Some of the most memorable performances in recent film history have come in movies based on DC Comics properties. Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight as the Clown Prince of Crime and Dark Knight in Tim Burton’s Batman. Christopher Reeve making us believe a man can fly as the definitive movie Superman across multiple films in the 1970s and ’80s. Michelle Pfeiffer’s iconic Catwoman, finding hell here in Batman Returns.
DC movies have even produced a few Academy Award winners, with both Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix winning Oscars for their performances as two very different versions of Batman’s arch-nemesis, the Joker. The landscape of Hollywood cinema over the last 40 years would be a lot poorer without these men and women and their dynamic work in DC movies.
And then there are the movies and performances below.
Oh, they were memorable all right — just not in a good way. They rank as the worst performances ever featured in DC Comics adaptations. And unfortunately, there have been so many bad DC movies through the years that there are a fair amount of contenders to choose from. In my estimation, these were the worst of the worst.
Some of these performances back decades, to the earliest attempts to turn DC characters into ongoing franchises. Others are just a few months old and hail from the rocky reign of the DC Extended Universe. They all merit comparison to cinematic Kryptonite. Let’s just hope the new DC Universe is so good we never have to update this list ever again.
The Worst Performances in DC Movies
These actors — including some really good ones! — have delivered some very poor performances in DC Comics movies.
READ MORE: Every DC Comics Movie Ever, Ranked From Worst to Best
The Biggest DC Movie Bombs
These movies may have featured some of the biggest superheroes in history, but they were also big flops.
