#5 Most Horrible Movie Bosses We’d Never Want to Work For

We have all had some pretty horrible bosses. They can be sexist, they can be insensitive, they can be all around cruel and uncaring. Typically, a boss is supposed to inspire you to do better and to lead by example. Even if they aren’t the best, it’s nice to know that they at least have the best intentions at heart. That’s why Michael Scott of The Office was so likable. Despite his shortcomings and inadequacies, he deeply cared for his employees.
A lucky person wouldn’t have had any of the bosses on this list. Even if they yielded great results professionally, the cost is certainly not worth it. The following movie bosses are unappreciative, toxic, and downright nasty. Working for them would make anyone wonder if their chosen career path was worth all the stress. As such, here are the five most horrible bosses we would never want to work for.

5 Miranda Priestly – The Devil Wears Prada

You can tell from the way she walks into the room and how everyone reacts that Miranda Priestly exudes power. She may be at the top of a fashion empire, but that doesn’t exactly give her license to treat her employees like personal servants. Throughout The Devil Wears Prada, she belittles her assistants, Andy and Emily, and has them do menial jobs, such as retrieving her dry-cleaning and dinner. Andy, in particular, is asked to complete near-impossible tasks, such as booking a flight during a hurricane and acquiring an unpublished manuscript for Priestly’s twin daughters, tasks that came with little to no instructions. A leader is typically supposed to motivate teamwork and positivity. Instead, Miranda ran her office with quiet fear and intimidation, and pitted her underlings against one another. Her most egregious act came when she sacrificed one of her most loyal employees’ promotion in order to keep her own job. Fans have argued that the tough-love lessons Andy learned from her time as an assistant are what helped her succeed in the position, but that may just be what “girls who would kill to be in her position” would instead choose to believe.
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4 Bill Lumbergh – Office Space

If micromanagement had a face, it would look like this guy. Office Space became one of the funniest work-related comedies of all time with its realistic depiction of office-based jobs and management and has inspired other notable titles such as The Office and Horrible Bosses. Bill’s slow way of talking and passive-aggressive micromanagement make him into a boss that we can all see a bit of our own work management in, making him the perfect antagonist for this cult classic film. Gary Cole played his role to perfection as the smarmy boss with a punchable face who took a not-so-well-hidden pleasure in asking his subordinates to work on weekends. On top of that, this guy is such a jerk that he famously banished one of his employees to work in the office basement on his birthday—and he didn’t even get cake! Cole’s portrayal of Bill has become so infamous that actual cool bosses imitate him to get a rise out of their employees. The man became a meme legend over a decade after the film’s initial release. His likeness to someone we can see at our jobs is what earned him a spot on this list, but the fact that we “love” to hate him only earns him the number 4 spot, as the following three bosses do not incite any form of love.

3 Professor Callahan – Legally Blonde

Callahan may not have been seen as the villain of Legally Blonde for the entire duration of the movie, but we realized he was no good as the film progressed. He repeatedly disregarded Elle’s input as well as his client’s story, whom he was supposed to be defending. He showed his true colors when he sexually harassed Elle by offering to further her career in exchange for sexual favors. The actions of her professor caused Elle to quit his prestigious internship when she realized she was selected based on her looks and not her talents. Callahan put his ego in the way of a client’s freedom, and the actions he took with Elle are far too close to reality. Sexual harassment is a huge workplace issue today and has become one of the leading factors that led to the rise of the #MeToo Movement in the past decade. Callahan was luckily punished for his deeds when his client in the high-profile murder case fired him and hired Elle as representation instead. Elle got back at her scandalous professor by winning his case (in an iconic scene that’s still celebrated years later). It’s unclear whether or not the professor received a formal punishment as he is not seen again after his firing. Still, in the musical rendition, Callahan lost in a run for Governor before going through a divorce from his wife, who his former teacher’s assistant defended.
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2 Bobby Pellit – Horrible Bosses

This boss is a level of horrible that’s all his own. Having inherited his father’s business posthumously, Pellit’s only aspiration was to ruin it so that he could sell it off. He snorts cocaine, belittles, and threatens his employees with physical violence. His worse act comes when he demands that Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) fire all the overweight and disabled workers. The man is a walking EEOC complaint and puts the “horrible” in Horrible Bosses. If it weren’t for the fact that this film is a clear work of fiction, then Pellit would be terrifying as there are actual bosses like him in the world. Forbes has a list of the top 12 traits to identify a bad boss, and Pellit meets at least five of them, with a severe lack of empathy, respect for employees, and a massive lack of self-awareness being his worse crimes.

1 Franklin Hart Jr. – 9 To 5

The worse offender on this list goes to the criminally sexist employer from Nine to Five. If Franklin Hart jr. were a real person, he would be the face of the MeToo movement. Instead, Hart takes delight in his mistreatment of the women who work under him. He intentionally promotes men over more deserving women, spreads rumors that he and his secretary are having an affair, and worse of all his offenses, he tries to extort an employee into sleeping with him after she nearly poisons him by accident. The man is married to a loving wife too. The women he mistreats kidnap and blackmail him into silence when his fraud crimes are discovered, but his wife frees him and allows him to get rid of any evidence. What’s more, when his superiors find out about the improvements the women implemented to the office while he was in captivity, Hart receives the credit, as well as a “reward,” being sent away on a project overseas. Despite not wanting his reward, he hardly received his just deserts for his crimes. Karma eventually gets him in the form of getting kidnapped by an Amazon tribe, but it’s depicted as a happy coincidence.

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