J’Accuse (1919)
Extraordinary filmmaking from Abel Gance made at the height of the silent era. Gance was deeply affected by World War I and makes an epic anti-war parable that stuns you with its cinematic craft
J.D.’s Revenge (1976)
A Blaxploitation film where decent law student Glynn Turman is possessed by the spirit of J.D., a petty hood who was shot in the 1940s and now sets out to take revenge
Jabberwocky (1977)
This was the first solo directorial outing from Terry Gilliam outside of Monty Python, a fantasy film that is a dark and frenetic skewering of the cinematic portrayal of the Middle Ages
Jack & Diane (2012)
An LGBT romance featuring fantastic performances from Juno Temple and Riley Keough before they became better known names. This also acts as an ambiguous monster movie
Jack and the Beanstalk (1952)
Abbott and Costello take on the fairytale as a vehicle for their usual inanities. This is the only film the two made in colour and financed it themselves, but is not one of their more inspired offerings.
Jack and the Beanstalk (1997)
An adaptation of the fairytale from Martin Gates, a largely unknown British animator. This embellishes the traditional telling of the story considerably
Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story (2001)
TV mini-series co-produced by Hallmark Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company that offers an intriguing deconstruction of the fairytale that reverses the traditional sympathies
Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart (2013)
A French animated film where a boy with a cuckoo-clock for a heart goes on a quest for love through a surreal quasi-Steampunk world. With cameos from Georges Melies and Jack the Ripper
Jack Be Nimble (1993)
An over-the-top New Zealand-made Gothic horror with Alexis Arquette and Sarah Smuts-Kennedy as psychically connected brother and sister who set out on a quest to find their parents, killing all in the way
Jack Brooks, Monster Slayer (2007)
This leads to you expect a horror comedy but spends half its running time in build-up with no comedy or monster slaying, although does deliver on this with an entertaining effects-heavy climax
Jack Frost (1997)
A film about a killer snowman. Conceived as a one-liner spouting villain and outfitted with a series of novelty Christmas-themed deaths, this does not take itself too seriously with rather appealing results
Jack Frost (1998)
One of the most bizarre family films ever conceived in which father Michael Keaton is killed and returns from the dead in the body of a snowman to be near his family
Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (2000)
Jack Frost, not to be confused with the Michael Keaton film of the same name, was an amusing horror comedy about a killer mutant snowman. This is a sequel that takes Jack to a beach resort in Hawaii
Jack Goes Home (2016)
Actor Thomas Dekker directs a film in which Rory Culkin travels home for a funeral and finds disturbing revelations about his past. This circles around weird happenings without going anywhere
Jack the Giant Killer (1962)
A blatant attempt to copy Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, night down to employing the same lead actors and director, but this fails through shoddy stop-motion animated effects
Jack the Giant Killer (2013)
Another of The Asylum’s mockbusters intended to capitalise on the release of Jack the Giant Slayer. Despite setting out to adapt Jack and the Beanstalk, there are no giants in the film
Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)
Bryan Singer was once the hope of fanboy cinema but this attempt to turn Jack and the Beanstalk into an epic fantasy feels exactly like formula studio product that could have been made by any hired director
Jack the Reaper (2011)
Film with a class of teenagers a class of teenagers on a field trip is pursued through a haunted carnival by a mythical boogeyman
Jack the Ripper (1959)
Dramatisation of the Jack the Ripper murders that resembles a cheap British quota quickie but musters some okay gaslit atmosphere. Alas, the film has done little research on the details of Ripper casefile
Jack the Ripper (1976)
A version of the Jack the Ripper killings from cult exploitation director Jess Franco starring Klaus Kinski. Neither Franco or Kinski are up to much. The film’s resemblance to the facts of the Ripper case is close to zero
Jack the Ripper (1988)
TV mini-series made for the 100th anniversary of the Jack the Ripper killings. While the show adheres more to the facts of the case of any filmed work up to that point and to have uncovered new evidence, it should be considered fiction
Jack the Ripper (2016)
A girl sets out to solve the Jack the Ripper killings to free her innocently convicted brother. No more, no less factual than any other version but it conducts a fine period recreation of Victorian England
Jack’s Back (1988)
This comes with a fantastic pitch – it was released on the centenary of the Jack the Ripper killings and features a Ripper copycat operating in the present. Alas, this becomes a massive wasted opportunity
Jack’s Wife (1972)
One of the least known of George Romero’s films. Made not long after Rosemary’s Baby, this concerns itself with bored suburban housewives dabbling in witchcraft. Aka Season of the Witch
Jackals (2017)
One of the directors of the Saw sequels surprises with this film where a family’s attempts to conduct a cult deprogramming as masked cultists surround the house prepared to do anything to get their recruit back
Jackboots on Whitehall (2010)
