5 Worst Submarine Movies Of All Time, Ranked

The submarine movie is a specific and fascinating subgenre of cinema. In these films, both the characters and the audience are trapped in tight, metallic confines countless fathoms below the ocean's surface. It's the ultimate isolation, a refutation of how humans are meant to be social creatures. That intrinsic subversion of societal normalcy creates compelling drama and claustrophobic suspense that's informed the best submarine movies, like "Das Boot, "Red Crimson," and "The Hunt for Red October." Plus, given how submarines were used in conflicts like World War II, submarine movies can be an easy road to doing intriguing period pieces.

The most beloved submarine movies loom large over both this subgenre and pop culture as a whole. However, there's no way every single submarine movie can successfully navigate the often tricky waters of filmmaking. For examples of how badly submarine features can go awry, just look at the five worst submarine movies of all time according to Letterboxd users.

These five features waste all the potential of the submarine film, as well as give cheaply made B-movies a bad name. Sometimes, low budgets inspire creative filmmaking. Unfortunately, these five submarine movies were cynically produced movies made for pennies and with little care. There's all kinds of cracks in their hulls, and the assorted Letterboxd reviews these titles have accumulated help sink them into the dismal depths they belong.

In the grand tradition of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame 2," The Asylum's 2007 feature "30,000 Leagues Under the Sea" provides a direct-to-video movie sequel to a literary classic. Jules Verne's imagination was limited compared to the folks behind "Attack of the Meth Gator" and "Titanic 666." Verne could only conceive of "20,000 Leagues", whereas this title plunges audiences much deeper into "30,000 Leagues Under the Sea." In a bizarre twist, "30,000 Leagues" doesn't just crib the name of the classic for an original story. Granted, it does largely do that, but the proceedings are still anchored by a character named Captain Nemo (Sean Lawlor), just like in the original "20,000 Leagues."

While the original tale has proven enduring enough to constantly inspire new generations of readers and moviegoers, "30,000 Leagues Under the Sea" scored a 2.5 average Letterboxd rating. By Asylum standards, that's not abysmal, and some Letterboxd reviewers at least expressed mild amusement at the most befuddling parts of this production. Chiefly, the way these characters, supposedly trapped deep at the bottom of the ocean, rarely are affected by or even encounter water is a common element highlighted by Letterboxd denizens.

Even with such unintentionally amusing moments, "30,000 Leagues Under the Sea" doesn't come close to being an example of a B movie that's actually awesome. Mostly, Letterboxd reviewers greeted this submarine sci-fi thriller with a shrug despite how many leagues it explored.

The crew of a German U-boat are just one of the many genre movie elements at play in 2009's "The Land That Time Forgot." This very loose adaptation of the 1918 Edgar Rice Burroughs novel of the same name (which was previously adapted into a 1974 Doug McClure film) also features people trying to survive while stranded on an island, the Bermuda Triangle, and a bunch of dinosaurs hungry for human snacks. In other words, it's a mash-up of "Send Help," "Das Boot," and "Jurassic Park," albeit filtered through the cynical, schlocky, and underwhelming creative aesthetic of an Asylum movie. C. Thomas Howell stars in and directs this particular feature.

Folks coming to "The Land That Time Forgot" for lots of submarine action will be gravely disappointed. Then again, dinosaur fans hoping for a fraction of the fun of the most bizarre dinosaur movies from around the world will also leave "The Land That Time Forgot" with no joy in their hearts. As indicated by the films 2.4 average Letterboxd rating, "Time Forgot" isn't a sterling entry into any of the genres it cribs from. Reviews on this site repeatedly emphasize just how abhorrent the CG used on the dinosaurs is, a flaw that's impossible to avoid given what little else the feature offers.

Most Letterboxd reviewers declare "The Land That Time Forgot" a tedious waste of time. A devastating outcome for a movie that finally united the worlds of submarine and dinosaur cinema.

Between 1989 and 1995, the prospect of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren working together in a movie could've been enough to propel a feature to major box office success — or at least cultural notoriety. Unfortunately, in May 2018, seeing "Black Water" unite these two merely signaled to audiences that a new movie had arrived in their local Redbox kiosk. The feature saw Van Damme and Lundgren playing two men who suddenly awaken, trapped inside a submarine. Director Pasha Patriki proceeds to follow the duo as they try to get off the vessel and figure out who placed them there in the first place.

When ranking every Jean-Claude Van Damme movie from worst to best, it becomes apparent that this guy's headlined some solid motion pictures. Even some of his duds like "Double Team" are at least memorably loopy. Alas, "Black Water" is one of his most inconsequential works. Letterboxd users gave this feature a 2.3 average rating with disastrous reviews signaling that "Black Water" was on par with the worst action movies ever made. Many of the write-ups on this site lamented not only how excruciatingly boring this movie was, but also how its action sequences didn't let either Van Damme or Lundgren utilize their strengths as physical performers.

Wasted potential like that lurked everywhere in "Black Water," which Letterboxd users dismissed as a snooze-inducing waste of time. What could have been a 1992 box office winner was instead a 2018 punchline.

Of course Steven Seagal would have a movie on this list. He probably should have multiple entries on any list that concerns the worst of a subgenre when intersecting with action cinema. Between the six worst Steven Seagal movies and 13 instances where Seagal was a nightmare on movie sets, this actor is rightfully synonymous with dreadful cinema. To say Seagal has been treading water for decades would be an insult to animals that naturally tread water. The atrocious Steven Seagal vehicle that also functions as one of the worst submarine movies of all time, per Letterboxd, is "Submerged."

Released in 2005, this feature from director Anthony Hickox follows Chris Cody (Seagal) who uncovers multi-layered conspiracies aboard a submarine. With a Letterboxd average rating of 2.1, "Submerged" offered plenty of classic Seagal incompetence for this site's users to lampoon. The Letterboxd reviews for "Submerged" especially mocked how little effort Seagal put into the film, physically, despite being, ostensibly, its action-oriented leading man. The shockingly minimal amount of time actually spent in a submarine (despite the film's submarine-themed title) was also a source of hefty criticism.

Then there were the pitiful attempts at acting by Seagal and the other cast members, not to mention a screenplay cobbled together from other (better) action films of its ilk. "Submerged" didn't get an especially more savage Letterboxd reputation compared to other Seagal misfires, but its reception did ensure it is one of the sites most reviled submarine features.

One can only imagine what the earliest cinema pioneers thought motion pictures would be capable of by the year 2010. Surely folks like Alice Guy-Blaché, Oscar Micheaux, or Georges Méliès looked at their cameras on some days of shooting and pondered what this artform could look like if it lasted for another century. Their imaginations may have briefly been enlivened by pontificating how this medium could evolve beyond their comprehension. After all, cinema already grown so much from "The Horse in Motion" from 1878 to "The Great Train Robbery" in 1903. These artistic trailblazers would have been so excited to see where movies would go in the 21st century.

Imagine sitting these folks down and showing them "2010: Moby Dick" as a microcosm of where cinema was, a century since their contributions. They would be devastated by this cheapie Asylum vision of Herman Melville's "Moby Dick." Here, Captain Ahab (Barry Bostwick) is as fixated on capturing an elusive sea creature as ever, though now he runs a futuristic submarine rather than a traditional seafaring ship. With only a 2.1 average Letterboxd rating, it's no surprise the "2010: Moby Dick" reviews on this site are universally negative. 

Letterboxd users ripped many aspects of this movie to shreds, but its lack of creativity in translating the "Moby Dick" story to a modern context was especially lamented. Dreadful acting and visual effects didn't help either. The submarine-centric "2010: Moby Dick" is a waste of cinema's historic potential.