10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Sequel in name only to Cloverfield, this takes place in a survival shelter where an unspecified catastrophe has happened outside but we cannot be certain what or even if anything at all. Okay but films like Take Shelter and The Divide did this much better
The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960)
The third film about the title criminal mastermind from Fritz Lang. Here Lang returns to a radically different Germany to the one he fled in the 1930s, the West Germany of the Cold War, to deliver a creepily paranoid work about the surveillance society
102 Dalmatians (2000)
Sequel to the live-action 101 Dalmatians remake that brings back Glenn Close as Cruella DeVil and proves a far more enjoyable film that its predecessor
11.22.63 (2016)
Stephen King adapted mini-series in which James Franco finds a mysterious door that leads back to 1960 and decides to set out to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy
The 13th Warrior (1999)
Michael Crichton was hot as a result of Jurassic Park. Although mostly seen as an historical spectacle, this is an adaptation of his novel that attempts to retell the legend of Beowulf with Vikings against Neanderthals
1922 (2017)
Stephen King adaptations. that is less the jumpshocks of It than a work of dark brooding psychology as a farmer contemplates the murder of his wife. Think Days of Heaven by way of Grant Wood’s American Gothic
2-Headed Shark Attack (2012)
This is a killer shark film that is not taking itself too seriously. In their pursuit for the most absurd monster movie title, The Asylum have managed to get the balance of cheap effects and tongue-in-cheek treatment down near perfectly. The first in a series from The Asylum where each sequel added more heads.
2001 Maniacs (2005)
Eli Roth-produced remake of the Herschell Gordon Lewis splatter film Two Thousand Maniacs, this plants tongue in cheek, is fairly and squarely aimed at a frat boy audience and unapologetic about piling on copious amounts of gore and naked breasts
The 25th Reich (2012)
Time travel, Nazis in UFOs and a Nazi-ruled alternate timeline, giant robot spiders – ok, I’m sold. A surprisingly good little film where the fact that this is also made on a low budget and with a good deal of conceptual constraint makes it all the more creative an effort
The 27th Day (1957)
A classic of 1950s Reds Under the Bed anti-Communist hysteria in which aliens give selected humans capsules capable of obliterating all life, which quickly pits East against West in a race to obtain them. Clearly influenced by The Day the Earth Stood Still, this is better than most
28 Years Later … (2025)
28 Days Later was the work that started the modern zombie film revival. Twenty-three years later, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland return to make a third film
3 Headed Shark Attack (2015)
With the Mega Shark and especially the Sharknado films, The Asylum played the killer shark film as ridiculously as possible with delirious results. In this sequel to 2-Headed Shark Attack, they get the blend of the tongue-in-cheek absurdity to a point of near-perfection
The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960)
Adaptation of the Jonathan Swift classic about adventures in the lands of big and small people with stop-motion creature effects by Ray Harryhausen
30 Days of Night (2007)
Solid vampire film produced by Sam Raimi about a small Alaskan town that suddenly finds itself besieged by vampires who have come because of the month of night
30 Days of Night: Dark Days (2010)
Sequel to the modestly effective Alaskan-set vampire film 30 Days of Night, this holds up surprisingly well for something that gives all indication of being a throwaway video sequel
47 Meters Down (2017)
This comes with an incredibly claustrophobic premise – two girls trapped on the ocean floor in a cage surrounded by sharks with their air supplies about to run out – that has the hairs on the back of your neck rising up before you watch
The 4D Man (1959)
Surprisingly good 1950s film in which scientist Robert Lansing invents a process that allows him to become insubstantial and walk through walls. The effects are very good and this attains some eerie effect
The 6th Day (2000)
Arnold Schwarzenegger revisits something of Total Recall in this modest and clever action film in which he discovers that a clone has stolen his life
A.li.ce (1999)
This was the first anime film made in CGI, an ambitious SF film involving a time travel plot and a struggle against a machine-dominated future
Aaron’s Blood (2016)
The vampire film is looking rather anemic in the post-Twilight era. This is one decent effort about a father trying to save his son who has received a blood transfusion from a vampire
Ab-Normal Beauty (2004)
Oxide Pang, one half of the Pang Brothers. goes solo to make a film about an obsessive girl who enjoys photographing death and her journey into a very disturbed mental space
The Abandoned (2015)
A film that creates a genuinely haunted mood, something that is aided immensely by an amazing location and some fine, well developed characterisation between the two principals
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
The most well remembered of Abbott and Costello’s films. Universal had shuffled their Famous Monsters through several team-ups and here decided to play them for outright laughs. Undeniably likeable
The ABCs of Death (2012)
