10 Worst Movie Franchises Of All Time, Ranked

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It’s a generally agreed-upon bit of wisdom that if you let any film franchise go on long enough, it’s eventually going to reach a state of quality decline. That idea elicits an extra sting for franchises that start bad and yet somehow keep going, defiant of their critical and popular ridicule. Yet many terrible film franchises lived an egregiously long life-cycle before burning out — and plenty are still on-going.

Of course, the determining factor of what makes a franchise bad can vary from person to person, and many have a mix of your typical transgressions: shoddy filmmaking; lazy craftsmanship born of studios chasing an quick profit; films made from more sinister propagandistic ideals. That’s the mix you’ll find on this list of bad movie franchises. These are big studio ventures that executives finally decided to stop financing, bottom-of-the-barrel straight-to-video fare that keeps getting made because of flexible profit margins, and franchises that target demographics with pockets that are easy to squeeze. 

Here are the 10 worst movie franchises of all time, ranked.

There was a brief period when blockbuster adaptations of young-adult fantasy and sci-fi novels about futuristic dystopias were all the rage at the box office. The “Divergent” movies helped to usher that era right out the door.

To be certain, YA book fans helped give the franchise some early goodwill upon the release of “Divergent,” which was a box-office success despite its mixed critical reception. But the franchise entered a downward trajectory from there, with declining grosses and gradually poorer reception, which eventually forced production company Summit Entertainment to throw in the towel on the franchise altogether. The final book was meant to be split into two films, but due to audience disinterest, the second half never made it to production.

It was business and filmmaking foibles that led to the crash of the “Divergent” series, with many fans recognizing the films as poor adaptations and bemoaning the studio’s clear attempt at a cash-in by needlessly splitting up the final chapter. But in the wake of the success of the “Hunger Games” franchise, the “Divergent” movies, on principal, felt like an overly simplistic, needlessly rehashed version of a cultural phenomenon. In a cultural zeitgeist quickly inundated by a deluge of kiddie-political fantasy action movies, “Divergent” represented the genre’s immediate homogeneity. But young adult fans need not worry, as we have 15 movies that feel a lot like “Divergent” for you to check out.

Leave it to a dire children’s film franchise to be this consistently terrible yet financially successful. These hybrid live-action and CGI adaptations of the cartoon band of singing chipmunks are pretty much the epitome of the stereotypically lazy family-movie slop Hollywood pumps out to entice children to get their begrudging parents to drag them to the movie theater. It has worked every time.

Since their arrival as a novelty holiday record in 1958, the various extensions of the “Alvin and the Chipmunks” property have mostly been benign pieces of children’s entertainment, including some fun genre mash-ups and experiments. Indeed, you may not remember that “Alvin and the Chipmunks” had a crossover with “The Wolfman,” which is the kind of harmless cartoon revelry perfectly suited for characters that would have perfectly innocuous remaining in the realm of straight-to-video animated movies or network TV shows.

The “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movie franchise is something much more insidious and annoying: a studio-backed, nonchalantly slapdash series of kids’ films devoid of any real effort to update these characters for modern audiences in an appealing way. It also depressingly wastes the onscreen and voice talents of performers like Jason Lee, David Cross, Justin Long, Amy Poehler, and more. And yet, those theatrical experiences of paying $10 for a movie ticket to hear pitch-shifted versions of Top 40 pop songs were a formula reliable enough to generate four movies. Try not to think about it too much.

Maybe we could more accurately narrow this down to the “American Pie Presents” series of direct-to-video bro comedies. The original cult classic sex comedy “American Pie” has its own share of lackluster mainline sequels, but it’s these DTV spinoff films that are truly the bottom of the barrel of what’s achievable with feature film comedic filmmaking.

No matter their respective quality ceilings, the four mainline “American Pie” films at least have genuine, endearing character dynamics that better serve the raunch factor. “American Pie Presents” makes vulgarity and salaciousness the extent of the appeal, taking the elements that worked in “American Pie,” because they were propped up by actual characters, and distilling them down into obnoxious provocation.

They’re also beset by low budgets, poor production quality, and the obvious feeling of a studio looking to make a quick buck, given the low-grade attempt to introduce new characters in place of an original cast that, by and large, makes no appearances (except for Eugene Levy, whose contractual obligation to the franchise feels miserable for the performer). The use of the “American Pie Presents” films seems to start and end with teenagers in the DVD era sneaking a peek at movies with nudity. But hey, seeing as how “American Pie” is a $1 billion franchise, the studio is the one laughing all the way to the bank.

