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The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and How They Got That Way) is a 1978 book by Harry Medved with Randy Dreyfuss.[1][2] Despite its broad title, it presents the authors' choices for the 50 worst sound films made or distributed in the United States. Each film's entry includes a story synopsis, the authors' opinions of its quality, and a selection of contemporary reviews of the film.[3]
 First edition | |
| Author | Harry Medved Randy Dreyfuss Michael Medved |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Movies |
| Publisher | Popular Library |
Publication date | 1978 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
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In compiling their list, the authors divided films into several categories:
- "Popular Triumphs" such as The Omen, Valley of the Dolls
- "Overrated Art Films" such as Ivan the Terrible, Last Year at Marienbad
- "Implausible Oddities" such as The Terror of Tiny Town
- "Big Budget Flops" such as Lost Horizon, Zabriskie Point
- "Grade-Z Atrocities" such as Robot Monster, Eegah
- "Tarnished Stars" such as Yul Brynner in Solomon and Sheba
- "Oldies but Baddies" such as Jamaica Inn
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The authors also used egregious examples to represent less reputable film genres, such as blaxploitation films (Trouble Man), Japanese monster movies (Godzilla vs. Hedorah), Spaghetti Westerns (Return of Sabata) and jungle movies (Daughter of the Jungle) alongside anime (Alakazam the Great), disaster movies (Airport 1975), sexploitation films (Myra Breckinridge), Elvis Presley vehicles (Spinout), and mainstream films such as At Long Last Love, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Hurry Sundown, King Richard and the Crusaders, Say One for Me.
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The book intentionally excludes silent films because the authors consider them to be "a separate and unique art form and that judging them alongside talkies would be like weighing apples together with oranges." It limits the foreign films considered to only those distributed in the United States, judging it unfair to evaluate local obscurities denied an international release alongside mainstream Hollywood products while realizing that it would not only be difficult for the authors to view the films, but unlikely that any readers would ever come across them.
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Despite the popularity of the book among some members of the general public, film scholars and historians largely denounce the book for its lack of understanding and perspective. Acclaimed film historian William K. Everson wrote a scathing review in Films in Review: "There are so many factual errors and sweepingly inaccurate generalizations that to list them all would take a volume of the same size.... The authors of the book are both teen-agers. This is hardly their fault. And some often remarkable writing has been done by teen-agers. But NOT in any field of historical research, where experience and the perspective that can ONLY come about by years in a chosen field, are absolute essentials.... If nothing else, The 50 Worst Movies Of All Time unquestionably qualifies as The Worst Movie Book Of All Time - and in view of the mediocrity being spewed forth these days, that in itself is a monumental achievement."[4] Critic Hal Erickson wrote, "How easy it is to tear something down. A child of four can do it."[5]
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The Medveds continued the theme of "celebrating" bad cinema with the publication The Golden Turkey Awards, instituted in 1980 which again showcased bad and obscure films, and The Hollywood Hall of Shame which examined in some detail several major Hollywood financial disasters, focusing on both the artistic treatments coupled with the technical and organizational ineptitude in the mounting of these films.
It has been said that The Fifty Worst Films of All Time marked the beginning of an explosion of "worst in cinema" prizes nearly resulting in "a state of redundancy almost approaching that of ordinary prizes."[6]
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