Top 10 Most Disappointing 2024 Movies

Top 10 Most Disappointing 2024 Movies

2024 is ending, 2025 is just around the corner. That means it’s time to reflect on the 2024 movie year. So today I’m sharing my picks for the 10 most disappointing movies of 2024. Let’s get started!

NOTE: As we go into this list, it’s important to share. When I say most disappointing, that doesn’t mean that it’s bad. Some of these movies I would go positive on. But they were the movies that fell far short of my expectations. 

10. Speak No Evil: This movie wins the award for the trailer that was played the most in 2024. I saw five movies in the month of August. Every single time, the trailer for this movie played. I was just so excited for this movie to come out just so I wouldn’t have to watch this trailer anymore. Beyond that, I was actually pretty excited for this movie. Earlier this year I watched Split and Glass. The movie features a fantastic performance by James McAvoy. Getting another horror thriller with McAvoy had made me very interested to check it out. I wanted to see another movie that showcased his acting ability. And prove to people that he’s one of the best actors working today. All of the early reviews for the movie were very positive. It debuted in the high-80s on Rotten Tomatoes. Several of the critics that I follow on social media were throwing praise at this movie. I went to go see the movie and it didn’t fully work for me. McAvoy is of course fantastic. It really does show that he’s a fantastic actor that feels underrated. He’s a famous actor but still doesn’t get the credit that I feel he deserves at points. There are some solid scenes and sequences in this movie. Some of the thrills in the movie are good. It’s an interesting thriller to exist, but not a great movie. I think because I saw the trailer so many times, I felt like that took away from some of the shock value of the movie. I didn’t exactly know where the movie was going but a version of what I was thinking actually did happen. I wish that the trailer didn’t play as much so some of the shocking moments in the third act worked better for me. Tied to that, I felt like in the third act they wrote some of the characters to be stupid. They were written stupid just to progress the plot forward and have McAvoy do even more crazy things. It pulls you out of the movie when there’s so many points where the character acts so weird just so you can get to the next thrilling sequence. I wish the script was better and was as good as McAvoy’s performance. If the movie as a whole was as good as McAvoy. Then this movie wouldn’t be on the list and would easily be one of the best of the year. 

9. Kraven the Hunter: To be fair, I wasn’t super excited about this movie. I thought at best this movie would be mediocre and on par with the Venom movies. I wasn’t expecting something as bad as Morbius or Madame Web. The idea of a revenge movie with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Russell Crowe sounds fun to me. I went to see the movie and wow. This movie was pretty terrible. If you told me we were going to get a comic book movie worse than Madame Web this year, I would have called you crazy. Then Kraven the Hunter came out and was worse than Madame Web. This movie on every single level is bad. The dialogue for this movie is pretty terrible. Like most of Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s lines in the movie are “because I’m a hunter”. Russell Crowe keeps on saying “be strong like me”. Ariana DeBose says the line “my grandma died when I was a kid and haven’t seen her since”. I hear that line and go…what? That level of incompetence is present all over this movie. The fact that none of the directors, producers, or actors went with these lines is bad and makes no sense. It’s crazy. The ADR and reshoots in the movie are so noticeable and pulls you right out of the movie. The fact that they had a year and a half of reshoots and they still put out a bad movie just shows that Sony doesn’t care about these movies at all. The fact that it opened to $11 million just goes to show that people don’t care about these movies. It’s a good idea that Sony has stopped making these movies. This movie was bad, it’s one of the worst movies of the year. Despite not being overly excited about this movie, it still felt short of what I thought it was going to be. 

