Huge Actors We Can't Believe Were In Movies With A 0% Rotten Tomatoes Score

Movies

Very few actors have a perfect batting average. For one reason or another, even the best actors find themselves in the occasional clunker. On the flipside, there are also a number of very well-known actors who have a ridiculous number of rotten movies we've forgotten about. Then there are those who have made some truly terrible movies to the surprise of nobody. Would it shock you to know that Nicolas Cage and Eddie Murphy have each appeared in a movie that received the dreaded 0% on Rotten Tomatoes? Of course it wouldn't — in fact, you might even have trouble narrowing down which ones are the offending movies in each of their spotty filmographies.

Most actors that are household names fall somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, having an understandable mix of good-to-great movies and bad-to-awful movies under their belts. But there are some actors who have starred in a 0%-rated-on-Rotten-Tomatoes movie that might come as a surprise. These are the kind of actors who seem to be somewhat picky and make mostly good choices; when they are in a bad movie, it typically still has its fans or is at least mildly entertaining enough to have had a few critics go to bat for it. And that is usually the case with everyone in this feature — except for that one complete and utter misfire that is way beneath them.

Antonio Banderas — Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever

When he isn't collaborating with auteur filmmakers like Pedro Almodóvar and Robert Rodriguez, actor Antonio Banderas definitely isn't afraid to make pretty by-the-numbers Hollywood fare. Some of it is great — such as the surprisingly excellent "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish," which even gave fans hope for a fifth "Shrek" movie — while plenty of it has fallen into the stinker category. Still, even with movies like "The Expendables 3" and "Dolittle" in the mix, Banderas has only been in one movie so bad that it got a goose egg from Rotten Tomatoes.

Just how bad is espionage action film "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever"? So bad that Rotten Tomatoes ranks it as the worst movie of all time, owing to the fact that it's the 0%-rated movie with the highest number of reviews on the site. It's one thing for 20, 50, even 75 critics to all hate a movie. It's another thing entirely when over 100 have unanimously done so. "Ecks vs. Sever" failing so badly is also a career low point for Banderas' co-star Lucy Liu, but she doesn't have nearly as many critical and/or commercial successes as Banderas, so the shock isn't quite as great.

Sean Connery — Highlander II: The Quickening

When one thinks about Sean Connery in the context of a legendarily bad movie, it's easy to assume the main offender is "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." Indeed, that 2003 adaptation of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's comic book series didn't win much favor with critics, earning a 17% Rotten Tomatoes score. Its troubled production also caused Connery to leave Hollywood behind altogether, and it would be the last live-action role he'd ever play.

But just because "Gentlemen" is the film that effectively ended Connery's movie career doesn't mean it's his worst film. That dishonor belongs to "Highlander II: The Quickening," the movie that is basically a case study in how a sequel can be so bad that it ruins the franchise. Though the original "Highlander" — a fantasy adventure about an ongoing war between immortal warriors — was initially a commercial failure, it became a legitimate cult classic to the point that a sequel was made five years later.

Connery returned to reprise the role of Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez for "The Quickening," joining Christopher Lambert as the only major returning characters from the original. But the movie was a failure of absolutely colossal proportions, scoring a 0% on RT. Pretty much every attempt to do anything further with the "Highlander" franchise after the initial film has been a misfire, proving that perhaps there really can only be one.

Chloë Grace Moretz — November Criminals

It's hard to believe that Chloë Grace Moretz is still in her twenties. She seems like an actor who has already had the career of someone twice her age, and we mean that as a compliment. Moretz has packed a lot of roles into a fairly short career, and has already displayed an ability to pick interesting and varied projects. She checked "work with Martin Scorsese" off her list at only 14, when she starred in the filmmaker's underrated family adventure "Hugo." And she'd already done a superhero movie the year prior when she played Hit-Girl in 2010's "Kick-Ass." Playing that role would even prime Moretz for the Judo mastery she needed in the Amazon series "The Peripheral."

That's not to say that Moretz has always kicked ass in choosing movies. In 2017, she added a less desirable achievement to her career when she did her first 0% Rotten Tomatoes movie, "November Criminals," a dreadful crime drama that also managed to rope in and subsequently waste the major talents of Catherine Keener and David Strathairn. 2017 was a rough year for Moretz all around, as it also saw the semi-release of "I Love You, Daddy," starring Moretz and writer-director Louis C.K. It got a single film festival screening before all subsequent theatrical release plans were scrapped in light of the sexual misconduct allegations against C.K.

