For actors, however, life is a never-ending series of criticisms. A bad movie<\/a> performance can live on in infamy<\/a> just as long as a great one, and no actor is immune.<\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s veteran legends like Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, or stars at the peak of their powers such as Leonardo DiCaprio<\/a> or Tom Hardy<\/a>, even the very best actors have proved themselves capable of truly terrible turns.<\/p>\n Sometimes these performances are met with nothing but disdain, mockery, and Razzie nominations \u2013 other times, they manage to slip mercifully under the radar.<\/p>\n To be clear, the actors aren\u2019t always the ones at fault; many of the performances on this list came in generally dreadful films, with performers let down by shoddy scripts or filmmaking.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s The Independent\u2019s list of 17 of the absolute worst performances from some of the best actors around…<\/p>\n Tom Hanks<\/a> \u2013 Cloud Atlas (2012)<\/p>\n Hanks actually plays six different roles in the Wachowski sisters\u2019 ambitious era-spanning epic, and he\u2019s by no means bad in all of them. But his performance as gangster-turned-novelist Dermot \u201cDuster\u201d Hoggins could well be the worst of Hanks\u2019s entire career. Laughably broad, and with an accent that\u2019s ostensibly Irish but comes across as bad cockney, \u201cDuster\u201d is a creation best left in the dustbin.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Tom Hanks as \u2018Duster\u2019 in the Wachowski sisters\u2019 \u2018Cloud Atlas’ (Warner Bros)<\/p>\n Nicolas Cage \u2013 The Wicker Man (2006)<\/p>\n There have been few, if any, actors of Cage\u2019s calibre to offer quite so many bad performances to choose from; his is a career of polarising extremes. Though apologists may try to plead \u201cstylistic risk-taking\u201d, Cage\u2019s work in the 2006 Wicker Man remake remains near the bottom of the pile \u2013 an exercise in rural horror that comes across as laughable excess. You\u2019ll never be able to say \u201cbees\u201d in quite the same way again after watching this.<\/p>\n To find out what others are saying and join the conversation scroll down for the comments section or click here for our most commented on articles\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Halle Berry \u2013 Catwoman (2004)<\/p>\n Produced before superhero films became as ubiquitous as oxygen, Catwoman was a notorious dud when it first came out. Berry at the time was in the pomp of her stardom, having won the Academy Award for Best Actress just a few years previously. In its own ignominious way, Berry\u2019s Catwoman turn was also award-worthy: she picked up her Golden Raspberry award in person, joking in her light-hearted acceptance speech: \u201cIn order to give a really bad performance like I did, you need a lot of bad actors around you.\u201d <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Berry in the critically panned \u2018Catwoman\u2019 (Warner Bros\/Dc Comics\/Kobal\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n Al Pacino \u2013 Jack and Jill (2011)<\/p>\n One of the greatest actors to have ever lived, Al Pacino has nonetheless been known to give his fair share of questionable (over-)performances throughout the years. However, there\u2019s none that quite stick in the craw quite so jarringly as his brief cameo in the bleakly bad Adam Sandler vehicle Jack and Jill. Playing himself, Pacino mugs his way through a musical advertisement for a beverage called a \u201cdunkaccino\u201d. It\u2019s not very funny, and Pacino seems almost demeaned by his very presence in it.<\/p>\n George Clooney \u2013 Batman & Robin (1997)<\/p>\n There\u2019s no way the blame for this notorious superhero flop can be placed solely at Clooney\u2019s door; from head to bat-toes, this film was daft, indulgent and misconceived. But the Ocean\u2019s Eleven star certainly doesn\u2019t cover himself in glory with his take on the caped crusader, resulting in what might be the worst on-screen Batman in memory.<\/p>\n Robert De Niro \u2013 Dirty Grandpa (2016)<\/p>\n Once considered by many to be the best actor on the planet, De Niro\u2019s star has waned somewhat in recent years. Though he\u2019s still able to pull greatness out the bag (see: The Irishman), his recent output offers a litany of phoned-in performances, from Little Fockers to The Comedian. In terms of sheer, degrading \u201chow did it come to this\u201d moments, there\u2019s nothing on par with Dirty Grandpa, however, in which De Niro plays a randy septuagenarian who accompanies his grandson (Zac Efron) to Florida for Spring Break.<\/p>\n Russell Crowe \u2013 The Mummy (2018)<\/p>\n The overall lacklustreness of this Tom Cruise vehicle helped disguise Crowe\u2019s performance as Dr Jekyll (of \u201cand Mr Hyde\u201d fame), which was quietly the worst supporting turn of Crowe\u2019s career. The scene in which Crowe wigs out and transforms from the sanguine doctor to the feral Mr Hyde is one of the most giddily over-acted in recent memory, and the dodgy CGI is just the icing on the cake. Had Warner Bros\u2019 planned (and prematurely announced) \u201cDark Universe\u201d panned out, Crowe would have got his own standalone film as the bifurcated literary character. What a horrible and ancient curse that could have been.