1) Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck is the worst A-list actor in the world and has been since the mid-1990s.
The only role Ben Affleck has been decent in is “Good Will Hunting.” That’s it. He’s a bad actor even if he’s a pretty dang good writer and director – winning Academy Awards for co-writing “Good Will Hunting” and for Best Picture for “Argo.”
He’s by far not a bad filmmaker. Behind the camera, Affleck is extremely talented. But he can’t act his way out of a wet brown paper bag. Affleck is an atrocious actor.
You could rifle off a list of all the times he’s been terrible but that’s literally his entire IMDb page. Name a decent acting performance he’s ever had? That’s a trick question because you can’t. It’s impossible.
2) Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger always famously promised “I’ll be back,” in his 1980s and 90s movies but once his tenure as California governor came to an end that phrase took on a new meaning because nobody really wanted him to return.
Once the biggest movie star in the world, Schwarzenegger followed up his disastrous reign as governor with a slew of box-office flops that included “The Last Stand,” “Sabotage,” “Maggie,” “Aftermath” and “Killing Gunther.”
His only successes since then were “Terminator Genisys” and the (likely) upcoming “Terminator: Dark Fate,” meaning a built-in franchise audience is his only chance at financial success nowadays.
And let’s face it, Schwarzenegger was never a good actor even in his hit movies like “Predator,” “The Terminator” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” He might be the most one-dimensional actor in Hollywood history.
3) Kristen Wiig
Kristen Wiig made her big splash as a breakout star on “Saturday Night Live.” but while she has a knack for comedy, sometimes, like “Bridesmaids” for example, she ventured down the road of playing her hand at doing dramatic roles much like Bill Murray and Steve Carell did and it hasn’t worked out.
Wiig has starred in some unknown dramatic straight-to-VOD movies like “The Skeleton Twins” and “Welcome to Me.” But she was also the worst part of some rather big movies like “The Martian” and “Downsizing.” Wiig is the definition of a one-trick pony actress. Every character she plays is just a variation of her own personality.
4) Rihanna
Rihanna is a superstar pop singer and outside of Beyonce, she’s the most famous African American female working in the music industry today.
In recent years, she’s dabbled in acting. “Dabbling” being the key word there because it’s quite clear she’s had zero professional training so what the filmmakers will do is make her a quirky kind of character in order to disguise that fact much like they did with her in “Ocean’s 8.” But her lack of acting talent was on full display in Donald Glover’s “Guava Island,” a sort of extended hour-long music video. The chemistry between those two was almost unwatchable and you could tell it was one-sided because Glover was desperately trying.
Sometimes Hollywood will give musicians a few shots before they give up on them, but don’t expect to see her breakout in that realm anytime soon.
5) Nicolas Cage
There was a time in the 1990s when Nicolas Cage was awesome. He was the leading man action star we all loved in “Face/Off,” “Con Air” and “The Rock.” Cage won his first Academy Award for playing a severe alcoholic screenwriter in “Leaving Las Vegas.” He should’ve won an Academy Award for playing twin brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman in “Adaptation.”
Oh, and don’t forget about his incredible work in the Coen Brothers’ “Raising Arizona.”
But Hollywood is all a “what have you done for me lately?” industry. And he hasn’t done anything great in a very long time (outside of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” but he’s only in it for a few minutes). He was actually pretty decent in the bizarre hyper-violent “Mandy,” but in the last ten years, it’s been a bunch of nothing-burgers.
Cage is known for taking any role if they meet his quota so it’s no surprise that he’ll pretty much do anything.
6) Jennifer Lawrence
This one might stir some controversy. Jennifer Lawrence isn’t just one of the most sought after actresses in the world; she might be one of the most sought after actors in all of Hollywood.
But is she really that good?
Doctor Michael Blumenfield who is the president of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry thinks Jennifer Lawrence’s performance as Tiffany in “Silver Linings Playbook,” which earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress – believes it was not an accurate depiction of mental illness.
He candidly said, “The movie will be a hit with those who think that hyperactivity is just a failure of discipline and depression merely a bad attitude.” Ouch.
And even the ending he had a problem with. Blumenfield wrote, “falling in love is an absolutely awesome, wonderful thing, but it’s not going to cure bipolar disorder any more than it’s going to cure diabetes. The flip side of that is … that people with psychiatric illnesses — horrible depression, bipolar disorder, even schizophrenia — they do better when they’re in love.”
Again, ouch.
Lawrence is also terrible as Mystique/Raven in the “X-Men” franchise. But recently Jennifer Lawrence announced she would take a break from acting for a while which is a great thing because we could all use that break as well.
7) Brie Larson
Like Jennifer Lawrence, Brie Larson may be an Academy Award winner and has been good in some roles but sometimes their personal beliefs and affiliations causes a reexamination of her performances through a different lens. Nobody fits that mold better than Larson.
The “Room” Academy Award winner for Best Actress has become Hollywood’s biggest feminist. When she took the role of “Captain Marvel” her elitist nature shined through and even her Avengers co-stars were blatantly annoyed by the self-righteousness.
In an interview sandwiched between Chris Hemsworth and Don Cheadle, there was clear awkwardness amongst them. At one point Larson claims Captain Marvel is the most powerful superhero in the Marvel Universe and Hemsworth, who plays the all-powerful Thor, laughs at her comment and even says, “We’ll let you think that.”
However, her acting style of recent oozes that she’s become one of the most powerful and “important” females in Hollywood instead of actually playing a character. It’s not just her character Captain Marvel either, even “Kong: Skull Island” has that air about it.
