Worst movies of 2026 so far. One is really awful. One you might love

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona RepublicMon, July 6, 2026 at 12:01 PM UTC

0

Every movie is its own thing and should be judged as such.

Yes, even franchise films. The 23rd installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe might be part of some grander story (sigh), but it still has to stand on its own.

But when it comes to the worst movies of the year, there is some common ground between them. Each is dishonest in some fundamental way, either with audiences or with itself. It gives me no pleasure to say that. And it certainly gives me no pleasure to watch a bad movie. But it’s all part of the job. Beats working.

More seriously, I don’t watch as many bad movies as I used to because I don’t watch as many movies, period. And if I’m going to be choosy about the ones I watch for review, I naturally gravitate toward something that I at least think is going to be good. (I hope all of them will be good. But that’s an impossibly high bar.)

Of course, there are exceptions. Most of the movies I’ve seen so far in 2026 have been passable, at least. But these three were just bad.

‘Melania’

The worst movie of the year by a wide margin. I will acknowledge right off that I have written media columns that are highly critical of Donald Trump. He’s the President of the United States, he’s fair game for criticism and he routinely does things that I think threaten to damage the country.

But Melania? No offense, but who cares? I haven’t written much about her because she doesn’t seem to matter that much in the big scheme of Trump’s presidency. Or the small scheme.

That is not the story that “Melania” tells. In the documentary directed by Brett Ratner, the filmmaker Trump plucked from the dustbin of disgrace, she, and her clothes and her hats and her shoes and her place settings and her invitations take center stage. The film opens to the Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter” as her motorcade takes her to a plane. Why? Who knows.

Her first words are, “Everyone wants to know, so here it is.”

Who wants to know? And here what is? What follows is an embarrassing waste of time and money as she makes grandiose claims about her importance as she prepares for her husband’s second inauguration.

If you are wondering how the film got made — everyone doesn’t really want to know — well, as I said in my review, Amazon paid Melania's production company a reported $40 million for rights to the film ... and $35 million more to promote it. Oh, hey, look, there's Jeff Bezos in footage of a candlelight dinner the night before the inauguration, and sitting on stage for the event itself. Funny, those coincidences.

Bezos has become an embarrassment. Maybe Ratner can make a movie about him next.

How to watch: Streaming on Amazon Prime, duh.

‘Michael’

Advertisement

At one point in “Melania,” Ratner and Melania sing along to “Billie Jean,” by Michael Jackson, Melania’s favorite song. Of course it shows up in “Michael,” which, thanks to Jackson’s resurgence in popularity, is the best-selling music biopic of all time, and will probably pass “Oppenheimer” to become the biggest biopic, period.

Which is bizarre. As is the film, directed by Antoine Fuqua. For legal reasons, the movie was reshot and now ends before accusations of sexual abuse were lodged against Jackson, before the money troubles, and well before his untimely death. The Jackson siblings who didn’t sign off on the project are simply omitted from the story. Janet Jackson was a pretty big deal herself, you may remember. It’s just weird to see her omitted entirely, as if she never existed. Because in this movie, she doesn’t.

Of course, the music is great, and Jaafar Jackson, Michael’s nephew and Jermaine’s son, bears an uncanny resemblance to the troubled superstar. And the big drama here is Michael outgrowing the family, growth that his father Joe (Coman Domingo) can’t abide, because it means losing his meal ticket. But, it’s like making a Watergate movie that ends with the break-in.

Not the worst movie you’ll ever see, but certainly one of the most incomplete and disappointing.

How to watch: Buy or rent on Apple TV, Amazon Prime.

‘The Bride!’

I really like Maggie Gyllenhaal as an actor and a director. I love horror movies. So Gyllenhaal making (though not appearing in) an update of “Bride of Frankenstein?” "The Bride!” seemed like a can’t-miss prospect.

It whiffed.

Hot on the heels of her Oscar-winning performance in “Hamnet” (a genuinely brilliant performance at that, though “The Bride” came out before the Academy Awards), Jessie Buckley – one of my favorite actors working today, alas – is all over the place (partly by design) as Ida, a woman who becomes the bride of the monster (Christian Bale), called Frank.

He shows up at the home and office of Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening), who notes that he must be more than 100 years old. How? His response is representative of the care that went into Gyllenhaal’s script: He can’t explain it.

There’s a lot of that going around in this movie. There are a lot of interesting ideas that receive glancing attention. Almost nothing fits together. There are obvious nods to “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Young Frankenstein,” two great movies.

“The Bride!” is not. If “Melania” and “Michael” weren’t true to their subjects, this movie isn’t true to itself.

How to watch: Stream on HBO Max.

TV on the other hand ... Best new TV shows of 2026, so far. And my absolute favorite

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook:facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm.Media commentary with a side of snark? Sign up forThe Watchlist newsletterwith Bill Goodykoontz.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Worst movies of 2026 so far, including a controversial pick

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”