<\/p>\n Natalie Portman \u2013 Star Wars: Episode II \u2013 Attack of the Clones (2002)<\/p>\n All three Star Wars prequels were blessed with an abundance of skilled actors; all three also featured some truly terrible performances, often by those same actors. Natalie Portman was never serviced well by Attack of the Clones\u2019s script, but this nonetheless endures as one of her worst performances. Sharing most of her scenes with Hayden Christensen\u2019s pouting Anakin, Portman\u2019s Padme Amidala is painfully wooden and devoid of charisma; turgid political plotlines set around the Galactic Senate also gave Portman no room to flex her considerable talents.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Natalie Portman as Padme Amidala in \u2018Attack of the Clones’ (LucasFilm)<\/p>\n Robert Downey Jr \u2013 Dolittle (2020)<\/p>\n There have been few men as naturally charismatic as RDJ; the camera loves him, and so do audiences. It\u2019s no small shame, therefore, that his acting career after the success of Iron Man has pretty much been confined to Marvel\u2019s Tony Stark \u2013 since The Avengers in 2012, his only sizable non-MCU roles have been The Judge and Dolittle, both of which could be charitably described as letdowns. His role as the animal-fluent doctor in Dolittle must be the worst, however \u2013 a charmless and insipid spin on a classic children\u2019s premise.<\/p>\n Tom Hardy \u2013 Capone (2020)<\/p>\n As an actor, Tom Hardy makes big choices. This is what makes him great; it\u2019s a big part of what imbued films like Bronson or Mad Max: Fury Road with such unique, specific energy. But these big choices don\u2019t always pan out, leading to bizarre results in films such as last year\u2019s strange Al Capone biopic. The film was savaged by viewers on social media<\/a>, with one critic writing that Hardy \u201cgrunts, coughs and s***s his way through scenes that lack any form of direction, sympathy and\/or purpose\u201d.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Tom Hardy as Al Capone in \u2018Capone’ (Vertical Entertainment)<\/p>\n Adam Sandler \u2013 The Ridiculous 6 (2015)<\/p>\n So many of the Sandman\u2019s performances can be described as broad, lowbrow, or just plain bad, it\u2019s easy to forget just how great an actor Sandler is. When he applies himself, either in his self-produced comedies, or in more dramatic projects (Punch-Drunk Love; The Meyerowicz Stories; Uncut Gems), he can be a force to be reckoned with. In the Ridiculous 6, however, he\u2019s not even a force to be tolerated. Playing a white orphan who was raised by Native Americans in the Old West, Sandler is, frankly, terrible. The film is similarly poor, and was the recipient of a rare zero per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes.<\/p>\n Leonardo DiCaprio \u2013 J Edgar (2011)<\/p>\n It\u2019s a testament to DiCaprio\u2019s consistency that there\u2019s not much to choose from by way of bad performances; J Edgar, however, is an outright stinker. Filmed back in the heady days before DiCaprio\u2019s Best Actor win, the turgid biopic was a transparent ploy for Oscar gold, and saw the actor don terrible prosthetics to play an elderly version of the controversial FBI director. He\u2019s scarcely much better as a younger J Edgar Hoover, mind \u2013 this is a bad, indulgent film, one which the Titanic star does not manage to elevate.<\/p>\n Read more:\u00a025 brilliant films that bombed at the box office<\/a><\/p>\n Michael Caine \u2013 Jaws: The Revenge (1987)<\/p>\n It should have been a coup to land Michael Caine for the fourth entry in the Jaws franchise. With Roy Scheider having left the franchise after Jaws 2,\u00a0 it was in need of some star presence. Alas, Caine did not exactly cover himself in glory. For his part, the British thespian was droll about the film\u2019s dubious merits, famously saying: \u201cI have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Michael Caine in \u2018Jaws: The Revenge’ (Universal Pictures)<\/p>\n Naomi Watts \u2013 Diana (2013)<\/p>\n This year has seen a superlative portrayal of the late Princess Diana on screen, when Kristen Stewart tackled the role for the bold, revisionist biopic Spencer. Previous attempts to capture the \u201cpeople\u2019s princess\u201d haven\u2019t proved quite so fortunate, however, with the 2013 biopic Diana standing as the nadir of Naomi Watts\u2019s career. The Mulholland Drive star is all sorts of bad in her attempt to inhabit the royal, but the film itself is a shoddy and ill-conceived piece of work.<\/p>\n Idris Elba \u2013 Cats (2019)<\/p>\n Glance at the screen during any frame of the 2019 musical Cats and you\u2019ll see a bad performance; this spot could equally have gone to Judi Dench, or Ian McKellen, or Ray Winstone. It\u2019s not necessarily Idris Elba\u2019s fault so much as the cursed CGI, but Macavity is a creepy, alien creation \u2013 and not in the ways he\u2019s supposed to be. The lofty heights of The Wire\u2019s Stringer Bell have never felt so far away.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Idris Elba in \u2018Cats’ (Universal Pictures)<\/p>\n![\"Tom](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/newFile-3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Berry](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/shutterstock_editorial_5885407e.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Video](\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/img\/logo-white-out.svg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\n![\"Natalie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767560109_990_newFile-4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Tom](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/newFile-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/newFile-6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Idris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/newFile-9.jpg\")
<\/p>\n