Worst Child Performances List

Ah, so it's both.
So will it include complete goofs where an obvious adult is playing a child, like in Clifford (1994)?

I actually liked Jack (1996) - for a zany comedy it was pretty touching at the end especially since early on they explained that Robin Williams was a child suffering from a hormonal problem that made him appear as an adult.

60.

Joan Carroll, Meet Me in St. Louis



Sharing the screen with Judy Garland, Leon Ames, Mary Astor, Marjorie Main, and Margaret O'Brien was just too much for this young actress who pretty much faded into the woodwork here.

59.

Haley Joel Osment, Pay it Forward



Osment grated on the nerves as the spoiled son of divorced parents (Helen Hunt, Jon Bon Jovi) who tries to push his mother into a relationship with his new teacher (Kevin Spacey).

No, those kinds of performances are a little too easy to pick apart. I'm talking about performances where the actor is clearly past their teenage years, but the characters they are play are written as teenagers...for example, the entire cast of Grease could be subject to this thread...those characters are supposed to be students at Rydell High School but is there a single actor in that movie who was under 30 years old?

58.

Dakota Fanning, Hide and Seek



Fanning failed to convince as a mentally unstable child who has her dad (Robert De Niro) concerned when she develops an imaginary friend.

Ohhhh... between the Madea hate and now this, I'm starting to grow weary of you, Gideon58. That little girl was great in the "Brady Bunch" movies.

57.

Brandon De Wilde, Shane



Hurl the tomatoes if you will, but I hated this performance...liked him in Hud though.

We're on the same wavelength. You make the same point I did about adults playing teens.

With that being commonplace in so many teen movies, and considering that teen movies are an entire genre, there'd be hundreds of bad performances of adults playing teens to choose from - so many that it might need it's own category (rather than including them with bad performances by actual child actors)?

Not trying to influence your thread, just making suggestions. A while back I got into the discussion of adult actors playing teens in teen movies over on IMDB, and it seemed a pretty extensive category unto itself.

Seventy five.....Gideon, do you have a list of 75 Favorite Child Performances? Maybe you just dont like little kids

66.

Bailee Madison, Just Go With it



THIS^^^^

Should be top ten.

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56.

Terry Burnham, Imitation of Life



This young actress played Sandra Dee's character as a child and was even more annoying than Dee was and I couldn't believe that was possible. Every time this little girl opened her mouth, I wanted to stuff a sock in her mouth.

55.

Justin Henry, Sixteen Candles



Five years earlier, he was nominated for an Oscar for Kramer Vs Kramer, but his performance in this John Hughes classic barely made a blip on the radar.

54.

Lee H. Montgomery, Pete-N-Tillie



Montgomery's performance as the son of the title characters, played by Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett, is another one of those performances that should be avoided by diabetics.

53.

Dylan McLaughlin, Kicking and Screaming



Even though his character is sort of pivotal to the plot, sharing the screen with Will Ferrell, Robert Duvall, and Mike Ditka was just a little bit more than McLaughlin could handle.

52.

Pauly Shore, Encino Man



Shore's performance as a perpetually stoned high school student was something akin to fingernails on a blackboard.

51.

Jeff Cohen, The Goonies



A truly annoying performance.

De Wilde would be my #1 because it is the only case i can think of that a kid actually ruined my enjoyment of a film.

Loved Chunk and just The Goonies as a kid, but when i watched it last year everyone in the movie except Anne Ramsey annoyed me; Ramseys masterwork was Throw Momma From The Train but she was great in The Goonies too

Loved Ramsey in The Goonies too...I was also actually impressed with Sean Astin too...he was SO young.

50.

Amber Benson, The Crush



Alicia Silverstone's performance in this movie was spot-on, but Benson's performance as her best friend was the worst.

49.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Role Models



This kid's performance made Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott look like Olivier.