10 Worst Movies of 2019

From a digitized-to-death Disney remake to a Christmas movie that’s a real lump of coal — Peter Travers picks the year’s bottom of the cinematic barrel

Peter Travers

Film Critic

@petertravers Follow

Peter Travers's Most Recent Stories

View All

Hollywood swill flooded the multiplex in such large quantities this year that it’s difficult to confine the number of worsts to 10. The public enemy No. 1? How about the tendency of major studios to remake and rejigger, to prequelize and sequelize until the very notion of originality is obliterated from the landscape. But why kick a dead horse — of D.O.A. franchise entries like Men in Black International — when the major offenders were from filmmakers who should have known better yet willingly squandered real possibilities. Here are the worst films that 2019 had to offer. Read this list and actually weep.

A FUTURE KING IS BORN – In Disney’s all-new “The Lion King,” Simba idolizes his father, King Mufasa, and takes to heart his own royal destiny. Featuring JD McCrary and Donald Glover as young Simba and Simba, “The Lion King” roars into U.S. theaters on July 19, 2019. ©2019 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Jon Favreau’s photo-realistic rip-off of Disney’s 1994 animated classic reps a toxic trend — it’s a corporate product minus heart, soul, and any hint of originality.

Alissa Cohen Rosa/Warner Bros

Melissa McCarthy, Elisabeth Moss, and Tiffany Haddish — they’re three wives who take over for their racketeering husbands when the men get thrown into the slammer — bury their talents in a misbegotten Seventies mobster movie that’s a true criminal offense.

Will Smith as "Junior" in Gemini Man from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

Warner Bros.

Oscar winner Ang Lee gets so caught up in making Will Smith a digitalized younger version of himself in this misbegotten sci-fi/clone thriller that he forgets to craft a watchable movie.

Macall Polay/Warner Bros.

Donna Tartt’s novel and an all-star cast (including Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright, Finn Wolfhard and Ansel Elgort) go down in flames in what’s arguably the worst literary adaptation in decades.

WYGB_05055_R2Cate Blanchett stars as Bernadette Fox in Richard Linklater’s WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE, an Annapurna Pictures release.Credit: Wilson Webb / Annapurna Pictures

Wilson Webb/ANNAPURNA PICTURES

Even Cate Blanchett and director Richard Linklater can’t energize this lifeless take on Maria Semple’s joyous book about a woman who suddenly “disappears” and sends her family on a wild goose chase.

(L to R) Bill Murray as "Officer Cliff Robertson", Chloë Sevigny as "Officer Minerva Morrison" and Adam Driver as "Officer Ronald Peterson" in writer/director Jim Jarmusch's THE DEAD DON'T DIE, a Focus Features release. Credit : Abbot Genser / Focus Features © 2019 Image Eleven Productions, Inc.

Focus Features

Indie-film giant Jim Jarmusch never, ever screws up. This DOA zombie comedy — starring Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Tom Waits and a number of other regular collaborators — says otherwise. What the hell happened here?

STXfilms

Black Panther‘s Chadwick Boseman shuts down New York to catch drug dealers and dirty cops. Too bad he didn’t shut down this no-thrills thriller instead.

Roland Emmerich depicts this crucial World War II naval battle by bombing us with cardboard characters (someone should personally apologize to Woody Harrelson, Patrick Wilson, Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid and the rest of the cast) and phony FX. It’s a bomb, alright.

(L to R) SAMUEL L. JACKSON, JAMES MCAVOY, BRUCE WILLIS and SARAH PAULSON in "Glass." Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan brings together the narratives of two of his standout originals—2000's "Unbreakable," from Touchstone, and 2016's "Split," from Universal—in one explosive, all-new comic-book thriller.

Touchstone Pictures

What happens when M. Night Shyamalan jams the characters from Split and Unbreakable into one doubled-up sequel? An incoherent, god-awful mess.

(from left) Tom (Henry Golding) and Kate (Emilia Clarke) in "Last Christmas," directed by Paul Feig.

Jonathan Prime/Universal Pictures

Justice demands oblivion for this indigestible blend of holiday rom-com and ghost story with zero-chemistry lovers (Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke, Crazy Rich Asians’ Henry Golding) and zero reason to exist.