Unique anthology that offers 26 episodes from different genre directors, each ending with a death. The episodes vary wildly in quality and approach but a sufficient number ignore all good taste and/or travel waaaay across taboo lines
Abominable (2006)
This offers the novelty of a Bigfoot film by way of Hitchcock’s Rear Window where wheelchair-ridden witnesses Bigfoot preying on a house of girls. This generates a reasonable degree of tension
The Abominable Snowman (1957)
An early Hammer film from a script by Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale and shot in black-and-white about the search for the Yeti. This creates modest atmosphere
About Time (2013)
Time travel film that feels like a romantic comedy version of The Time Traveler’s Wife (with Rachel McAdams in the same role in both films). Played with a good deal of feelgood warmth and likeability by all
Above the Shadows (2019)
A unique and highly original take on the invisibility film where Olivia Thirlby becomes invisible because people no longer notice her until she meets one person who does
Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (2012)
A halfway decent Asylum film that emerges better than the film it is ripping off, the overblown Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. The film does the historical crossover aspect with some ingenuity
Accidental Exorcist (2016)
A low-budget but nevertheless at times quite funny version of an exorcism film, one that throws out all the tired clichés of the genre
Aces Go Places II (1983)
The second in a series of Hong Kong slapstick action caper comedies where the action is maintained at such a madcap and dementedly over-the-top pace that it frequently heads into orbit
Acid (2023)
A harsh and urgent French-made catastrophe film about a family trying to survive and get to safety with the appearance of a sudden cloud of deadly acid rain
Addicted to Murder (1995)
Strong and intelligent low-budget vampire film from Kevin J. Lindenmuth that plays with a fascinating ambiguity in the story of a man obsessed with a mystery woman who is making him kill
Addicted to Murder: Tainted Blood (1998)
This was the second in Kevin J. Lindenmuth’s trilogy of modern vampire films, which comes with much subtle effect and a strong character-driven story, a kitchen sink tale about a newborn vampire
Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941)
A twelve-chapter serial based on the comic-book superhero who these days is known as Shazam. Often regarded as one of the best of all serials, this has some decent action scenes and cliffhangers
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Likeable entry from the 1940s period when Disney was putting out animated anthologies, this conducts adaptations of The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
Steven Spielberg makes a solid effort to bring Hergé’s much loved comic-book character to life in this motion-capture animated effort. This plays free and easy with the original stories but generally gets the spirit of the comics right
Afflicted (2013)
Found Footage film that cleverly borrows more than a few leaves from An American Werewolf in London with two tourists in Europe where one is bitten and transformed by a vampire
After Earth (2013)
Enough with the M. Night Shyamalan bashing. Here Shyamalan pulls off a solid and interesting planetary adventure where the only real misstep is that much of the film rests on the non-acting shoulders of Jaden Smith
After.Life (2009)
A film that creates a unusual atmosphere where Christina Ricci lies on a morgue slab and a puzzle over whether is dead or alive. Certainly different if not fully satisfactory
After Midnight (1989)
Modest and effective horror anthology from the two brothers responsible for Pitch Black and the Ewoks tv movies. Featuring a quarter of stories, all of them are strong efforts generating a more than reasonable degree of tension throughout
After Yang (2021)
Another in the recent spate of works about A.I. This is a nicely subdued film, quite different to all the others where Colin Farrell discovers that his android had a secret emotional life
Afterwards (2008)
Beautifully filmed work featuring John Malkovich as an enigmatic Messenger of Death. A coolly sophisticated and mysterious film that plays out like an arthouse version of Final Destination by way of the Jeff Bridges Fearless
L’Age d’Or (1930)
This collaboration between Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali is not much more than a plotless series of surrealistic images, which are frequently calculated to outrage
A.I. Rising (2018)
There have been a host of works about artificial intelligence in recent years. This is a worthwhile entry in the field about the relationship between a man and an android on a space mission
Alakazam the Great (1961)
Anime version of the classic tale Chinese legend Journey to the West made Osamu Tezuka, this comes with a fast-paced action and is undeniably likable
The Alchemist Cookbook (2016)
A micro-budgeted production shot in a trailer in the woods with a cast of two that sits in a fascinatingly ambiguous place about whether the central character has sold his soul or gone off his psychiatric meds
Alice (2009)
Following on from his reworking of The Wizard of Oz in Tin Man, this is a tv mini-series where Nick Willing rather fascinatingly reinterprets Alice in Wonderland in SF terms
Alice in Wonderland (1999)