A puppet film about a satiric Nazi invasion of England in World War II. Imagine It Happened Here by way of Team America. This has its amusements but is uneven
Jackpot! (2024)
This comes out like a comedy version of The Purge almost, where a future California lottery awards the winner millions if they can avoid every other person trying to kill them
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Adrian Lyne became one of the most visually exciting directors of the 1980s. Here he makes an afterlife film that swings between moments of greatness and a script that seems very confused about what is happening
Jacob’s Ladder (2019)
Another remake that nobody asked for. The 1990 film is reworked in a script that ditches almost all of the afterlife themes and instead seems to want to be a film about veterans addicted to reality-blurring drugs
Jade Dynasty (2019)
Ching Siu-Tung, director of classic Wu Xia films like A Chinese Ghost Story, returns to wow us all again after an eight years absence with another film of breathtakingly dreamy visuals
James and the Giant Peach (1996)
Henry Selick’s follow-up to The Nightmare Before Christmas, a Roald Dahl adaptation filled with enormous visual creativity as a boy and several talking insects set forth on a sea journey in a giant peach
James vs. His Future Self (2019)
An enjoyable comedy where a scientist is visited by his older self who has travelled back in time to beg him not to invent the time machine that he is about to create
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Stop-motion animator Ray Harruhausen takes on Greek Myth and creates one of his finest works. Harryhausen’s effects are at the absolute peak of their game and he delivers some astonishing creations
Jason and the Argonauts (2000)
A Hallmark tv mini-series remake of the Greek myths that fails to stand up to the classic 1963 version. Here Ray Harryhausen’s amazing stop-motion animated effects are replaced by cut-price CGI
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)
The ninth of the Friday the 13th films and the most variant and fun of the series. This cheerfully turns expectations on their head and readily punctures the series cliches
Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986)
The sixth and one of the better Friday the 13th films. This time the usual formula of the series is conducted with an undeniable sense of humour
Jason X (2001)
The tenth Friday the 13th film. This tries to add novelty as Jason is thawed out in the future aboard a space station to slaughter anew. Featuring no less than David Cronenberg as a victim
Jauja (2014)
This starts out seeming like a non-fantastic drama about explorers in 19th Century Argentina. However, the film seems to disregard this and heads towards a bafflingly surreal and undeniably fascinating ending
Jaws (1975)
The killer shark film that became the No 1 box-office hit of all time and put Steven Spielberg’s name on the map. A powerhouse of seat-edge tension, filled with great performances and the young Spielberg with an incredible grasp of his craft
Jaws 2 (1978)
The best of the mostly worthless Jaws sequels. With a bigger budget, the shark attacks are more spectacular but there is nothing akin to the sustained suspense of the first film’s extended climax
Jaws 3-D (1983)
The second sequel to the hit killer shark film. This is shot with gimmick of the early 80s 3D revival fad but this has the effect of reducing Steven Spielberg’s masterful suspense to a series of novelty pop-up shocks
Jaws of Satan (1981)
This seems to have been slung together as a mash-up of Jaws and the 1970s fad for occult films. Ridiculous and badly made on all levels, no more so than the climax with a giant snake conducting a devil worship ceremony
Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
The widely ridiculed fourth Jaws film. This is at least better than the third film, having one of two okay shark attack scenes but the melodramatics are drawn out and tedious
Je T’aime, Je T’aime (1968)
French New Wave SF film from director Alain Resnais about a time machine. The idea of a protagonist travelling at random through his own memory is predictive of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five
Jeepers Creepers (2001)
Creepy film about a brother and sister who are pursued on a road journey by a supernatural creature that drives a truck. This became a word of mouth hit and was followed by several sequels
Jeepers Creepers 3 (2017)
Having been promised for a long time, this is the third of Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers films. Filled with some unworldly jumps, this is also the slightest of the Jeepers Creepers trilogy
Jeepers Creepers II (2003)
This was Victor Salva’s first sequel to his hit Jeepers Creepers. This is an intensely uncanny and much superior work to the first that heads into outlandish places
Jeepers Creepers Reborn (2022)
The Jeepers Creepers films created a highly original boogeyman with some creepy effect. Mired in controversy, the fourth entry in franchise emerges from Finnish director Timo Vuorensola
Jekyll & Hyde (2021)
An enterprising low-budget adaptation of the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story, which has been filmed numerous times. This offers the most radical spin on the story of any adaptation to date
Jekyll (2007)
Doctor Who writer/producer Steven Moffat’s modernised Jekyll and Hyde reworks the story in fascinatingly radical ways, while James Nesbitt gives a gleeful rafter-rattling performance
Jekyll + Hyde (2006)
