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The annoying, insufferable, precocious child is a stain upon many a great film. Sometimes they work within the narrative, but mostly, no matter how understandable their situation is, they just get on everyone's nerves (including the audience's).
If there's one archetype that's a notch above annoying kid on the Nuisance Meter, it's the disagreeable, problem-child sibling. The familial relation and all the baggage that comes with it adds an extra layer to their bullshit antics, and in some cases they bring the whole film crashing down around them. WithFun Size, Josh Schwartz's directorial debut centering around an unruly kid brother running amok on Halloween, in theaters now, Complex casts a stink eye towards cinema's frustrating lil' bros and sisses with The 25 Most Annoying Younger Siblings In Movies.
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Written by Frazier Tharpe (@The_SummerMan)
25. Sean Astin as Mikey Walsh, The Goonies (1985)
We would never dare disrespect Mikey, nor the rest of the adventurous kids in The Goonies, but if you allow yourself to see things from older brother Brand's (Josh Brolin) point of view, a case can be made that Mikey is one especially annoying younger brother. You're tasked with watching him all day, his friends are always in the crib, and, to top it off, he steals a kiss from cutie Andy (Kerri Green) that's clearly meant for you. Considering that Brand is always working out, he could give Mikey the supreme dead-arm he, to be fair, kind of deserves.
24. Garrett Hedlund as Jack Mercer, Four Brothers (2005)
The only one of the Mercer boys who didn't grow up with (apparently) innate skills for gunplay and ass-kicking, Jack is basically the damsel in distress within a family full of guys. His death is tragic, but when he's falling for obvious traps (i.e., chasing a hoody-wearing, clearly malevolent kid who just tossed a snowball at his face) as easily as he does, it's kind of inevitable.
23. Stuart Little (voiced by Michael J. Fox), Stuart Little (1999)
Younger siblings almost always incite some initial jealousy from the kid in line before them, typically out of a fear of losing their spotlight. Thus, if we were George Little (Jonathan Lipnicki), we'd be extra tight at first too if our parents adopted a mouse of all things as our younger brother. It's bad enough that he's got to share the wealth—at least give him a sibling he can actually play catch with.
22. John P. Navin as Wendell, Losin' It (1983)
Dave (Jackie Earle Haley) reluctantly brings his wimpy freshman brother, Wendell, along on he and his buddies' (Tom Cruise, John Stockwell) road trip to score some action in Tijuana. Ever the dedicated (read: thirsty) one, Wendell basically pays for his spot in the whip with a cash loan.
The worst part is that this lame-o actually has no intentions of getting laid along with the rest of the guys on the trip. Instead, he's out to, get this, buy fireworks for cheap so he can sell them at an insanely high mark-up back at school. Go take that capitalist scheme on a different adventure, son.
21. Eli Marienthal as Matt Stifler, American Pie (1999) and American Pie 2 (2001)
Matt Stifler didn't reach peak-nuisance level until he got his own turn in the spotlight in the American Pie series' first unfortunate foray into direct-to-DVD land, but he wreaked havoc in small doses in the first two films as Stifler's (Seann William Scott) younger brother. Just as offensive as his older sibling, Matt has none of the original Stifmeister's charm.
You can't help but laugh at his reaction to Jim (Jason Biggs) and Nadia's (Shannon Elizabeth) sex stream in the first Pie. But he wore out his welcome in the 2001 sequel whenever the camera cut to his antics during the climactic house party.
20. Thora Birch as Dani Dennison, Hocus Pocus (1993)
Check the scenario: You move to a new city with no new friends, and, to cap off one fine day, your kicks get jacked by the town delinquents. The last thing anyone in this situation needs is a needling smart-ass for a sister, especially one begging to be taken trick-or-treating, but that's exactly what Max (Omri Katz) gets with Dani.
To make matters worse, she totally handicaps his game while he's trying to lay the mack down on the baddest chick in school, Alison. ("Max likes your yabos—in fact, he loves them!") Of course, that all gets pushed to the backburner when the Sanderson witches (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy) arise, but for the movie's first 20 minutes or so, Dani is the absolute worst.
19. Alessandro Nivola as Pollux Troy, Face/Off (1997)
Internationally infamous terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) has one weakness: his hapless brother, Pollux. The younger Troy is weird and talks like an even douchier version of Niles from Frasier, not to mention he's got to be in his mid-20s and yet he sycophantically follows his brother's every move, incapable of even tying his shoes. We wouldn't have been surprised if his fatal plummet through a skylight happened because he tripped.
