Comedy Movies With Terrible Rotten Tomatoes Scores That Are Actually Hilarious

Judging any movie is a purely subjective exercise, but comedies more than other genres are probably most susceptible to being victims of personal opinion. Sure, most people can agree on what makes a great action scene or a compelling mystery, but everyone has a different idea of what is funny and what isn't. For example, some might prefer sarcasm, while others gravitate towards physical comedy. 

For that reason, critics can often dismantle a film with a bad review even as audiences might be in hysterics. As a result, tons of great comedies are dragged down by the big green splat on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. Often it's because professional reviewers who are focused on only the smartest, quick-witted humor simply don't get slapstick comedy, while others may not appreciate dark humor or raunchy low-brow laughs. But don't listen to the critics: Here's a list of 13 movies that got awful Rotten Tomatoes scores but are still hilarious.

The perfect example of a movie that gets better with age, 2001's "Freddy Got Fingered" hasn't been the beneficiary of just time, but changing attitudes. A slapstick comedy from writer-actor Tom Green — a comic whose popularity was little more than a fad — it tells the story of a witless, inept weirdo named Freddy (Green) who sets out to become a successful artist, with comic hijinx ensuing when he's given $1 million dollars to make his own cartoon.

With lowbrow laughers being popular in the '90s, audiences at the time might not have seen anything but goofball antics that were so over the top as to stop being funny. But with the benefit of hindsight, there's something of a meta story to be found here: As some have pointed out, the story of Freddy's attempts to make a cartoon after being handed a massive budget by misguided studio executives appears to be a comment on the production of the film itself. Many of its jokes seem designed to poke fun at Hollywood tropes and the lunacy of giving Green a huge budget and no oversight.

Sure, the movie may not be as funny if it's viewed as a straightforward comedy, as its initial 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes suggests. But seen from a different angle, it's a critique of Tinseltown and the dumb decisions that go into making movies.

Christina Applegate was a major TV star in the 1980s thanks to "Married ... with Children," and in the early '90s she made the jump to film. In 1991 she starred in "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead," a dark teen comedy that takes the '80s teen caper and turns it on its head. As you might expect from the title, the film follows a group of kids whose babysitter kicks the bucket while their parents are on vacation. 

Applegate plays Sue Ellen Crandell, a 17-year-old high schooler with three younger brothers and a sister. She is excited to be in charge over the summer, as her mother is taking a long business trip, but to her dismay, her mother has hired a live-in babysitter — a bitter, cruel old woman named Mrs. Sturak (Eda Reiss Merin) — to keep an eye on Sue Ellen and her siblings. So when the babysitter croaks, Sue Ellen decides to keep it a secret so they can have the summer to themselves.

The movie's laughs are low-brow, but its dark streak is where it shines. Critics don't always get black comedy — as evidenced by its 35% rating on RT — but if it's twisted comedy in a teen caper you want, this one will deliver.

A true cult classic, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was directed by Monty Python vet Terry Gilliam and based on the book-slash-memoir of the same name by infamous gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. A previous effort adapting the writer's exploits, "Where the Buffalo Roam," had starred Bill Murray in 1980, but Depp's turn as Thompson all but makes that film irrelevant. The actor brings the writer to life here in ways few others could, while changing Depp for good.

A mix of fiction and real life, "Fear and Loathing" centers on reporter Raoul Duke (a stand-in for Thompson himself) and his drug-addled lawyer and cohort Dr. Gonzo (Benicio del Toro) as they take a trip to Sin City under the auspices of covering a motorcycle race. The adventures that follow are less a plot-driven story then a series of wild escapades and drug-fueled antics that result in nonstop laughs — not due to carefully constructed jokes, but because of the absolute insanity that ensues, with much of the film unfolding from the pair's own hallucination-filled perspective.

Today the 1998 film may be a fan favorite, but it garnered only a 51% score on RT from critics, and wider audiences rejected it as well. But sit back, spark up, and chill out, and you'll find more laughs than you can count.

Abbott and Costello, Cheech and Chong, Fey and Poehler, there are countless great comedy duos at the movies and on television, but one that often doesn't get the credit it deserves is the pairing of Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder — an unlikely friendship that endured on screen for decades. They collaborated four times, but while "Stir Crazy" and "Silver Streak" often get the most attention, it's 1989's "See No Evil, Hear no Evil" that might be their most underrated, with just a 27% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film follows the unlikely friendship between a blind man named Wally Carew (Pryor) and a deaf man, Dave Lyons (Wilder). Following their first awkward meeting, the pair inadvertently become "witnesses" to a murder, making them targets of Eve (Joan Severance) and Kirgo (Kevin Spacey), a pair of dastardly criminals who are willing to kill to acquire a priceless coin.

Sure, "Stir Crazy" and "Silver Streak" are better films, but the slapstick comedy of "See No Evil, Hear No Evil" is top-notch. So why did critics hate it? Well, probably because it was judged by the standards of a late '80s comedy, when in reality it's much more like a classic Hollywood farce. So if you love a good clownish comedy, you won't be disappointed. 

