38 Movies That Actually Made People Walk Out Of The Theater And The Reasons Why
I'm the kind of person who will stick with a movie and see it through to the end even if I hate it. (For the record, I have come close ONCE to walking out of a movie theater thanks to Lady in the Water.)
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However, it turns out plenty of people have no problem forfeiting their hard-earned money (or just asking for a refund) at a theater if they really dislike a movie.
ITV
So, when we asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us what movie made them actually walk out of a theater, they did not hold back.
In fact, they had SO MUCH to say, we couldn't resist making a second post. Here are some of the most passionate responses in that post...
Note: This article contains mentions of sexual assault and a few spoilers.
1.Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
"I was a good ways into it and had no idea what was going on, so when I had to go pee, I decided to not go back."
2.Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)
"I actually read a Facebook post where some friends of mine had walked out in the middle of the movie, and I thought to myself It couldn't have been THAT bad. It's fucking Ghost Rider!!! So, my friend and I went to see it. They retconned the first movie so much that watching it almost physically hurt. At the end of it all, I swore never to disregard a Facebook review on a movie EVER again."
3.Burn After Reading (2008)
"I don't know if we just didn't get it, was it supposed to be funny? Loads of people left and those that stayed didn't seem to be paying any attention, everyone was just talking. After arguing about sunk cost fallacy for a few minutes my friends and I left too."
4.The French Dispatch (2021)
"Love Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel is one of my all-time favorite movies. I waited the two or three years that it was pushed back with extreme excitement for The French Dispatch. Went with a friend, first 20 minutes were funny. Then it got so boring I fell asleep. My buddy woke me up 45 mins later and I tried to keep watching but I started falling asleep again. So, we both nodded in agreement and left."
5.Fire Birds (1990)
"This is with Nic Cage and Tommy Lee Jones. Normally I'm a sucker for aviation action films but the baloney was piling up quickly and I was beginning to hate everybody in the cast. Luckily for me, Tlaloc in his mercy sent an electrical storm over the city and the theater suffered a blackout, allowing me to collect a raincheck that I cashed in on Dick Tracy, which, while no gem, was still a demonstrably better example of entertainment."
6.In The Heart Of The Sea (2015)
"I had to walk out of a showing of In The Heart of the Sea 3D. It wasn’t anything to do with the movie. It was the fact that the 3D effects were so good that once the ship was on the rough seas I began to feel sick."
7.Bad Neighbors (2014)
"My mum and sister walked out of Bad Neighbors. The scene with the baby playing with a condom was too much."
8.The Northman (2022)
"Walked out of The Northman within 45 minutes. The coming of age sequence was when I mentally checked out and waited until my dad said he was done. Didn't have to wait long."
9.Eternals (2021)
"I couldn't get through it. It seemed to me the scriptwriters were exhausted and simply threw every inane plot point in it to see what would stick. I love Marvel but this movie annoyed me no end."
10.Risky Business (1983)
"I was a kid. My mom took us out when all the cussing started. Ironically, she had the worst mouth of anyone in my family. She was cussing *about* the cussing. ??"
11.Urban Cowboy (1980)
"We didn't walk out of that one. We drove out. It was one of the last movies I remember watching at the local drive-in theater. I was watching it with my mother and stepdad. About 35 or 40 minutes into the movie we all mentioned how boring it was. So, my stepdad mentioned Dairy Queen and we left. Pretty sad when DQ beats the movie you paid to watch."
12.Pearl Harbor (2001)
"The scenes of the attack were just too much. There was a scene of people on one of the ships drowning and I just got up and walked out. I guess I have a thing about water — when I was a kid I left the theatre at the point when the lady in Jaws got pulled under the water! LOL!"
13.Mother! (2017)
"People were throwing food and drinks at the screen when they started to eat the baby. I can’t believe I sat through the entire movie. It was horrifying."
14.Ella Enchanted (2004)
"Oh my gosh. Butchered such a good book."
15.Caligula (1979)
"There was no context just a lot of perverted sex and violence. My brother's girlfriend was getting sick to the stomach. We went to the theatre across the hall and watched Snoopy Come Home instead."
16.Cloverfield (2008)
"Cloverfield did it for me, everyone in the theater was one camera shake away from motion sickness-induced vomiting so I was not alone in the hallway trying to keep it together."
17.Hostel (2005)
"The only movie I’ve ever walked out of before it ended was Hostel. I cannot handle that amount of gore (and no, I’ve never seen any of the Saw movies. Made it through the first 5 minutes of the first one)."
18.Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
"What was going on? It was so ridiculous that we actually walked out! The first time I ever did this, but it was quite possibly the most nonsensical plot there was. My eyes actually hurt!"