Jon Hamm — Stolen

Before finally scoring his breakthrough role as Don Draper in "Mad Men," Jon Hamm had a decade of screen credits behind him. His most prominent roles up to that point were also on television, including being part of the main cast of police procedural "The Division" and a recurring role on NBC's "Providence." He did have some minor movie roles during that time, but it was after he starred on "Mad Men" that his film career really took off. Hamm has since built an impressively varied filmography that includes "The Town," "Baby Driver," "Bridesmaids," "Top Gun: Maverick," and "Confess, Fletch."

But things were a bit rocky in those first few years of trying to balance a film career and "Mad Men" — and we aren't just talking about Hamm appearing in the Zack Snyder flop "Sucker Punch." In 2009, he co-starred with Josh Lucas, Rhona Mitra, and James Van Der Beek in the crime drama "Stolen." As the Rotten Tomatoes consensus points out next to its 0% rating for the movie, "this would-be thriller squanders a solid cast on overly serious and suspense-free storytelling." Fortunately for Hamm, "Stolen" did little to rob him of his still-budding film career, in part because hardly anyone even noticed it — it only made about $8,000 in a very limited theatrical release before going straight to video.

Zoe Saldaña — Constellation

In January 2022, Zoe Saldaña earned a remarkable achievement: she became the first actor in history to star in four different movies that grossed more than $2 billion at the box office. There are a number of people with multiple $1 billion movies, just by virtue of being members of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or part of a franchise like "Star Wars." But to have several movies cross $2 billion is a feat that may never be topped, with Saldaña being fortunate enough to be part of both the MCU and James Cameron's "Avatar" franchise. If subsequent "Avatar" sequels do as well as the first two, Saldana has even more $2 billion films in her future.

But just because Saldaña has over $8 billion and counting in box office receipts attached to her name, that doesn't mean that everything she's made has been a hit with critics. Before she became a massive movie star with the release of both "Avatar" and "Star Trek" in 2009, Saldaña paid her dues on films like "Guess Who" and the Britney Spears vehicle "Crossroads."

Saldaña also ended up in the family drama "Constellation" in 2005, which was absolutely walloped by the critics to the tune of a 0% Rotten Tomatoes score. But she was cast in "Avatar" soon after, turning whatever duds she made up to that point into a distant memory.

Dominic Cooper — Stratton

When considering which of Dominic Cooper's roles he's best known for, most people will likely be split between Jesse Custer on the TV series "Preacher" and young Howard Stark in various Marvel Cinematic Universe projects. Those who lean a little more musically might instead know Cooper best as Sky Rymand in the two "Mamma Mia!" films. What almost nobody will say they remember first about Cooper is his title role in the 2017 action movie "Stratton."

Released only in its native U.K., "Stratton" was received extremely poorly, with critics handing it a 0% Rotten Tomatoes score. Also along for the disappointing ride is fellow MCU alum Gemma Chan, as well as Tyler Hoechlin, best known as the Arrowverse's main Superman. Ironically, another Superman — Henry Cavill — was originally meant to star as protagonist John Stratton, but he left before filming began over issues with the script. It seems like Cavill could see that this was going to be a stinker, even when it was still just words on paper, and got out while he could.

Halle Berry — Dark Tide

Halle Berry has always had a wildly inconsistent career. For instance, she had a solid run in the early 2000s with her Oscar-winning performance in "Monster's Ball," followed by the hit 007 film "Die Another Day" and excellent superhero sequel "X2." But then she did the terrible horror film "Gothika" and the infamous comic book dud "Catwoman" back to back after that. Yet when Berry's output was in one of its valleys, she still typically managed to have at least a few critics defend her work — even "Catwoman" managed an 8% on Rotten Tomatoes, after all.

However, 2012's "Dark Tide" found no such sympathizers among critics. Its 0% score and the less than $2 million it earned at the box office should tell you all you need to know about the shark-based horror thriller. Its director, John Stockwell, had done some decent television work, including directing six episodes of Showtime's acclaimed "The L Word" and earning an Emmy nomination for writing the 2000 TV movie "Cheaters." But he seems less skilled on the big screen, given that this isn't the only 0%-rated movie of his we'll be discussing in this feature.

Jim Carrey — Dark Crimes

After making a name for himself in the 1990s with his rubber-faced mugging and loose-limbed slapstick on the sketch series "In Living Color" and megahit comedies like "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and "The Mask," Jim Carrey eventually started branching out into drama. And he's done some excellent work in that arena, most notably with "The Truman Show" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." But when Carrey misfires at drama, the results are arguably way worse than when he's in a bad comedy, as demonstrated by his only two movies to score less than double digits on Rotten Tomatoes.

"The Number 23" was seen as Carrey's first major misstep after becoming a huge star, not only underperforming at the box office but giving him the worst reviews of his career up to that point — and that even includes his campy pre-fame dud "Once Bitten." But "Number 23" still managed to eek out a 7% on RT. It would be some years later, with the 2016 mystery thriller "Dark Crimes," that Carrey finally got his first 0%-rated film.

