These lists are bullshit. Movies, film, art, blockbusters…they are designed to entertain us in exchange for money. It’s a system and that’s okay, as it’s what we got and it works for now. The good ones make us feel; feel excited, annoyed, joy, and away from our lives for a short while as we experience another’s perspective, lifestyle, and at the very least, they give us a moment of time away from our own. Our connection with a film is personal and though few are indisputably good, the rest fall into the realm of opinion, hence the plethora of end of the year best and worst lists from film fans like us. They are bogus, and should you find yourself agreeing or disagreeing, let us know. We can’t be the only ones with strong opinions about this lacklustre year. And so here are the top five worst of the worst of 2025, in our opinion.

Top five worst films of 2025

SINNERS (2025)

Am I a sinner? Is this my sin, NOT loving this self-satisfied chuckle of a movie? I know a lot of you appreciated it, thought it was a genius idea, mixing the deep south with vampire horror. But it annoys me when a film is obnoxious about it’s own cleverness. Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers, but to me he looked to be losing track of who he was depicting within scenes. It looked amazing, which is why I think the masses have been hoodwinked here. Like a hot, young front man or woman who can’t sing. You can’t take your eyes off of the beauty and spectacle long enough to hear and see what’s really happening. Jordan is too concerned with looking buff and badass, the music, oh the music is dangerous and wonderful and you know what you did everyone out there so love it and now you’re safe and good. No. History is messy and contentious and filled with good and bad souls and yet staring at Sinners convinced some out there for just a little while that they were doing good just by looking at it. No. It’s derivative, too long, and up its own ass. But oh so pretty.

WATCH OR NOT: NOT

THE SMASHING MACHINE (2025)

It was a knockout performance by Dwayne Johnson, they say. That is true. I felt nothing and I was out cold with boredom. Now I love a good sports movie, and finding a new way to tell the tale of flying too close to the sun is a lofty and worthwhile challenge. However, director Benny Safdie hinged The Smashing Machine on Johnson, who on paper is the perfect choice to play drug addled MMA fighter Mark Kerr. Unfortunately, I didn’t believe him for ten, nine, eight…and so on, seconds. Now I like The Rock, he’s entertained me more than once, but he’s out of his depth here. Co-star Emily Blunt tries, and though Johnson must have some vulnerabilities, he can’t join her in finding a moment of truth beyond surface level frustration. Is that all they found Kerr to be; a simpleton who likes to smash? I found myself wondering why; why make this uninspiring and unmoving movie at all?

WATCH OR NOT: NOT

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING (2025)

I love Tom Cruise. I do. And I love popcorn movies. I do. In fact, Mission Impossible 3 (2006) is among my all-time favourites. I wanted to love this series ender, but Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning was overlong, boring, and most unforgivably, featured the all-time, most forgettable villain. I had to look it up. His name was Gabriel (Esai Morales) and I just forget again. It pains me to say it, but it was a slog. Why oh why are there so many flashbacks and meetings? And the cast is big, so big that I don’t feel anything for anyone. There’s too many to stitch up, so much so that when one of them, a series original, dies, Cruise is written to run out of the room. In the end, it was all impossible to care about.

WATCH OR NOT: NOT

SUPERMAN (2025)

Like Barbie (2023) before it, this film was an abomination and a blight to its IP. Though I’ve enjoyed James Gunn movies, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) are delightfully entertaining, fast-paced and fun, however Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) is where we start to feel the kryptonite. Gunn’s irreverent tone honed over the course of the franchise via its colourful ensemble cast, starts to wane by the third instalment and is downright tiresome with its unsuitable injection into his overcrowded version of Superman. Save David Corenswet, who maintains the proper heartfelt disposition we crave from the of the Man of Steal, though he suffers the indignity of being beaten up endlessly for some reason. This was a shame, because we could have all used a straight ahead action movie with a true blue hero. Instead he was surrounded by needless smarm.

WATCH OR NOT: NOT

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (2025)

This is the film that inspired this entire list, because a lot of critics have this on their best of 2025 lists and for the life of me, I can’t understand why. Perhaps they enjoy watching based, heavy-handed stories with a questionable ideology forced down their eyes and ears in the form of a confusing plot with shallow oversexed and pretentious characters? Not me. This was work to get through and I am mostly saddened, because I’ve somehow wound myself into a dimension where Paul Thomas Anderson sucks. Even if you are heartened or confused enough by the chaos to find it just ambivalent enough so as not to be as preachy as I found it to be, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t a boring and unsatisfying film. Jonny Greenwood’s score is in-your-face displeasing (I mean I get it, the context is messy, no one’s allowed to relax with so many important and timely ideas being grinded away at), but to crank the annoying up to ten with sounds and effects that grate at your soul is asking too much. Now Greenwood was just doing his job and hardly to blame since this film is making it it’s mission to be unenjoyable.

WATCH OR NOT: NOT