The Worst Movies of the 20th Century, According to Letterboxd

I might have a Letterboxd problem. Is it unhealthy if I look at Letterboxd more than my email? More than I exercise? I More than I talk to my wife?

Okay, I’m kidding about that last part. (On most days; some nights my wife goes to bed early! What else am I supposed to do?) It’s just fun to log films, to look at what others are watching, and especially to see how the millions of other Letterboxd users rank cinema history.

If you go to the “Films” tab and then “Browse By” year, you can sort movies into their decades of release, and then arrange the tens of thousands of movies you get according to their user ratings. So if you want to see the worst movies of each decade according to Letterboxd users, it’s easy to do so in seconds after just a few clicks.

There isn’t an easy way to see the worst movies of the entire 20th century — but like I said, I might have a Letterboxd problem, so I made that list for myself. I looked at and cross-referenced the worst-ranked movies for each decade from 1900 to 1990, and then compiled the results into one master document. The 25 lowest of the low are ranked below, starting with #25 and ending with number one, the worst-reviewed movie released in the 20th century on all of Letterboxd.

Although there is definitely a little recency bias in the list — there are far more titles from the ’80s and ’90s than any other decade — there are selections from throughout the century, including one that is almost as old as the medium of film itself. It’s a pretty interesting collection of titles, all in all. You may want to think twice before watching any of them yourself, however. It might be smarter just to take Letterboxd users’ word for it.