By Anja Djuricic
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After Al Pacino confessed in his memoir Sonny Boy that he starred in movies he didn't relate to because of money problems, the question arises - is this true for most Oscar winners who've starred in terrible movies? While it could be a combination of needing money or staying in the limelight, they're also just people, and it's possible for them to make the wrong call when picking a movie. A lot of the time, they have high expectations of the execution, and often invest their own money if they believe in the story enough.
While some movies were so bad that even their directors disowned them, the most disappointing movies starring Oscar winners may not be all that terrible; they could just be below the standard audiences and critics are used to. After all, an Oscar is a prestigious award, and winners are expected to get the best roles, but sometimes these expectations are the reason for failure. Al Pacino has had his share of bad movies since 2011, but who has joined him in that club?
10 'The Monuments Men' (2014)
Starring Cate Blanchett, George Clooney, and Matt Damon

As many as four Oscar winners starred in The Monuments Men, a story about an unlikely platoon of US soldiers during WWII tasked with retrieving stolen art pieces from Germany. George Clooney co-wrote, directed, and starred in The Monuments Men; he became a two-time Oscar winner before this movie, for Syriana and Argo. Clooney is joined by longtime collaborator Matt Damon, winner of the best screenplay Oscar for Good Will Hunting, Cate Blanchett, winner of two Oscars, and Jean Dujardin, one-time best actor winner.
Such a stellar and well-awarded cast joined forces in a somewhat okay movie. It's like a "Clooney & friends" historical drama with hints of a caper crime and an ensemble comedy. With the attempt to make The Monuments Men the Ocean's Eleven of World War II, the seriousness of the topic (which happened in real life) was slightly diminished. Without looking at those elements based on reality, this movie could be fun. However, for all of these Oscar winners, it's just disappointing.

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The Monuments Men
PG-13
War
Drama
- Release Date
- February 7, 2014
- Director
- George Clooney
- Cast
- George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Bob Balaban, John Goodman
- Runtime
- 118minutes
9 'Hide and Seek' (2005)
Starring Robert De Niro

People enjoy talking trash about Robert De Niro's Hide and Seek. When someone is that experienced and sought out, their career can normally have some misfires; they can also be a two-time Oscar winner, like de Niro. Many would argue Bad Grandpa is worse than Hide and Seek, but it at least knows it's a cheeky feature with some clichés. Hide and Seek tried to be a bold psychological thriller with an interesting, unexpected twist, but ends up a clumsy attempt at that, though no one can say Robert De Niro or Dakota Fanning, who plays his daughter, were terrible in it.
Hide and Seek follows psychologist David Callaway, who moves to upstate New York with his daughter Emily after the death of his wife, Emily's mother. Emily starts playing with an imaginary friend, Charlie, and unusual events start happening whenever she brings him up. The plot twist is both predictable and not, but it was unanimously voted as poorly executed; critics and fans alike say Hide and Seek manages to build tension up until the point when everything is revealed. It relied too hard on making the twist its crescendo, that it simply abandoned the rest of the movie, like an unfinished painting.

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Hide and Seek
R
Horror
Mystery
- Release Date
- January 27, 2005
- Director
- John Polson
- Cast
- Robert De Niro, Dakota Fanning, Famke Janssen, Elisabeth Shue, Amy Irving
- Runtime
- 101 Minutes
8 'Movie 43' (2013)
Starring Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, and Kate Winslet
Movie 43 was a joke, but it was meant to be one. It's an anthology comprised of fourteen different stories, all directed by different people, and full of incredibly talented acting names. Besides Kate Winslet and Emma Stone, two brilliant best actress Oscar winners, the movie is full of other award winners and Oscar nominees, like Hugh Jackman and Naomi Watts, to name a couple. Movie 43 counted on these people to star in something outside their usual landscape, but instead of allowing them to be edgy and funny, most of the stories in the movie rely on awful gags and unfunny bits.
Roger Ebert critic Richard Roeper described Movie 43 the best, saying that, "Producer Peter Farrelly somehow coaxed more than a dozen A-list stars and talented character actors into appearing in a series of aggressively tasteless scenes loosely strung together." While Kate Winslet has displayed a great sense of humor over the years, her funniest performance was in Ricky Gervais' Extras; if anyone really wants to see that side of her, watch that episode instead of the entirety of Movie 43. Because of its specific kind of humor, the disappointment in Movie 43 was expected, but not at the level it actually produced.

