Years ago, in the 1980s or ’90s, there was never really a critical consensus around the quality of a movie, unless you paid attention to the stars awarded to films in the TV Guide listings. But fast-forward to 2024, and review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has just redefined the way we judge films. The site, founded in 1998, sought to bring together movie reviews from scores of critics so moviegoers could get an idea of how reviewers collectively felt about a film, rather than just one well-known critic like Roger Ebert, Peter Travers, or Leonard Maltin.

While it’s rare for a movie to receive a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, there are more movies on the other end of the spectrum than you might think. But can we really give Rotten Tomatoes that much sway? Are movies with a 0% really unwatchable — or have they simply fallen victim to the nature of the aggregating system? That system means that reviews are counted as only “good” or “bad,” so even a 2.5-star review might bring down a movie’s score. There is no middle ground.

Well, we’ve sorted out the critical reviews, looked over audience scores, and carefully considered every one of those unlucky losers. While few would ever consider these movies great, we’ve found quite a few movies with a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes that are actually worth watching.

There was surprise all over Hollywood and beyond when it was announced that Adam Sandler had signed a four-picture deal with Netflix in 2014 — a deal that was re-upped six years later for another $275 million dollars. As part of that first deal came “The Ridiculous 6,” a slapstick Western with a plot that doesn’t matter because it’s all about Sandler’s ridiculous schtick. Arriving with great fanfare, the movie was a huge hit for Netflix despite its 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes, breaking records on the streaming platform.

While critics rightly called out Sandler’s foray into the Wild West as unimaginative and lazy, we have to ask: What did they think they were watching? This is, after all, an Adam Sandler movie — it’s not a Spike Lee joint or anything — it never aspires to be anything other than a low-brow comedy, just like every Sandler film before it. Is it anything close to Sandler’s previous movies? No. Is it often cringeworthy and offensive, and sometimes downright bad? Yes.

Nevertheless, if you’ve enjoyed Sandler before, whether on “SNL” or in favorites like “Billy Madison” and “Happy Gilmore,” you’ll still get at least a few good laughs out of this one. Low-hanging fruit and childish vulgarity have always been Sandler’s bread and butter, so maybe the professionals should just relax a bit and let everyone else have a chuckle.

It might seem overkill to put a second Western comedy on our list, but trust us — this one belongs as much as “The Ridiculous 6.” This time we’re talking about 1994’s “Wagons East,” starring John Candy, Richard Lewis, and John C. McGinley. The film follows some misfits in the Wild West who hire a hard-drinking rabble-rouser (Candy) to help take them on a wagon train back home to the East Coast.

First off, critics aren’t necessarily wrong to call the movie a “witless, toothless satire” as the Rotten Tomatoes consensus states. It doesn’t do nearly enough to effectively lampoon the Western genre — Sandler honestly does a better job — but the movie hardly deserves a zero. Candy and Lewis are delightful, even if the laughs can’t match either of their best work. But what makes the film more watchable today than even a few years ago is, in fact, the presence of those two stars who have since left us. 

Candy tragically died a year before the release of the film, and while it wasn’t the last of his movies to see a release it was the last movie he filmed. And with Richard Lewis’ passing in 2024, the film takes on an even more poignant tone. It’s is a time capsule of their careers, particularly for Candy, and even when it’s not funny, it’s nice to see them both trying their best to make us laugh.

If you’re wondering why an awful remake of a mediocre horror movie makes our list, hear us out. Because this is one of the few we won’t defend as some sort of guilty pleasure. After all, there’s already a better version available, the 2002 original from director Eli Roth, which boasts a strong 62% on Rotten Tomatoes. No, it’s everything surrounding the film that makes the 2016 remake worth seeing.

Sure, you may get some legitimate enjoyment out of the film here and there, but that’s not why we’re recommending a watch. Its appeal is comparable to Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho” remake. For starters, it’s fascinating to watch as an exercise in filmmaking: The “Cabin Fever” remake isn’t just a do-over for the studio — Eli Roth actually returned as an executive producer and co-writer to remake his own movie, something incredibly rare in Hollywood.

The chance to see the changes Roth made to his own story — not to mention the alternate choices the production makes in cinematography, camerawork, and even casting — are fascinating if not instructive. No, we’re not recommending you sit down with a bucket of popcorn for a fun night watching the 2016 version of “Cabin Fever,” but if you love filmmaking, there’s plenty about it to keep you watching.

A sequel to the 1980 classic “The Blue Lagoon” starring a young Brooke Shields, “Return to the Blue Lagoon” followed its predecessor 11 years later. The original wasn’t very good, so it probably wasn’t a surprise that “Return” was also met with bad reviews. Still, it’s 0% seems excessive, and like many movies on this list, it’s at least worth watching for its star: In this case, a young Milla Jovovich.

Just 15 when she was cast, Jovovich supplants Shields in the role of island castaway, this time as Lilli Hargrave, who becomes marooned with Paddy, the baby from the first movie now all grown up. Make no mistake, “Return to the Blue Lagoon” is slow-moving and tiresome, and the romantic drama will barely get you to the center of your seat let alone the edge. But seeing Jovovich in just her second big screen outing — her first as a lead — is at least something to watch. Despite earning her a Golden Rasberry nomination, her performance has enough innocence and effervescence to give a glimpse of both her eventual star power and her limited range.

We opened this discussion with the caveat that the movies on this list might not be that terrible … but they’re probably not that great, either. “Merci Docteur Rey,” however, might be the lone exception. And that’s due to its surprising 65% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes — a rare time a movie with a 0% critical rating received a “fresh” score from average moviegoers.

Top critics didn’t like the film at all, and it seems they were confused by what they deemed a pointless, contrived story with little meaning. Audiences, though, felt quite the opposite. Many user reviews praised the film’s quirky story — involving a sex-starved young Frenchman (Stanislas Merhar) in search of his identity, his narcissistic mother (Dianne Wiest), a renowned psychiatrist, and lots of murder.

An uneven, wild but controlled art film, the sort of thing we’d now compare to a Wes Anderson film, “Merci Docteur Rey” is populated by eccentric oddballs, which is the film’s real appeal. It’s not so much a tight, clever story as it is a showcase for its offbeat cast of characters and cast including Vanessa Redgrave and Simon Callow.

The late ’80s and early ’90s saw some of the best comedy movies of all time, from “Groundhog’s Day” to “Wayne’s World.” Unfortunately, the era also produced stinkers like Dan Aykroyd’s “Nothing But Trouble” or Sylvester Stallone’s “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!” But few flops from that time got as low a rating as “Folks!,” the 1992 box office bomb starring Tom Selleck as an uptight yuppie who takes his parents in when their house is destroyed in a fire.

A movie about the ever-widening generation gap between baby boomers and their aging parents, “Folks!” pokes fun at the elderly a little too much for some people’s tastes, something that critics found both dreadful and obnoxious. But while the humor can certainly be cringeworthy at times, it’s not the worst comedy film of the decade, nor is it even the worst comedy Tom Selleck ever did, with the likes of “Three Men and a Little Lady” and “The Love Letter” coming in well below this one on our ranked list of Tom Selleck’s filmography.

Sure, the story is trite and the jokes are predictable. But in a certain light, “Folks!” feels like a predecessor to Adam Sandler movies from later that decade — a nonstop cavalcade of borderline-offensive, low-brow laughs mixed with slapstick farce and lots of bodily harm humor.