10 Worst Matthew McConaughey Movies, Ranked

Matthew McConaughey has proven to be one of the most respected and beloved actors of the 21st century, lending his talents to a wide variety of exceptional films of all varying genres. From his humble beginnings as an instantly iconic supporting character in Dazed and Confused to his academy award-winning performance in Dallas Buyers Club, McConaughey has had a standout career filled with highlights. However, especially for a decades-spanning filmography like McConaughey’s, it’s impossible not to have a selection of duds and failures amidst greatness.

From by-the-numbers films that simply failed to capitalize on the inherent strengths of McConaughey as an actor to major budget blockbusters that crumbled due to a myriad of other issues, McConaughey has been a part of several infamous titles over the years. They certainly don’t take away from the many exceptional films that he’s played a part in, yet sometimes the worst films that an actor has to offer prove to make their greatest works that much better by comparison.

10 ‘Failure to Launch’ (2006)

Directed by Tom Dey

One of many romantic comedies that McConaughey played a part in throughout the 2000s, Failure to Launch features a half-interesting premise that manages to fall apart due to its jarring choices in execution. The film sees McConaughey as Tripp, a 35-year-old who is seemingly living a great life, with an interesting job, a passion for sailing, and an active dating life, yet despite his successes, he still lives at his parents’ house. His parents, Sue and Al, find the situation to be far from ideal, so to finally get him out of the house, they hire interventionist Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker) to date him to get him out of the house for good.

While the film’s premise shares a lot in common with No Hard Feelings, Failure to Launch is riddled with dated cliches and caricatures that fail to do the premise justice. Aside from the standard issues like being wholly predictable and its characters being largely unlikeable, the biggest issue with the film is its sense of humor, relying too much on slapstick and CGI in a genre that doesn’t require any of it. McConaughey tries his best to bring the comedic potential of the premise to life, but even he can’t save the film from being largely mediocre.

Failure to Launch

Release Date

March 10, 2006

Director

Tom Dey

Runtime

96 minutes

9 ‘The Sea of Trees’ (2015)

Directed by Gus Van Sant

Gus Van Sant is a director who has lent his hand to a multitude of exceptional dramas, making it all the more shocking that a film of his like The Sea of Trees was able to fail in such spectacular fashion. The film sees McConaughey as a troubled physics professor who finds himself traveling to the infamous Aokigahara Forest in Japan with the intent of ending his own life. However, after meeting a mysterious stranger in the forest, he finds himself going on a journey of love, self-discovery, and redemption that he had long since thought was impossible.

Van Sant is no stranger to dramas that tackle the dark, painful realities of life, including that of inevitable death and suicide, making it all the more egregious that The Sea of Trees doesn’t feature the nuance or artsy approach of his previous films. It’s much more standard and by-the-numbers in its approach, creating a banal and underwhelming experience that only brushes up with the weight of its premise and themes. McConaughey himself manages to be one of the highlights of the film with his dedicated performance, yet even an actor of his talents couldn’t save The Sea of Trees.

8 ‘Fool’s Gold’ (2008)

Directed by Andy Tennant

Fool’s Gold attempted to add a flair of adventure into a standard romantic comedy premise, although in execution, these two completely different genres couldn’t find a way to meld together in a compelling way. The film sees McConaughey as Finn Finnegan, a treasure hunter who had just recently sunk his marriage to Tess (Kate Hudson) alongside his prized boat while on a continued quest to find a legendary treasure. However, Finn and Tess end up reacquainting themselves as Finn finds himself that much closer to the treasure, fighting tooth and nail not only for riches but for Tess’s love once again.

While both McConaughey and Hudson have proven to be wildly effective on-screen together in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Fool’s Gold fails to give the duo any chemistry or comedy to work off of. The film simply hopes that dropping these Hollywood icons into a strange adventure rom-com would be enough to create success, with minimal vision on how to actually create a cohesive film. It makes for what’s easily one of the worst when it comes to McConaughey’s romantic comedy outings, simply hiding in the shadow of several much greater films.

