This is the end, beautiful friend. You survived 2024! I couldn’t be more proud of you! You had your ups and your downs. There were some struggles, but there was also so much good that kept you going. Out of everything that inspired you this year, I can’t imagine the five movies here on this list helped you in any way. These are the worst movies of 2024.
There are still a few films I have yet to see in order to start completing the list of my favorites, but I am certain and confident that these five are unshakable. Almost all of these films below have their own separate reviews or mentions in a review which I will link if you want to see some more of my thoughts on each film.
Nolen’s 5 Worst Films of 2024
Let’s all take a deep breath, take things nice and slow, and look at some total garbagio from this past year. We kick things off with a movie so bad that it almost feels fake!
#5: Madame Web
Considering every film released in 2024, there were no films that were definitive shoe-ins for the bottom of the lists as confidently as Madame Web. Marvel’s biggest die-hards and Sony’s remaining defenders could not wait for this one to hit theaters and I could not wait to see her web connect them all.
These are lies. No one wanted this movie at all. I am struggling to pick a direction to go with when it comes to making fun of this movie, because there are simply so many. How about the connector of these webs herself, Madame Web AKA Dakota Johnson?
If you saw the trailer and even lightly followed the reception of this movie, then you know the best part of the trailer is just an imagined sequence and never happens. Yes, that is true, and yes that is so very funny. What were we supposed to take away from this movie if the glimpses of other spider-beings were dangled in front of our faces to amount to nothing?
Madame Web Continued
Everything about this movie is so unintentionally hilarious despite how sloppy and awkward everything is. By far, the most iconic line from this year is “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders just before she died” – because what the hell does that mean? I watched this movie and I am still so bewildered by every single word in that sentence.
However, that sentence is a perfect summary of this movie. It makes no sense – like what are you even talking about? – and I love it. Every scene is so deadly serious, the performances are so intense, and the script is a psychological exploration of the past. Again, all lies! Madame Web is dumb, boring, sloppy, and a terrific waste of time! 2/10. Cinema is alive and very well.
#4: Lift
In my review of the film, I pegged this one early as my least favorite movie of 2024. Lift came out in January and I reviewed it in March, which is incredible that I was so close to nailing it so early. I said pretty much everything I really needed to in my initial review, but I will gladly go over the notes again for the people in the back.
Lift stars Kevin Hart leading a ragtag group of thieves that steal stuff, because that is all they know how to do together. In this film they need to steal some money, or gold, or something, off of a moving airplane from a group of ne’er-do-wellers. Much like my favorite Chemical Brothers song – it doesn’t matter.
Kevin is dragged into this ordeal by his FBI agent ex-girlfriend, because this whole shabang is the FBI’s attempt to prevent said gold, or money, or whatever from exchanging hands between two criminal organizations.
Lift Continued
So what about Lift do I not like? Well, how about Kevin Hart being serious and trying to act slick? No. We can talk about how I can’t identify a single character in this movie if you showed me pictures of the entire cast. NFTs have a much greater presence than they should have in the first place and, quite frankly, it makes this movie even lamer.
Lift is stale, uninspired, and is without a shred of memorability. When I looked back at my least favorite films from 2023, I had forgotten about a handful of those films. I gather that Lift will be 2024’s forgotten waste of time. 1/10.
Hey, speaking of forgettable and wastes of time!
#3: Turtles All the Way Down
Okay, for this one I only have myself to blame here. In 2024, what did I truly hope to gain from a John Green adaptation? We are over a decade removed from the pop culture phenomenon that was The Fault in our Stars, and I am not the targeted demographic for this. In my defense – I had no idea this was a Green adaptation, I needed to watch more 2024 movies, and when I finally saw that this was an adaptation of his I hoped to see some growth.
There is a conversation between our two protagonists where one friend compares the other to mustard. No, I am not kidding. The scene goes on for several minutes too. This isn’t a quick little jab. This sucks, man. I gave this film a mini review already back in June and my opinion has not changed on this one single bit. Months later, I am still super salty over the complete waste of LCD Soundsystem’s Dance Yrself Clean.
Turtles All the Way Down Continued
I will forget this movie by the time I stop talking about 2024 movies. Should I later rediscover this somewhere in the dusty old attic of my own brain, its legacy will not be a good one. A black void of white noise will fill my brain every time I hear the words, exclusively in this order, Turtles All the Way Down. If I wanted to hear someone speak eloquently on the matters of having OCD, I’d sit down and talk to my girlfriend who is much funnier and much better of an OCD advocate than John Michael Green.