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Movie 43
pg-13
Comedy
Romance
- Release Date
- January 25, 2013
- Director
- James Gunn
- Cast
- Hugh Jackman, Emma Stone, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jeremy Allen White
- Runtime
- 90minutes
7 'Hick' (2011)
Starring Eddie Redmayne

A lot of things can be said about Hick, but not that it's good. Although it came before The Theory of Everything for Eddie Redmayne, he'd most likely prefer that film to be forgotten as a lead up to one of his greatest performances. In a way, it's actually a testament of improvement for Redmayne, where he went from playing an unstable drifter in love with a 13-year-old girl to portraying a real-life scientific scholar. Hick was adapted from a novel of the same name, which received universal acclaim; the movie got the opposite treatment, with 5% critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Hick follows 13-year-old Luli (Chloë Grace Moretz), a runaway girl who wishes to reach Las Vegas from Nebraska and meets various types of people on her journey. She hitches a ride with Eddie (Eddie Redmayne), an erratic man who can't leave Luli alone; over time, he becomes intensely infatuated with her. Luli also encounters other people during her roadtrip, like Glenda (Blake Lively), a woman equally erratic to Eddie, and folks who only seem to want to hurt her. While this road trip is a life lesson for Luli, it's very depressing and not that well executed.

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Hick
R
Comedy
Drama
- Release Date
- September 10, 2011
- Director
- Derick Martini
- Cast
- Blake Lively, Chloe Grace Moretz, Eddie Redmayne, Alec Baldwin, Juliette Lewis, Anson Mount, Rory Culkin, Ray McKinnon, Shaun Sipos, Dave Vescio, Beth Malone, Robert Baker, Bob Stephenson, Dartanian Sloan, Christopher Coakley, Kelsey Walston, Tim Parati, Leon Lamar, Troy Rudeseal, Andrea Portes, Daisy De La Hoya, Trevor Duke-Moretz
6 'Air Strike' (2018)
Starring Adrien Brody

Air Strike, also known as The Bombing, is more or less an unknown movie, but that's because it's a Chinese production that went straight to home video in the US. How Adrien Brody and Bruce Willis ended up in this movie can only be attributed to some sort of necessity. Adrien Brody won an Oscar for The Pianist, a movie that put him on an elite list of the best of the best actors to hire, so Air Strike's director Xiao Feng very likely thought Brody's appearance would make that sort of impact.
Air Strike revolves around the Chinese Air Force fighting off attacks of the Japanese Army during the Sino-Japanese War; the events of the movie focus on the Battles of Shanghai and Nanjing, and the efforts of the Chinese army to deter the Japanese attacks. Adrien Brody appears briefly, but is still pasted on the movie's official poster next to Bruce Willis. The movie was critically panned; even the audiences hated it. From goofy VFX to unwatchable dialogue, it didn't really help that the movie cost $65 million or that Mel Gibson served as the art director.

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Air Strike
R
War
Action
Adventure
Drama
- Release Date
- October 26, 2018
- Director
- Xiao Feng
- Cast
- Bruce Willis, Ye Liu, Adrien Brody, Nicholas Tse, Song Seung-heon, William Chan, Fan Wei, Fan Bingbing, Cao Kefan, Rumer Willis, Janine Chun-Ning Chang, Simon Yam, Shibuya Tenma, Hu Bing, Liu Xiaoqing, Feng Yuanzheng, Ray Lui, Niki Chow Lai-Kei, Kenny Bee, Eric Tsang, Wu Gang, Shengyi Huang, Geng Le, Su Ma, Yongli Che
- Runtime
- 97 minutes
5 'Babylon A.D.' (2008)
Starring Michelle Yeoh