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7 ‘Sahara’ (2005)

Directed by Breck Eisner

Managing to be about as mindless and idiotic as 2000s adventure films are concerned, Sahara‘s attempts at creating a treasure-hunting action-adventure is riddled with an obnoxious plot and an overwhelming amount of clichés. The film sees McConaughey as treasure hunter Dirk Pitt as he sets out in search of a hidden treasure said to be in a long-lost confederate warship that found its way into the African deserts. While on their journey for treasure, Dirk and his buddy Al (Steve Zahn) end up teaming with Dr. Eva Rojas (Penélope Cruz) to stop the spread of a powerful plague.

While Sahara certainly takes inspiration from high-octane treasure-hunting films like The Mummy and Raiders of the Lost Ark, its myriad of chaotic plot threads make the film a cumbersome annoyance to keep track of. The film quickly cracks under the pressure of having to balance its treasure-hunting plot with the plots of Rojas escaping from a deadly warlord and her quest to stop a widespread plague epidemic. The film isn’t without its occasional positives, yet taking more than a single second to think about the plot and what is happening will only result in anger and confusion.

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6 ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’ (2009)

Directed by Mark Waters

It’s far from a secret that certain 2000s romcoms were often plagued with a sense of self-righteousness and misogyny in their premises and treatment of female characters, yet no film quite exemplifies this as Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. The film acts as a rom-com twist on A Christmas Carol, seeing McConaughey as a wildly successful womanizer who is visited by the ghosts of girlfriends past, present, and future to atone for his behavior. This face-to-face confrontation with his lifestyle comes to help him realize the error of his ways and reconnect with his first, true love, Jenny (Jennifer Garner).

One of the core tenets that makes the many A Christmas Carol adaptations so effective is the reliability and growth of Ebenezer Scrooge throughout the story from deeply unlikable into an understanding and sad character. McConaughey certainly tries his best to replicate this arc in the character of Connor Mead, but the film is actively going out of its way to make Mead as unlikable as possible until the final act, where seemingly all is forgiven. Ironically, in the process of attempting and failing to give an arc of redemption for Mead, the film silences the female voices in the film, giving them minimal character and making them feel like caricatures.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

While attending his brother’s wedding, a serial womanizer is haunted by the ghosts of his past girlfriends

Release Date

May 1, 2009

Runtime

100

5 ‘Surfer, Dude’ (2008)

Directed by S.R. Bindler

One of McConaughey’s most defining characteristics as an actor over the years has been his carefree, melancholy attitude, established from the humble days of Dazed and Confused and still seen in modern films like The Beach Bum. While this alluring aura of relaxing vibes has, for the most part, created many memorable characters and films, one of the few times when this energy had a disastrous opposite effect was in Surfer, Dude. The film sees McConaughey as Steve Addington, a soul-searching surfer who finds himself facing an existential crisis when no waves come to his beach for over a month.

Even aside from the comically ridiculous premise of a surfer dude facing a mental crisis due to not getting enough waves, the real issues come when the film deviates from the inherent greatness of McConaughey’s allure. Almost as if the film doesn’t understand its own selling point, Surfer, Dude gets too entrenched in an over-the-top story of reality television and corruption that serves to distract and take away from what should be a slam-dunk comedy. Thankfully, The Beach Bum would take the concept of a film centered around an over-the-top McConaughey surfer character and succeed in dividends where this film failed.

4 ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation’ (1995)

Directed by Kim Henkel

One of the only times that McConaughey found himself in a horror film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (also known as The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre), is often in conversation as the worst film in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. The film sees a group of teens getting into a car crash in the woods after leaving prom early, eventually receiving aid from tow trucker, Vilmer (played by McConaughey). However, it is soon revealed that Vilmer is a sadistic killer who is a part of the Leatherface family, planning to make this group of teens their latest victims.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation proved to be so disastrous for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise that it single-handedly stopped the release of new entries for 8 years. The film acts as a major downgrade to everything present in the previous films of the franchise, long since removing the shocking and genre-defining horror of the original with an experience that is too campy and chaotic to take seriously. McConaughey certainly hams it up in a wild villain performance in the film, certainly leaving an impact, although not entirely in a good way.

