10 Alternate History Movies That Missed the Mark (2026)

The 10 Worst Alternate History Movies of All Time: A Critical Review

1. Jonah Hex

• Director: Jimmy Hayward
• Stars: Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox
• Studio: Warner Bros.

Jonah Hex is a disaster, a stringently forgettable film that resists being remembered. It's a shambolic supercut of what a 'Jonah Hex' movie could look like, with a meager runtime and a chopped-to-bits quality of its characters and story. The film never finds a tone, whiplashing between spaghetti-western nihilism and Marvel-lite spectacle.

1. Red Dawn (2012)

• Director: Dan Bradley
• Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Josh Peck, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas
• Studio: FilmDistrict

Red Dawn is a jingoistic Cold War fantasy that lacks the courage of its convictions. The film was shot in 2009 and shelved for three years, arriving stale and with nothing to say about occupation, resistance, or fear of a foreign power beyond a superficial 'Hey, this would be pretty scary if it happened here.' insight.

1. White Man's Burden

• Director/Writer: Desmond Nakano
• Stars: John Travolta, Harry Belafonte
• Studio: Savoy Pictures

White Man's Burden indulges in superficial race-based morality tales, treating racism as a simple matter of power dynamics. It lacks the cunning to weaponize its irony and fails to engage with the complicated realities of American racial inequality.

1. Dracula Untold

• Director: Gary Shore
• Stars: Luke Evans, Charles Dance
• Studio: Universal Pictures

Dracula Untold is an origin story built backward from franchise necessity, more interested in setting up sequels than in the individual movie itself. It's a defanged Dracula blockbuster with a generic coat of paint, lacking the depth and complexity of the original character.

1. Wild Wild West

• Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
• Stars: Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Salma Hayek
• Studio: Warner Bros.

Wild Wild West is a genre disaster, a nine-figure spectacle that fails to settle on a tone. It ping-ponged between buddy-comedy banter, halfhearted romance, and action sequences with no impact, making it an enormously expensive washout.

1. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

• Director: Timur Bekmambetov
• Stars: Benjamin Walker, Anthony Mackie, Dominic Cooper
• Studio: 20th Century Fox

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a historical supernatural horror flick that carries a solemn tone, but its central premise is inherently absurd. It's a genre-history mashup that seems afraid to have fun with its own premise, lacking the entertainment value it could have offered.

1. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

• Director: Stephen Norrington
• Stars: Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Shane West, Peta Wilson, Stuart Townsend
• Studio: 20th Century Fox

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a notorious blockbuster flop, an adaptation of the famed comic book series that fails to meet expectations. It's an anonymous cast with no one memorable, and it lacks the specific cross between cartoony and clever that the source material offered.

1. Cowboys & Aliens

• Director: Jon Favreau
• Stars: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde
• Studio: Universal Pictures

Cowboys & Aliens is a genre novelty object that fails to have fun with its premise. It's too straight-laced to engage with the genre indulgence, and it lacks the potential in mixing the archetypes and iconography of two mainstay yet often separate forms of genre entertainment.

1. The Great Wall

• Director: Zhang Yimou
• Stars: Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Andy Lau
• Studio: Universal Pictures

The Great Wall is a goofy fantasy-action movie that dilutes the admirable aspects of both wuxia filmmaking and Hollywood blockbuster action. It's a noble attempt to reach across borders, but the result is a historical sci-fi blockbuster that fails to unite the world.

1. Anonymous

• Director: Roland Emmerich
• Stars: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Rafe Spall, David Thewlis
• Studio: Sony Pictures Releasing

Anonymous is a lush movie that engages with the idea that Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the true writer of Shakespeare's plays. However, it disregards the appeal and sensation of Shakespeare, failing to capture the regular man's vision and enduring legacy.