An Impossible Voyage (1904)
Georges Melies’ successor to A Trip to the Moon featuring a journey to the sun by astronauts aboard a combination train-submarine-dirigible. A charming whimsy with remarkably technically accomplished effects for the era
An Inspector Calls (1954)
Film version of a classic play about an inspector who calls to expose the sins of a wealthy family and their involvement in the death of a girl. Comes with a fantastical twist in the tale.
I ♥ Robots (2024)
An amateur-looking film set after the robot apocalypse concerning a girl and her friendly robot who must make a journey across the wasteland. This at least boasts some well-integrated robot effects
I Am … Gabriel (2012)
Chuck Norris’s son Mike directs a laughably ridiculous faith-based film where a miraculous child appears, come to heal the people of an impoverished, drought-ridden town
I Am Legend (2007)
The third film version of Richard Matheson’s book is only a remake of the previous version The Omega Man. Crucially, this throws out the essence of the book for a far less interesting piece about Will Smith fighting mutants in the ruins
I Am Mother (2019)
A unique and original fallout shelter drama from Australia that sits in an interesting place of ambiguity. What makes the film stand out is its unique robot design
I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016)
Unique and quite remarkable film about a teen in a nowhere town who recognises the traits of a serial killer in himself and then discovers that aging neighbour Christopher Lloyd is actually a shapechanging monster
I Am Number Four (2011)
Produced by Michael Bay and directed by the perpetually insipid D.J. Caruso, this is no more than a Young Adult high school version of Disney’s Witch Mountain films concerning an alien teenager with psi powers
I Am Omega (2007)
A mockbuster from The Asylum that was intended to capitalise on the release of I Am Legend and in fact gets much more of the essence of the original Richard Matheson novel than the official film did
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016)
A ghost story directed by Osgood Perkins. Essentially a two-person show where all the atmosphere is provided by haunting voicover narration but this has undeniable effect
I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990)
A British venture into the gonzo splatter film about a motorcycle that develops vampiric tendencies after blood is spilled in its tank in a Satanist ceremony. Beyond an amusing title, this is crude and heavy-handed
I Bury the Living (1958)
Fascinating forgotten film with Richard Boone as a cemetery keeper who finds he can kill by placing pins on a map of the cemetery. This feels like a forgotten Twilight Zone episode and develops some quite creepy effect.
I Came By (2022)
Form the fine and underrated Babak Anvari, a tight thriller about a duo of graffiti artists who get more than they planned for when they break into the home of a psycho Hugh Bonneville
I Can’t Sleep (1994)
Claire Denis makes a film loosely based on the activities of a true-life drag performer/serial killer. However, she seems uninterested in developing plot or suspense
I Dismember Mama (1972)
From they heyday of 1970s exploitation cinema, this is a rather sick and nasty little psycho film. Its themes would never be able to play today without major protests.
I Drink Your Blood (1970)
A classic horror film undeniably influenced by Night of the Living Dead wherein a group of hippies are turned into zombies after they are fed rabies-infected meat pies
I Eat Your Skin (1964)
The greatest distinction this has is that it was released on a double-bill with I Drink Your Blood. While I Drink‘s vision of rabid hippies was highly entertaining, this is a dreary and uninteresting voodoo film
I Frankenstein (2014)
An empty-headed work that seems entirely premised around the provision of CGI effects spectacle and actively resists engagement on any other level. A spectacularly ridiculous film in almost every way
I Kill Giants (2017)
The title leads you to expect a variation on Jack the Giant Slayer but instead we get a very good story about a troubled girl who believes in giants. Very similar to A Monster Calls, this is carried by a fantastic performance from 15 year old Madison Wolfe
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Kevin Williamson’s follow-up to Scream. There is not quite the same witty game-playing but this is still an above-average slasher film with a reasonable cast and more-than-adequate suspense generated
I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)
In recent years, we have seen successful revivals of the Scream and Halloween franchises. Now it is the turn of another classic 1990s slasher film, a reworking that emerges with hugely underwhelming results
I Know Who Killed Me (2007)
Widely ridiculed psycho-thriller starring Lindsay Lohan at the height of her tabloid headline phase and giving a zero effort performance as twins. Quite what is going on in the confused screenplay is anybody’s guess
I Married a Monster (1998)
Rather tatty remake of I Married a Monster from Outer Space made for tv. This is routine tv filler that has been churned out with little care or feel for the original.