 

8. Anora: This movie feels very out of place with the rest of the movies. Most of these movies are franchise films that I was excited about since it was announced. I saw the trailer for the movie and was confused by what it was about. Ever since the movie got fantastic buzz at awards ceremonies, this movie was put on my radar. So many people were saying that this is one of the best movies of the year. I went into this movie expecting it to be great. I left the movie not liking it and actively confused as to where the praise is coming from. So many people say that it is a front runner for Best Picture. And saying that Mikey Madison deserves that Oscar for Best Actress. Madison was good, I’ll give her that. She was good. I don’t know if I would have nominated her for all these awards. The movie as a whole was a total mess that I wasn’t sure what they were trying to communicate. It’s about a stripper that falls in love with a rich Russian kid. They decided to get married and the Russian kid’s family wants to get an annulment. So there’s insanity that comes with that. The way it plays out and where it goes didn’t make any sense to me. For me, it’s incredibly hard for me to buy into a relationship that started because they like to have sex with each other. 80% of their screen time together in the first half is them having sex. Then deciding to get married. Therefore, I don’t care about the emotions in the back half. I don’t feel anything in it. Because they were acting stupid and they got the consequences they deserved. The movie is also 15-20 minutes long. It felt like the runtime was extended just so the director could have the jokes that he wanted in there. I could rant about this movie forever. For most people, this is one of the best movies of the year. For me, this is one of the worst movies of the year. 

7. The Instigators: This is an Apple TV+ original movie that I was actually very excited about. It’s directed by Doug Liman who’s made a lot of great movies. It’s a reteaming of him and Matt Damon who did The Bourne Identity together. Casey Affleck, Alfred Molina, Ron Perlman, Ving Rhames, and more familiar faces are in this movie. I was hoping that with this much star power behind and in-front of the camera that it’ll be better than it was. Unfortunately, I feel like this movie has all of the same problems that all of the other streaming movies have. Which is, it feels like a totally generic action movie that has a bunch of A-lister but nothing really beyond that. This was a movie that I had enough fun watching. But I don’t really remember much about months later. Even the next week, you kind of forget that you watched this movie. And that’s what happens with so many of these streaming movies. They get A-list casts but don’t have a good story to earn these A-list casts. That’s just so frustrating to me that these streaming movies get all of this talent but completely waste them. At this point, I shouldn’t be too surprised that streaming movies tend to disappoint. But what’s more frustrating about this movie is that Apple TV+ has made some great movies. Killers of the Flower Moon was one of the best movies of last year. I enjoyed Argylle more than most people did. Argylle wasn’t great but it was good and a lot of fun. I remember more things about that movie. I don’t remember much about the plot or specifics about The Instigators. That’s the main reason why this movie is on this list. I expected more from it given the director, premise, and the cast. 

6. Moana 2: One of the biggest box office hits of 2024. Am I surprised by this? No. Am I surprised the movie hasn’t already made $1 billion? Sort of. But no matter what, this is a big win for Disney at the box office. I enjoy the original Moana a good bit. It’s not one of my personal favorite Disney animated movies of the last 15 years. But their track record is still pretty good that it’s a good movie. I think it’s a movie that lends itself to a sequel. There’s enough ideas and mythology setup in that movie. That making a sequel makes sense and I was excited about it. A lot of people have described this movie as safe. I think that’s a good way to describe this movie. It’s a perfectly safe and good enough sequel. For most studios, making a safe sequel isn’t a bad thing. But when you’re Disney and your track record of making movies is pretty solid. Being safe and good enough isn’t good enough. If you don’t know the backstory about this movie. This movie was designed as a tv show for Disney+. Earlier this year, they decided to turn it into a movie. You can tell that when you watch the movie. The episode breaks are fairly obvious where they probably were. The story is very clunky with how all of the pieces come together. The biggest disappointment for the movie was the soundtrack. I think the absence of Lin Manuel-Miranda was present in this movie. When you’re making a Disney movie and the songs aren’t memorable that’s a big problem. The original movie had so many songs that became instantly iconic. Eight years later, we’re still singing these songs. I don’t think any of the songs from this movie will be ones that kids will be singing in the years to come. I get what Disney was going for on a financial level. They needed a big hit film after Strange World and Wish bombed at the box office. They knew Moana 2 would be a big box office hit and they were right about that. On a financial level this movie made sense. On a story and plot level I don’t think it made sense. I wish this movie was better and I could like it more. But honestly, it was overall a big disappointment. 