18. Jackson Nicoll as Albert, Fun Size (2012)
Certain filmmakers think audiences will get a kick out of watching bad, independent kids do wild and crazy things and make life for everyone older them a living hell. That's true to an extent, but there's a fine line and it's looking like Fun Size crosses it.
Younger siblings are useful on Halloween if you're just over the trick-or-treating age but still looking to score some candy, yet missing out on the festivities because your unruly younger brother is running loose on the town is a real nightmare.
17. Jared Leto as Vitaly Orlov, Lord of War (2005)
If you're in the gunrunning business, you're inevitably going to arm some bad people who will use your weapons to commit atrocities. It's an unpleasant part of a job that makes money hand over fist. For some reason, Vitaly never considers this when he partners in the business with his older brother Yuri (Nicolas Cage).
After initially embracing the arms trade, lil bro starts to feel conflicted and becomes a full-blown drug addict, and later destroys half a shipment of weapons, fucking up a transaction with an African dictator who plans to massacre villagers. In addition to losing half the diamond payment, Vitaly dies for growing a conscience and nearly takes his brother with him before the civilians are slaughtered anyway.
16. Josh Zuckerman as Ian Lafferty, Sex Drive (2008)
Every older brother is usually sympathetic to the virgin struggle and supportive of anything his younger sib has to do to get laid. When that involves running off for a sex road trip like Ian does with his brother's (played by James Marsden) classic 1969 Pontiac GTO, though, the sympathy well runs dry.
15. Skandar Keynes as Edmund Pevensie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)
There's a rat in every bunch, and Edmund may be the most classic snitch across all of children's literature. Most reprehensible, though, is his price: namely, chocolate. He nearly sells out his brother and sisters and gets in with the White Witch all because of chocolate. Considering the way he fiends for Turkish Delight, one has to assume Narnia viewers are meant to infer that it's laced with crack.
14. Alex D. Linz as Alex Pruitt, Home Alone 3 (1997)
The first Home Alone movie without Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) honestly didn't stand one chance of being well-liked, but the introduction of annoying Alex Pruitt certainly didn't help. Whereas Kevin was endearing, Alex is just irksome, smarmy and precocious. For the first time in the series, we found ourselves rooting for the would-be burglars.
13. Keith Coogan as Kenny Crandell, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991)
In Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, the Crandell kids are inadvertently left home alone for the summer when, you guessed it, their sitter croaks while mom is away in Australia. Eldest sibling Sue Ellen (Christina Applegate) resolves to take care and provide for everyone herself. Younger brother Kenny, unfortunately, is the least helpful. He's too busy getting stoned and embarking on the subsequent kitchen raid with his buddies to offer any kind of support.
12. Patrick Dempsey as Bobby Libner, Coupe de Ville (1990)
The Libner brothers have never gotten along, a fact their father is fully aware of when he tasks all three of them with the mission to transport a mint condition Cadillac halfway across the country as a gift to their mom. The youngest brother, Bobby, is stereotypically disagreeable, the type of reform school troublemaker who's seen Rebel Without a Cause one too many times. If we were his brothers (Daniel Stern, Arye Gross), a couple days in we might have left him stranded somewhere between Detroit and Miami and let him try his bad-boy luck hitchhiking.
11. Dakota Fanning as Rachel Ferrier, War of the Worlds (2005)
Young Dakota Fanning's performance was great, but when that performance calls for her to yell shrilly and otherwise be ultra-difficult while aliens are busy flattening the planet around her, we can't help but roll our eyes. To be fair, her older brother Robbie is no prince, either, as a perpetrator of the tired "butting egos and heads with Dad" trope. The fact that neither of these kids gets incinerated by the aliens (call it a lesson to little ones that they should act right, if you need to justify it) is director Steven Spielberg's greatest failing.
10. Shane Obedzinski as Tommy Timmons, The Sandlot (1993)
If there's one thing that always takes us out of the element in the eternally awesome Sandlot, it's Timmy's clown of a younger brother Tommy, nicknamed "Repeat" because all he does is regurgitate his brother's words. Repeat after us, dude: I am a grating little twerp and I would like you to punch me in my fat forehead.
9. David Arquette as Rob Geller, Never Been Kissed (1999)
As if having a younger sibling that's cooler than you isn't already embarrassing enough, Rob is the type who rubs his popularity in everyone's face, even when he's trying to help. He eventually helps his sister Josie (Drew Barrymore), a reporter who's trying to expose the secret lives of teenagers by going undercover as a high school student, get in with the cool kids—after he re-enrolls with her and effortlessly achieves popularity first.