The “Highlander” film franchise has a torrid history of being considered one of the worst sci-fi series to ever grace both silver and television screens. It’s a property that seems eternally cursed by poor production decisions and audience backlash — even the new “Highlander” reboot has a lengthy, rocky history.

To be fair to “Highlander,” the first film was considered a cult classic with franchise potential for a reason. Director Russell Mulcahy gave the dorky original sci-fi script about an immortal Scottish Highlander a solid sense of geek indulgence, blending elements of sword-and-sorcery movies and gritty NYC procedurals into one strange, entertaining amalgamation. All that potential disappeared immediately, as “Highlander II: The Quickening” frustrated the niche fanbase by retconning the ending of the first film and continuing to make illogical choices that strained the core concept.

Sequels have tried to course-correct in their own inane ways since then: The third film ignores the second film entirely, the fourth film is a crossover with the television series, and the fifth film was a made-for-TV affair with the low production values that you could reasonably expect. Fans at least got “Highlander: The Search for Vengeance,” an anime entry that was reasonably well-liked, but the “Highlander” franchise has yet to dig itself out of its deep hole of cultural mockery.

I know what you’re thinking. With such esteemed superhero movie touchstones as “Morbius,” “Madame Web,” three “Venom” movies, and “Kraven the Hunter,” how could Sony’s “Spider-Man” Universe possibly earn a spot on this list? This is for the bad movies!

Really, the truth is that Sony’s attempt to spin off a Spider-Man universe and explore the deeper nooks and crannies of his world without actually featuring the webslinger himself was a bewildering idea that led to a string of movies that were practically all critical or commercial failures. This is an offshoot franchise with nothing but baffling choices and films that don’t work in their own right as B-tier superhero and villain movies. Producing multiple films that rank among the most derided of the 2020s requires a rare kind of mismanagement — something Sony, it seems, was able to achieve.

But hey, it seems Sony has taken the lesson in stride, not going further than completing the “Venom” trilogy — the only property among the lot to be commercially successful — and otherwise quitting while they were behind with the other three films being unequivocal failures. Yes, Sony has left their second-rate “Spider-Man” universe in the dust, leaving us with nothing but lingering questions about the potential fates of these characters. What would it have been like for Morbius and Madame Web to interact? All we can do is imagine (or wait to find out in the inevitable Spider-Man universe reboot).

There are 11 “Children of the Corn” movies. No, that is not a typo, and this is not an elaborate psy-op, though the very act of producing 11 of these movies might be. The first “Children of the Corn” movie, released in 1984 and based on the Stephen King short story of the same name, has never even been particularly well-regarded, moreso acting as a sticky concept that people remember about cultish rural kids killing a bunch of adults.

Nevertheless, that has spawned a seemingly never-ending chain of follow-ups that essentially all rehash the same general plot. Unwitting adults find themselves stuck in a spooky backwater farm town, the kids start furtively plotting their demise, and the, erm, terror ensues. Each film carries its own noteworthy, memorable subtitle, such as “The Gathering,” “Revelation,” or “Genesis.” You know, the types of designations that really stick in the brain.

Really, these things keep getting pumped out because they’re cheap to produce and Dimension Films wanted to maintain the rights to the franchise — for what reason is hard to say, since it seems they simply saddled themselves with an IP obligation they never had an interest in making worthwhile. These things are still getting made to this day, with the most recent entry, simply titled “Children of the Corn,” having a theatrical release back in 2023. That it was a box office flop should come as no surprise. Stephen King himself thinks these movies don’t work, so it tracks that audiences agree with him.

If you thought 11 “Children of the Corn” movies were a lot, wait until I remind you that there are 15 “Air Bud” movies. Maybe this is less of a surprise, because these things have left a remarkable stamp on the home video market since the franchise’s inception in 1997. First, it was by sticking Air Bud himself into whatever new sport producers figured they could make work with the concept. After that, the franchise turned to the “Air Buddies,” a pack of golden retriever puppies who often got into non-sports-related adventures, including accidentally getting drunk on wine.

