Twice Upon a Yesterday (1998)
Appealing and well told fantasy in which a couple are each individually offered the opportunity to go back in time and change the circumstances that led to their breakup
Fantasy
Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997)
Another of Guy Maddin’s surreal kitsch films all delivered in deadpan prose, this boasts more of a name cast than usual for Maddin
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, John Landis and George Miller came together to make this homage to tv’s The Twilight Zone. The episodes are variable but the standout is Miller’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
Twitches (2005)
Inane Disney Channel film with twin sisters Tia and Tamera Mowry as sisters who didn’t know it who discover they are witches. A film that has zero interest in its fantasy elements and is entirely taken up by airhead teenage airhead natter
Twitches Too (2007)
Having to sit through the Mowray twins airhead natter again in a sequel to their early Disney Channel film feels the equivalent of nails being scratched on a blackboard
2:22 (2017)
Michiel Huisman is an air traffic controller who discovers that small inconsequential things are repeating themselves every day and that he is being drawn to reenact a fatal incident. A beautifully made film that arrives at an ending that leaves you scratching your head in puzzlement
Two of a Kind (1983)
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John went stellar in Grease. The same flopped when they reteamed in this comedy where they are caught in a bet between God and The Devil
The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan (1979)
Classic tv movie in which Lindsay Wagner travels back to the 19th Century to romance Marc Singer. Classic what is the question – what we have is a weepy romantic version of a time travel film that eliminates any of the interesting things like culture clash, advanced knowledge and time paradox
U (2006)
A likeable and colourful French animated film
Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)
Classic Japanese kaidan eiga (or ghost story). Made not long after Akira Kurosawa’s new realism in Japanese cinema, this comes with a superb formalism as it slowly moves over into the supernatural
The Ugly Duckling (1997)
Amiable British animated film for young children based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale
The Ugly Duckling (2010)
Charming Claymation animated adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale from Russia that manages to be a mordant satire on Communism into the bargain
The Ugly Stepsister (2025)
An adult and frequently horrific retelling of the Cinderella story from the Ugly Stepsister’s point-of-view
Ulysses (1954)
Lavishly made Greek myth adventure, an adaptation of The Odyssey with Kirk Douglas as Ulysses/Odysseus
Unbreakable (2000)
M. Night Shyamalan’s immediate follow-up to the huge hit of The Sixth Sense. This similarly builds a big conceptual mystery before arriving at the rather hokey notion that Bruce Willis is really a superhero
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Winner of this year Cannes Palme d’Or, this is a Thai ghost story .where director Apichatpong Weerasethaku creates an intensely haunted atmosphere at times, although the film itself remains vague and elusive in terms of plot
Under the Rainbow (1981)
Widely considered a bad film, this is a slapstick comedy starring Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher set around the dwarves during the making of The Wizard of Oz
Under the Rainbow (2013)
No relation to the disastrous Chevy Chase film, a French romantic comedy that has modernised retellings of various fairytales wound into the plot, often being deflated or turned on their head
Unico (1981)
aka The Fantastic Adventures of Unico Japan. 1981. Crew Director – Toshio Hirata, Screenplay – Masaki Tsuji, Based on a Story by Osamu Tezuka, Producer – Shintaro Tsuji, Music – Ryo Kitayama, Art Direction – Akio Sugino. Production Company – Sanrio. Plot The gods are jealous of the young unicorn boy Unico who can bring […]
Up (2009)
One of the finest works from Pixar, the story about an old man and a boy on an adventure in a film that develops some incredibly nuanced and heart-warming emotional depths
Up There (2012)
Rather appealing British comedy set in an afterlife that is conceived as a dreary world of social services agencies and encounter groups. A frequently extremely black and funny but eventually charming film that gets lit up by the eccentricity of its performances
Upworld (1991)
The most bizarre of the variants on the buddy cop film that came out after Lethal Weapon in which Anthony Michael Hall is partnered with a gnome. Directed by makeup effects man Stan Winston and an embarrassment to all involved
User Friendly (1990)
Oddball New Zealand-made comedy with various characters in pursuit of a statuette with rejuvenative properties
A Valentine Carol (2007)