When conjuring the name Mike Myers, audiences probably think of "Austin Powers" or "Wayne's World." But one movie that rarely gets mentioned in the same conversation is his 1993 comedy "So I Married an Axe Murderer," a black comedy co-starring Nancy Travis, Phil Hartman, Anthony LaPaglia, and Amanda Plummer.

The subject of the film is Charlie MacKenzie (Myers), a perpetually single serial dater and poet who is eager to prove that he can commit to a woman. So he's thrilled when he meets Harriet (Travis), a local butcher, and finally finds himself wanting to settle down. Unfortunately, after tying the knot, MacKenzie begins to suspect that Harriet is hiding a dark side and may in fact be an axe-wielding serial killer.

Once again, it seems critics and mass audiences didn't seem to get the whole black comedy thing, with the former only bestowing a 55% score on the Tomatometer. The movie is definitely dark and goes to some grisly places, but it's all done with Myers' typically farcical sense of humor. Being sandwiched between a pair of classic "Wayne's World" movies, it's understandable that so many have overlooked this one. At least it didn't almost ruin his career, like a certain other movie.

Before Tom Hanks was winning Oscars for serious, dramatic roles, he was best known for a series of '80s comedies like "Big," "Turner and Hooch," and "Splash." There are several others during this era that deserve more attention, like "Joe Versus the Volcano," but it's his 1989 film "The 'Burbs" that was saddled with a lousy 56% Rotten Tomatoes score.

At first, you might be tempted to view the story as a routine family comedy; Centered on Ray and Carol Peterson, a pair of ordinary suburbanites played by Hanks and Carrie Fisher, the film takes a turn when a strange family moves into a creepy house on the same block. The family's behavior is odd to say the least, and their reclusive nature makes Ray fear that they may be more than they appear.

The premise, like something out of a prime-time sitcom, is mundane enough, but it's the eerie vibe and nearly supernatural elements that take things up a notch. Not content to play it safe, director Joe Dante makes things weird, with Roger Ebert calling it "something between 'Beetlejuice' and 'The Twilight Zone.' While Ebert didn't like the film — contributing to its "rotten" score — the film has aged well as a biting satire aimed at the drudgery of suburban life and '80s excess, providing even more laughs today than at the time.

It might come as a surprise, but some of the most famous and beloved comedies from the '80s weren't met with good reviews, and still don't test well with critics. That includes "Weekend at Bernie's," a 1989 summertime teen favorite that certainly wasn't the most clever idea, nor did it boast any kind of cracking, whip-smart script. But when it comes to caper comedies of the era, "Weekend at Bernie's" is the cream of the crop despite its 54% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

You probably know the premise: A pair of corporate losers and best friends named Larry Wilson (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard Parker (Jonathan Silverman) are invited to a beach house party by their boss, Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser), who promptly drops dead at the hands of the Mafia. Not wanting to miss the party, the dim-witted pair try their best to convince the other guests that the very dead Bernie is, in fact, still alive. All the while, a pair of hitmen are hanging around trying to finish the job, while also being ordered to whack the pair of witless weirdos.

A series of non-stop madcap antics, "Weekend at Bernie's" isn't smart comedy, but it might be the best of the dumb ones. If you're a fan of Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, or Jim Carrey, it will be right up your alley, critics be damned.

"Argylle" is directed and produced by Matthew Vaughn, the man behind "X-Men: First Class," "Kick-Ass," and the "Kingsman" series. Led by Henry Cavill, the film is brimming with stars, including Bryce Dallas Howard, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O'Hara, Sam Rockwell, John Cena, and Samuel L. Jackson. Yet, despite all the talent, the film crashed and burned with a 33% Rotten Tomatoes score, with critics ripping it for its "convoluted plot and overlong runtime."

Nevertheless, the movie is a slick and exciting one, not to mention legitimately funny at times. Cavill plays a fictional super-spy, the lead character in a series of novels by author Elly Conway (Howard). While working on her latest book in the "Argylle" series, however, a real-life spy (Sam Rockwell) asks for her help to stop a diabolical terrorist organization that seems patterned after the baddies in her books. She soon learns, though, that the criminal syndicate in her novels — and Argylle himself — may be more than mere fiction.

While reviews for the film weren't necessarily wrong about "Argylle" — its plot does get complicated, and its running time is a bit bloated — it's still hilarious, with its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. It makes clever observations about spy stories while never feeling trite or superfluous, putting plenty of clever twists on old ideas.

In the late '80s and early '90s, The Kids in the Hall went from an underground Canadian sketch comedy troupe to cult classic comics when "Saturday Night Live" producer Lorne Michaels gave the gang their own series. After the show came to an end in 1993, the kids reunited for a 1996 feature film: "Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy."