5. Wolfs: Another Apple TV+ streaming movie. This one stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt. It’s directed by Jon Watts who did Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. Once again, they cut a good trailer that made me excited. Ocean’s Eleven is one of my favorite movies of all time. The trailer and vibe felt much like that movie. Of course, with the inclusion of Clooney and Pitt it sounded like a lot of fun. Look at what I said about The Instigators and you can copy and paste that here. It’s a movie that has a fun premise, a fun cast, and a solid director but feels like the most mediocre version of this. I was excited to see what Watts could do outside of Spider-Man. This is something that’s a bit darker and adult than Spider-Man. To me, this felt like a movie that anybody could have directed. I don’t think the quality of the movie would have changed. That’s frustrating to me. That seems to be the type of director that Jon Watts is. He’s good company but doesn’t do anything super special with this directing style. It’s the type of movie that I enjoyed enough when I watched it. But now with the movie coming out three-four months back there’s not much about this movie that I remember. The reason why I view this movie as more disappointing than The Instigators was it felt more wasted. I was more excited for this movie because of the trailers. I thought the trailers for The Instigators were good, but not great. The trailers for Wolfs I thought were great. It pretty quickly became one of my most anticipated movies for the back half of 2024. I didn’t need this movie to be one of 2024’s best movies. I just felt like it needed to be much better than it was. I feel like with a different creative team. And given more of a budget to put in theaters this could have been a very solid crime thriller with two charismatic leads. 

4. Knox Goes Away: A movie that fell under the radar for a lot of people. It didn’t get a wide release. I don’t expect this movie to be on a lot of people’s list. This movie is about a contract killer whose son comes to him with a problem. He has to try and cover up the problem. But the twist is the contract killer has dementia, so there’s this ticking clock trying to see if he can figure it out because he loses his memory. That right there is an intriguing premise that as soon as I heard it I was in. One thing that made me very curious about this movie, it’s directed by Michael Keaton. I don’t believe has directed anything before, I was very curious to see what he’s going to do with this movie. Michael Keaton is the father in the movie, a big fan of Michael Keaton. James Marsden is his son. Once again I’m a big fan of his. Al Pacino has a part in the movie. There’s a lot of star power in this movie that I was very curious to see what it was going to be. It felt like a mix of things that I would enjoy and have a good time with. Unfortunately, I thought this was just the most mediocre movie of the year. It plays it so safe, it’s so one note from beginning to end. It does have this ticking clock in the movie. But it doesn’t really work, you don’t feel the urgency or the danger in the movie. You’re sort of just spending time with Michael Keaton and James Marsden not really doing much that’s interesting. It felt like a movie that would be better if David Fincher directed it. If you take this exact premise and cast and give it to David Fincher, this probably could have been something very cool. It’s not that Keaton is a bad director. There’s moments here that show his talents in that field. But I don’t think he’s great at pulling the whole movie together in a way that makes it great. On paper, this is a movie that’s right up my alley. It should be a movie that I enjoy more than I do. I didn’t feel like I wasted my time watching this movie. But this was a B-, C+ level movie. I wish it was an A- or B+ level movie. 