Lifetime Channel Valentine’s Day movie that rewrites A Christmas Carol to have Emma Caulfield visited by the ghosts of relationships past, present and future
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)
Little-seen Czech film that sits on the blurred edge of a dream in its hazily surreal view of the world through the eyes of a young girl where the figures around her seem to become vampires that constantly loom with darkly allegorical sexual threat
Valhalla Rising (2009)
A Viking film from Nicolas Winding Refn. Rather than being made in the sense of any historical film this is almost a mystical arthouse work, a work haunted by the austerity of its primal landscape
Valiant (2005)
Amiable British animated film set amongst the Allied Resistance during World War II, all cast with talking carrier pigeons
Vampire Dog (2012)
This may quite possibly be the worst vampire film ever made – a children’s film about a boy and a cute vampire dog. Being a children’s film, the vampire dog is not allowed to drink blood so has to have a ravenous hunger for red jelly! The slapstick is excruciating and the film painful on every level
Vampire Hunters (2002)
Tsui Hark scripted/produced Wu Xia effort that shuffles the familiar tropes about without seeming too enervated
Vertigo (1958)
Considered one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest films, this is a study in obsession and features a reincarnation plot. What works more so than the contrived plot twists is Hitchcock’s expert direction, all thunderously brooding mood and lush Technicolor dreaminess
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011)
The third film in the series of stoner comedies trips off into gonzo genre territory. A relentlessly and unashamedly vulgar film that also manages to be occasionally quite funny
Vibes (1988)
Psychic powers comedy made in the aftermath of Ghostbusters where Jeff Goldblum is upstaged by a kooky Cyndi Lauper
Vice Versa (1988)
One of a spate of bodyswap comedies in the mid-1980s where father and son Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage end up swapping bodies
Vidocq (2001)
A film based on the real-life figure of Francois Vidocq, who became the world’s first detective, which the film uses as the stepping off point to create an exquisite dark fantasy
Village of Dreams (1996)
Japanese Coming of Age tale about two mischief-making twin brothers growing up in the 1940s
The Vintner’s Luck (2009)
Whale Rider director Niki Caro makes an uneven film about a 19th Century peasant who is inspired to make wine by an angel
Violent Night (2022)
Dark and definitely not sentimental Christmas film with David Harbour as a cynical Santa repelling a home invasion. This does not let down on the violent half of the title
The Visitors (1993)
Hilarious French comedy where a filthy Mediaeval knight and his servant are transported into the present-day
Vivarium (2019)
A real mindscrew of a film in which Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg are a couple who enter a strangely unreal suburb of identical houses and find they can’t leave. Then things start to get really strange.
Vivo (2021)
Animated film about a talking and singing monkey from Cuba that travels to the US on a quest
The Voices (2014)
On the scale of weird movies, this is about as out there as it gets – Ryan Reynolds has conversations with his cat and dog who urge him to cut people’s heads off, which continue to talk as he keeps them in his refrigerator. A mind-bogglingly warped film and quite brilliant in its dark funniness when you work out what is going on
Volcano High (2001)
Energetic South Korean attempt to employ the Wu Xia action moves popularised by The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in a high school setting
Volver (2006)
Pedro Almodovar film in which two daughters try to deal with their mother’s seeming return from the dead
W The Movie (2008)
Not to be confused with the Oliver Stone film, this is a surrealist satire on the George W. Bush presidency
Waking Life (2001)
A unique and very original animated film from Richard Linklater where a character wanders through a dream, encountering various people and their different philosophical outlooks
Walking With Dinosaurs (2013)
Walking With Dinosaurs was an amazing documentary series that recreated prehistoric life with CGI animation. By contrast. the film spinoff is a cutsie animated film with talking dinosaurs. It is a film that is killed by the decision to let the dinosaurs talk with smartass one-liners and contemporary in-jokes
The Wall (1998)
Film made to celebrate the millennium where a totalitarian government creates a wall that divides Belgium along linguistic lines
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Aardman Animation spread the seemingly universal appeal of their Wallace and Gromit short films out onto the big screen with deliriously nonsensical results
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
Aardman Animation give Wallace and Gromit their second film outing
Wanted (2008)
