Are you struggling to get to sleep at night?
Well, forget counting sheep – get these films in your DVD collection. They will have you fast asleep quicker than an overdose of sleeping pills.
Movie directors have been boring us for years. When was the last time they had an original idea? But there are some that just go too far. Whether it’s long, ponderous plots that go nowhere or three-hour snoreathons that are at least three hours too long, there are some films that are a breed apart.
Well, hecklerspray has had enough. We are going to name and shame them – that is if we actually get to the end of the list without falling asleep ourselves…
8. Elephant (2003)
We just don’t know how Gus Van Sant does it. Does he derive some kind of sick pleasure from making even the most interesting things dull? Not satisfied with turning a classic like Psycho into a pile of turd, he then manages to turn a fictional school shooting into one of the most boring films ever made. It’s pretty impressive really. He is the kind of guy that would turn even the most interesting party into a bore-fest. It’s almost worth giving him interesting stories to tell, just to see how boring he could make them. He could rewrite history. Everyone would have stopped the Second World War out of a lack of interest.
7. AI (2001)
This film was so mind-numbingly bad, we’ve spent the last 10 hours gnawing at my own hand to distract from the pain.
6. Pearl Harbor (2001)
How could Michael Bay turn one of the most defining moments in American history into a subplot? Forget the Japanese attack, what we all want to find out is whether Kate Beckinsale chooses Ben Affleck or Josh Hartnett. Just stupid.
5. Dune (1984)
OK, we are willing to accept we are in the minority here, but I almost called Childline after my dad took me to see this film when I was just 11. I honestly thought it was child cruelty. It wasn’t his fault. He though he was just filling the huge sci-fi gap left by the end of the Star Wars trilogy. It was bloody David Lynch, and we’ve never quite forgiven him for it. There were certainly promising signs from the start. Those huge worms, for example, looked cool, while we knew Sting was going to die in it (At least we think he did, we had already fallen asleep by then, and we’re not prepared to watch it again to find out). But then they started moaning on about spice. Who gives a fuck?
4. The Sheltering Sky (1990)
If The Sheltering Sky took itself any more seriously it’d buckle under its own weight and start crapping blood at the two-hour mark. It’s the kind of film that people pretend to like because they think it makes them look cleverer, when in fact ‘pretending to like The Sheltering Sky‘ is number two on our ‘Reasons to punch relative strangers in the face as hard as we can’ list. It’s dreadful, naval-gazing tripe that’d be a quarter of the length if people spoke normally in it, rather than pausing for ten minutes after each line of dialogue to let the gigantic significance of what they’ve just said sink in. Great, we’ve given ourselves a headache now.
3. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
An erotic thriller by Stanley Kubrick starring Nicole Kidman‘s boobies. Ace. Except we once watched it, fell asleep for 20 minutes during a scene about Tom Cruise staring at a fridge, and woke up to see Tom Cruise staring at exactly the same fridge. What would have livened Eyes Wide Shut up? In a word – dildos.
2. Die Another Day (2002)
It’s the first time in our long years as a Bond fan that we ended up wishing the world would end. Not even Halle Berry in a bikini could rouse us from our slumber. That’s how bad it got.
1. The Thin Red Line (1998)
We would rather watch 15 hours (or however long it was) of Rowan Atkinson‘s The Thin Blue Line than sit through this again. It is probably the worst film we’ve ever seen. If we wanted to look at lots of lovely pictures of wildlife we’d watch David Attenborough, not this turd. What is Terence Malick‘s problem with words? What is wrong with good dialogue? Does he want to be a filmmaker or a fucking photographer?
Joey Mcjoojoo says
Oh come now. Dune was awesome. Captain Picard and Dale Cooper side by side?
“I thought your were dead!”
Oh, wait, that’s probably not the best quote.
It’s got THE STINGER IN IT! STING! Anyone? High five? Anyone? Oh.
Umm… Yeah so, on my own then?
Shooty* says
Eyes Wide Sh1t. Man, I went to see that in the cinema. Walked out after the overdose in the bathroom and Nicole Kidman speaking…. really…. really… slowly…
Driving Miss Daisy is the only other film I have walked out of. Had I gone to see Ghost Rider in the cinema, that would have been the third.
Michael says
I love Dune! I gotta go with Joey here, and Joey… HIGH FIVE baby…
I also enjoyed AI, but I realize I was the only one.