8. Ryan Malgarini as Harry Coleman, Freaky Friday (2003)
Anna Coleman's (Lindsay Lohan) younger brother Harry is your basic mischievous brother in a teen drama: He and his friends are weirdly fascinated by his big sister's room, her diary, and he even...dances around in her bra. All because he looks up to her and this is the only way he knows how to get her attention. Understandable, but prancing around in the undergarments takes it a step too far, kid.
7. Francis Capra as Elvis, Free Willy 2 (1995)
Free Willy 2 introduces Elvis, Jesse's estranged half-brother who has had a rough go of it living in New York with their late mother. Any sympathy for the kid is lost when he quickly resorts to lies, mischief, and disrespecting Jesse out of spite and jealousy and generally being a pain in the ass for much of the first half of the movie, until the oil spill and ensuing whale drama takes precedence.
6. Evan Ross as Ant, ATL (2006)
One of the achievements of the T.I. vehicle ATL is that it paints a contrasting picture of the best and the worst of the city of Atlanta, depicting how one kid, Rashad (T.I.), could stay on the right path while also offering explanations for how his brother Ant is easily led astray.
That's all well and good, but it doesn't make Ant's decision to sell drugs for one of the biggest gangsters in the city, and act funny with the money, inciting his wrath, any less irritating. Rashad's got his own melodrama to deal with without having to protect his younger bro from the scourge of the Atlanta underworld.
5. Bonnie Wright as Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Ginny is mostly inoffensive in the rest of the Potter films, but Chamber of Secrets finds her at her absolute worst. Having just started Hogwarts while nursing a huge, not-so-secret crush on Harry, she takes to writing in a diary—and the diary starts writing back.
This doesn't give her pause, even though unlike Harry she has spent her entire life in the wizarding world and should be aware enough to realize that something is off. By the time she finally starts to get alarmed, the diary's soul, a past incarnation of Voldemort, has already taken over her as a means to re-enter the world. The plot was cool, but the fact that Ginny fell for it always makes us shake our heads.
4. Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, Home Alone (1990)
Don't get us wrong—Kevin McCallister was our hero back in the day. He got the house to himself, did everything he wanted, and thwarted bumbling burglars Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) with awesome traps that would make Rube Goldberg jealous.
But imagine for a second if you were one of Kevin's older siblings, like, say, Buzz. How infuriated would you be if your Christmas vacation was ruined—twice!—because your younger bro is smart enough to booby trap a house but still managed to oversleep, or got lost in the airport? Honestly, the final scene where everyone is happy to see Kevin again is the most unbelievable part of the film.
3. Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Thor (2011) and The Avengers (2012)
Even gods can be bratty. Loki has basically been nursing the age-old "my brother is more popular than me" grudge, and his overreaction is apocalyptic. His jealous need to prove himself and edge Thor out carries across not one but two films, leaving the destruction of a small New Mexico town, then New York City, in his wake. How embarrassing must it have been for Thor to tell the other Avengers that they're all caught up in this mess because his half-brother is a self-conscious brat?
2. Orlando Bloom as Paris, Troy (2004)
When negotiating peace with a king, it goes without saying that you don't spark up a romance with his wife and run away with her. Well, it should go without saying, but that doesn't prevent effete Trojan prince Paris from stealing Helen from Spartan king Menelaus, who subsequently launches a thousand Greek ships to conquer Troy.
The end result: Soldiers kill Paris' older, more honorable brother Hector, his father Priam, countless Trojan soldiers, and destroy their city. Paris of Troy, the ultimate sucker for love.
1. Landry Bender and Kevin Hernandez as Blithe and Rodrigo Pedulla, The Sitter (2011)
The Sitter makes its intentions quite clear early in the film. This is going to be, quite simply, 80 minutes of said sitter Noah's (Jonah Hill) charges giving him the absolute hardest time imaginable. We knew that going in. What we didn't know is just how insufferable the kids would actually be, especially the youngest two, sociopath Rodrigo and would-be party girl Blithe.
Before the 50-minute mark, Rodrigo has blown up the bathroom in a fancy restaurant and stolen drugs from one of the weirdest dealers in all of cinema, and Blithe labels Noah a pedophile and abductor for the fun of it. By the end of the film we vowed to never volunteer to watch kids again.