The longevity of the “Air Bud” franchise isn’t all that hard to deduce. The first film is no masterpiece, but as far as these types of family films go, it has an earnest heart to its story and was clearly made with care. Basically all the sequels are far less forgivable, forgoing any semblance of shame as complete hack jobs made on tight timelines with cheap budgets to make huge profits on VHS and DVD.

And yet, “Air Bud” lives on as a cultural touchstone and a fond nostalgic memory for many Millennials and Zoomers who grew up watching a golden retriever play basketball (because there ain’t no rule against it). It was only a matter of time before the series got the full-blown big-budget nostalgia-bait treatment, so have no fear, “Air Bud Returns” is releasing in 2026, and it has an absolutely bonkers plot description.

Of all the bad franchises on this list, there’s something particularly underhanded about “Sharknado.” The first film made a cultural splash upon release, launching a surprise multimedia franchise encompassing movies, video games, and comic books, all predicated on the idea that “Sharknado” is a so-bad-it’s-good novelty. The appeal of “Sharknado” has always been based around one question: How did anyone think this is a good idea?

But the truth is that the ethos of “Sharknado” refutes the validity of that question. The franchise was created as an intentionally ridiculous Z-grade made-for-TV creature feature for The Asylum, the direct-to-video production company that specializes in shoddy quasi-parodies of popular mainstream genre movies. “Sharknado” does not come by its gimmicky badness honestly — it was formed in a lab to be bad, with the expectation of people to gawk at its absurdity. This may sound like a bit of a buzzkill perspective for the Sci-Fi Channel series about deadly shark tornadoes, but it renders its popularity false and makes its cultural presence an annoyance.

Even as a knowing joke, the “Sharknado” movies ended up long outliving any potential humor there is to mine from the idea of an intentionally stupid movie. The series called it quits at six movies, with nothing to respect but perhaps the dedication of director Anthony C. Ferrante for staying on board for all of them, putting out one a year. But then again, with movies that are intentional trash, I doubt it was too much of a toil.

Ah, yes, the confirmation bias genre of filmmaking. There are plenty of great movies out there about the complicated dichotomies of Christianity and the concept of trying to maintain some type of moral righteousness and virtue in the eyes of God while reconciling with the apprehensions and anxieties of living on Earth. Indeed, there are movies that give the faith-based genre a good name. The “God’s Not Dead” franchise does not contain them.

No, these movies are pretty much exclusively about reaffirming a certain religious persecution complex held by certain members of the largest religion in America. Across five movies released from 2014 to 2024, the “God’s Not Dead” movies stack up their straw-men and blow them down with ease, always finding a new, cartoonish stereotype to prove wrong in their cultural-flashpoint criticisms of Christianity.

Movies like “God’s Not Dead” aren’t meant to meaningfully wrestle with the intricacies of adhering to religious values. They’re essentially outrage machines, the type that has grown increasingly more commonplace in the form of short-form online content meant to steer the political temperament of the country further and further to right-wing extremism. The brand of “faith-based” movies that “God’s Not Dead” represents is a malady to honesty within our collective social contract, encompassing a certain indifference to critical ideas at best, and active hostility to group outsiders at worst.

Maybe you’re surprised the “Fifty Shades of Grey” franchise didn’t make this list. Well, it’s because “365 Days” has the brand of cheap, tacky erotic thrillers covered perfectly fine on its own. Yes, this trilogy of Polish films that found a huge international audience on Netflix, mostly out of pure morbid curiosity, is far worse, with thinly sketched stories meant to streamline titillating elements of problematic dark romance. Hey, there’s a reason IMDb users consider “365 Days” one of the worst franchises of all time.

The films are based on the book of the same name by Blanka Lipinska, so they essentially adapt the kinds of cheap paperback smut that get peddled on BookTok as a cultural phenomenon. The main focus is on Laur Biel (Anna-Maria Sieklucka), who is kidnapped by the threatening mafia boss Massimo Torricelli (Michele Morrone), who holds her captive for a year with the agreement that he will let her go if she does not fall in love with him.

So yeah, the series’s proclivity towards romanticizing elements of abuse and assault, treating them as the result of uncontrollable love that leads to desire and desperation, is pretty on-the-nose. But let’s not pretend like the films actually have any interest in engaging with their themes one way or the other — these are basically extended montages of a bunch of frictionless sex scenes and nudity designed to be cut up and posted on TikTok. “365 Days” earns the distinction of making the failure of its attempts at eroticism actively harmful.