10 Worst Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies, Ranked

If you like your action movie heroes to be as big and bulky as possible, then you might want to accept no substitute for Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s about as big as they get, both physically and in terms of star power, because once Schwarzenegger started to rise in popularity as both a bodybuilder (in the 1970s) and an actor (by the 1980s), there was no stopping him. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who likes movies and doesn’t know who he is.

His physicality and distinctive voice have been well-utilized in plenty of classic movies over the years, including Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Predator, and Total Recall, but not every Arnold Schwarzenegger movie has been a classic. What follows is a somewhat painful run through his worst movies to date, with a focus on those that he had either a lead or supporting role in.

10

‘Sabotage’ (2014)

Directed by David Ayer

Though it has nothing to do with the 1937 Alfred Hitchcock movie called Sabotage, despite sharing a title, you should just go and watch that movie instead of checking out 2014’s Sabotage, even if you like gritty action movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Chances are you haven’t seen that Hitchcock film, and it’s easily one of his most underrated, given it contains a Psycho-level surprise that’s not spoiled nearly as often as that surprise from Psycho.

Sorry, getting off track there. But Alfred Hitchcock is just easier to talk about than David Ayer’s Sabotage. Oh, also, why not spend your time watching the Beastie Boys music video for their song, “Sabotage”? That’s a better Sabotage, too. If you’ve already seen both, and need something called Sabotage… sure, you could watch this clunky crime thriller, which sort of blends a whodunit/slasher movie premise in with some murky action, but not in a way that’s as exciting or coherent as you might hope.

9

‘Jingle All the Way’ (1996)

Directed by Brian Levant

People are fond of Christmas movies (even bad ones), and movies from the 1990s can be nostalgic (especially bad ones). Enter Jingle All the Way, which you may like, or feel some fondness for, and that’s okay. But it is a rather crappy and deeply stupid comedy, all revolving around one father going to great lengths to get his kid the present he wants before time runs out.

There are occasional moments of Jingle All the Way that are absurd enough to be mildly funny, but you’re better off just watching a highlight reel of the best scenes rather than trudging through all 89 minutes of the damn thing. At least it’s not as bad as the sequel, because, yes, of course there’s a Jingle All the Way 2. What’s that, you look surprised. Oh, you didn’t get the memo? Well, the memo said we live in hell.

8

‘Red Sonja’ (1985)

Directed by Richard Fleischer

It says something about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s breakout decade (in the world of film at least) houses only one movie that could be considered one of his ten worst overall. There were ten movies he starred in during the 1980s, too, and the only one that fans of his should 100% avoid is Red Sonja, which sort of works as a follow-up to Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer, but is significantly worse than either.

Schwarzenegger sort of but not entirely plays Conan here, and is a supporting character to the titular Red Sonja, and they go on some kind of boring adventure and some bad guys get stabbed and there are fantasy shenanigans and then the thing thankfully ends. It’s really boring, even disappointingly so. It didn’t look like it was fun to make, and it sure as hell isn’t fun to watch.

7

‘Killing Gunther’ (2017)

Directed by Taran Killam

Killing Gunther is one of the more obscure crummy Arnold Schwarzenegger films, and maybe it’s for the best that it remains that way. Sure, it’s being mentioned here, which is technically exposure, but exposure isn’t always a good thing. Just ask George “I was in the pool” Costanza, from Seinfeld.

Anyway, Killing Gunther has Schwarzenegger playing Gunther, and the premise here essentially involves Gunther being so good as the whole assassin thing that all the other assassins who are his competitors set out to bring him down. Playing this thing out in a farcical way with some satisfyingly violent action could’ve made Killing Gunther work, but the potentially promising premise begins to feel increasingly stupid thanks to the execution. It ends up failing pretty miserably, even if maybe its heart/spirit was in the right place.

6

‘The Expendables 3’ (2014)

Directed by Patrick Hughes

Arnold Schwarzenegger showed up in a cameo role in the first The Expendables movie, which was a little bit of a bummer. He had a bigger role in The Expendables 2, and actually got to take part in some action scenes. Similarly, Bruce Willis went from having a cameo in the first to doing more in the second, and the second film also had Chuck Norris, which is… yeah, you know the deal, Chuck Norris, funny meme actor, blah-blah-blah.

