Brenton Thwaites Archives

Oculus (2013)

Rating: ★★★

Apr 11, 2014Evil Mirror

A couple of years ago, the hauntingly eerie Absentia made Mike Flanagan into a must-watch director; this is his follow-up – the story of an evil mirror that, while slightly the lesser of Absentia, conducts some undeniably effective games of reality and illusion

Director: Mike Flanagan

Actors: Karen Gillan, Katee Sackhoff, Brenton Thwaites, Rory Cochrane, …

Category: Horror

11 April 201424 October 2020 by Roog

The Giver (2014)

Rating: ★★

Aug 16, 2014Young Adult Dystopia

Another adaptation of a classic Young Adult book, this merely substitutes well-worn dystopian tropes and comes out feeling like Divergent by way of Pleasantville

Director: Phillip Noyce

Actors: Brenton Thwaites, Jeff Bridges, Odeya Rush, Meryl Streep, …

Category: Science Fiction

16 August 201428 October 2025 by Roog

The Signal (2014)

Rating: ★★★

Sep 7, 2014Possible Alien Abductees/Reality Bender

A film ostensibly about alien abductees that has rather pleasurably been construed as a series of wild head-spinning twists that are constantly pulling everything we think we know is going on from under the audience, even if it eventually provides more questions than it ever does answers

Director: William Eubank

Actors: Brenton Thwaites, Laurence Fishburne, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp, …

Category: Science Fiction

7 September 20143 November 2021 by Roog

Maleficent (2014)

Rating: ★★

May 31, 2014Live-Action Prequel to Disney's Sleeping Beauty

Another in the early 2010s fad for fairytales rewritten as dark adult fantasy films – in this case, a version of Disney's Sleeping Beauty told from the viewpoint of the witch

Director: Robert Stromberg

Actors: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Imelda Staunton, …

Category: Fantasy

31 May 20144 August 2026 by Roog

Gods of Egypt (2016)

Rating: ★★½

Mar 5, 2016Ancient Egyptian Mythology

This could be considered the Michael Bay version of Ancient Egyptian mythology, a film buried under numbing CGI overkill. For all that, Alex Proyas gives it a loopy grandeur that you can't entirely dislike

Director: Alex Proyas

Actors: Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Elodie Yung, …

Category: Fantasy

5 March 201624 February 2026 by Roog

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

Rating: ★★½

Sep 16, 2017Pirate Fantasy Swashbuckler

After the two last lacklustre entries, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise starts to recover where the two new directors pull off some spectacular comedy-action sequences that go a long way towards recapturing what the series used to be

Director: Espen Sandberg, Joachim Rønning

Actors: Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Geoffrey Rush, Brenton Thwaites, …

Category: Fantasy

16 September 201711 December 2025 by Roog

Ghosts of War (2020)

Rating: ★

Dec 18, 2020G.I.'s at a Haunted Chateau in WWII

US soldiers arrive at a chateau in Nazi-occupied France during World War II that appears to be haunted. In a conceptual reversal twist, everything is not what it seems

Director: Eric Bress

Actors: Brenton Thwaites, Kyle Gallner, Theo Rossi, Skylar Astin, …

Category: Horror, Science Fiction

18 December 202026 October 2025 by Roog

We Bury the Dead (2024)

Rating: ★★★

Feb 20, 2026Zombie Film

The zombie film underwent a major revival in the 2000s but by the mid-2020s a horde of low-budget copycats has exhausted most creative possibilities. This shows there is still some originality to be found

Director: Zak Hilditch

Actors: Daisy Ridley, Brenton Thwaites, Mark Coles Smith, Matt Whelan, …

Category: Horror

20 February 202620 February 2026 by Roog