A movie disowned by its director, Babylon A.D., was meant to be one of a kind, but ended up being just another dystopian sci-fi thriller trying to dissect the human condition and class differences. The movie stars Vin Diesel as the protagonist, Toorop, who must escort a young Russian girl, Rebeka, to America; he doesn't realize she's actually a biological weapon and that they're being simultaneously chased by a dangerous group that wants to use the girl for evil. Michelle Yeoh, cinema legend and Best Actress Oscar winner, appears in Babylon A.D. as a nun and Rebeka's carer who travels with her and Toorop.
French director Mathieu Kassovitz wrote and directed Babylon A.D., which Variety critic Jordan Mintzer noted was meant to have a similar impact to Children of Men. Most critics agreed that the movie had sluggish action sequences and a hollow storyline, which Michelle Yeoh's charm and talent couldn't really save. The documentary titled Fucking Kassovitz shows the chaotic process of filming Babylon A.D. and how Kassovitz's vision was dissected by the studio to the point of no recognition for him.

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Babylon A.D.
PG-13
Action
Adventure
Sci-Fi
Thriller
- Release Date
- August 20, 2008
- Director
- Mathieu Kassovitz
- Cast
- Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Melanie Thierry, Lambert Wilson, Mark Strong, Jérôme Le Banner
- Runtime
- 90 minutes
4 'Dark Tide' (2012)
Starring Halle Berry

Halle Berry's career took some wild turns after receiving the Best Actress Oscar for Monster's Ball; first, it was Catwoman, potentially the worst iteration of the sexy Batman villain, and years later, it was Dark Tide, which boasts a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In one of the worst thrillers of the last 25 years, Halle Berry portrays a shark expert and diver whose career takes a downturn. When bills start piling up, she reluctantly agrees to take a billionaire and his son to a cage-free shark dive.
While Halle Berry's prowess as an action hero is commendable, she remains in great shape and has the potential to be one of the greatest action stars of today, the scripts she keeps receiving are much less than ideal. Dark Tide is a deep ocean-based mess that's hard to believe and even harder to cheer for; it feels more like a shallow, lukewarm puddle. The Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw wrote, "The sharks themselves are the only ones to emerge with credit from this."

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Dark Tide
PG-13
Adventure
Drama
Thriller
A shark expert, haunted by a tragic incident, is lured back to the deep waters for a risky venture. With tensions rising and danger lurking beneath the surface, she must confront her fears and the predatory creatures that threaten their expedition.
- Release Date
- March 30, 2012
- Director
- John Stockwell
- Cast
- Halle Berry, Olivier Martinez, Ralph Brown, Mark Elderkin, Luke Tyler, Thoko Ntshinga
- Runtime
- 113 Minutes
3 'Dolittle' (2020)
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Emma Thompson, and Rami Malek

Not one or two but three Oscar winners, Robert Downey Jr. Emma Thompson, and Rami Malek couldn't save Dolittle from itself. The story was based on writer Hugh Lofting's character, Doctor Dolittle, who can understand and speak to animals. Such a beloved character was depicted in other iterations, but the latest one by Stephen Gaghan (Syriana) failed miserably both at the box office and critically. The story follows Doctor Dolittle (Robert Downey Jr.) as he embarks on a ship voyage to find a cure for Queen Victoria's illness, and takes a bunch of his animal and human companions on his voyage.
Dolittle was meant to be a story for all ages, but it didn't resonate with any particular age group that well. It's a decent children's story because of the fun talking animals and the colorful adventure, but its running gags consisting of farts and bottoms can't carry two hours of any movie. Robert Downey Jr., as talented as he is, does his best to save the movie, while having Rami Malek and Emma Thompson as the animal characters' voices didn't really do much for the plot.