I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Defying the sensationalistic title, this is actually a fairly reasonable entry in the 1950s alien body snatchers fad in which wives discover their husbands have been taken over by aliens come to Earth to repopulate their species
I Married a Strange Person (1997)
A quite indescribable animated film from the great Bill Pympton, this largely consists of a series of bizarre and surreal, often outrageous, transformations and juxtapositions
I Married a Witch (1942)
Charming and delightful film starring Veronica Lake as a witch burned at the stake who returns to life in the present to make life miserable for her judge’s descendant Frederic March
I Origins (2014)
Mike Cahill’s follow-up to Another Earth, an intriguingly different work about how research into the human eye leads to a very unusual discovery. As much a relationship drama as SF
I Pass for Human (2004)
A film directed by Chris D, lead singer of The Flesh Eaters, about a heroin addict who starts to see ghosts. A strong portrait of addiction but less effective as a horror film
I Saw the Devil (2010)
Overrated South Korean revenge thriller about a detective obsessively pursuing a serial killer that has a mild level of ultra-violence going for it but otherwise fails to grip or dig into a psychological darkness
I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
An almost unclassifiably strange film about fandom for a weird 1990s tv show, this seems to be heading for David Lynch territory and becomes an allegory for trans identity
I Saw What You Did (1965)
Gimmick master William Castle turns to making a psycho-thriller about two teenage girls making prank calls and uttering the title phrase – only to inadvertently call a man who has just killed his wife
I Saw What You Did (1988)
TV movie remake of a 1960s psycho-thriller about two girls making prank calls and uttering the title phrase – only to inadvertently call a killer. The premise makes a lot more sense updated to the 80s
I Sell the Dead (2008)
Odd film about 19th Century body snatchers that is like a low-budget version of a Burke and Hare story. This develops a sense of humour and starts to go in some very strange directions
I Spit on Your Grave (1978)
One of the most raw and savage films ever made, this sits on a dividing line between true horror and exploitation as we experience Camille Keaton being raped with no detail spared before exacting a brutal revenge
I Spit on Your Grave (2010)
The harrowing 1970s raped woman on a revenge spree film is given the remake treatment, although is watered down in many key areas. The revenge scenes however are played up for a particular nastiness
I Spit on Your Grave 2 (2013)
These rape-revenge films leave you wanting to conduct the moral equivalent of taking a shower after watching them. This sequel to the 2010 remake also ends up being undeniably brutal and effective
I Spit on Your Grave III: Vengeance is Mine (2015)
These I Spit on Your Grave films have considerable brutal effect. On the other hand, by the time of this second sequel to a remake, it does seem exploitative watching the heroine being abused again because the previous films made money
I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu (2019)
I don’t enjoy watching these rape and revenge films. Continuing to make sequels showing abuse definitely crosses an exploitative line. After 41 years, director Meir Zarchi and star Camille Keaton re-team to make a sequel to the original
I Spy (2002)
Painfully unfunny big screen revival of the 1960s spy tv series. This has been reduced to a series of plotless gags that involve Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson doing nothing except bickering with each other
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
The sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer. This misses the playful humour and twists of Kevin Williamson’s script and becomes no more than a routine slasher movie
I Still See You (2018)
A Young Adult film that comes with a highly original premise concerning the aftermath of a catastrophe that has left ghostly figures trapped in timeloops repeating the same moves
I Survived a Zombie Holocaust (2014)
A New Zealand-made entry into the zombie comedy stakes. This has the amusing idea of having a zombie outbreak occur during the shooting of a zombie film
I Think We’re Alone Now (2018)
Set in the aftermath of an unspecified apocalypse, this is a film about the oddball friendship that grows between misanthropic Peter Dinklage and pixie-ish Elle Fanning
I Trapped the Devil (2019)
Low-budget film that absorbs you in an intensive headspace as family members visit a reclusive brother who claims to have The Devil locked in the cellar
I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
One of the key films from the legendary Val Lewton, this exploits a topical interest in voodoo. As with Lewton’s films, this sits in an ambiguous place that leaves the actuality of the supernatural uncertain
I Was a Teenage Faust (2001)
A very lightweight made-for-tv comedy where a nerdy teen signs a pact with a desperate agent of The Devil who offers him cool and the girl of his dreams
I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957)
Producer Herman Cohen had a huge hit with I Was a Teenage Werewolf and quick on its tail released this companion piece, an enjoyably tongue-in-cheek film concerning a Frankenstein descendant turning a teen into a monster
I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)