3. Venom: The Last Dance: The third and final movie in the Venom trilogy. The second SPUMC movie we got this year. Of the SPUMC movies releasing this year. This is the one that I was the most excited about. When I went into this movie, I wasn’t expecting a great movie. I went in expecting a fun time that was on par with the first two movies. Even at that standard this movie fell short of that. The third act has a lot of symbiote fun and carnage takes place. That feels like the right third act to finish off this trilogy. But I also think that the ideas in the third act should have been what the whole movie was about. You have an incident in the first act that unleashes all of these symbiotes on the world. Venom has to try to stop them while the government is coming after them. That would be a fun plot for a third Venom especially if this is the final one. Except with this movie, we’re getting Venom and Eddie going on road trips across the United States. Debating who likes to sing alongs between, Eddie or Venom. There’s multiple laps in the logic with how things play out that don’t make any sense. The story doesn’t come together, there’s clunky storytelling in the first act of the movie. I feel like a weak story is super disappointing considering this is the fifth SPUMC movie and the third Venom movie and they’re still making the same issues that the original movie made. That’s just so weird to me, I don’t get why they haven't figured out how to make good movies. This is a disappointment with the entire universe. But it’s weird to me that in Venom’s third movie. He still hasn’t properly interacted with Spider-Man. Overall, I didn’t go into this movie expecting a great movie. But I wanted a movie that was better than this. 

2. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire: I’m not a massive Ghostbusters fan. I actually watched the original leading up to Ghostbusters: Afterlife coming out. I think Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the best of the franchise. I think it has all of the fun of the Ghostbusters movies. You can get some fun new characters with Paul Rudd and McKenna Grace. When they said they were doing another sequel that’s following these characters in New York City after Ghostbusters: Afterlife I was all on board. The trailers seemed like they captured the magic of a Ghostbusters movie. This is one of the most frustrating movies of the year. There’s so much about this movie that I enjoyed. This movie feels very different from other Ghostbusters movies. Because it’s the only Ghostbusters where it’s not about forming the Ghostbusters. At the beginning of this movie, the Ghostbusters are fully formed and we’re just going off on the adventure with them. It has this new flavor to the entire thing that I think works with a now five film franchise. Also, it’s fun to see the new cast interact with the old cast. There’s a lot of fun that comes with that. Some of the humor works really well because you’re getting a variety of different characters in the movie. I think what hurts this movie is it’s not as good as it could have been. I think the big problem with that is that there’s way too much going on. This movie was supposed to come out last year. Try to do a turn year turn around between Afterlife and this movie. I felt like they needed another six months before they started shooting to iron out the script. There’s so many subplots in this movie that make it unfocus. They have extended cameos from Patton Oswald that just feels like an exposition dump. Kumail Nanjinani has a part in the movie, but it doesn’t really go anywhere exciting or interesting to me. I feel like this movie needed to come out later in 2024 not at the beginning of 2024. I think there’s good ideas in here, it’s just the wrong mix of the ideas.

1. Joker: Folie Á Deux: I so badly wanted to like this movie. This was one of my most anticipated movies of 2024. I love the first movie. I think that’s a fantastic addition to the comic book movie genre with an Oscar winning performance by Joaquin Phoenix. I know a lot of people were skeptical about the idea for a sequel. Because the original movie didn’t make it obvious where a sequel would go. While I agree with that, I was optimistic that if they found the right angle for a movie then it could work and be good. I watched the movie and was so conflicted by my thoughts on it. I appreciate that Todd Phillips wanted to do something totally ballsy with a sequel. This movie does not play it safe, I think there’s something so interesting about that. Whether you love or hate this movie, there’s something in the execution of the movie that’s interesting. It’s hard to take your eyes away from it when it’s constantly making these big bold swings. I think by the end of the movie it just completely fell through for me. The note this movie ends on, I don’t get how that’s the logical end point for Arthur’s journey that started in the first movie. The ending of this movie makes the original movie a bit worse for me. The journey of Arthur in that movie basically means nothing by the end of this movie. When a sequel is able to undo the ending of the original and make you not like the original as much is a bad sign. I went into this movie optimistic that maybe there is an idea for a sequel that could work. I left the theater just wishing WB had left Joker as its own thing. I don’t think a sequel was necessary. The fact that this movie had a $200 million budget when it’s a courtroom musical drama is insane to me. Easily, this is the biggest disappointment of the year. I wanted to love this movie. I wanted this movie to be another great movie. But I left the theater so disappointed and frustrated with what Todd Phillips did with this movie.