Alan Ritchson Lands on 2025's Worst Movies List — Just Below a 4% Rated Disaster

Metacritic dropped its annual lump-of-coal list for 2025, and it is not pretty. Alan Ritchson got caught in the crossfire: his buddy action-comedy Playdate landed at #2 on the worst-of-the-year ranking, sitting right under a new War of the Worlds that critics absolutely torched.

The 15 worst movies of 2025 (per Metacritic)

DiscussingFilm posted the rundown on Dec 20, and the numbers are rough. Here are the titles, the Metacritic scores that put them here, plus how they’re doing on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, and where you can watch them right now:

• 1. War of the Worlds — Metacritic: 6/100 | IMDb: 2.5/10 | RT: 4% Tomatometer / 20% Audience | Where: Amazon Prime Video
• 2. Playdate — Metacritic: 20/100 | IMDb: 5.5/10 | RT: 23% Tomatometer / 58% Audience | Where: Amazon Prime Video
• 3. Gunslingers — Metacritic: 20/100 | IMDb: 3.6/10 | RT: 5% Tomatometer / 20% Audience | Where: Netflix
• 4. Alarum — Metacritic: 23/100 | IMDb: 3.3/10 | RT: 0% Tomatometer / 15% Audience | Where: Amazon Video (Rent)
• 5. Bride Hard — Metacritic: 23/100 | IMDb: 4.4/10 | RT: 14% Tomatometer / 57% Audience | Where: Hulu
• 6. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 — Metacritic: 26/100 | IMDb: 5.5/10 | RT: 15% Tomatometer / 86% Audience | Where: In theaters
• 7. Shadow Force — Metacritic: 27/100 | IMDb: 4.7/10 | RT: 30% Tomatometer / 81% Audience | Where: Amazon Video
• 8. The Strangers: Chapter 2 — Metacritic: 28/100 | IMDb: 4.7/10 | RT: 15% Tomatometer / 55% Audience | Where: Amazon Video (Rent)
• 9. Hurry Up Tomorrow — Metacritic: 29/100 | IMDb: 4.4/10 | RT: 14% Tomatometer / 61% Audience | Where: Amazon Video (Rent)
• 10. The Electric State — Metacritic: 30/100 | IMDb: 5.9/10 | RT: 14% Tomatometer / 67% Audience | Where: Netflix
• 11. Juliet & Romeo — Metacritic: 31/100 | IMDb: 3.8/10 | RT: 26% Tomatometer / 80% Audience | Where: Apple TV (Rent)
• 12. Smurfs — Metacritic: 31/100 | IMDb: 4.3/10 | RT: 20% Tomatometer / 64% Audience | Where: Amazon Video
• 13. Modi - Three Days on the Wing of Madness — Metacritic: 32/100 | IMDb: 5.5/10 | RT: 47% Tomatometer / n/a Audience | Where: Amazon Video (Rent)
• 14. Regretting You — Metacritic: 33/100 | IMDb: 6.0/10 | RT: 26% Tomatometer / 85% Audience | Where: Amazon Video (Rent)
• 15. Old Guy — Metacritic: 33/100 | IMDb: 5.3/10 | RT: 26% Tomatometer / 94% Audience | Where: Amazon Video (Rent)

Playdate: star power, zero mercy from critics

Playdate, which hit in November, is a buddy action-comedy directed by Luke Greenfield. Alan Ritchson plays Jeff Eamon, a charismatic, hyper-athletic stay-at-home dad who just moved into the neighborhood. Kevin James is Brian Jennings, a recently laid-off forensic accountant trying (and failing) to adjust to being a stay-at-home stepdad to Lucas. A chance run-in turns into a full-on spiral when the duo ends up chased by a crew of mercenaries. It is the kind of setup that usually sells itself.

The cast is stacked: Sarah Chalke, Alan Tudyk, Benjamin Pajak, Banks Pierce, Hiro Kanagawa, Stephen Root, and Isla Fisher all show up. None of that mattered to critics. Metacritic has it at a 20/100, and the reviews pulled no punches:

"No energy, no wit, just a tasteless and tacky sequence of events."

Brutal, but that is the vibe across most reactions.

War of the Worlds: the new worst of 2025

The #1 spot belongs to War of the Worlds, a screenlife spin on H. G. Wells' 1898 novel from director Rich Lee. Screenlife meaning the story plays out through screens and video calls. The cast is surprisingly strong: Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, Andrea Savage, Henry Hunter Hall, Iman Benson, Devon Bostick, and Michael O'Neill are all in the mix. Ice Cube leads as Will Radford, a U.S. government computer security analyst whose day job dealing with digital threats gets steamrolled by an alien invasion that may or may not be wrapped up in government secrets.

On Metacritic, it sits at 6/100, making it the platform's official worst movie of the year. Over on Rotten Tomatoes, it is at a bruising 4%. And the reviews... well:

"A hodgepodge of shoddy CGI and dead-eyed reaction shots from Ice Cube that make you feel like you can identify individual brain cells mid-death cycle."

Ouch.

Big names, rough year

If you are spotting a pattern, you are not wrong. The list is peppered with familiar faces: Nicolas Cage (Gunslingers), Sylvester Stallone (Alarum), Rebel Wilson (Bride Hard), Josh Hutcherson (Five Nights at Freddy's 2), Kerry Washington (Shadow Force), Renny Harlin steering The Strangers: Chapter 2, The Weeknd with Hurry Up Tomorrow, Millie Bobby Brown in The Electric State, Timothy Scott Bogart's Juliet & Romeo, Rihanna's Smurfs, Johnny Depp's Modi - Three Days on the Wing of Madness, McKenna Grace's Regretting You, and Christoph Waltz in Old Guy. Star power did not save the day this time.

What audiences are saying

Fans are split, loudly. Some are nodding along at the top two. Others are baffled that certain titles placed as low as they did, and a few are campaigning for omissions. One user joked that Ice Cube was fighting aliens via Zoom while sneaking in Amazon Prime plugs. Another could not believe anything could be worse than The Strangers: Chapter 2. The Electric State got dragged as a brain-cell evaporator. FNAF diehards showed up in force: some insisted Five Nights at Freddy's 2 does not belong here at all, praising the animatronics, while others called it the best movie of the year. There was also a chorus of: where is Snow White?

That is the lay of the land. If you saw any of these, I am curious where you land: pain watch or misunderstood gem?