20. Mars Attacks!, 1996

Mars Attacks! is Tim Burton at his most goofy and chaotic in an homage and parody of 1950s science fiction and B-movies. The film depicts clueless Americans being overtaken by extraterrestrials—big-brained creatures with giant heads, bulging eyeballs, and mean mugs. The obviously fake CGI is meant to honor the kitschy aesthetic of the ‘50s, but it’s so goofy-looking it’s hard to take any of it even remotely serious. The film’s cast is stacked with stars such as Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Glenn Close, Annette Benning, Michael J. Fox, Martin Short, and Pam Grier, but all the star power in the world can’t make up for how Mars Attacks is nothing more than a hodgepodge of bizarre gags that are painfully unfunny and too long. All the strangeness—such as Sarah Jessica Parker’s head on a Chihuahua or the hokey skeletons people turn into when they’re zapped by Martians—feels more creepy than comical. The innocent charisma of the original B-movies is lost here and any attempts to satirize it doesn’t translate well to the 1990s.