A modermised retelling of the Jekyll/Hyde story as a teen horror film where Jekyll (Bryan Fisher) is experimenting with Ecstasy to try and have success with girls
Jekyll and Hyde … Together Again (1982)
Extremely silly and at times undeniably funny spoof on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – here Dr Jekyll becomes a coke addict who snorts his formula and turns into a swinger with a giant afro
Jem and the Holograms (2015)
The original animated series was one of the pop oddities of the 80s – part teen pop fantasy, part superheroics and secret identities. This live-action remake is an object lesson in how to strip all the fun elements out a series
Jennifer (1978)
A blatant ripoff of Carrie about a tormented girl who takes psychic revenge using snakes. Without Brian De Palma in the director’s chair, this only looks like a cheap tv movie
Jennifer Eight (1992)
A psycho-thriller in which Andy Garcia plays a detective who is trying to protect/romance blind Uma Thurman from a serial killer who targets blind women
Jennifer’s Body (2009)
Karyn Kusama directs a black comedy from a wryly funny Diablo Cody script in which Megan Fox is a cheerleader who becomes possessed after a devil worship ceremony gone wrong
Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012)
Rather funny parody of tv’s Jersey Shore by way of a shark attack film. A film that one watches with zero expectations but proves hilarious by planting tongue entirely in cheek
Jeruzalem (2015)
A unique Israeli Found Footage film shot from the perspective of a pair of internet-enabled glasses as two US tourists are visiting Jerusalem as it is overrun by possessed demon figures
Jessabelle (2014)
Ghost story from one of the directors of the Saw sequels that settles in with halfway reasonable build-up, before being killed off by an improbable left field twist ending
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966)
Notorious Z movie made as companion piece to Billy the Kid Versus Dracula in which the famous outlaw encounters Frankenstein’s granddaughter and her creations
Jesus and Her Gospel of Yes (2004)
A mind-boggling surrealist retelling of the life of Jesus (where the role has been cast with a woman). Crammed with strange imagery and symbolism. Very off the beaten track
Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter (2001)
This is one of the great wacky titles of all time. The film has its deliberately ridiculous amusements but soon fails to provide an interesting enough show to live up to its title
Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (2019)
This gets full marks for an attention-grabbing title. Beyond that, it is is otherwise a very strange and surrealistic film about spy shenanigans in Virtual Reality
Jet Stream (2013)
A Syfy Channel disaster movie. Between the formula dramatics and cheap effects, this is better than expected, having a sense of humour and a more original hero than most of its kind
Jetsons: The Movie (1990)
A theatrical film version spun off from The Jetsons, the popular Hanna-Barbera animated tv series about a space age family. Not too much has changed since the 1960s
Jexi (2019)
Amiable comedy about an annoyingly intrusive artificially intelligent mobile assistant that wreaks havoc on its owner’s life
Jigoku (1960)
A fascinating Japanese film where a man has to descend into Hell, designed along the lines of Dante’s Inferno, to save the soul of his loved one. The depiction of Hell is filled with luridly surreal scenes
Jigsaw (2017)
Whether we asked for it or not, this is a revival of the Saw series. The upside is that unlike the other sequels it comes from a duo of directors who have made some quite good films elsewhere
Jill the Ripper (2000)
A quite good thriller where Dolph Lundgren plays a detective who is drawn into a underworld of sadomasochistic sex during the hunt for a female serial killer
Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius (2001)
Amiable animated film about a juvenile inventor that only serves to show how more polished Pixar’s films are by comparison
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1998)
A conceptually ambitious anime that builds a complex metaphor out of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf in a story centred around the self-doubting member of an anti-terrorist squad
Jiu Jitsu (2020)
The action film has largely died off in the 2010s. This is very much a throwback with a set-up reminiscent of Predator about an action team fighting an alien in the jungle
Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)
A fascinating documentary about one of the most amazing films never made – director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s planned adaptation of Dune in the mid-1970s
Joe’s Apartment (1996)
A bizarrely off-the-wall film in which Jerry O’Connell obtains a cheap apartment in New York City only to then find that he is sharing it with singing cockroaches
John Carter (2012)
While the film bombed, it emerges as a fairly good and faithful, lavishly produced adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ swashbuckling planetary adventure
John Dies at the End (2012)
Phantasm series director Don Coscarelli makes a mind-expanding effort that seems a conceptual collision between Donnie Darko, Limitless, a slacker version of Supernatural and Dr Strange
Johnny English (2003)
Spy movie parody with Rowan Atkinson as an inept agent who is constantly tripping over his own feet. It is Austin Powers reconceived as a Mr Bean film but offering little that is funny.