19.Maps to the Stars (2014)
"Absolutely AWFUL movie. A friend and I randomly saw it when there was nothing else playing at the time we were at the theater and thought it might be good since the cast was so fantastic. Left around the point when John Cusack was tying up Julianne Moore in the name of therapy (YIKES). Gratuitous graphic violence, incest, and general dysfunction abound. We left questioning why so many huge names attached themselves to this horrific film. Dark, gross, depressing, and overall kind of sickening."
20.Munich (2005)
"I know it has some pretty good reviews, but my friends and I just found that the plot was so disjointed and endless that we couldn't keep watching. We kept thinking the movie was over, but then a new scene would start. I think there were still about 30 minutes left when we walked out."
21.Bride Wars (2009)
"I love romantic comedies and 'chick flicks' and I tried so hard to like it but it was so dumb. They could have solved the whole conflict in the first 20 minutes. I still don’t know how the movie ends because I couldn’t finish it. They literally just tore each other down nonstop and I hated it."
22.Eight Crazy Nights (2002)
"This was during the height of the Adam Sandler craze. My friend and I had loved him since his SNL days, and all his other movies up until then had been hysterical. I think we lasted about 30 minutes."
23.Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
"My husband and I walked out as soon as Julianne Moore ate that hamburger made out of her henchman. We both nope'd our way out to the front to get our refund."
24.Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
"Top Gun did it for me…the new one that everyone likes, yeah…the dialogue seemed made out of one-liners plucked from the '80s, it was cringy."
25.The Lego Movie (2014)
"It was just so dumb and boring. I don't know how anyone could have sat through the whole thing."
26.Love and Other Drugs (2010)
"It was advertised as a romcom and a few minutes in it was basically porn. It was classed as a 12-year-old suitable film...it just got way too weird."
27.Saving Private Ryan (1998)
"My poor grandma had to walk out of the first 10 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. She was NOT expecting the Normandy landing scene to be so real and just like you were there, she got so upset by how graphic it was. In hindsight though, it is a war movie, don’t know why she thought she’d be ok with it."
28.Gigli (2003)
"Went with some friends for the sole purpose of making fun of it, but it was just too terrible, even for that. Talking shit went from amusing to depressing real fast. Just truly, deeply awful."
29.Jurassic Park (1993)
"I was young and it was in a small theater with my brother and dad and it got to the spookier scenes when the dinos start doing exactly what a reasonable person would expect of a dino. I got freaked out and we had to leave."
30.Event Horizon (1997)
"I was a very naive 18-year-old, I thought I could deal with horror movies because I'd seen Bram Stoker's Dracula. But, I have a thing about eyeballs. I stuck it out until the bit where Sam Neil's character gouged his own eyes out, and decided to wait for my friends in the lobby."
31.Dogville (2003)
"Had to watch it for a Philosophy class but shut it off. It was just repeated sexual assaults."
32.The Cell (2000)
"I thought it was going to be a detective movie and it turned out to be a pretty graphic horror movie. I walked out thinking I was going to be sick but instead I fainted as soon as I got into the theater hallway. I would say I was embarrassed, but when I came to there was absolutely no one around. LOL."
33.The Last Airbender (2010)
"I’m a huge fan of the Avatar: The Last Airbender series and I was so excited. But first, the mispronounced names, and then the kid who played Aang... his acting was awful. I lasted about 30 minutes."
34.Alien Resurrection (1997)
"I walked out of Alien 4. The first movie was brilliant, the second was great, and the third was bearable, but I couldn't stand how contrived Alien 4 was. Only movie I have ever walked out on."
35.Tomorrowland (2015)
"I love George Clooney, but I hated that movie."
36.X2: X-Men United (2003)
"I walked out of X2 right before the big climactic show-down at the Statue of Liberty. It was making me SO ANXIOUS, so worried for the characters, and I was by myself so I couldn't cling to a friend and shut my eyes.
I suddenly realized, Hey, I don't have to stay if I'm not having fun, and I AM NOT HAVING FUN. So I stood up and walked out. Never have seen the end, though I did look up a synopsis."
37.Little Women (2019)
"Terrible casting, no one 'aged' (Amy looked 22 when she was supposed to be 12, and Laurie was just 12 throughout the whole thing), the flipping back and forth in time, as well as the odd modern way that they spoke to one another was completely off in terms of historical accuracy. Couldn't do it. The book is wonderful and this movie didn't do it justice."
38.Eat Pray Love
"I couldn’t even finish the book it was so incredibly boring, but when a friend dragged me to see it I thought maybe the movie might be better. I was wrong. We left not even halfway through and went to dinner."
Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.