Every Movie That Received An F CinemaScore Ranked From Worst To Best
9. The Box (2009)
The failure of Richard Kelly's third movie cemented the Donnie Darko director as a quintessential filmmaker who peaked too early, delivering a cult hit right out of the gate and subsequently failing to live up to it. Since The Box was savaged by critics, tanked at the box office and landed an F CinemaScore, Kelly has yet to make another movie.
The main issue here is that while The Box has an incredibly neat premise - would you allow one person to die so you can receive $1 million? - Kelly fails to give it a remotely satisfying payoff, and by act three, the intrigue has mostly evaporated amid a heap of contrived, cop-out revelations.
Generally a solid concept is enough to prevent a movie from landing an F grade, but clearly Kelly's bait-and-switch left an incredibly sour taste in audience's mouths.
It has some interesting ideas for sure and the acting is totally fine, but this had the potential to be a major rebound for Kelly after the failure of Southland Tales, and it fell far short of being even a basically efficient thriller.