20 Highest Grossing Movies of 2014 - Ranked From Worst To Best

17. Maleficent

Production designer turned director Robert Stromberg makes good use of his background (and the $180m budget) to deliver some great visuals and incredibly detailed practical sets in his feature debut, but Maleficent suffers from its fair share of narrative problems. With the running time a lean 97 minutes, almost every supporting character is thinly written and underdeveloped and most of the story progression is done through narration, which makes the weakness of the plot that much more obvious. Its a little surprising to see that Maleficent currently ranks as the third highest-grossing movie of the year, having earned a hugely impressive $757.8m at the box office. Much of the credit surely lies with the popularity of star Angelina Jolie, who carries the movie with an effortlessly commanding performance. The main issue with Disney's revisionist fairytale is that the rest of the movie is nowhere near as watchable as the engaging title character.