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Dolittle
PG
Comedy
Action
Adventure
Family
Fantasy
- Release Date
- January 1, 2020
- Director
- Stephen Gaghan
- Cast
- Robert Downey Jr., Octavia Spencer, John Cena, Selena Gomez, Kasia Smutniak, Harry Collett, Craig Robinson, Jim Broadbent, Carmen Ejogo, Frances de la Tour, Michael Sheen, Jessie Buckley, Marion Cotillard, Emma Thompson, Antonio Banderas, Tom Holland, Kumail Nanjiani, Rami Malek, Ralph Ineson, Ralph Fiennes
- Runtime
- 101 Minutes
Watch on Amazon Prime
2 'Theodore Rex' (1995)
Starring Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1991 for Ghost. In it, she plays the medium Oda Mae Brown, who helps the main character, Sam (Patrick Swayze), a ghost, protect his girlfriend Molly (Demi Moore) from the people who killed him. In Ghost, Whoopi Goldberg really found her spot and the role that suited her perfectly. Then she made Theodore Rex, which was, to say the least, an interesting choice. This movie never made it to theaters, and it was a total mess all around, with lawsuits, arguments, and lost money.
Though Whoopi Goldberg has the acting chops for serious roles, it's unclear whether she was typecast later on or had a terrible agent. It seems, however, she made a verbal deal to make Theodore Rex, a buddy cop movie about her and her anthropomorphic dinosaur partner solving anti-dinosaur crimes. Interestingly, this deal led her to some legal problems, so she settled for more money eventually. Though Goldberg is likely as disappointed as Theodore Rex's viewers, it's not her fault that the movie was pushed. It was, after all, a terribly expensive ordeal that they needed to work, something that happens too often in Hollywood.
Theodore Rex isn't available for streaming.

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Theodore Rex
PG
Fantasy
Science Fiction
Family
- Release Date
- December 14, 1995
- Director
- Jonathan R. Betuel
- Cast
- Armin Mueller-Stahl, Whoopi Goldberg, Juliet Landau, Bud Cort, Stephen McHattie, George Newbern, Carol Kane, Richard Roundtree, Jack Riley, Peter MacKenzie, Joe Dallesandro, Tony T. Johnson, Susie Coelho, Peter Kwong, Edith Diaz, Robert Martin Robinson, Dee Booher, William Boyett, Marius Mazmanian, Noon Orsatti, Hilary Shepard, Lisa Papatzimas, Michael Sharrett, Jan Rabson, Charles Chiodo
- Runtime
- 92 minutes
1 'Christopher Columbus: The Discovery' (1992)
Starring Marlon Brando, Benicio Del Toro, and Catherine Zeta-Jones
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery was a passion project for father and son Alexander and Ilya Salkind. The shoot was troubled, the production was tumultuous, and finally, the movie was received so terribly that Alexander Salkind fought terribly with his son and vowed to never make movies again. The movie follows the titular character as he struggles to gain financing for his planned voyage. Marlon Brando portrays the famous Catholic friar, Tomas de Torquemada. Joining him are Tom Selleck, and two Oscar winners - Catherine Zeta-Jones as Columbus' mistress Beatriz, and Benicio Del Toro as Alvaro, one of the ship's crew members.
Marlon Brando notoriously declined his second Oscar win for The Godfather, but he won his first for On the Waterfront in 1955. Benicio Del Toro won his best actor Oscar in 2001, so Christopher Columbus, for him, was way before he earned his spot on the Academy's list. Finally, Catherine Zeta-Jones also won her best actress Oscar in 2003, much after this movie, so her and Del Toro's careers didn't take much of a hit for making this movie. Brando had the most to lose, so to speak, though his choices often reflected his mental state and attitude toward Hollywood and acting.
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery isn't available for streaming.

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Christopher Columbus: The Discovery
PG-13
History
Adventure
- Release Date
- August 20, 1992
- Director
- John Glen
- Cast
- Georges Corraface, Marlon Brando, Tom Selleck, Rachel Ward, Robert Davi, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Benicio Del Toro, George Fisher, Branscombe Richmond, Tailinh Agoyo
- Runtime
- 120 minutes
KEEP READING: The Worst Best Actress Winner of Each Decade
- Movie
- Movie 43
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