The 10 Worst Movies to Earn a Billion Dollars at the Box Office

Before 2006, only two movies in history (Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) had cracked over $1 billion at the worldwide box office. Today, a whopping 54 features have exceeded this mark. Multiple movies in a single year can surpass the ten-digit mark at the global box office without breaking a sweat. It’s become such a common element of the pop culture landscape that, inevitably, some stone-cold classics have become $1+ billion box office juggernauts.

However, equally inevitable is that some truly dismal films will populate that collection of 54 motion pictures. The 10 worst movies of all-time to crack the $1+ billion mark globally reflect the age-old reality that box office performance does not equal artistic quality. They also all show how external factors (nostalgia, political climate, a solid release date, etc.) can help turn a subpar movie into a must-see worldwide movie event. Clutch your popcorn bucket tight and let’s look back on the worst motion pictures ever to get across that once-sacred $1 billion worldwide box office threshold.

Jurassic World Dominion

The finale to the saga started by Jurassic World, Jurassic World Dominion continues the creative stagnation permeating all of Collin Trevorrow’s Jurassic movies. Excessive obsessions with fan service and “grounded” reality deprive this feature from ever taking off as an idiosyncratic burst of summer blockbuster fun. Wasting talented actors like Laura Dern and Sam Neill is just a final terrible insult in such a slog of a movie.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Perhaps we were all too harsh towards that slice of cinematic lunacy that was the 1993 live-action Mario movie. The Super Mario Bros. Movie captures all the sound effects and visuals from classic Nintendo games, but there’s little palpable fun or excitement in the proceedings. A deluge of tired pop song needle drops and derivative celebrity voice-overs make The Super Mario Bros. Movie a motion picture that reeks of being too eager to please. Reminding people of old video games they like isn’t enough to make a quality standalone feature.

The Fate of the Furious 

After three consecutive Fast & Furious entries that ranged from “solid” to “excellent,“ The Fate of the Furious brought this franchise back to the subpar quality that almost exclusively defined the saga before 2011. What’s especially frustrating about this entry is its lack of commitment to melodramatic fun. Dominic Toretto’s turn to the dark side has all of its suspenseful edges sanded off, while the action scenes are so dimly-lit it’s hard to tell what’s going on. The Fate of the Furious may have grossed a little over $1 billion internationally alone, but it’s an instantly forgettable Toretto clan adventure.

Transformers: Age of Extinction 

Transformers: Age of Extinction, in its mild defense, is not the nadir of Michael Bay Transformers cinema (Revenge of the Fallen and The Last Knight simultaneously hold that honor). Age of Extinction, though, is still a miserable way to spend 160 minutes. Product placement, Imagine Dragon needle drops, and creepy scenes about the “Romeo & Juliet” law abound while a lifeless Mark Wahlberg performance gets significantly more screen time than only fleetingly-seen robotic dinosaurs. It’s a testament to how bad these Bay Transformers films are that this isn’t the absolute pits of his time in this franchise.

Alice in Wonderland

With 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, director Tim Burton drained the titular mystical realm of all its color and populated this domicile with a murderer’s row of creepy CG creations. A lifeless sequel to the original story, Alice in Wonderland was an eyesore to behold, a complete 180 from earlier Burton tentpoles like Batman Returns and Beetlejuice. Earlier Burton films wallowed in delightfully obtuse expressionistic backdrops you wanted to fall into. Alice in Wonderland, meanwhile, looked like an especially lifeless video game or Windows background. Oh, and the less said about Johnny Depp’s stale Mad Hatter performance, the better.

[Related: When Will We See the Jurassic World Rebirth Trailer?]

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides 

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was nothing short of a nightmare worst-case scenario of what happens when you shoot a movie in digital 3D. This Rob Marshall directorial effort was so dimly-lit in its 3D showings that it was impossible to tell what was going on. A murky aesthetic entirely derailed any sense of swashbuckling fun, though the terrible script ensured that quality was absent even from 2D showings. Jack Sparrow proved irritating as a protagonist, while an overdose of subplots made the narrative a headache to follow. Audiences around the world lapped up On Stranger Tides, but that doesn’t erase its grave storytelling and visual shortcomings.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

The Star Wars sequel trilogy was so close to working. The Force Awakens was a fun though familiar return to the galaxy far, far away. The Last Jedi was arguably the best Star Wars movie ever made with its thoughtful screenwriting and striking imagery. Then Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker showed up to conclude the saga in a lifeless fashion. Even without comparing it to its immediate predecessors, this Star Wars outing just lacked any sense of fun, while its constant references to the past were tiresome. Everyone from Poe Dameron to Rose Tico to global moviegoing audiences deserved better than this movie.

Despicable Me 3 

Despicable Me 3’s greatest crime is being such a routine, hastily assembled entry in the greater franchise. A slew of subplots make up this installment that separates all the main characters, a narrative choice that leaves the whole film feeling distressingly disjointed. Worst of all, the gags are weaker than ever. Any chaotic comedy the Minions had in the original Despicable Me was long depleted when Despicable Me 3 rolled around.

The Lion King (2019)

At the time of its release in 2019, Jon Favreau’s The Lion King was the seventh-biggest movie ever at the worldwide box office. Just process that record for a second as well as its staggering $1.661 billion global box office cume. All those dollars were spent on a boondoggle motion picture at total war with itself. Slavish adherence to the original stylized 1994 feature clashes with an uber-realistic animation style that drains all personality from the screen. Once exhilarating musical numbers and charming characters are realized here with lifeless pupils and no pizzazz. The Lion King provided a hauntingly inhumane echo of the past, in the process ensuring it struck a creative nadir for these cursed Disney remakes.

Jurassic World

The ultimate argument that shooting on film will not inherently make you movie look crisp is Jurassic World. It’s staggering to consider how a feature shot on film looks this sterile, though basking everything in overexposed lighting and sickening blue color grading doesn’t help. Jurassic World isn’t just a bunch of unpleasant images, though. It’s also home to a lot of irritating characters, including a miscast Chris Pratt inhabiting Owen Grady. Even the dinosaur mayhem lacks much fun, especially a poorly lit climactic T-Rex and Velociraptor vs. Indominus Rex duel taking place at night. Jurassic Park III’s raptor that bellows “ALAN!!!” suddenly looks a lot more enticing compared to Jurassic World‘s avalanche of poor creative decisions.