Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
Apr 12, 2003Surreal Musical Comedy
Woody Allen makes a musical. It is Allen in a much lighter mood than he was in the early 1990s and the film comes with some appealingly eccentric and often downright surreal touches
Natalie Portman
Mars Attacks! (1996)
Mar 17, 2001Gonzo Alien Invasion
Tim Burton makes a film based on the old Topps bubblegum card series about Martian invaders, which becomes an affectionately goofy tribute to 1950s alien invasion cinema
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
Jun 6, 1999Space Opera
George Lucas's return to the Star Wars series after a sixteen year absence and a build-up rivaled only by the Second Coming. Instead most audiences went away disappointed. Lucas has used the interim to push the technology to its heights but the story and characters are lacking
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
Jun 20, 2002Space Opera
The second of George Lucas’s Stars Wars prequels is no particular improvement. The romance is stiff and awkward, badly written while the effects sequences seem to be running out of new things to do and so just up the scale of what has happened before with so much going on it reaches a point of visual overload
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
May 22, 2005Space Opera
The last of George Lucas's Star Wars prequel trilogy and the last opportunity for him to get it right, which he generally does. The effects are expert but are not allowed to dominate as much as they did previously and the focus has come back onto the story and Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader
V for Vendetta (2006)
Apr 2, 2006Graphic Novel Adaptation/Totalitarian Future England
Adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel with a script from The Wachowskis. Moore's repudiation aside, this is a fine and literate work that retells the story of an anarchist trickster and potently politicises it for the era of the George W. Bush.
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (2007)
Dec 15, 2007Magical Toyshop
Family film with Dustin Hoffman as the eccentric owner of a magical toyshop
Black Swan (2010)
Jan 14, 2011Ballet Psycho-Thriller
Award-winning Darren Aronofsky film about the rivalry between two ballerinas. At heart though, this is no more than a Brian De Palma psycho-thriller with pretensions
Thor (2011)
May 7, 2011Marvel Comics Norse God Superhero
The film adaptation of Marvel Comics’ The Mighty Thor is placed in the hands of Kenneth Branagh who delivers an okay film, if one where he never quite seems at home with the superheroic action
Your Highness (2011)
Apr 15, 2011Epic Fantasy Comedy
The epic fantasy quest film is well due a parody, unfortunately this majorly unfunny effort written by its leading man Danny McBride only makes a beeline for the witless and vulgar
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Nov 9, 2013Marvel Comics Norse God Superhero
Sequel to Thor that earranges the same basic elements much more satisfyingly than the first film – the actors (with the exception of a tranquilised Natalie Portman) seem more at home in their roles and a director who is more confident with the effects and superheroics. That said, it is starting to feel like Marvel is shuffling the same plot ingredients around between films
Annihilation (2018)
Mar 24, 2018Mysterious Alien Zone
Alex Garland's second directorial effort after Ex Machina. Clearly influenced by Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, this features a group venturing into an alien-affected zone where Garland does a fine job of creating a sense of the otherworldly
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Aug 10, 2019Marvel Comics Superhero Team-Up
Marvel conclude the cliffhanger they left Avengers: Infinity War on and offer up a bigger-than-big line-up, overspilling with just about every MCU character to ever appear on screen up to that point
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Sep 17, 2022Marvel Comics Norse God Superhero
The fourth of Marvel's Thor films, where director Taika Waititi gets the balance of humour down much more successfully than he did in the previous film
Fountain of Youth (2025)
Jun 6, 2025Quest for the Fountain of Youth/Adventure Film
Guy Ritchie makes an adventure film that pays homage to Indiana Jones and a host of other works concerning the quest for the Fountain of Youth. A superficial film killed by its constantly distracting flip banter