AFT Awards: Worst Movie of the Year

This is the twenty-third category of the 9th Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors, or dishonors in this case. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them. Click here to see previous years of this category. I’m fortunate not to see too many truly awful movies, but here are the ones I hated this year.

The winner:
The Gunman still has me laughing, and I can’t decide whether Sean Penn wrapping himself in a towel to protect himself from deadly active flames is more ridiculous than him managing to get the drop on his pursuer after passing out cold in the middle of a chase. Truly terrible stuff.

Other nominees:
The Face of An Angel was a perfect example of a film with decent actors that should have been good but focused on all the wrong things. Western was my least favorite film at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015, a documentary that never managed to get anywhere and billed itself as much more interesting than it actually was. Effie Gray could have benefited from a different actress in the lead role – I suggested Saiorse Ronan – and any number of more interesting moments than the ones ultimately included. Closer to the Moon set out to tell an intriguing story-within-a-story, but it didn’t end up covering any worthwhile ground or making either story inviting.