No movie is ever truly, definitively 'bad'. Yes, a movie may arrive at a critical consensus that may deem it rotten, trash, a flaming diaper of bad ideas. But somewhere, if a film ever makes it out into the wider world, you're guaranteed to find at least one person who appreciates it. Whether the appreciation is ironic or genuine scarcely matters – if someone is deriving any kind of joy from a piece of art, that means it was worth the effort to create.
Of course, some bad movies are better than others – which is to say, they're worse. The dialogue is more stilted, the directorial choices more curious, the effects more laughable. And yet, those deficiencies make them far more memorable than a competent snoozefest. And so, let us celebrate 40 of the best bad movies of all time. Many of them – OK, all of them – can be described as trainwrecks. But who can look away from a trainwreck?