This was a hit in its dayo by tapping the burgeoning teenage market who had just realised they were misunderstood thanks to James Dean. Not a particularly great film but it is one that carries a great deal of primal ferocity
I Was a Zombie for the FBI (1982)
Obscure title that when seen is revealed to be a surprisingly well-made (in places) homage to the 1950s alien invasion genre and replication of the era’s style of filmmaking
I Zombie: The Chronicles of Pain (1998)
In the overworked vein the zombie film, one of the most unique and original voices has been British director Andrew Parkinson. This was the first of Parkinson’s kitchen sink zombie films
I’ll Follow You Down (2013)
A time travel that has the near-soporific pace of a Lifetime tv movie. Here Haley Joel Osment discovers that his father built a stable wormhole that allowed him to travel back in time to 1947
I’m a Cyborg, But That’s Ok (2006)
After the ultra-violent Oldboy, Park Chan-wook puzzled everyone by next making this frothily surreal comedy about a girl in an asylum who believes she is a cyborg
I’m Not Harry Jenson. (2009)
A New Zealand-made film about a crime writer joining a party tramping through the bush as the group starts to be killed off by one among their number
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
Charlie Kaufman’s mind-bending, head-scratcher about road trips, weird dinner conversations and shifting identity blurrings as what we assume become increasingly more surreal as the film goes on
I, Madman (1989)
A rather interesting horror film in which both the heroine and the heroine of the story she is reading are stalked by a disfigured madman, as the boundary between fiction and reality begins to dissolve
I, Monster (1971)
The title and names are changed, otherwise this is an extremely faithful adaptation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde starring Christopher Lee. Not very successful at the time, this interestingly opens the story out with Freudian psychology
I, Robot (2004)
Disappointing adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Robot stories. The film pays token acknowledgement to Asimov’s characters and universe and mostly seems interested in spectacular effects set-pieces
I.K.U. (2000)
Described as a cyberporn fantasy, a quasi-pornographic film set in a Cyberpunk future where androids are designed to consume sexual experience
I.S.S. (2023)
A gripping work set aboard the International Space Station where the US and Russian crews are suddenly placed at one another’s throats as war between the two sides breaks out down on Earth
Ibiza Undead (2016)
British lad culture take on the zombie film. Think a version of Shaun of the Dead inhabited by guys around the age of 20 whose only real concerns is getting laid and wasted. The constant vulgarity becomes tiresome
iBoy (2017)
A British film about a teen who gets a cellphone embedded in his head and develops the ability to tap into cellular and internet traffic. The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes with an admirably gritty edge
Ice (1998)
A made-for-tv disaster movie about a new Ice Age. This uncannily prefigures the scenario of Roland Emmerich’s big budget, high-profile The Day After Tomorrow
Ice Age (2002)
This begat an interminable number of tedious sequels. However, the original is a still likeable and appealing animated film about a group of prehistoric talking animals migrating with the onset of an Ice Age
Ice Age 2 (2006)
The first in a series of interminable sequels to Blue Sky Studios’ animated prehistoric adventure. Everything has a tediousness that feels as though it is created by a script generating computer
Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
Another of Blue Sky Studios’ interminable animated sequels to its likeable original about prehistoric talking animals. This has little substance beyond a kinetic rush from one gag to the next
Ice Age: Collision Course (2016)
I hate the Ice Age films and their tediously extruded adventures. The opening sequence here and its ignorance of even basic science is the most inane thing in the entire series
Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012)
This is not a film, it is a money-making machine in the guise of a film aimed squarely at undiscerning family audiences that plays to familiar characters and comic routines and has minimal difference to the preceding three Ice Age films
Ice Sharks (2016)
Another killer shark film from The Asylum, the people behind the Sharknado films. This plays itself seriously and turns out a reasonable story about the crew of a polar base under attacks by prehistoric sharks
Ice Soldiers (2013)
This Canadian effort about Soviet super-soldiers unfrozen in the present-day feels like one of a bunch of cheap direct-to-video copies of Universal Soldier that came out in the late 1990s
Ice Twisters (2009)
Another formula Syfy Channel disaster movie based around a scientifically improbable meteorological premise. This does at least make the characters work with more of a sparring vigour than usual
Iceman (1984)
Excellent and underrated film about a caveman unthawed in the Arctic where attempts are made to help him adjust. This conducts the a creaky old story with modern scientific and anthropological realism
Ichi the Killer (2001)
One of the key films upon which the Takashi Miike cult is based. Miike takes a nominal Yakuza plot based on a manga where he pushes the sadism and ultra-violence to a mind-boggling extreme
Identified Flying Object (1985)
Low-budget director Ulli Lommel makes a film about a teen who befriends an artificially intelligent rogue military helicopter in what becomes E.T. by way of Blue Thunder