Carrey spent the next few years focusing on television and seeming to have little interest in making movies, until his big comeback as Dr. Robotnik in the "Sonic the Hedgehog" movies, which — if he sticks to his plan to retire after "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" — serves as a much better note to end his career on than "Dark Crimes" would have been.

Billy Bob Thornton — London Fields

If there is one actor you can't accuse of having a boring career, it's Billy Bob Thornton. Every project he's in isn't always amazing, but they're consistently interesting in some way — and he's at least doing some fascinating character work in the process. It's easy to see how he might have assumed that "London Fields," based on the beloved 1989 dark comedy mystery novel of the same name, and co-starring actors like Amber Heard, Jason Isaacs, and Cara Delevingne, would be one of his better movies. Well, you know what they say about those who assume.

The Rotten Tomatoes consensus of "London Fields" specifically addresses what a waste of talent and source material it is, saying that the Matthew Cullen-directed film "bungles its beloved source material and an intriguingly eclectic cast, leaving audiences with a would-be neo-noir of interest only to the morbidly curious." Its 0% rating suggests that even the morbidly curious might want to steer clear. In all honesty, it isn't particularly difficult to find awful movies in Heard's filmography, but both Thornton and Delevingne being roped into this absolutely stinker is far more disappointing.

Kate Beckinsale — The Disappointments Room

Kate Beckinsale rose to prominence around the turn of the millennium with movies like "Pearl Harbor," "Brokedown Palace," and "Serendipity." But it's when she took on the lead role of a vampire named Selene in the "Underworld" sci-fi action franchise that she became a true Hollywood A-lister. Since then, she's enjoyed showcasing her range in movies across pretty much all genres — while also returning to play Selene in a new "Underworld" movie every few years.

Of course, not all range is necessarily good range. It's arguable whether Beckinsale appearing in the poorly-received Adam Sandler fantasy comedy "Click" did much to establish her funnywoman bona fides, for instance. Nor did her 2016 attempt at a psychological horror film, "The Disappointments Room," help endear her to fans of that genre. Like many of the review headlines for the movie, the Rotten Tomatoes consensus can't help evoking the irony of the title — "'The Disappointments Room' lives down to its title with a thrill-free thriller that presumably left its stars filled with regret — and threatens to do the same for audiences." And thus, Beckinsale got the first 0%-rated movie of her career.

Wesley Snipes — Armed Response

Remember when we said earlier that a second John Stockwell-directed movie would be discussed? Here it is — 2017's "Armed Response." It's one of those movies with a title so generic that it not only tells people absolutely nothing about the film, but it could easily be the name of about 500 other movies. Not only was this 0%-rated action snoozefest unfortunately among the last handful of movies featuring Anne Heche released prior to Heche's 2022 death, but it also gave main star Wesley Snipes the lowest-rated movie of his long career thus far.

While it was certainly true that it had been some time since Snipes was associated with quality and/or box office success, "Armed Response" was still a low point even for a career that had mostly been on cruise control in the years leading up to its release. However, whether it was a coincidence or not, Snipes seemed to have a nice career renaissance following "Armed Response," with Eddie Murphy's acclaimed biopic "Dolemite Is My Name" — which also revitalized Murphy's own career after years of disappointing films — being Snipes' very next project. He'd team with Murphy again for the long-awaited sequel "Coming 2 America" in 2021, with the two actors seemingly joining forces to successfully right the sinking ships of their respective careers.

Christopher Lee — Police Academy: Mission to Moscow

When Christopher Lee passed away in 2015 at the age of 93, he left behind an incredible career the likes of which probably won't ever be matched. His screen acting credits span a mind-boggling eight decades, and he holds the record for playing classic horror character Dracula more times than any other actor. Lee was also still successfully introducing himself to entirely new audiences well into his 80s, thanks to playing Count Dooku in the "Star Wars" franchise and Saruman in "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" films in the 2000s and 2010s.

Given the nearly 300 credits Lee racked up in his storied career, it's not at all shocking that there were a fair amount of duds in the mix. The actor clearly enjoyed working, and did so steadily throughout his life. But even so, there are some choices he made that are baffling for someone of his acumen — such as playing a campy, over-the-top Russian villain in 1994's "Police Academy: Mission to Moscow."

It was at that point in the shockingly long-running law enforcement comedy series that original star Steve Guttenberg had bowed out, with the earlier film's B- and C-tier characters now leading the charge. So for that to be the point when Lee decided to sign on — earning his first and only 0% Rotten Tomatoes score in the process — is especially unfortunate.