Ice Cube’s the War of the Worlds Officially Named Worst Movie of the Year

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As 2025 draws to a close, people are debating the best and worst movies of the year. Predictably, Ice Cube’s film has been widely considered the worst of 2025.

A new sci-fi movie based on H.G. Wells’ classic novel, The War of the Worlds, came out on Prime Video this summer. While it quickly became popular, it also unfortunately became known for being very poorly received. Later, Metacritic officially named it the worst movie of the year.

The movie stars Ice Cube as a security specialist, alongside Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, and Iman Benson. Because it was filmed during the pandemic, the actors never filmed scenes together, resulting in a strangely detached sci-fi story where everything happens through what we see on Ice Cube’s character’s computer screen.

According to one report, the newest adaptation of H.G. Wells’s classic science fiction story is surprisingly modern – and hilariously short. It portrays an alien invasion not as a grand battle, but as an 89-minute Zoom call, suggesting it might be easier to just give up and let the Martians take over.

In a negative review, David Fear of Rolling Stone described the new War of the Worlds as not simply bad, or even enjoyably bad. He called it a strange mix of poorly-done computer effects and unconvincing performances from Ice Cube, suggesting it was a truly lifeless film.

The film was made quickly – in just 15 days – but the pandemic created a lot of challenges. The director and actors couldn’t be physically present on set, so it had to be shot remotely. It was really a product of the circumstances at the time.

What Other Movies Entered the Top 10 Worst Films of 2025?

Also included on the list were Christoph Waltz’s Old Guy, directed by Simon West (The Expendables 2), Johnny Depp’s directorial debut Modi – Three Days on the Wing of Madness, and Colleen Hoover’s Regretting You.

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Surprisingly, the action movie Alarum, starring Sylvester Stallone and Scott Eastwood, wasn’t named the worst film, even though it maintained a rare 0% rating and landed in fourth place on the list. It held onto this score for months, while War of the Worlds only managed a still-poor 4%. Interestingly, audiences actually liked the sci-fi film a bit more, giving it a 20% rating compared to the 15% given to Stallone’s movie.

War of the Worlds is streaming on Prime Video.

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2025-12-23 21:41