The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Release Date

September 22, 1995

Director

Kim Henkel

Cast

Matthew McConaughey , Renée Zellweger , Robert Jacks , Tonie Perensky , Joe Stevens , Lisa Marie Newmyer , John Harrison , Tyler Shea Cone , James Gale , Chris Kilgore , Vince Brock , Susan Loughran , David Laurence , Grayson Victor Schirmacher , Jeanette Wiggins , Carmen Nogales , Lisa Caraveo , Les Martin , Adam White , Bill Wise , Loren Guerra , Derek Keele , Debra Marshall , Geri Wolcott , Axel L. Schiller

Runtime

87 minutes

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3 ‘Serenity’ (2019)

Directed by Steven Knight

While Serenity presents itself as yet another by-the-numbers mystery thriller, it quickly makes a name for itself as one of the most infamous films of the 2010s through its unpredictable and ridiculous central twist. The film sees McConaughey as quiet fishing boat captain Baker Dill, living an isolated life on Plymouth Island and spending his days obsessed with catching an elusive massive tuna. However, Dill’s life is suddenly taken for a whirl when his ex-wife approaches him with an offer to murder someone in exchange for a large sum of money.

Serenity is already a deeply strange and chaotic experience well before its infamous twist, yet said twist manages to transform everything about the film into a strange, unintentional comedy. It’s the type of twist that is so ridiculous and so out of left field that, everything else in the film by comparison is playing second fiddle to the stature and overwhelming nature of such a mind-boggling twist. It makes what would otherwise be just a strange, below-average thriller into one of infamous status that approaches some of the best so-bad-it’s-good movies of all time.

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2 ‘The Dark Tower’ (2017)

Directed by Nikolaj Arcel

Easily McConaughey’s biggest disaster when it comes to his outings in blockbuster filmmaking, The Dark Tower was a notorious box office disaster that failed to do justice to the original Stephen King novel. The film follows gunslinger Roland Deschain (Idris Elba) on a quest to protect a mythical structure known as The Dark Tower, said to support all realities and parallel universes from crashing in on each other. At the same time, a vicious deceiver known as The Man in Black is determined to reach the top of the tower and rule over the infinite kingdoms that it looks over.

McConaughey plays the villainous role of The Man in Black in the film, giving a performance that is much more sinister than his standard outings, yet his strengths as an actor couldn’t save The Dark Tower‘s many problems. The film simply cannot go into the broad depth and nuance of King’s epic in only 95 minutes of runtime, largely skipping over important aspects and diminishing the impact of anything happening on-screen. While the original series was a deeply personal story and is considered King’s magnum opus, this film attempts and fails to follow in the footsteps of dystopian films like The Maze Runner and Divergent.

The Dark Tower

Release Date

August 3, 2017

Runtime

95

1 ‘Tiptoes’ (2003)

Directed by Matthew Bright

One of the most shocking and deeply uncomfortable dramas of the 2000s that even for the era in which it was released was deeply controversial and problematic in execution, Tiptoes is a deeply hollow cinematic experience. The film sees McConaughey as Steven, a man who has spent the majority of his life separating himself from his family due to being the only non-dwarf person in his family. However, he is forced to confront the truth of his family head-on when he is forced to introduce his pregnant fiancée to his family, including his twin brother, Rolfe (Gary Oldman).

There is a lot fundamentally wrong with Tiptoes that has made it such an egregious experience, from non-dwarf actor Gary Oldman playing a dwarf character to the film’s overall gross portrayal of little people in general. McConaughey himself, by comparison, is simply the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the film’s issues, playing a dull, uninteresting character with deeply predictable character development who grows to respect his family lineage. While watching the film, it comes as a genuine shock that this is the same McConaughey who would eventually become one of the most iconic stars in modern Hollywood.

Tiptoes

Release Date

September 8, 2003

Director

Matthew Bright

Cast

Gary Oldman , Patricia Arquette , Matthew McConaughey , Kate Beckinsale , Peter Dinklage , Ed Gale , Debbie Lee Carrington , David Alan Grier , Alexa Nikolas , Marcia De Rousse , Kacie Borrowman , Michael J. Anderson , Cherub Freed , Brittney Guzman , Santiago Segura , Bridget Powers , Peter Macdissi , Brandon Thompson , Dana Sessen , Addie Roncal , Agustina Covian , Luigi Francis Shorty Rossi , Susan Barnes , Chad Everett , David Weisenberg

Runtime

90 minutes

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NEXT: The 10 Best Matthew McConaughey Movies, According to Rotten Tomatoes