A fairly reasonable tv mini-series adaptation of Lewis Carroll – a version that excels in terms of design and in using The Jim Henson Workshop to bring the Wonderland creatures to life
Alien Abduction (2005)
An early film from The Asylum set in a hospital for alien abductees, which director Eric Forsberg evokes with some paranoia and a great ending
The Alien Agenda: Endangered Species (1997)
The second of Kevin J. Kindenmuth’s surprisingly good compilations of video shorts around the loose theme of alien invasion and takeover
Alien Conquest (2021)
The Asylum conduct a modernised remake of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds – for the second time. With resident mad scientist Joe Roche on script, the results are undeniably interesting
Alien Nation (1988)
Made not longer after the buddy cop hit of Lethal Weapon, this has a curmudgeonly human paired up with an alien partner. A fairly ordinary cop show plot is boosted by two fantastic central performances
Alien Outbreak (2020)
Fine little film about an invasion of dog-like alien robots and an outbreak of mass insanity that drives people to kill themselves, this does great things on next to nothing
Alien Trespass (2009)
Homage to 1950s SF films, in particular It Came from Outer Space and The Blob, made not as a parody but as an affectionate tribute to the era with everything played seriously
#Alive (2020)
A charming and delightful South Korean zombie film about the friendship that grows across the gap separating them between a nerd trapped in an apartment and a girl in the building opposite during a zombie outbreak
All-Star Superman (2011)
Another of the DC animated films, based on a work that reinterpreted Superman. This is somewhat bitsy in condensing a 12-issue series to a 73-minute film but holds some moments of great writing
All Through the House (2015)
A strong and effective reworking of the psycho Santa slasher film. This conducts a well-oiled rehearsal of all the slasher tropes and delivers exactly what we expect of it
All You Need is Death (2023)
A unique and original Irish variant on the Folk Horror genre about a couple who become wound up into the obsessive quest for a cursed folk song and the effect it has
Alleluia (2014)
The story of the true-life killers Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, most famously adapted into The Honeymoon Killers, gets a retelling from Fabrice du Welz with a modern updating
Alligator (1980)
Amid the spate of post-Jaws Animals Amok films, this, which comes armed with a John Sayles script and plays on the urban legend of baby alligators flushed into the sewers, was a rather enjoyable effort that plants tongue in cheek
Alpha (2018)
The prehistoric film seems a bit dated and hoary on screen these days. Albert Hughes solves the problem of revitalising the genre a series of jaw-droppingly kinetic action moves and stunning hyper-real landscapes
Alphaville (1965)
Surrealistic cinematic joke from French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard that mashes up film noir and SF where hard-boiled detective travels to another planet represented by contemporary Paris
Altitude (2010)
Essentially a feature version of The Twilight Zone‘s classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode, this generates some remarkable tension with a group trapped in mid-air in a small plane before a lame twist ending
Always (1989)
One of Steven Spielberg’s more overlooked and quieter films, a remake of the 1940s guardian angel fantasy A Guy Named Joe. Spielberg never much ignites the love story but the film has some magical moments and a scene-stealing John Goodman
The Amazing Mr Blunden (1972)
This Victorian-set children’s film has not been widely seen and has gained a small cult reputation for many years its ambitious plot involving a ghost story and time travel
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
The reasoning behind rebooting the Spider-Man franchise after ten years and only three films is a puzzle. That said, this offers an edgier origin story than Sam Raimi’s take and Andrew Garfield makes for a fine Spider-Man
American Grindhouse (2010)
A documentary that charts the history of exploitation cinema and covers much ground generally informatively despite the odd omission of some key works and players
American Hero (2015)
Tired of the bombast of Marvel/DC Comics superheroics overunning screens? This is a superhero film for you – one welcomely brought down to Earth set in working class neighbouhoods and with a focus on real-life problems. The results are surprising and refreshing
The American Nightmare (2000)
Interesting and worthwhile documentary that focuses on the six key and most influential horror films of the 1970s and interviews their makers in depth
The American Scream (2012)
Michael Paul Stephenson of Best Worst Movie fame makes a documentary about people who turn their homes into Halloween haunts. While lacking the freakshow aspect of Best Worst Movie, this is a likeable effort that follows its subjects in perfecting their art
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)
Amblin make a sequel to An American Tail minus the involvement of Don Bluth this time. The story now becomes an amiable animated parody of a Western
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
John Landis brings the werewolf film into the modern era with this revisionist work where a modern character is forced to confront it as real, while depicting the transformation with an arsenal of top-drawer effects.
