10 Most Beautiful-Looking Bad Movies Ever Made

4. Alien 3 (1992)

Acclaimed and beloved film critic Roger Ebert declared Alien 3 one of the most beautiful-looking bad films ever made, a statement with such power that it provided the very inspiration for this article.

Looking back at David Fincher's film debut, it's a wonder he ever got to make another film in Hollywood. Not that it was all his fault, mind; Alien 3 had a notoriously troubled and laboured production, and boy does it show. A strange setting and some weird plot twists aside, Alien 3 doesn't have a whole lot in common with its superior predecessors; there's none of the innovation and excitement and terror - it feels like a full-on step backwards.

But all is not lost: Alien 3 triumphs in one way, and that is in its visual design. David Fincher renders Ripley's third adventure with a dark and gritty aesthetic that is unmistakably his own (he would go on to develop and master it in later films such as Se7en and Fight Club). There are shots - and camera angles - in Alien 3 that are genuinely clever. It's a movie of corner and shadows; of crevices and cracks between walls.

Fincher (and his cinematographer Alex Thomson) might have failed to bring the story to life, but the "feel" of the movie - its inherent gloominess - stands as its one saving grace.