Like Monty Python before them, the Kids in the Hall take a series of sketches and string them into a loose story for the movie. This time it's about a new pharmaceutical drug called Gleemonex, an antidepressant that's unleashed on the public with little idea of what it can actually do. And of course, Gleemonex turns out to have some powerful side effects, and the film shows us what happens to some of the people who take the drug. 

It should come as no surprise to this point that "Brain Candy" is another dark comedy that reviewers just didn't get or appreciate, as its 44% RT score demonstrates. It confronts the real horrors of mental health problems while also serving as a stinging takedown of the pharmaceutical industry. It wasn't quite as strong as the show it was spawned from — possibly owed to plenty of problems behind the scenes — but it's a wickedly funny movie that deserves to be ranked right alongside the best Python films.

In 1998, Norm Macdonald was making relentless jokes targeting O.J. Simpson — allegedly the real reason he was fired from "Saturday Night Live." At the same time, he was filming his first major movie, "Dirty Work," alongside "Howard Stern Show" regular Artie Lange and fellow "SNL" alum Chevy Chase. Vulgar to the extreme, its low-brow laughs earned it a miserable 14% on Rotten Tomatoes. But the critics definitely got it wrong, as many did when it comes to the comedy chops of Norm Macdonald.

Here, McDonald and Lange play Mitch and Sam, a pair of best friends in desperate need of cash to pay for a medical procedure for Sam's father. That's when they get a brilliant idea to start a revenge-for-hire business, offering their services to help the jilted and bitter exact payback on unsuspecting victims.

Like Norm Macdonald's stint on "SNL," the film was wildly popular with a certain subset of fans who appreciated the film's dark edge. But it's only more recently — and even more since Macdonald's 2021 passing — that "Dirty Work" has been appreciated for being a side-splitting effort from two underappreciated comic geniuses.

Slapstick comedies — with added raunchiness — had a renaissance in the 1990s. Films like "There's Something About Mary," "Billy Madison," and "Dumb and Dumber" were huge hits, typically led by a vulgar funnyman getting up to borderline X-rated escpades. Decades later, some of the biggest stars of the era reunited to explore what became of those kinds of characters in middle age. The result was 2010's "Grown Ups" starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, David Spade, Chris Rock, and Rob Schneider.

The quintet star as high school friends and teammates on their junior high school basketball team. who reunite thirty-odd years after winning a state championship for a holiday weekend. Hilarity follows as the group of former friends gets involved in a series of nutty antics. It's exactly the kind of film they'd have made in the early '90s, just aged up for fans who were now middle-aged themselves.

Critics lambasted the film, giving it a scathing 10% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences understood what they didn't: "Grown-Ups" is just five raunchy '90s comics doing what they do best. And while it has its flaws, they're the same weaknesses of the best '90s comedies — dumb jokes, a half-hearted script, and middle-of-the-road production. But that's not why movie-goers are watching, and clearly it did something right enough to earn a sequel.

Robin Williams has more "rotten" movies than you might expect, including quite a few — like "Hook" and "Toys" — that don't deserve that label. But while those films are known to defy critical consensus, a lesser-appreciated movie in his arsenal that deserves more recognition is "Death to Smoochy." Released in 2002, it came at a time when Williams was dabbling in darker stories, including thrillers like "One Hour Photo" and "The Final Cut."

"Death to Smoochy" is a black comedy where Williams plays Rainbow Randolph, a costumed TV mascot whose career is destroyed after he's caught up in controversy. Replaced by a new character named Smoochy, played by Edward Norton, Randolph becomes enraged when his successor becomes the talk of the town. Seeking revenge, the former TV idol goes on a rampage, dead set on destroying Smoochy and getting his old job back.

Decried for its dark edge and morbid sense of humor, "Death to Smoochy" was decidedly unloved by reviewers, as its 42% score on Rotten Tomatoes attests. But ordinary moviegoers gave it a thumbs-up, proving that, once again, black comedy doesn't usually go over well with the pros.

When it comes to spoofs there are usually just two types: The ones that everyone recognizes as a classic (think "Airplane!" or "The Naked Gun"), and those that are generally accepted to be the bottom of the barrel. One of the rare parody flicks to land in the middle, though, is 2002's "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist," which made our list of the best spoof movies of all time, but which earned an abominable 13% on Rotten Tomatoes.

"Kung Pow" mocks Hong Kong cinema, but is far more than just an ordinary spoof; It's a high-concept film that may have been a bit too meta for critics and reviewers. The film's writer, director, and star, Steve Oedekerk, purchased the rights to the 1976 film "The Savage Killers" — a Cantonese-language martial arts movie about a pair of warriors who team up to battle an evil tyrant named Lu Ting Chu — and used special effects and new footage to change the story and put himself into the leading role, "Forrest Gump"-style. 

We're willing to admit that "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist" isn't a great movie in a vacuum, and many of the jokes are predictable and half-hearted. But the concept is just so clever, not to mention well-executed — with intentionally bad dubbing and awkward editing — that it's impossible not to laugh.