Introduction to Greatest Box-Office Bombs, Disasters and Flops: Films have the potential to skyrocket the profits of a studio, or to send it into ruins and bankruptcy. Sometimes an actor’s or director's career suffers, sometimes not. Films that cost more to make than they take in revenue (both domestic and worldwide) are considered box-office catastrophes or bombs. Movie audiences often love to relish the fact that some films, such as Gigli (2003) or Heaven's Gate (1980), turn out to be monumental flops, and are fascinated by the details of why certain directors/actors and their films fail. Most A-list directors and actors have suffered through at least one major flop, including George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ang Lee and Brian DePalma, to name just a few.

Some films are unjustly labeled flops, such as Cleopatra (1963) and Waterworld (1995), although both are included in this listing. In recent years, some of these clunker, low-income producing films have become profitable (after initial box-office failures) with strong international grosses, and further profits from the sales of movies to TV syndication and to home video/DVD releases (or re-releases). This kind of comeback has been particularly true for films in the cult films genre, such as Spielberg's 1941 (1979), or action films with a big name star, such as Last Action Hero (1993), Batman & Robin (1997) or Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), or larger epics such as Alexander (2004) or Poseidon (2006).

This selection of box-office financial bombs is often significantly different from another category of films, known as "turkeys" -- or in other words, films which have been rated as the worst ever made. These clunkers have often received official Golden Raspberry Awards (or "Razzies") which were first awarded in 1981 (for films made in 1980), although some "turkeys" are included in this list (such as Inchon (1981), Showgirls (1995), and Basic Instinct 2 (2006)). The Razzie Awards were loosely based on the 1980 book "The Golden Turkey Awards" written by film critic Michael Medved and his brother Harry Medved. Many of the 'turkeys' were also described in Harry Medved's earlier 1978 book "The Fifty Worst Films of All-Time". In 1984, the Medveds also wrote "The Hollywood Hall of Shame: The Most Expensive Flops in Movie History" -- detailing the biggest financial film disasters in Hollywood history up to that time.

See also this site's sections on All-Time Top Box-Office Films (Unadjusted and Adjusted for Inflation), the Decade's All-Time Box-Office Hits, and The Most Controversial Films of All-Time for similar information.