Beyond Birds of Prey: These are the movies Mick LaSalle wanted to walk out of – San Francisco Chronicle

Margot Robbie in Birds of Prey. Photo: Claudette Barius , Warner Bros.

Recently, I saw a horrible movie: Birds of Prey. I could tell it would be horrible within 10 minutes, but I watched every last miserable minute of it, and since then Ive been asked what other movies are in that class truly ghastly movie experiences, my all-time worst.

Ive compiled a list of 10 films that qualify, limiting the list to movies Ive seen in my capacity as a movie critic for one simple reason: I sat through them. In the course of normal life, if I saw anything this bad, Id just walk out of the theater. Or run. Yes, Id run out. Screaming, maybe.

Ive tried to confine this to movies that were actually painful to watch. Showgirls was horrible. Serenity was horrible. But they werent unpleasant. In their own awful way, they were kind of amazing. The films that follow, by contrast, I call law school films. When I see one, I think, Why didnt I go to law school? Also, I admit Im probably leaving out a lot of horror movies I wrote about at the start of my career, such as Pumpkinhead (1987) and Hellraiser 2 (1988). I dont remember them. Ive repressed them.

On a list of this kind, no title is worse than the other, so they appear alphabetically. And please, if youre one of those people who love to say you like everything I dislike, make this your viewing list. All 10, plus Birds of Prey. You owe it to yourself.

In this film, Bo Derek is married to an old man (Anthony Quinn), who dies, but then he possesses the body of a young man, so he and Bo can continue to have sex. Yes, you really did read the previous sentence. As a bonus, guess who is in it, making fish lips and acting sexy? Donald Trump.

Matthew McConaughey, an actor who, for about five minutes a few years ago, could do no wrong, is back to making bad movies, this time as a bald, sweaty guy with a snaggletooth, in this story about a chain-smoking nerd in search of gold. Amazing.

Matt Dillon is a serial killer, building a house with the body parts of the women he has killed, in this sophomoric, disgusting, embarrassing disaster from director Lars von Trier. Dishonorable mention: Von Triers Nymphomaniac parts 1 and 2, which could put you off sex for months longer if youre older, and forever if youre really young.

This movie, adapted from a popular cartoon about a boy who controls the power of four elements, was a step forward for M. Night Shyamalan, in that, after years of making fairly bad movies, he finally found the ability to make one entirely awful.

Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke give the worst performances of their lives, in this sappy, undramatic biopic about the Canadian artist Maud Lewis.

A woman has her stomach cut open and is strangled with her own intestines in this repulsive horror film from Dario Argento (it starred his daughter Asia). Dishonorable mention: Luca Guadagninos Suspiria (2018), a remake of Argentos 1977 film.

Jodie Foster, in the worst performance of her life (or several lives, if you believe in reincarnation), plays an isolated woods woman who can only talk in squeaks and gibberish.

Pirates is the worst series in film history, but this second installment with no end or beginning, artificially inflated with pointless scenes to extend its length was torture.

Julian Fellowes botched Shakespeares text with his own additions, and director Carlo Carlei had no ideas. The acting was mind-bogglingly inept: Hailee Steinfeld (whos usually good) recited her dialogue like she was mumbling the rosary. An absolute, jaw-dropping disaster that served one good purpose: By omission, it taught audiences what good directors (other ones) do.

Guy Ritchie took a great film by Lina Wertmller, about a working-class man and a rich woman washed up on an uninhabited island, and remade it into an epic flop starring his then-wife Madonna. Dishonorable mentions: Ritchies RocknRolla (2008) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011).

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Beyond Birds of Prey: These are the movies Mick LaSalle wanted to walk out of - San Francisco Chronicle