Among all the other streaming services out there (and there are arguably too many at this point), Tubi is perhaps the one that feels the most like the Wild West. It is the least predictable, being home to a ridiculously large range of movies. Some are, of course, quite good, with there being plenty of hidden gems on the platform waiting to be unearthed.
However, what Tubi gives, it also takes away, meaning that some films one may uncover while browsing can’t exactly be called gems. Because of how wild Tubi is, it often feels like it might be the streaming service with the most bad movies, but for a silver lining, that also means it has a good number of bad movies that are also fun to watch. The following movies are all definable as so-bad-they’re-good, and represent the best – and most surprisingly tasty – trash that can be found on Tubi.
10 ‘Samurai Cop’ (1991)
As long as you go into Samurai Cop knowing you’re not going to get something on the level of an Akira Kurosawa samurai movie, you could well have a good time. That being said, the title should be enough of a tip-off, as Kurosawa made crime movies and samurai movies, but never both at the same time.
It’s about the police in LA going to drastic lengths to combat Yakuza crime in the city: they enlist the help of a skilled swordsman named Joe Marshall to battle the Japanese gangs. It’s a simply ridiculous and laughably dumb action movie, and is the kind of film where if the comedy was intentional, it’s a comedic masterpiece, but if it wasn’t intentional, then it remains entertaining due to how easy it is to laugh at.
9 ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ (1957)
An iconic so-bad-it’s-good movie that continues to divide film fans, Plan 9 from Outer Space has a legendary reputation for being perhaps the silliest “classic” sci-fi movie of all time. It looks like it cost less than your average fast-food burger, and has next to no regard for things like characters, pacing, or even narrative.
As such, it’s hard to summarize what the film is about, beyond saying that it broadly involves aliens attempting to stop the human race from developing a weapon that they believe could lead to the universe’s destruction. It has way too many characters and feels beyond sloppy, but it’s also undeniably fascinating to the point where its cult classic status is understandable.
8 ‘Hercules Against the Moon Men’ (1964)
The title tells the viewer everything, really, to the point where you’ve got no one to blame but yourself if you decide to sit down and actually watch Hercules Against the Moon Men. It’s a chaotic mix of fantasy and science-fiction, and an ultra-cheap movie that sees the titular hero taking on an evil queen who’s planning to take over the world with the help of an alien race.
Plan 9 from Outer Space might be notorious and more well-known, but Hercules Against the Moon Men is worse. It is simply an atrocious movie, and perhaps only recommendable for the toughest bad movie watchers out there. But still, for that title and the brazen premise, it deserves to be considered within the so-bad-it’s-good canon.
7 ‘2025: The World Enslaved by a Virus’ (2021)
The mere premise of 2025: The World Enslaved by a Virus is hilarious, with the film itself being funnier than any comedy set during COVID times could ever hope to be. It’s an alarmist work of science-fiction that imagines a world falling apart in the space of four years, thanks to lockdown restrictions leading to the formation of a single world government that militantly enforces Communism while banning Christianity.
If set 50 years in the future, it might still feel far-fetched, but it being 2025 makes it already hilarious. It’s the film equivalent of that one character in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who seems to really want to be repressed, with 2025: The World Enslaved by a Virusimagining a world where a group of young people band together and rebel against the most unrealistic and far-fetched antagonist imaginable. It’s also a movie that’s home to some of the most hilariously bad acting and writing imaginable.
6 ‘Love on a Leash’ (2011)
The Shape of Water may have succeeded as a film that sees a woman falling in love with a fish-man, but Love on a Leash doesn’t quite manage to do the same with its central premise. It’s a modern “fairytale” about a dog who wants to be a man, and can successfully transform if he gets a young woman to fall in love with him.
If the premise wasn’t bizarre enough, the low budget and amateurish production value serve to make Love on a Leash feel like a genuine fever dream of a movie. It’s about as close to surreal horror as a non-horror movie can get, feeling borderline Lynchian, and needing to be seen to be believed.
5 ‘Inconceivable’ (2017)
Nicolas Cage’s filmography is like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, because you never know what you’re going to get. The legendary actor has appeared in some truly amazing films, some incredibly obscure ones, and a fair few genuinely terrible ones. 2017’s Inconceivable falls into the last of those categories, because it’s astoundingly bad.
Broadly speaking, it’s about two mothers who clash in a small town, with Cage playing a husband who gets caught in the middle of their conflict. It’s very trashy and schlocky, being a heightened melodrama that’s consistently silly and fun, albeit eventually exhausting enough that it might only appeal to die-hard Cage fans.
4 ‘Gamera vs. Viras’ (1968)
There are a total of 12 Gamera movies, with the series overall being of varying quality. The titular character is a giant flying turtle who serves as Earth’s guardian, much like how the more lighthearted Godzilla movies see the giant radioactive lizard in question defending Earth from other monsters.
Gamera vs. Viras is the fourth movie in the Gamera series, and also one of its silliest, seeing everyone’s favorite turtle battling a giant squid named Viras. It’s a wild and uneven giant monster movie, and though it’s difficult to call it good in the traditional sense, it’s certainly entertaining and goofy enough to be a worthwhile watch.
3 ‘Birdemic: Shock and Terror’ (2010)
Taking influence from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, but without being of a similar quality, Birdemic: Shock and Terror is one of the best-known bad movies in recent memory. It’s about several young people forced to survive an onslaught of murderous birds that have collectively begun attacking a small town’s population.
It’s one of the most amateur-looking horror movies of all time, but the incredibly low-budget and stilted nature of it all also proves to be engaging and oddly intoxicating. Birdemic: Shock and Terror certainly has a unique atmosphere and overall feel, and had a noticeably worse sequel, given it was suddenly self-aware, and therefore not as magically awful anymore.
2 ‘Reefer Madness’ aka ‘Tell Your Children’ (1936)
Tell Your Children is also known as Reefer Madness, and is notable for being arguably the first “cult classic” movie to become such because of its ridiculousness/awfulness. It can charitably be described as hysterical, following a comically tragic string of events that all unfold due to marijuana use.
It’s so far-fetched and dated nowadays that it’s ironically become a stoner cult classic, which may well have been destiny at work. It’s great for a laugh, and has undoubtedly failed in its attempts to show the use of a now-legal (in certain places) drug as something which poses a genuine danger to society.
1 ‘Hard Ticket to Hawaii’ (1987)
Over-blown action is the name of the game when it comes to Hard Ticket to Hawaii, which is absolutely jam-packed with wonderfully ridiculous and over-the-top sequences. It follows a small group of various elite fighters/combat experts who find themselves targeted by numerous people who want them dead, forcing them to survive by any means necessary.
It’s a movie that absolutely screams 1980s cheese in every conceivable way, with one’s love of kitsch from that decade ultimately being necessary to find enjoyment in something as extreme as Hard Ticket to Hawaii. All others may prefer to take a soft ticket to a classier movie, because this hard ticket to Hawaii probably isn’t for you.