(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sat 17 January 2026 20:45, UK
Making one bad movie is forgivable, but making an entire career out of it is egregious. Roger Ebert reviewed thousands upon thousands of films during his decades as the industry’s most recognisable critic, which meant that one unfortunate person had to suffer the lowest success rate.
Your mind may immediately wander toward Michael Bay as the culprit, which is a reasonable assumption to make, since Ebert loathed Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II, and the first two Transformers sequels, Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon, with every fibre of his being.
However, he awarded three and a half stars to The Rock, which is fair because it’s an action classic, with the opening entry in the Transformers series and The Island scoring three apiece, neither of which feels deserved. By the law of averages, that puts Bay at around 1.9 stars per picture. Not ideal, but not at the bottom of the barrel, either.
Interestingly, the filmmaker responsible for more Ebert-approved drubbings than anyone to have made more than one or two features doesn’t have a single zero-star effort among the bunch. That said, he saved them for the most indefensible crimes against cinema, although plenty of people would argue that Dennis Dugan has committed his fair share of them.
He helmed 15 films between 1990’s Problem Child and 2020’s Love, Weddings & Other Disasters, eight of which starred Adam Sandler in the lead role, and another, The Benchwarmers, that was produced by the Sandman through his Happy Madison banner. Ebert only reviewed six, but that was more than enough to leave Dugan circling the drain as having the worst filmography that he’d ever seen.
The two-time ‘Worst Director’ Razzie winner and five-time nominee in total soured the critics’ eyeballs with Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy, Saving Silverman, Grown Ups, and Just Go with It. Remarkably, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan managed to score three stars, which saved him from having an even more embarrassing average.
The other five could only scrape together six and a half stars between them, with Saving Silverman the worst of the bunch. At least that one didn’t involve Sandler, but Ebert nonetheless savaged it for being “so bad in so many different ways,” which, if anything, doesn’t do justice to how awful it really is.
Reflecting on Neil Diamond’s appearance in it, Ebert remarked that he was existing “somewhere between being a good sport and professional suicide,” adding that, “Perhaps he should have reflected that director Dennis Dugan has directed two Adam Sandler movies” before signing on. Ominously, he made another half-dozen.
Of the six Dugan-directed efforts that Ebert was unfortunate enough to see, the average was just over 1.5 stars. Had he been subjected to more, then there’s every chance it would have been lower, since he’s never made anything even half-decent.
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