Amityville II: The Possession (1982)
The first of The Amityville Horror sequels and a far more entertaining film than its predecessor by abandoning the pretence at telling a true story and adding a possession plot and makeup effects to the mix
Amnesiac (2014)
Michael Polish is one of the underrated American directors. Here an amnesiac Wes Bentley wakes up a prisoner of a wonderfully chilling Kate Bosworth who insists that she is his wife
Amphibian Man (1961)
The Russian Aquaman. One of the most popular hits from the Soviet Union, a film about a merman who comes onto land to woo a woman. Said to have influenced Guillermo del Toro with The Shape of Water
Amsterdamned (1988)
Fine thriller about the hunt for a frogman serial killer prowling the canals of Amsterdam. The police procedural plot is not so important as the entertaining dispatches and some of the finest action sequence of the 1980s
Amulet (2020)
An interesting slow burn film about an ex-soldier who accepts a job as a handyman with a woman and her ailing mother that soon heads off in some very strange directions
Anastasia (1997)
Considerable return to form for animator Don Bluth even if the story of the Russian Royals he is telling is based on a hoax and manages to entirely excise any mention of the Communist Revolution
And Then There Were None (1945)
Agatha Christie created the slasher film (sort of). This murder mystery (usually known by several less politically correct names) with a series of murders on an isolated island holds the kernel of what became the slasher template. This was the first film adaptation.
Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer (2019)
Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the greatest of all directors, having made films like Solaris and Stalker. This is a documentary about his life and films made up of archival material
Android (1982)
Witty and quite charming low-budget SF film with Don Opper as a gawky android on a space station trying to understand the human condition amid the arrival of escaped convicts
Andy Warhol’s Dracula (1973)
Companion piece to Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, a duo of horror films sold with Andy Warhol’s name for some reason. Dracula is revamped with a good deal of sex and gore but not uninterestingly so.
Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (1973)
An outrageous gore-drenched version of the Frankenstein story that frequently ventures into bad taste. Despite his name in the title, Andy Warhol had nothing to do with the film
Angel-A (2005)
Luc Besson makes a charming and funny film where a suicidal loser is aided by a tall and statuesque Rie Rasmussen who claims to be an angel sent to help him sort his life out
Angel on My Shoulder (1946)
One of the films from the 1940s fad for light afterlife fantasies in which mobster Paul Muni is sent back from Hell by The Devil in the body of a respectable judge to create mischief
Aniara (2018)
Film based on a full-length Swedish SF poem that concerns the despair, emptiness and strange societies that emerge among those aboard a spaceship that is thrown off course
Anna to the Infinite Power (1982)
A modest and quite well written children’s film about a gifted twelve year-old (Martha Byrne) who gradually discovers that she is a clone
The Anomaly (2014)
A surprisingly good conceptual SF film concerning a man trying to deal with a series of increasingly more surreal jumps in which he finds his body is being hijacked
Anonymous 616 (2018)
A film where a man encounters an instant messenger contact that knows his darkest secrets and suggests he can have godlike powers. This soon heads into some fairly disturbed headspace
Another Evil (2016)
Comedy about a man with ghosts in his home who invites in a so-called ‘ghost assassin’ before it becomes increasingly apparent he is completely nuts. Less a horror comedy than an eccentric bromance gone wrong
Ant-Man (2015)
While there is little doubt that Edgar Wright would have made a much better film, this emerges with an engaging likeability. Less epic superheroics, this plays out more as a caper comedy where a good ensemble and comedic playing carry the show
Antebellum (2020)
This highly charged work about race issues received a very mixed critical reception but I liked it for its clever M. Night Shyamalan-esque twistiness that messes with storytelling convention
Anthem of the Heart (2015)
Sweet and tender anime about a young girl who has a curse placed on her that causes her to lose her voice and how this actually allows everyone around her to voice things they don’t say.
Antibodies (2005)
German serial killer thriller that owes more than a small debt of inspiration to The Silence of the Lambs. That said, it also does its own interesting and original thing
Apocalypse Clown (2023)
Not another killer clown film as you might initially assume, but a really funny Irish comedy about a group of dysfunctional clowns in the aftermath of the collapse of civilisation
Apocalypto (2006)
Mel Gibson seems to love directing historical spectacles with an emphasis on bloody brutality. Here he creates a bloodthirsty adventure set among the Mayan peoples
Apollo 18 (2011)
Clever and well made Found Footage film about a NASA crew encountering something alien on The Moon’s surface. Falls somewhere between Alien, Apollo 13 and Paranormal Activity
Aporia (2023)
Excellent low-key time travel film where Judy Greer is faced with the choice of eliminating the drunk driver who killed her husband from the timeline – only to end up with unexpected results
Appleseed (1988)
The first anime film to be based on the manga, this is set in a future where the heroine is the head of a heavily armoured SWAT team fighting terrorists. Several different incarnations followed.