That’s all l have on this one. It’s really not worth sinking any time into. I wouldn’t even recommend this if you ARE the targeted demographic – whoever you are. 1/10. Everyone take care, have a blessed night, and let’s move on to something worse.
#2: Harold and the Purple Crayon
I want you to imagine something for me – anything at all. Imagine a dog that only barks questions instead of statements. Imagine the McRib becoming a mainstay on the menu. Think of a new number that looks like two numbers mashed together and make it equal to Thrifty Twen (between 47 and 48). Imagine a guy named Tom and he doesn’t suck. Imagine all the people living life in peace. All of these impossible examples are greater uses of the brain’s ability to imagine and create than anything going on in Harold and the Purple Crayon.
Harold is a painfully boring, horribly predictable, and pathetic attempt at a movie. I don’t care that this made 13 Purpillion dollars in its opening day alone, this movie sucks beyond sucking can go.
Every scene, every joke, every reaction, and every character are soulless copy-and-pastes of numerous other iterations of this story. Let’s also not forget that currently Zachary Levi is the reigning and defending King of the Career Crash for almost his second year now. When your protagonist is a guy who sucks as a person, you already lose so much stock in your product.
Harold Continued:
Nowhere in my brain can I find any rationalization for this film. There was no chance this film would revitalize the public’s interest in Levi. No one wanted this adaptation, but if anyone did it certainly wouldn’t be a live action film. Go one step beyond that and think about how illogical it is to make a live action adaptation of a cartoon starring an infant with an adult man.
This is a perfect movie for kids that either wakes them up from the matrix of mindlessness, or keeps them glued to more drivel like this. There is not much else to say about Harold and the Purple Crayon. It sucks, it’s not funny, there is nothing creative or unique about it, and I hate this.
I just also want to sauce it out there that Zachary Levi said that acclaimed Broadway actor Gavin Creel – who he worked with on Broadway not even a decade ago – died from Covid vaccines, and not the cancer Creel suffered greatly from. Imagination is a powerful thing. 0/10. It can’t get worse, can it?
#1: Rebel Moon Pt 2: The Scargiver
When I tell you that Rebel Moon Pt 2: The Scargiver fills me with nothing but hatred and anger, I need you to understand how serious I am. Last year Part 1: A Child of Fire hit number 6, and no part of me was hoping or expecting this one to be much better. With that said, Zack Snyder didn’t have to outdo himself like this. The Scargiver is the most obnoxious, pompous, self-absorbing, annoying and lame film I have seen in a long time.
It is so funny to me that Part 1 was all recruitment for this terrible plan, and Part 2 is the group reminiscing about their pasts and enacting the lamest farm fight in all of history. Good lord, I hate this movie.
You mean to tell me that after suffering through your miserable first film that the culmination of everything would be even uglier, more boring, and more self-indulgent? I need to choose my next words carefully or I will say something that someone else will make me regret.
The Scargiver Continued
When I think about The Scargiver, I can only picture two or three images, but none of them are coherent nor do they indicate what is happening. This is easily the worst movie of 2024. Every second of this movie was unnecessary and a pain. Stacking this up against the previous worst movie winners- Genie from 2023, Death on the Nile from 2022, and Music from 2021- this is the most offensive.
Scargiver wants to be this monumental and magnificent space epic that leaves its mark in history, but it’s more like a brown note in my ear or a mosquito in my brain. It is fair to say that The Scargiver has been living in my brain rent free since May. Oh my god, wait I just remembered all of the slow motion.
The Worst Movie of 2024 Continued
Zack Snyder’s Justice League was tolerable, despite being so damn long and exhausting, but it was better than Joss Whedon’s. The world was so kind to get behind Snyder for that and allow him to see his vision out, nut both of these Rebel Moon movies are trash. There is a Director’s Cut of Part 1. It adds nothing to these crap-fests. There is nothing unique about these movies at all.
Every setting is ugly, the editing is abhorrent, every performance is nothing, the writing is pompous, and the direction is flatter than Stanley. Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver sucks. It sucks, it is boring, it is so full of itself, and is by miles and leagues- the worst movie of 2024. 0/10- I am so tired of talking about this.
