King Joffrey, And 14 Other Characters That Made Watching These TV Shows And Movies Completely Unbearable

"He is like the most famous example of an annoying/hated character."

U/Goingdown_in321 recently asked the people of Reddit, "Who is the most annoying character in a TV show or movie?" And based off the responses, I can already tell their choices might ruffle a few feathers.

The Paley Center for Media

1. King Joffrey I Baratheon — Game of Thrones

HBO

"Incredibly well-acted and written, but I've never felt a more active desire to beat the shit out of any other fictional character." 

—u/shoeless255

"When I see his face, I get angry. They picked the perfect kid to portray Joffrey. He did it so well, that he was the most hated person in the world for a while." 

—u/Grouchy-Newspaper754

HBO

2. Buzz McCallister — Home Alone

20th Century Fox

"He was a jerk to Kevin in both movies and got away with it. He purposely ate Kevin's pizza, Kevin reacts and gets sent to bed. He teases/humiliates Kevin during the Christmas concert, Kevin reacts, and his family makes him look like the bad guy." 

—u/bre34

"Watching Home Alone as an adult made me realize how awful Kevin’s entire family was to him." 

—u/Lost_Particular_9251

20th Century Fox

3. Andy Bernard — The Office

NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection

"Andy had such an up and down arc. He was one of the worst characters to start, then was one of my favorites after he comes back from anger management, and then he leaves on the boat for three months and is one of the worst again. I know they had to write him off for The Hangover franchise, but I hated that." 

—u/slicknick3822

"Ugh, Andy was a net-negative character for me. He was annoying, a bad salesman, infatuated with the receptionist who was borderline mentally handicapped, and was a terrible manager. A workplace with someone like him would be painful. His positive traits don’t balance out the above for me. Ed Helms played him well." 

—u/Icy-Side5075

NBC

4. Debbie Gallagher — Shameless

Showtime Networks Inc./Courtesy Everett Collection

"I really liked her in the first season. She became progressively worse as she got older. To be fair, I think the show was supposed to have a lot of shitty people and also show how poverty tends to breed shitty people." 

—u/carlyslayjedsen

"I liked her early on, too. She started out resourceful and smart, then she became selfish and dumb." 

—u/bellestarxo

Showtime

5. Professor Dolores Umbridge — Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

"She wasn’t horrible enough in the movies compared to the book. One of the most vile characters in any series hands down." 

—u/Deus_Ex_Dramond

"Came here to say that. I remember reading the Order of the Phoenix for the first time, and I literally felt Harry's anger the moment she canceled Quidditch. That made me furious! Until this day, I hate that character with every inch of my body. She was truly, purely evil. There was not a single thing about her which was not motivated by hatred and anger." 

—u/matiapag

Warner Bros. Pictures

6. Steve Urkel — Family Matters

ABC/Courtesy Everett Collection

"We recently rewatched the series, and his inability to accept Laura's constant 'no' to his advances is not funny." 

—u/5pens

"Urkel was my first thought, ha. He ruined the Winslows' lives time and time again. It's really tragic that he burned Rachel's Place to the ground. In the decade depicted on the show, he probably cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars." 

—u/bellestarxo

ABC

7. Ted Beneke — Breaking Bad

AMC / courtesy Everett Collection

"He was so fucking dumb it was infuriating!" 

—u/Scherzokinn

"Oh, maybe it's a good idea to have my books cooked so I can 'save' my father's company for a while, and then end up physically challenged." 

—u/MissIndik

AMC

8. Wendy Byrde — Ozark

Jessica Miglio / ©Netflix / courtesy Everett Collection

"Yup, great actress for pulling that off! She had me swearing a lot. Marty saved her life by not letting her get thrown out of a window/balcony, but she constantly undermined her husband, and didn't give a damn about his well-being. She even turned their kids against him. She threw everybody under the bus to save her own ass." 

—u/EmuBeneficial3323

"As much as she was an awful person, fuck, she was good at it! She did it so well; such convincing manipulation and detailed plots and schemes. I sat in awe watching her get more and more evil as the show went on. I didn't agree with anything she did, and most of the moves she made sucked for basically everyone else, but man was she good at being a shit cunt." 

—u/Jack_Bird13

Netflix

9. Sheldon Cooper — The Big Bang Theory

CBS/Courtesy Everett Collection

"I’ve gotta say, though: It’s a bit exploitative how the creators heavily leaned into stereotypes about people with autism and then insisted that Sheldon Cooper isn’t on the spectrum. If you’re going to do a sitcom parody of classical autism, you could at least not stick your head in the sand and just admit that that is what you’re doing. This show was so popular that it could’ve made a positive difference for people with ASD, if the creators had just been open to criticism." 

—u/TanteKachel

"He's definitely the kind of person who would probably get punched in the face with the way that he talks to people so condescendingly." 

—u/Napalmeon

HBO Max

10. Jenny Curran — Forrest Gump

Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection

"'Sorry I’ve used you as an emotional crutch your entire life. Btw you’re the father of my baby. Let’s get married.'” 

—u/rudytoodydoggo

"Never liked the speech scene. She legit did that for attention as she didn’t give a flying fuck about Forrest whenever she saw him." 

—u/whydontuwannawork

Paramount Pictures

11. Wesley Crusher — Star Trek: The Next Generation

Courtesy Everett Collection

"He is like the most famous example of an annoying/hated character. The studio got so much hate mail over him." 

—u/TheC137Pencilvester

"I have to agree. I love Star Trek in all of its different forms, but Wesley was extremely annoying. Sometimes, he was okay, but there were some things, like his 'repulsor beam' in that one episode...that just made me cringe." 

—u/Head_Razzmatazz7174

Paramount

12. Charly Burke — The Orville

Fox

"And it's a damn shame, because there were ways to have played that character that would have been far more interesting and less acerbic, but they had her acting catty and disrespectful right from the start, with little to no pushback from most of the other characters. It just made her insufferable, and that was sad, because the arc itself was really interesting." 

—u/Lexi_Banner

"I didn’t get past the first two episodes of the newest season, and she’s a significant part of that." 

—u/banjo_electric

Fox

13. Joey Tribbiani — Friends

NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection

"He deeply irritates me to no end. There's no way I could ever be around someone who is such an insufferable knuckle dragger and learns nothing at the end of the day." 

—u/maqryptian

"Fuck, it was annoying when he was trying to learn French." 

—u/coolcrushkilla

Warner Bros.

14. Gina Linetti — Brooklyn Nine-Nine

20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection

"Found her character so annoying!" 

—u/Lily_of_the_deep

"Ugh, yes, I was so happy when she left, and so dismayed when she came back! Hated that character. Not even funny, just tiresome." 

—u/Erekai

NBC

And lastly...

15. Manny Delgado — Modern Family

Peter 'Hopper' Stone / ©ABC / Courtesy: Everett Collection

"Manny was annoying AF! My wife thinks he’s fine, but he’s the cringiest!" 

—u/Tdawwg78

"He's the kind of character who worked well when he actually was a kid, because he was so far from what we expect kids to be like, which was the point. But then, he was an adult, and he still acted the exact same way, at which point he just became awkward and annoying." 

—u/ad240pCharlie

NBC

You can read the full thread of responses on Reddit. Is there a character that you know belongs on this list? Tell us about them in the comments!

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.