30 Worst Movie Cameos

The Village (2004)

The Cameo: M. Night Shyamalan shows up during the film’s big reveal, reading a newspaper in what’s revealed to be present-day America.

Why It's Bad: Coming as part of a hugely infuriating “twist”, it’s the bitter icing on an extremely unsatisfactory cake.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

The Cameo: John Barrowman arrives in a tiny role as a CIA chief, delivering a couple of lines before disappearing again.

Why It's Bad: Barrowman himself isn’t so bad, but given his wildly OTT persona, its distracting to have him appear here in such a throwaway role. Odd.

Django Unchained (2012)

The Cameo: Quentin Tarantino shows off his best Australian accent, which frankly, isn't very good.

Why It's Bad: Not only is the accent wonky, the whole scene seems an incongruous distraction after the dramatic high point of the Candieland shootout.

The Exorcist 3 (1990)

The Cameo: A bizarre appearance by NBA Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing, seen here playing the Angel of Death.

Why It's Bad:
Random sports cameos are bad enough at the best of times, but in a horror movie? Not for us.

Goal! (2005)

The Cameo: Alan "personality" Shearer looms over Kuno Becker in the Newcastle gym, mangling his single line of dialogue and then making a cringe-worthy "what's he like" expression at the camera. Awful.

Why It's Bad: As anyone who's ever sat through Shearer's monotonous MOTD droning can attest, he's not much of a performer.

Dogma (1999)

The Cameo: Alanis Morrissette arrives to deliver the baffling climax to Dogma , playing none other than God, er, Herself.

Why It's Bad: The ending feels like the punchline to a mid-par SNL sketch, rather than a satisfactory payoff to a feature film.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

The Cameo: Charlie Sheen briefly reprises his role as Bud Fox, who swaps a few zingers with Gordon Gekko before beating a hasty retreat, stage left.

Why It's Bad:
It's troubling to see Charlie Sheen somehow looking older than Michael Douglas.

In fact, the whole thing just feels a bit sad…

Fat Slags (2004)

The Cameo: Geri Halliwell gets in on the act in this woeful Britcom based on the popular Viz characters.

Why It's Bad: Given that Halliwell's career was already on the skids by this point, stuffing her face and appearing in a fat-suit seems all the more demeaning.

Twilight (2008)

The Cameo: Series author Stephenie Meyer can’t resist getting her mug on screen, appearing here as the cashier at a local diner.

Why It's Bad: The cameo wouldn’t be so bad if the camera didn’t linger on Meyer for quite so long.

She may as well be sitting next to a light-up sign marked “AUTHOR CAMEO!”

Casino Royale (2006)

The Cameo: Richard Branson takes advantage of all the money ploughed in by Virgin, by sticking himself in the actual film. He's usually so shy and retiring too…

Why It's Bad:
Popping up in every single Virgin ad is one thing, but crowbarring his way into a Bond film quite another.

George Wales

George was once GamesRadar's resident movie news person, based out of London. He understands that all men must die, but he'd rather not think about it. But now he's working at Stylist Magazine.