But then The Expendables 3? Eh, who even cares about how much Schwarzenegger is or isn’t in this one? The entire movie falls apart, the action lacks impact, and everyone just seems tired. It’s an uninspired mess of a film that makes the first two movies look like action movie masterpieces, and they were ordinarily exceedingly dopey action movie fun at the very most.

5

‘Junior’ (1994)

Directed by Ivan Reitman

Ivan Reitman directed Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in Twins six years before the release of Junior, with the latter feeling like an attempt to replicate the success of the (not great, but somewhat watchable) former. Twins had the high-concept premise of “Schwarzenegger and DeVito are twins somehow,” while Junior has the gimmicky plot of “Hey, Schwarzenegger gets pregnant in this one.”

That’s the movie, and it was released in a famously good year for cinema, too. It’s a whole movie spent going “Isn’t it wild that someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger has a big belly and a baby inside him?” It’s an amusing idea for a second or two, but you can probably also imagine most of the potential humor just by hearing the premise. Watching the entirety of Junior really drives home how limited the whole thing is, making for a pretty dull comedy, in the end.

4

‘Iron Mask’ (2019)

Directed by Oleg Stepchenko

While it’s not good, at least Iron Mask stands out among the other bad Arnold Schwarzenegger films. It’s a Russian movie that also has the title “Viy 2: Journey to China,” and it features both Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan, of all actors, in supporting roles, so that kind of stunt casting – and in, again, a Russian production – is going to get some attention.

But is Iron Mask worth watching for that novelty value? Like, it’s neat and baffling in equal measure to know that it exists, but sitting down to get through it all is another matter altogether. It’s a very sloppy adventure/fantasy movie that has brief glimpses of unintentional humor but, for the most part, proves boring and visually garish to watch. Iron Mask isn’t really worth it, no matter how much you might generally enjoy the movies of Jackie Chan and/or Arnold Schwarzenegger.

3

‘Terminator Genisys’ (2015)

Directed by Alan Taylor

Conan the Barbarian showed Arnold Schwarzenegger had what it took to play a hero, while 1984’s The Terminator showed he was more than capable of playing a surprisingly good villain. The aforementioned Terminator 2: Judgment Day had him being a hero, playing a different cyborg, and… yeah, you can just stick to those two Terminator movies. They’re both great.

But the series went on without James Cameron directing anymore, since he was too busy sinking the Titanic and playing around with tropes in space. And the nadir of the series came in 2015, with Terminator Genisys, which messes up so many things found in the earlier movies that you might well wonder whether someone’s trying to burn the entire franchise down. Schwarzenegger returned in 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate, which wasn’t exactly good, but at least it wasn’t Genisys-level bad.

2

‘Batman & Robin’ (1997)

Directed by Joel Schumacher

While there are a fair few dumb things that happen in even the best Batman movies, the worst ones are a whole other story. And, though it’s easy to pick on it, there’s good reason why Batman & Robin is seen as something of a nadir for Batman movies as a whole. It lays on the cheesy humor a bit too thick, it’s pretty ugly to look at, the script’s lazy, and the actors are all on different wavelengths.

This goes for Arnold Schwarzenegger, too, who spends most of the movie chewing scenery and making terrible ice-related puns, given he’s the rather ineffectual Mr. Freeze. To write about Batman & Robin is to make one feel a little stupider with every new word. A tap of the space bar signifies an IQ point lost, and if you don’t have that many to work with in the first place, and you have to write 125+ words about Batman & Robin, you’re toast. This movie is what killed the dinosaurs.

1

‘Hercules in New York’ (1970)

Directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman

You might be surprised to find Batman & Robin not in the number one spot, but at least that one feels sort of like an actual movie (albeit a very bad one). One of the very earliest Schwarzenegger films, on the other hand – Hercules in New York – feels like it’s going to fall apart at any moment. It is barely a film. It should not exist. Why does it exist? Who said this was okay?

Schwarzenegger’s Hercules goes from Mount Olympus to Manhattan, and just wanders around there for a while not doing much, all the while, your attention turns from the main part of the screen to the timer that shows up if you click a button or wave your mouse over it; the timer that signifies how much longer you’re going to be tortured for. The timer says it’s about 92 minutes all up, but it ends up feeling so much longer. Cinema can be a painful endeavor, both to produce and to bear witness to.

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