LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - John Travolta's mob movie flop Gotti and President Donald Trump were nominated on Monday (Jan 21) for the Razzie Awards for the worst films of 2018 after a year that organisers called full of disasters - both on and off screen.

The new Sherlock Holmes comedy Holmes & Watson garnered six mentions, including for its stars Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, who were cited for "trashing two of literature's most beloved characters".

The tongue-in-cheek Razzies, created in 1980, serve as an antidote to Hollywood's Oscars ceremony. Nominees were announced a day before Tuesday's Academy Awards nominations - the highest honours in the movie industry.

"With a stumbling stock market, a possible impending Presidential impeachment, raging wild fires, devastating floods, mass shootings and a litany of plagues that reached near biblical proportions, 2018 was a year overfull with disasters,"Razzie founder John Wilson said.

"And then there were last year's movies," he quipped.

Mr Trump got two worst actor nominations for appearing as himself in the 2018 documentaries Death Of A Nation, from conservative film-maker Dinesh D'Souza, and liberal Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9.

Gotti, about late New York Mafia boss John Gotti, notched six nods, including worst picture, screenplay, actor and "worst screen combo" for Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston.

Winners of the year's worst films - if they turn up - will be given a trophy at a ceremony held on the eve of the Feb 24 Academy Awards.