Summary

• Box office success doesn't always reflect a movie's quality; great movies can still flop financially.
• Factors like controversies, marketing, and CGI can contribute to a movie's failure at the box office.
• Movies that perform poorly at the box office can still make significant contributions to their respective genres.

There were quite a few recent box office flops that were actually great movies. Overall, box office gross is a great metric for gauging not just the national or global commercial success of a movie, but its cultural impact as well. At the same time, a film's financial performance is scarcely enough to provide a truly objective judgment of whether a film is worth watching or not. After all, box office success is determined by a variety of factors, and it isn't necessarily representative of a movie's creative merits.

Indeed, there are plenty of great movies that bombed at the box office, and many of them are also some of the best films of the 20th and 21st centuries. Technically, movies are considered bombs, flops, or failures when they fail to gross at least twice their budget, as this means that they couldn't break even to prevent losses. While studios use box office metrics to determine commercial viability, these numbers are also highly influenced by external factors such as streaming, audience values, and other things that affect how viewers consume films today. In fact, many of the worst box office performers in recent years are also undeniably interesting movies.

10 The Flash (2023)

Budget: $220 million | Box office gross: $270.6 million

There are various reasons why The Flash bombed at the box office, chief among them being the controversies surrounding lead star Ezra Miller, faulty marketing, and the weird CGI sequences. At the same time, The Flash is easily the best movie in the last year of the old and now-defunct DCEU. Michael Keaton reprising his role as Bruce Wayne provided exactly the right amount of camp and genuine sentimentality to The Flash, and so did the other Justice League cameos. Through The Flash, the DCEU's foray into multiverse-based storytelling remains an objectively great contribution to the modern superhero genre, even though the film failed miserably at the box office.

9 The Creator (2023)

Budget: $80 million | Box office gross: $104 million

By Hollywood standards, The Creator had a relatively low budget, but this wasn't enough for the sci-fi adventure to succeed in the box office. Yet, The Creator's fantastic VFX also makes it undeniably one of the best-looking films of 2023. The overarching plot isn't revolutionary, as the movie unravels an epic war between humanity and advanced AI, touching on the same bases as countless other sci-fi movies. However, combined with John David Washington's performance as the soldier at the center of this war, The Creator's clever rehash of classic genre tropes results in a fresh and compelling world that actually feels ripe for expansion in potential sequels.

Related: The Creator Review: A Brutal, Emotional & Visually Stunning Sci-Fi Epic

8 Tár (2022)

Budget: $25 million | Box office gross: $29.2 million

Alongside the way the story is presented, the intense performance of Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár has led audiences to question whether Tár is a real or fictional story. Interestingly, despite Blanchett's convincing portrayal, Lydia Tár is not a real person. Unfortunately, the way Tár brilliantly blurs the lines between fiction and reality wasn't enough to save it from being a significant flop. Ironically, critics have observed this to be a result of the clever conceit on which the fake biographical movie is built upon. While it may have bombed, Tár remains a formidable entry into the psychological drama genre in 2022.

7 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Budget: $300 million | Box office gross: $384 million

Why did Indiana Jones Dial of Destiny bomb at the box office? It certainly didn't help that the movie's stellar $300 million budget required blockbuster-level success just for the last Indiana Jones movie to break even. Dial of Destiny's release date also faced stiff competition, and the lack of Steven Spielberg's name on the main billing further estranged the movie even to mainstream audiences. Nonetheless, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny masterfully strikes the balance between nostalgic franchise fare and contemporary action adventure cinema. It's not a perfect film, but it is a fitting farewell to Harrison Ford's tenure as the turn of the century's most famous archaeologist.

6 Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (2023)

Budget: $70 million | Box office gross: $46.2 million

In Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, the titular teen grapples with social pressures at school and realizing her true destiny as a magnificent sea creature. Sadly, the movie was marketed poorly - which includes its ill-conceived and wordy title. Audiences were also reluctant to see it in theaters due to Pixar garnering a mixed reputation over the years. At the same time, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken remains a great family-friendly film with good messages, and stands as a clever remix of established children's movie tropes. In the end, the film's terrible box office performance only makes this visually stunning coming-of-age movie an underrated gem.

Related: 10 Biggest Reasons DreamWorks' New Animated Movie Bombed So Badly At The Box Office

5 News of the World (2020)

Budget: $38 million | Box office gross: $12.7 million

Perfectly cast as News of the World protagonist Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, Tom Hanks delivers a stunning performance as a former Confederate officer who must return a young girl to her remaining family. A return to form for the traditional Western, News of the World checks all the boxes as an emotionally gripping heroic tale from the Old West. Ultimately, this wasn't enough to compensate for the fact that News of the World came out in late 2020 - when the film industry still struggled with the effects of COVID on the economy. Though it had a bad theatrical run, the movie has been well-received by both audiences and critics.

4 Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

Budget: $150 million | Box office gross: $208.2 million

From the 2023 Hasbro and WOTC boycott, to having a release date so close to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, there are several reasons why Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves bombed, with the studio's potential losses being estimated at $100 million. However, the reality is that Honor Among Thieves pulled off the impossible by simultaneously satisfying its niche viewership and being a mainstream-friendly action movie. At face value, Honor Among Thieves is a good action fantasy movie. For DnD and TTRPG players, it's the first and only successful movie adaptation of the foundational gaming system that has largely defined the evolution of the fantasy genre.

3 Bros (2022)

Budget: $22 million | Box office gross: $14.8 million

While it was accurately marketed as one of the first LGBTQ romantic comedies to be backed by a major studio, this ultimately hurt Bros' chances of reaching out to wider audiences. Moreover, lead star Billy Eichner is most famous for his abrasive persona in Funny or Die's Billy on the Street, a hilarious online show that's not for everyone. Unfortunately, all this combined to limit the movie's box ofice impact. It's a pity because Eichner's understated and honest performance makes a strong case for why the comedian deserves more starring roles. Even though the movie ended up losing millions, Eichner and Judd Apatow's Bros was the best rom-com of 2022.

Related: Bros Review: LGBTQ+ Romantic Comedy Goes Mainstream (& Does it Better)

2 Renfield (2023)

Budget: $65 million | Box office gross: $26.9 million

Mixed reviews, stiff competition, and overall poor branding led to Renfield becoming a huge box office disappointment in 2023. Ultimately, the studios also overestimated the theatrical draw of casting Nicolas Cage as Dracula, the movie's main antagonist. Yet, this didn't stop Renfield from rebooting the most influential vampire in horror for modern times. Arguably the best comedic horror movie of 2023, Renfield uses many of the most familiar and foundational vampire tropes to conjure a tale that is funny, heartfelt, and unapologetically brutal at the same time. Even viewers who dislike Cage's over-the-top acting style would find that it was put to its best possible use in Renfield.

1 Fast X (2023)

Budget: $340 million | Box office gross: $714.6 million

With the Fast 11 release date already set for 2025, it's clear that Fast X wasn't technically a box office bomb. However, it can be considered a commercial failure because it not only made less than its predecessor, but also cost over $100 million more to produce. Indeed, Fast X continues the downward trend in the franchise's overall commercial appeal. All that being said, Fast X remains a highly entertaining entry in the explosive franchise. The story of Fast X pays off several key setups in the earlier films, introduces arguably the saga's best villain in Jason Momoa's Dante Reyes, and lays strong foundations for the blockbuster franchise's final films.