Every film below is a true sequel (not a reboot or remake) released between 2010 and September 2026, ranked by its Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer — the share of critics who liked it. Most were also franchise-killers, money incinerators, or both.
Sorted by critic score, lowest (most rotten) on top. The colored bar is the critic score on a 0–35% scale; “Aud” is the audience Popcornmeter where Rotten Tomatoes reports one. A film this far down rarely pleases anyone.
Scores as of September 2026 (Rotten Tomatoes). Films scraping 31–32% like Dumb and Dumber To and Joker 2 made the cut by franchise damage and box-office cratering; popular-but-panned follow-ups in the high 30s+ (e.g. Matrix Resurrections, 63%) did not.
Not every stinker fails the same way. Some were incoherent, some were cash grabs a decade late, some were so catastrophic they buried the franchise that made them.
With both sequels at zero, the erotic 365 Days trilogy became the first in Rotten Tomatoes history where every installment scores 0% — dethroning the Atlas Shrugged films as the worst-reviewed trilogy ever.
Critics crowned the trilogy “the worst of all time” as it closed; the Razzie committee agreed. A glossy, shallow checklist of clichés with stiff dialogue and zero tension.
RT’s consensus: it “ends an era of the X-Men franchise… with deeply disappointing results.” Rock bottom for the saga — director Simon Kinberg publicly took the blame after it flopped with a $65.8M US gross.
Lowest-rated entry of the franchise: “lackluster action and cheap-looking effects.” Grossed $51M worldwide against a $100M budget, won two Razzie awards and killed the series.
The rare case where critics and audiences perfectly agreed — both at 31%, a 37-point collapse from the original’s 68%. A $58.2M domestic haul on a reported ~$190M budget made it the era’s most infamous money-loser.
The critics’ franchise-low pick, yet it opened to a franchise-best $64.1M and scored 73% with audiences — proof that “worst-reviewed” and “what fans want” can be totally different things.
Fifteen years after a cult classic, this late, loud sequel landed with a thud — the cautionary tale for the 2010s “legacy sequel” boom.
Found-footage sequel to a film nobody asked for a sequel to. Not one critic liked it — the rare 0% that still got a wide-enough release to count.
Where Rotten Tomatoes reports an audience score, a clear pattern emerges: these bombs split into two very different camps.
11 of the 18 worst arrived in a seven-year stretch from 2013–2019 — the era of resurrected comedies (Zoolander 2, Dumb and Dumber To) and studio-mandated franchise enders (Dark Phoenix, Fifty Shades Freed). The 2020s so far are driven by streamer-bait erotic sequels and mega-budget misfires (365 Days, Expend4bles, Joker 2).
Failing at the box office isn’t the same as being dreadful. These four sequels were commercial disasters on a historic scale, yet scored fresh enough with critics to stay off the list above.
A breezy, well-reviewed MCU entry that still became Marvel’s worst theatrical run — $84.5M domestic and a studio-shaking loss.
Critics found it thoughtful and self-aware; the $160M worldwide gross against a $190M budget called it something else.
Audiences liked it (81%) — but it grossed ~$39M worldwide versus the original’s $180M. Nobody asked for the sequel, apparently.
Respectable reviews, big fan support — and a $60.5M global take on a $180M budget. The rare flop that critics mostly defended.