Ishtar is a 1987 motion picture comedy, directed by Elaine May and starring Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty as a duo of incredibly untalented lounge singers who stumble into a political conflict in the fictional African nation of Ishtar. It also starred Isabelle Adjani. The songs in the film were written by Paul Williams, with additional help from Hoffman and May.

The movie ran significantly over budget (some sources say $55 million) in production, due largely to unanticipated problems with desert filming, and was a financial flop, generating under $13 million in revenue. Its high-profile disastrous performance at the box office led to the film's enduring reputation for poor quality. Ishtar was nominated for Worst Picture in the 1987 Golden Raspberry Awards. It is frequently included on the list of movies that have been considered the worst ever.

However, the opinions of those who have seen the film seem to be more mixed than universally negative.IMDB reviews are available here. When Ishtar was released, Vincent Canby of the New York Times listed it as one of the top 20 films of the year.

In one of Gary Larson's The Far Side comic strips, captioned "Hell's Video Store", the entire store is stocked with nothing but copies of the movie Ishtar. Larson later admitted he had never seen the film and, once he had seen it, apologized for the cartoon, saying the film was not as bad as its reputation indicated. As a further homage to the movie and defunct home video format, an amateur softball team in Chicago, Illinois named itself "Ishtar on Beta" -- presumably, the most worthless and undesirable video artifact possible.

At one point early in the film, Dustin Hoffman makes a reference to not being as talented as Simon and Garfunkel, ironic because of their major addition to the soundtrack of The Graduate (1967), in which Hoffman made his breakthrough performance.

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