20 Most Cringe-Worthy One-Liners In Movie History

It would be unrealistic and even unreasonable to expect every movie out there to be flawlessly well-written, but even so, it's probably fair to hope that writers and actors might give a little critical thought to their own work, especially when it actively makes the audience want to stab something in their ears.

Many of these movies are actually fine films for the most part, but they all share something in common: they feature a single sliver of dialogue so inane, so ridiculous and so atrociously-delivered that it leaves viewers wondering how something so rancid made it through and maybe even questioning their own sanity.

For a variety of reasons, these pathetic one-liners will evoke ferocious second-hand embarrassment in even those most well-versed against cringe, and from superhero movies to Best Picture-winning epics, they'll all have you wishing you were watching something else, anything else, even if only for the most fleeting of moments.

So, prepare your cringe reflex for the most bombastically, toe-curlingly awful dialogue and delivery the human race has ever committed to celluloid (well, The Room and Troll 2 were deliberately excluded because they're just too easy)...

20. "Things Are Worse Than Ever" - The Dark Knight

Masterful though Christopher Nolan's comic book opus might be, Harvey Dent's early press conference about The Joker's rampage falls hilariously flat due to the skin-crawlingly bad line reading by an extra who shouts, "Things are worse than ever!"

His stilted delivery sounds like it was read from a cue card by someone with only the most elementary understanding of English or human behaviour, and though the culprit is never actually shown on screen, Christian Bale's subsequent facial expression and snap-turn seems to suggest he wasn't too impressed with the take either.

Seriously, this could've been cut out or re-dubbed so easily, but instead, Nolan made one of his worst creative calls by consciously leaving it in.