Great turkeys of our time

Waterworld (1995)

Contrary to popular myth and the industry's projected schadenfreude, Kevin Costner's underwater debacle, costing around $200m, managed to bob up to the surface. While not exactly turning a profit, it took $88m at the US box office.

Heaven's Gate (1980)

Ponderous does not begin to describe the 205-minute nightmare that was director/screenwriter's Michael Cimino's folie de grandeur, the tale of the1892 Johnson County wars in Wyoming. Kris Kristofferson was so wooden you could have built a ranch out of him.

Hudson Hawk (1991)

You haven't seen it? You're not alone. Bruce Willis not only starred in this gargantuan, witless enterprise but wrote the story, so we know who to blame. The director Michael Lehmann, who shot to fame with the low-budget Heathers, lost his mind with a $65m budget. It took $8m, repeat viewings, one imagines, by Willis's family and friends.

Ishtar (1987)

This attempt to echo the Crosby/Hope Road to ... movies was produced by one of its stars, Warren Beatty. It is also notable as Isabelle Adjani's (failed) attempt to go Hollywood. Somehow it took $3m at the box office. Unfortunately, it cost around $38m.

Revolution (1986)

Directed by Hugh Chariots of Fire Hudson, this bomb starred Al Pacino, Donald Sutherland as an English officer and Nastassia Kinski as a renegade aristocrat (of course). Matters might have improved had they spent some of the outlandish budget on a halfway decent dialect coach.

One from the Heart (1982)

The movie that intended to revivify the musical is now famous for being the movie that bankrupted Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios. Shot entirely on sets, it has a dazzling visuals and a Tom Waits score, but the romantic plot is so thin you could see through it. Strong performances by Teri Garr and Frederic Forrest couldn't save it, and, yes, Nastassia Kinski was in it.