Identity (2003)
John Cusack leads a star cast line-up in what appears to be a slasher where a group of people gathered at a motel are being killed by someone among their number. Big conceptual twists then ensue
Idiocracy (2006)
A film about stupid people that for once actually is funny. This a raucous but often biting satire where Luke Wilson wakes up in the year 2025 to find that the stupid have inherited the future
Idiots and Angels (2008)
Another of Bill Pympton’s unique animated films, all stylised artwork and surreal juxtapositions. This is a dialogueless film about a mean-spirited man who suddenly gains a set of angel wings
Idle Hands (1999)
Surely the first slacker horror film in which teenager Devon Sawa’s hand becomes possessed. A comedy that feels as though it should have been a lot funnier than it ends up being on screen
IF (2024)
Ryan Reynolds and director John Krasinski combine to make a film about imaginary companions, an appealingly quirky effort where a young girl befriends a large furry invisible creature
If … (1968)
A wildly anarchic fantasy where Malcolm McDowell leads an armed revolution against the petty tyranny of a British boy’s boarding school. The first in a trilogy of social commentary films for director Lindsay Anderson
If Looks Could Kill (1991)
Way back before Austin Powers, the James Bond/spy movie parody began here with this silly effort in which teenager Richard Grieco is propelled into an international spy caper
If the Shoe Fits (1990)
A modernised retelling of the Cinderella story that is set in the Paris fashion world starring with Jennifer Grey as a lowly seamstress falling for self-important fashion designer Rob Lowe
If There Be Thorns (2015)
The third of the Lifetime Channel’s films based on the Gothic incest melodramas of Virginia C. Andrews that began with Flowers in the Attic. The plotting is absurd and the film feels uninhabited by human beings
If You Believe (1999)
Nicely made seasonal tv movie where cynical Ally Walker has her life turned around by the appearance of her childhood self (Hayden Panettiere)
If You Were the Last (2023)
A space film set aboard a NASA space mission as two stranded astronauts debate whether to surrender to mutual attraction. In contrast to realistically grounded efforts such as Gravity, The Martian et al, this is a comedy
Ignition (2001)
An action film set against the backdrop of a new Moon mission where Bill Pullman plays a US marshal assigned to protect judge Lena Olin whose life is under threat
Igor and the Lunatics (1985)
Another shabby Troma release concerning the activities of a crazed cult. This features some nasty deaths but little else
Illang: The Wolf Brigade (2018)
The anime Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade was a fascinating play of metaphors that mixed terrorism and Little Red Riding Rood. This is a live-action remake from South Korea
Illusion of Blood (1965)
A standout adaptation of the oft-filmed kaidan eiga (Japanese ghost story) Yotsuya Kaidan/The Yotsuya Ghost Story. A beautifully filmed classic version of the story
Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976)
The first of the sequels to the notorious Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. The dispenses with the first film’s unpleasant use of the Nazi concentration camps as a source of exploitation grist and is an altogether better film
Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974)
One of the most tasteless films ever made, a sado-sexual work set in a Nazi concentration camp with Dyanne Thorne as a sadistic commandant torturing and having sex with prisoners.
Ilsa, The Tigress of Siberia (1977)
This was the third of the notorious Ilsa films featuring a hyper-sexed Dyanne Thorne. This locates everything in Russian where she is the commandant torturing the prisoners of a Soviet gulag
Images (1972)
A fascinatingly enigmatic work from Robert Altman, an artily experimental film in which the identities of five people together at a countryside cottage begin to shift and blur
Imaginaerum (2012)
A film based on the album by Finnish symphonic metal group Nightwish that takes place inside the allegorical mental terrain of a dying rock star. This collapses into the over-inflated amateur symbolism of a music video
Imaginary (2024)
A largely routine Blumhouse film where a woman’s return to her childhood home ends up awakening her imaginary companion who has now turned sinister
Imagine That (2009)
Eddie Murphy in another of the lame flops that marked his career in the 2000s where he plays a stockbroker who gets stock tips from his daughter’s imaginary companion
Immaculate (2024)
A horror film where Sydney Sweeney stars as a virginal nun who appears to be experiencing an immaculate conception. This is only a slightly better version of The Nun
Immoral Tales (1974)
One of the key films from cult director Walerian Borowczyk, a quartet of exquisitely photographed and art directed erotic tales, including one about Countess Bathory
Immortal (ad vitam) (2004)
Comic-book creator Enki Bilal creates a visually extraordinary film about Ancient Egyptian gods awakening in a future New York
Immortal Sins (1992)
A Roger Corman produced erotic horror in which Cliff De Young inherits a castle in Spain where he is tempted by a witch who appears in his dreams
Immortals (2011)
A venture into Greek myth retelling the story of Theseus and the labyrinth. Tarsem Singh, a director with a visually extraordinary eye, lavishes everything on the sets and costumes. One film of the 3D overkill fad that needs to be seen in 3D