Johnny English Reborn (2011)
Rowan Atkinson is a very funny man but try as I might I cannot get into these Johnny English films – they seem at best lame Austin Powers castoffs with gags designed for the single digit age range
Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)
Rowan Atkinson in his third outing as the inept spy. Atkinson is a talented comic but these Johnny English films, which are like less sophisticated versions of Peter Sellers’ Inspector Closeau, are the least of his comedy incarnations
Johnny Frank Garrett’s Last Word (2016)
From the acclaimed Simon Rumley comes this true crime drama about the execution of an innocent man and the supposed curse he placed on all who condemned him
Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
Classic anti-war film with Timothy Bottoms as a limbless, sightless soldier in a hospital bed as his mind wanders between hallucinations, visions of the afterlife and attempts to communicate with the medical staff
Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
The first attempt to film the works of cult Cyberpunk author William Gibson met with very mixed success, nevertheless is a modest effort that does mainline the essence of Gibson’s world
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
The story of a young Nazi boy who has Adolf Hitler as an imaginary companion gained awards acclaim but swings between Hogan’s Heroes slapstick and a tender story about overcoming racial prejudice
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable – Chapter 1 (2017)
The cinematic madman Takashi Miike takes on a live-action adaptation of one of Japan’s longest running mangas concerning high-school teenagers with powers and unique hairstyles
Joker (2012)
Bollywood SF film that is like a version of Shyamalan’s aliens film Signs with a few dashes of The Mouse That Roared, all played as a comic farce with much singing and dancing
Joker (2019)
This origin story of Batman’s Joker is less epic superheroics than a mundanely grounded work about one individual’s rage against modern life and alienation that comes closest to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver
Joker’s Wild (2016)
Completely ridiculous killer clown film with a theatre haunted by clowns where nothing makes any sense. Even more absurdly, it becomes a preachy diatribe in favour of the right to gun ownership
Joker: Folie a Deux (2024)
Joker was a huge hit with Joaquin Phoenix winning an Academy Award for his role. This sequel emerged to very mixed reception, partly due to its rejection of the first film and then heading off to become a musical
Jonah Hex (2010)
This is an adaptation of the DC comic-book character of a supernatural avenging Western gunslinger that fails to burn with the grim mood it should have
Jonathan (2018)
A smart and intelligent SF film where two brothers both inhabit the same body and then both fall for the same woman. Great acting from Ansel Elgort in the titles role(s)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2015)
This BBC adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s book about rival 19th century magicians kicks J.K. Rowling completely out of the ring. A beautifully staged costume drama, written with a superb Austen-esque dryness of wit
Josh Kirby … Time Warrior! Eggs from 70 Million B.C. (1996)
The fourth of the Josh Kirby juveniles and the point the series started to become quite well made. This takes a visit to Azabeth’s homeworld of warrior people.
Josh Kirby … Time Warrior! Journey to the Magic Cavern (1996)
The fifth of the Josh Kirby juvenile adventures where the young time-travelling hero sets out on a quest to the Magic Cavern to find the Shroom People
Josh Kirby … Time Warrior! Last Battle for the Universe (1996)
The sixth and last of the Josh Kirby time-travelling juvenile adventures produced by Charles Band and the best of the series, which takes a trip into Josh’s past
Josh Kirby … Time Warrior! Planet of the Dino-Knights (1995)
This was the first and one of the weaker of the generally quite likeable films from Charles Band about the time-travelling adventures of a juvenile hero
Josh Kirby … Time Warrior! The Human Pets (1995)
This was the second and weakest of the Josh Kirby juvenile time travel adventures that takes the young hero and companions to a future where they are enslaved by giants
Josh Kirby … Time Warrior! Trapped on Toyworld (1996)
This was the third of the Josh Kirby juvenile time travelling adventures from Charles Band that takes Josh and his companions to a planet of living toys
Joshua (2007)
Another variant on the evil child theme, this suffers from far too mannered an approach where you keep waiting for it to pull back and sink its teeth into something shocking
Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
A live-action film based on the animated tv series about a girl rock band who originally appeared in Archie comics, this gets buried under its own efforts to be cutely ironic
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth, a supposed adaptation of Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island and a consistently silly, nonsensical film that operates at the level of a children’s cartoon