-fighting vigilante and Colin Farrell as hitman Bullseye. Said Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, “Daredevil is the sort of half-assed, visually lackadaisical potboiler that makes you rue the day that comic-book franchises ever took over Hollywood.”
Metacritic Score: 42
17. Suicide Squad (tie)
This 2016 DC film about a misfit group of supervillains-turned-government operatives struggles because “there’s no one to root for in this movie,” or so said Austin Chronicle‘s Marjorie Baumgarten.
Metacritic Score: 40
17. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (tie)
This 2009 spinoff focuses on the origins of Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman. Warns Marc Mohan of the Portland Oregonian: “The action scenes and plot points frequently defy logic.”
Metacritic Score: 40
17. Fantastic Four (2005, tie)
This 2005 film tells the origin story of Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd), Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba), Human Torch (Chris Evans) and The Thing (Michael Chiklis). Arguably, the best thing you can say about this film is that it’s not as bad as the 2015 reboot.
Metacritic Score: 40
16. Green Lantern
This famed DC Comics hero got his own film in 2011, starring Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern and Blake Lively as his love interest, Carol Ferris. Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch blamed the movie’s box office failure on “an injustice league of TV-trained screenwriters and tin-hearted studio suits.”
Metacritic Score: 39
15. Blade: Trinity
This third installment in the Blade trilogy, again starring Wesley Snipes, is a story about the revival of the first vampire, Dracula. The movie has some good action scenes, but Roger Ebert otherwise summarized the film as “a mess.”
Metacritic Score: 38
12. Red Sonja (tie)
Set in a fictional prehistoric time, this 1985 film stars Brigitte Nielsen as the vengeful Red Sonja and Arnold Schwarzenegger as ally Lord Kalidor. Said Gene Siskel in the Chicago Tribune, “Red Sonja is like a can of dog food covered by a label featuring a picture of a sirloin steak.”
Metacritic Score: 35
12. Ghost Rider (tie)
In this 2007 film, Nic Cage plays Johnny Blaze, a stunt rider who surrenders his soul to the devil and becomes the titular Ghost Rider. Said Variety‘s Robert Koehler, the hero “never measures up to his infernal potential.”
Metacritic Score: 35
12. Venom (tie)
Though reviled by critics—Boston Globe’s Ty Burr called it a “mishmash whose touch saps the life force of almost everyone in it”—this Tom Hardy-led film about Spider-Man’s symbiote rival scored much better with audiences. It currently has a 81 percent audience score at Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.3-star rating on Amazon.
Metacritic Score: 35
10. Elektra (tie)
This 2005 spin-off of Daredevil follows martial arts-trained assassin Elektra (Jennifer Garner). Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal said the film is “long on cutlery and decor,” but “woefully short on narrative.”
Metacritic Score: 34
10. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (tie)
What’s the only thing worse than sitting through Nic Cage’s Ghost Rider? This 2009 sequel, naturally. Said Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, “one look at the dreadful mess that is Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance will turn your whisper into a primal Cage scream: MAKE THIS MOVIE STOP!”
Metacritic Score: 34
8. Jonah Hex (tie)
This Western-themed flick from 2010 stars Josh Brolin as DC Comics’ Civil War-era hero. Orlando Sentinel‘s Roger Moore praised Brolin’s acting, but expressed frustration over “how half-arsed this movie he’s starring in is.”
Metacritic Score: 33
8. The Punisher (2004, tie)
This 2004 Marvel movie stars Thomas Jane as a brutal, over-the-top vigilante avenging the death of his family. “It features an insane amount of violence and a number of visual references to the comic,” said Jami Bernard of New York Daily News, “but it lacks the original’s humor and spirit.”
Metacritic Score: 33
7. Hellboy (2019)
While our own Adam Barnhardt called the most recent iteration of Hellboy “a bloody thriller with a surprising amount of promise,” other critics were much less kind.
“The Hellboy reboot is a a fecal matter weather event film fiasco, a gory ill-conceived debacle that drives a stake through the heart of the franchise, no matter how many post-credits ‘teases’ the producers tack on,” writes Roger Moore of Movie Nation.
Metacritic score: 31
6. Punisher: War Zone
This sequel to the 2004 Punisher recast Ray Stevenson in the title role. The end result wasn’t much better than its predecessor — Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club said, “This is junk, a bunch of hard-R action scenes kept together by the thinnest of plots.”
Metacritic Score: 30
4. Howard the Duck (tie)
Marvel’s notorious 1986 box-office disaster stars Lea Thompson opposite an animatronic duck puppet. Noted Newsweek, “George Lucas was the executive producer. The Force was not with him.”
Metacritic Score: 28
4. Batman & Robin (tie)
Starring George Clooney as Batman and Chris O’Donnell as Robin, this critical bomb is perhaps best known for the sheer number of puns uttered by Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze. Austin Chronicle‘s Marc Savlov knocked the movie for being a “limp, excruciatingly shallow knockoff that leaves viewers cringing.”
Metacritic Score: 28
2. Fantastic Four (2015, tie)
This reboot of the Fantastic Four franchise starring Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell was so terrible, it cleaned up at the 2015 Golden Raspberry Awards. Said Steve Persall of Tampa Bay Times, “Fantastic Four is so mediocre that its title seems like a violation of truth-in-advertising laws.”
Metacritic Score: 27
2. Catwoman (tie)
Halle Berry stars as agile antihero Catwoman in this campy 2004 film based, loosely, on the DC Comics character. Christian Science Monitor‘s David Sterritt panned it, saying “cartoonish effects and overacting make this more corn than catnip.”
Metacritic score: 27
1. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
Featuring Mark Pillow as Nuclear Man, one of the most-mocked supervillains of all time, Superman IV rounds out our list as the worst comic book movie as all time. The Washington Post‘s Desson Thomson called it “more sluggish than a funeral barge, cheaper than a sale at Kmart.”
Metacritic Score: 24
