Legend (1985)
Apr 27, 2003Adult Fairytale
Hugely underrated Ridley Scott film that was a box-office flop. Scott attempts to reconstruct the fairytale as something dark and primal and creates moments that are superlative cinema
Arnon Milchan
Brazil (1985)
Aug 1, 2001Dystopian Black Comedy
Terry Gilliam's satire on Nineteen Eighty-Four is a darkly brilliant work - it is a madly out of control film but is filled moments of wild imagination and black-than-black humour than make it an unnerving ride
Big Man on Campus (1989)
Jul 29, 1999Modernised Hunchback of Notre Dame Comedy
An amiable comedy that relocates the basic story of The Hunchback of Notre Dame to a modern American campus about the taming of a scruffy hunchback who lives in the university belltower
Striking Distance (1993)
Aug 14, 2000Action/Psycho-Thriller
Action thriller with Bruce Willis as a river patrol detective hunting a serial killer
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)
Nov 6, 2000Action/Advanced Weaponry
Sequel to Under Siege in which Steven Seagal was a lone individual in a Die Hard scenario defending a battleship against a terrorist takeover; this is the same but with Seagal defending a train
Copycat (1995)
May 11, 2003Serial Killer Thriller
Strong and effective serial killer thriller that was overlooked by the success of the same year's much more high profile Se7en. Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter give excellent performances in a finely tuned script
Bogus (1996)
Apr 23, 1999Child's Invisible Companion
Sweetly likeable Norman Jewison film in which Whoopi Goldberg receives guardianship of young Haley Joel Osment only to find he has an invisible companion in Gerard Depardieu
The Devil’s Advocate (1997)
Aug 23, 2009The Devil is a Lawyer
Despite a premise that sounds more like the punchline of a lawyer joke – The Devil (Al Pacino) is a high-price lawyer in New York – this is lushly produced, played seriously and with surprising theological depths
Black Knight (2001)
Nov 25, 2001Modern Man in Mediaeval Times Comedy
An uncredited adaptation of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court with Martin Lawrence as a hip modern African-American man thrown back to Mediaeval times
Life or Something Like It (2002)
May 24, 2009Woman Receives a Prophecy of Her Death
Bland romantic comedy with a miscast Angelina Jolie as a tv newswoman who receives a prophecy of her death and begins to reconsider her life
Daredevil (2003)
Apr 12, 2003Blind Comic-Book Superhero
One of the early efforts among the surge of Marvel Comics adaptations on the big screen in the early 2000s. A disappointing adaptation that feels more like a series of posed comic-book panels than it ever does a movie
Elektra (2005)
Jan 31, 2005Comic-Book Assassin Superheroine
A spinoff from the film version of Daredevil, this gives the comic-book character of the super-assassin Elektra her own film. This does not have a very good rap but comes with some solid action scenes
Stay (2005)
Dec 2, 2007Deathdream
Marc Forster film that starts in with a beautifully filmed sense of disquiet mood and eerie reality disjuncts but loses it when it opts for another M. Night Shyamalan twist ending
The Fountain (2006)
Feb 26, 2007Mystical Quest for Immortality
Darren Aronofsky's version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. A cryptic and baffling story that takes place in three different eras, all featuring the same actors. Aronofsky engages in much symbolic interplay but what is happening is a scratch of the head
My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)
Nov 10, 2006Stalker Superheroine Comedy
Unfunny Ivan Reitman comedy with Luke Wilson being stalked by his psychotic superheorine ex Uma Thurman
Jumper (2008)
Feb 23, 2008Mental Teleportation Abilities
Doug Liman makes a film that has a great concept – a secret world of people with the mental ability to teleport anywhere – that emerges as no more than a slickly polished effort that does nothing with its premise
Noah (2014)
Apr 12, 2014Biblical Legend
Darren Aronofsky's adaptation of the Biblical legend was mired in controversy. I can only applaud his decision to defy those who claim ownership of the story and set out to make an interesting film. Yet Noah remains an epic that never seems to quite fill the screen and a human drama that never quite comes to life
A Cure for Wellness (2016)
Jun 4, 2017Sinister Health Sanatorium
From Gore Verbinski, director of The Ring and the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, a film about a sinister health sanatorium. A beautiful looking film but it is a long time before we ever find out what is going on
Assassin’s Creed (2016)
Mar 4, 2017Videogame Adaptation/Quest Through Past Lives
Adaptation of the popular videogame that is lumbered with the game's inherently uncinematic premise where people only sit around and watch what has already happened in the past
Ad Astra (2019)
Dec 14, 2019Mission to the Outer Reaches of the Solar System
In the same vein as Gravity and The Martian, this depicts spaceflight with scrupulous scientific regard. Essentially Apocalypse Now in space with Brad Pitt on a mission to Neptune to find his father who has gone rogue
The Northman (2022)
May 21, 2022Viking Film
Robert Eggers, the director who made The Witch and The Lighthouse, makes a violent, primal Viking film steeped in Norse mythology
Barbarian (2022)
Nov 4, 2022Sinister AirBNB
The directorial debut of Zach Cregger that received great word-of-mouth. A film that shifts points-of-views to tell the story of people discovering a horrible secret in the basement of an AirBNB
The Creator (2023)
Nov 25, 2023Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
Gareth Edwards, the director of Monsters and Godzilla, makes a genre-defining work about robotics and artificial intelligence set in a stunningly detailed future world. This site's Top Film for 2023