{"id":376571,"date":"2026-01-18T07:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T07:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/376571\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T07:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T07:53:10","slug":"the-one-director-roger-ebert-truly-hated-the-most","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/376571\/","title":{"rendered":"The one director Roger Ebert truly hated the most"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img width=\"1140\" height=\"855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Roger-Ebert-Film-Critic-1996-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\" class=\"attachment-single-feature size-single-feature wp-post-image\" alt=\"Roger Ebert - Film Critic - 1996\" layout=\"fill\"  style=\"object-position: 50% 50%\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n<p> Sat 17 January 2026 20:45, UK <\/p>\n<p>Making one bad movie is forgivable, but making an entire career out of it is egregious. <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/tags\/roger-ebert\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Roger Ebert<\/a> reviewed thousands upon thousands of films during his decades as the industry\u2019s most recognisable critic, which meant that one unfortunate person had to suffer the lowest success rate.<\/p>\n<p>Your mind may immediately wander toward <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/atrocious-movie-roger-ebert-despised-all-fronts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Michael Bay as the culprit<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n<p>However, he awarded three and a half stars to The Rock, which is fair because it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, the filmmaker responsible for more Ebert-approved drubbings than anyone to have made more than one or two features doesn\u2019t 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/dennis-dugan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Dennis Dugan<\/a> has committed his fair share of them.<\/p>\n<p>He helmed 15 films between 1990\u2019s Problem Child and 2020\u2019s Love, Weddings &amp; 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\u2019d ever seen.<\/p>\n<p>The two-time \u2018Worst Director\u2019 Razzie winner and five-time nominee in total soured the critics\u2019 eyeballs with Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy, Saving Silverman, Grown Ups, and Just Go with It. Remarkably, You Don\u2019t Mess with the Zohan managed to score three stars, which saved him from having an even more embarrassing average.<\/p>\n<p>The other five could only scrape together six and a half stars between them, <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/jack-black-movie-roger-ebert-hated\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">with Saving Silverman the worst of the bunch<\/a>. At least that one didn\u2019t involve Sandler, but Ebert nonetheless savaged it for being \u201cso bad in so many different ways,\u201d which, if anything, doesn\u2019t do justice to how awful it really is.<\/p>\n<p>Reflecting on Neil Diamond\u2019s appearance in it, Ebert remarked that he was existing \u201csomewhere between being a good sport and professional suicide,\u201d adding that, \u201cPerhaps he should have reflected that director Dennis Dugan has directed two Adam Sandler movies\u201d before signing on. Ominously, he made another half-dozen.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s every chance it would have been lower, since he\u2019s never made anything even half-decent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still) Sat 17 January 2026 20:45, UK Making one bad movie is forgivable,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9456,96,2839,38263,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-376571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-adam-sandler","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-roger-ebert","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}