Robert Downey Jr's Worst Movie Has A 0% On Rotten Tomatoes

This article contains discussions of addiction and sexual assault.

Robert Downey Jr.'s career is doing pretty well right now — but he's got some serious stinkers on his resumé, including one movie that earned a whopping 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Ever since his early appearances in "Brat Pack" movies like "Weird Science" in 1986 and "Less Than Zero," Downey Jr. — whose father, with whom he shares his name, was also a pretty well known Hollywood figure — has been a major player in the industry, despite some personal setbacks and some less-than-stellar film choices. Still, according to the review aggregator's ranking of all of Downey Jr.'s movies his 1988 comedy "Johnny Be Good," which pairs Downey Jr. up with fellow Brat Packer Anthony Michael Hall, is his worst movie. This is particularly notable when you consider that it's competing for that dubious honor alongside some other absolutely awful films like 1999's "Friends and Lovers" (7%), 2003's "Gothika" (15%), 2020's absolute clukers "Dolittle" (also 15%), and 2006's "The Shaggy Dog" (26%).

So why is "Johnny Be Good" ... not so good? What is it even about? What do critics think of the movie? And did Downey Jr.'s career recover from this indisputable dud? (Yes, it definitely did. He's fine.)

Okay, so what is this bad Robert Downey Jr. movie even about? Here's the deal. Anthony Michael Hall stares as Johnny Walker (yes, that's his name; like the Scotch whisky), who happens to be one of the best high school quarterbacks in the entire country. Thanks to his athletic prowess, several different colleges are fighting over Johnny, so he has a big decision to make — and his best friend Leo Wiggins (Downey Jr.) and girlfriend Georgia Elkans (Uma Thurman, who is also somehow in this movie) aren't making it easy. Georgia is going to the aptly named State University and wants Johnny to join her, but Leo thinks Johnny should play the field, so to speak, and see which university makes him the very best offer for his talents.

Johnny is warned that accepting gifts and borderline bribes could cause a problem, but he has bigger problems to deal with before too long after he's put into a compromising situation and then accused of sexual assault — along with Leo — by Georgia's father Chief Elkans (Marshall Bell) and Johnny's evil coach Wayne Hisler (Paul Gleason). Now that he's disgraced, he's basically forced to pick Piermont, which recently hired Hisler just to get to Johnny. It all works out in the end; Chief Elkans and Coach Hisler's exploits are exposed and Johnny decides that he just wants to go to college and play football sometimes instead of making it his whole focus — and he, Georgia, and Leo all head to State University. It's ... not a winner, and critics said as much.

In reviews that were written throughout the years after "Johnny Be Good" hit theaters, critics were pretty unequivocal about their feelings: they hated "Johnny Be Good." As Michael Wilmington wrote for the Los Angeles Times in 2019, "'Johnny Be Good,' a would-be satire on the excesses of big-time college football recruiting, is so bad that the NCAA might consider using it as punishment for coaches who violate regulations." Dave Kehr of The Chicago Tribune agreed about the movie's failed attempt at satire; as he wrote that same year, "Buried somewhere in the screenplay are some Robert Altman-esque satirical intentions, in which the wildly corrupt college football recruitment process is offered as a panoramic image of frenzied American venality."

Back in 2000, the late, great Roger Ebert was pretty succinct while writing about the film's failures: "The people who made this movie should be ashamed of themselves." (He gave the film half a star.) A few years later in 2003, Caryn James offered up another assessment of "Johnny Be Good" for The New York Times and compared it to another teen staple, writing, "Two of the screenwriters, Steve Zacharias and Jeff Buhai, also wrote 'Revenge of the Nerds,' so it's not surprising that they're more interested in tame teen-age fantasies than in social satire."

Again, the good news here is that Robert Downey Jr.'s career made it past "Johnny Be Good" — although he also worked through some pretty difficult legal issues and substance abuse problems in the aftermath of that movie (though they likely weren't related). Starting in 1996, Downey Jr. experienced a serious downward spiral and faced multiple arrests for drug charges; he also struggled with addictions to substances like cocaine and heroin. After several years of rehab stays and arrests, Downey Jr. got sober in 2003 and has remained sober ever since.

Unfortunately, Downey Jr.'s bad press and legal issues gave him a bad reputation in Hollywood, so when he helped officially launch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008 as Tony Stark in "Iron Man," it gave him the major career resurgence he sorely needed. Downey Jr. played Tony Stark until the character died in 2019's "Avengers: Endgame," though he's set to return to the MCU as Doctor Doom in multiple movies — 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps,' 'Avengers: Doomsday,' and 'Avengers: Secret Wars' in 2025, 2026, and 2027, respectively — and in 2024, he achieved a huge milestone when he won his first-ever Academy Award for "Oppenheimer." The bottom line is that if you're putting together a Robert Downey Jr. movie marathon, you can skip "Johnny Be Good."

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).