8) Kevin James
It’s quite amazing that Kevin James became as successful as he did. He started getting notoriety for his role in “Everybody Loves Raymond” and used that success to land “King of Queens,” but then he jumped up to starring in movies. It was all downhill from there.
James has phoned in performances critically disastrous movies such as, “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” “Grown Ups,” “Zookeeper,” “Here Comes the Book,” Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2,” “Grown Ups 2,” etc.
See? The list goes on and on. How Hollywood stuck with him for so long is incomprehensible. Adam Sandler probably the cast the heavy set actor because he thought James was the closest thing to his friend Chris Farley, but nobody will ever replace Farley.
9) Jonah Hill
The fact that Jonah Hill has been nominated for two Academy Awards in acting is enough to make pretty much anybody’s head explode. Hill played a reserved statistician in “Moneyball,” which fooled many into thinking he was some kind of talented actor. But it was his performance in “The Wolf of Wall Street” that’s so painfully over the top.
He was truly out of his element in the Martin Scorsese film and was perplexingly miscast by one of America’s greatest living directors.
Is Jonah Hill funny? Sure, sometimes. He’s funny in “Superbad.” But he’s not a gifted actor.
If you think he’s good then you should watch Netflix’s “Maniac” miniseries where he stars alongside Emma Stone. It will change your mind.
10) Vince Vaughn
Vince Vaughn might be a fast-talking hilarious comic, but his dramatic roles are horrendous.
Sure, “Old School,” “The Wedding Crashers,” and “Swingers” were instant classics but he was also the same character in all of them, even if it was forgivable.
He hasn’t just branched out into drama; Vaughn’s been doing it for years. In 2001, he starred alongside John Travolta as a brutally sadistic stepfather in “Domestic Disturbance.” Clearly, his agents steered him away from roles like that for years until he started to do it again.
And it may be that he had a couple of comedy flops in “The Delivery Man” “The Watch,” and “The Internship,” but now he’s embraced full drama in his career. Vaughn delivered one of the worst acting jobs by anybody in “True Detective Season 2” and then followed it up as a hardcore criminal in “Brawl in Cell Block 99.” And although he was serviceable in “Hacksaw Ridge,” his performance as a detective in “Dragged Across Concrete” is laughable.
11) Vin Diesel
Nobody is a bigger one-trick-pony than Vin Diesel. He relies on his deep raspy voice to fool people into thinking he’s some sort of decent actor and there’s a reason why he literally only has one line as Groot in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s because he can’t be trusted with much more than one line.
Here’s a great example of how bad Diesel is at acting. The “Chronicles of Riddick” action star famously butted heads with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on the set of “The Fate of the Furious,” calling him out for not being man enough. Johnson referred to him as a “p—sy” publicly.
Johnson has stolen that franchise from Diesel because he was always the star and yet the “Furious” producers decided to make a spinoff starring Johnson and Jason Statham in the upcoming “Hobbs and Shaw.” Do you think they’d give Diesel his own movie anymore? No way. That’s how terrible he is.
12) Chloe Grace-Moretz
There are times when you wonder what anybody sees in some actors that made them into celebrities and how in the world they continue to book roles. Chloe Grace-Moretz is the epitome of that.
Grace-Moretz stormed onto the scene as Mindy Macready “Hit-Girl” in “Kick-Ass” and then she was off to the races. She played a violent vampire in the terrible American remake of “Let the Right One in,” called “Let Me In.” Then she played an underage prostitute in “The Equalizer,” which was actually quite disturbing. It’s not like she had the acting chops to do what Jodie Foster pulled off in “Taxi Driver,” although it was obvious that’s what they were going for with her role.
She’s never done any role that caused people to turn heads.
13) Ashton Kutcher
Ashton Kutcher is the prototypical idea of a one-trick-pony actor. His range is a straight line and even that might be a little too generous. It was when he attempted to play Steve Jobs in “Jobs” that made people laugh at the sad attempt to try and branch out as an actor – to be taken seriously. However, it didn’t work.
There’s a reason why he can only get television roles nowadays like “The Ranch” and when Charlie Sheen left “Two and a Half Men.” He’s serviceable as a television actor at best.
Have you ever heard anybody say “Ashton Kutcher” was really good in that role? The answer is no.
14) Steve Carell
There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Steve Carell was perfect as Michael Scott in the American version of “The Office.” Nobody plays an utter buffoon better than Carell, but that’s pretty much the extent of his range. If he’s not doing comedy, he’s trying too hard.
When “Foxcatcher” was about to hit theaters, people were raving about Carell’s “transformative” role as John du Pont, but that was a bunch of hot garbage. “The Big Short” was a rather good movie about the 2008 economic crisis, but his performance was wildly over the top.
Carell as Bobby Riggs in “Battle of the Sexes,” was aggressive and phony. But it was his role as Donald Rumsfeld in “Vice” that should put the entire Hollywood industry on notice about how terrible of an actor he really is.
15) Kristen Stewart
Stewart began her career being Jodie Foster’s young daughter in “Panic Room,” but it wasn’t until her starring role in the “Twilight” movie franchise where her lack of talents were on full display.
The 28-year-old actress is about as bland as it gets amongst her professional peers. She’s emotionless and the kicker too is that she constantly brags about how she’s never had any acting lessons! Guess what, it shows too!
The “Snow White and the Huntsman” star acts like she’s just saying the words being fed to her through an earpiece. There is no substance to her at all and it literally shows on her face with every role.