Washington, D.C. has just scored an unusual cultural double whammy: It’s home to both the most and the least disappointing museums in the world, according to a massive new review analysis.
Luggage storage service Radical Storage sifted through 82,445 visitor reviews of the 100 most-visited museums in the world, analyzing data using 102 keywords that signal praise ("beautiful") or complaints ("boring"). The result is a global ranking scored out of 100 of the biggest letdowns (1) and top crowd-pleasers (100).
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Coming in dead last, with a painfully low score of 7.5 out of 100, is the National Air and Space Museum. Only 35.3-percent of its reviews were positive, and a hefty 15.7-percent were negative. The word "dull" cropped up in 17.7-percent of complaints—far higher than the 1.5-percent average for other institutions. To be fair, the museum has been under renovation since 2018, with the work set to wrap in July 2026 for its 50th anniversary. Here’s hoping the refresh gives its exhibits a much-needed lift-off.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the National Portrait Gallery in D.C. takes the crown as the least disappointing museum in the world with a score of 76.9 out of 100. More than half of its reviews were glowing, while only 3.5-percent were critical—less than half the study average. Reviewers most often called it "great" (31-percent), "beautiful" (17.1-percent), and "amazing" (11.2-percent). With over 26,000 works, including the famous 1796 Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, it’s a clear hit with visitors.
Other U.S. museums making the "least disappointing" top ten include the California Science Center in Los Angeles and the National Gallery of Art—also in D.C.—showing the capital’s museum scene isn’t all doom and gloom.
Worldwide, London’s Science Museum and New York’s American Museum of Natural History rounded out the top three disappointments, while Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Seoul’s National Museum of Korea joined D.C.’s Portrait Gallery in the most-loved tier.
Major cities in the U.S. are chock full of world-class museums, but this study shows that a few can be snoozers, too.