Joke Police says
‘naval-gazing’ lol
stop staring at boats!
ps I am a grammar nazi
Dallas says
The Thin Red Line is a great war movie trying to get out of a boring shitfest.
It is also the inspiration for a drinking game!
Everytime someone refers to war as “madness” or wonders “what difference one man can make”, take a drink.
Everytime there’s a shot of grass waving in the wind, trees blowing around, or other gratuitous nature-y shit, take two drinks. I guarantee you’ll be in the bag by the end of the first reel, and what makes a movie go by faster than that?
d.
Chant says
Apparently you’ve never had to suffer through “Russian Ark.”
“2000 Actors. 300 years of Russian History. 33 Rooms at the Hermitage Museum. 3 Live Orchestras. 1 Single Continuous Shot.”
A remarkable achievment? Sure. Also the dullest movie I’ve ever, ever seen, and 99 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
amelie says
No mention of “The English Patient”. I was convinced it would be number one :-)
Vargus says
Reds. Dude, how could you leave out Reds. Most. Boring. Ever.
Also, try “Down to the Bone” for another outright snore.
Chebwa says
You obviously have never seen…
“GERRY.”
Number one most awful, dull, horrible movie I have ever seen in my life.
dhgaut says
Perhaps you are now a little older than 11? David Lynch movies are not for children. Dune is a great movie with great British actors and wonderfully overwrought dialog.
Jose Ferrer: Why have you summoned me here?
Harkonnen: I didn’t summon you.
Jose Ferrer: But your incompetence has…
princeofdorkness says
Why is Dune on here again? You don’t read do you? Maybe Dune wasn’t made for 11 year olds. Your pops should have taken you to ET instead.
Long live the fighters!
Elliott says
I don’t agree with your #2 at all.
Russ says
All I could think about while the page was coming up was ‘ The Thin Red Line has to be #1’ That was the biggest bunch of pretentious bullshit film making I’ve ever seen. You felt that the entire movie was Mallick patting himself on the back for thinking he was so great.
FlikSnob says
NOTHING! But NOTHING was as dull as “Out of Africa”! If “Dune” makes your list; you’ve been lucky.
maikeru76 says
Whoa?!
How about straight-to-video movies for the next list?…Eyes Wide Shut definitely…so “artsy” it made me wonder what Stanley K. had been eating making this artsy film… c”,
Hatman says
Most of the ones on this list I have seen and survived (Thin Red Line was pushing it), but I notice no one mentioned Star Wars Episode 2 Attack of the Clones OR Mission to Mars!
Des says
You are not alone, Joey Mcjoojoo
rougy says
I agree with some of your picks, but The Thin Red Line was a damn good movie.
Hatman says
Ooooh, and how about Christopher Lambert’s Beowulf? Mind you its a terrible film all round. For real pretentious TEDIUM, try Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate. Now THAT is truly dull! Makes the rest of these films look like giddy romps!
scott says
umm….you have in this list some very well done, intelligent movies here. I guess if it’s not a quick shoot’em up, then you consider it “boring”. Dude, maybe read a book once in a while…you might improve your fucking lame ass mind.
Shooty* says
Oh, I nearly forgot: Alexander Nevsky.
Watched it during a 6th form “general studies” class that also included the excellent Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup, Errol Flynn Robin Hood, etc. 2 hours of nothing.
flierpa says
if you’re looking for movies of somnolence, yet quality and cult, just watch tarkovsky movies. the original solaris is a snooze fest, not to mention stalker which, if i remember that part correctly, excels in filming a tunnel ad infinitum. but maybe i was on salvia.
Bassam Abdul-Baki says
This list is BS. AI was long, not horrible. EWS wasn’t bad. Die Another Day was better than most other Bond movies with space stations and tripe. Never seen Dune, only scenes, and it looked good. Now I’ve never been one to walk out of a movie, but the worst movie of all time is by the ever-so-lovely Ashley Judd.
Eye of the Beholder
There were only 5 of us at the theater when we saw that. When the movie was done, the other 3 people stood up, turned to us, and asked, did you understand it? We said no.
The Dread Pirate Sausage! says
Space stations and tripe?!?
You listen to me, dammit. No one chooses his Bond – life just issues your entire generation one. Roger Moore’s fat arse will forever be the [funniest] James Bond that ever did walk the earth.
Sideburns, space stations AND tripe, and all!!
I don’t know if any of you remember the Aussie puke bucket Starstruck. But I still wake up screaming at night sometimes.