The film that Hitman should have been concerning a secret world of super-powered assassins, revved up by out of this world visuals from Timur Bekmambetov
Warcraft (2016)
Adapted from the videogame, this is a third hand rehash of the basics of Tolkien. Secondly, it looks like a giant CGI cartoon where almost anything interesting about the world has been sidelined in favour of fantasy action
The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984)
One of the spate of sword and sorcery films that came out during this period, marginally better than most. The plot is a blatant copy of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo where a swordsman (David Carradine) sets two rival gang factions in a town against one another
The Warriors Gate (2016)
Luc Besson written/produced effort where a videogamer kid is transported to Ancient China. A blatant copy of The Forbidden Kingdom that manages to be fundamentally implausible on every level and one of the worst attempts to pander to the Chinese box-office
Warriors of Virtue (1997)
Fantasy film set in a magical otherworld defended by martial arts wielding kangaroos
A Warrior’s Tragedy (1993)
Entry from they heyday of Hong Kong’s Wu Xia cycle. By this point, the moves had become so over-the-top the film verges on the cartoonish, all with rather entertaining results
The Warrior’s Way (2010)
Korean-made Wu Xia/Western crossover that imports Hollywood names and is shot in New Zealand, resulting in a bizarre oddity cross-cultural fusion. The plot elements are paper thin but the film comes to life during the stylised action scenes
The Watch (2020)
Mini-series based on the works of Terry Pratchett that feels as though it is made, designed and cast by people who haven’t even read the books
The Water Babies (1978)
Part live-action, part animated adaptation of a classic Victorian children’s story about an urchin who discovers a secret world underwater
The Water Diviner (2014)
Russell Crowe turns director and, as is the case with actors turned director, feels the need to take up an epic historical subject – the aftermath of World War I (albeit with some Magical Realist elements). Crowe wields all the epic flourish and polish, even if the film never truly moves one
The Water Horse (2007)
Earnestly made family film from Walden Media in which a young boy finds an egg that grows into the Loch Ness Monster
Watermelon Man (1970)
From Melvin Van Peebles who made the first Blaxploitation film, a satire in which a white man wakes up to find he has turned black. This takes a savage bite out of race relations but ends up without teeth in being distracted by Godfrey Cambridge’s raucous loudmouth performance
Watership Down (1978)
Neglected today, this adaptation of Richard Adams’ classic novel about a quest among rabbits was one of the finest animated films of its era. This is frequently heartbreaking and touches on darker emotions that Disney and most other family films regularly sanitise.
Watership Down (2018)
BBC tv mini-series remake of the classic Richard Adams novel about talking rabbits on a quest. To get it over with, the animation is not the high-end quality that we have been spoiled with by Pixar et al. On the other hand, what remains is an excellent faithfully told version of the story
The Wave (2019)
Justin Long goes on a bender and takes some drugs that bend reality and leave him moving through time. Sort of like a version of Scorsese’s After Hours that dives into drug culture, this wants to be edgy but ends up in surprisingly traditional places.
We Have a Ghost (2023)
Christopher Landon, director of Happy Death Day and Freaky, makes a comedy about a family who turn the ghost in their house into a viral sensation
Weathering With You (2019)
From Makoto Shinkai who made Your Name., a lovely anime about a girl who can control the weather. An odd premise about orphans that soon develops unusual and unexpected depths
Weekend at Bernie’s II (1993)
The first Weekend at Bernie’s had the lame concept of two jerks forced to pretend that their boss’s body was still alive. For the sequel, the body is resurrected by voodoo
Welcome to Marwen (2018)
Robert Zemeckis of Back to the Future and Forrest Gump fame makes a film of the true-life story of Mark Hogancamp who recovered from a brutal assault by building a fantasy village of dolls. The results are bizarre where Zemeckis seems more interested in making a Sucker Punch-like fantasy where the dolls come to life
Wendy (2020)
Director Benh Zeitlin made an extraordinary debut with Beasts of the Southern Wild. In his follow-up, he does striking things in making a modernised Peter Pan and transplanting the story to Louisiana
Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior (2006)
Disney Channel film where a modern teenager finds she is the reincarnation of a martial arts warrior
We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story (1993)
Juvenile animated film from Amblin Entertainment concerning dinosaurs whose intelligence is raised to human level and they are let loose in the present-day
A Werewolf Boy (2012)
Despite the title, this South Korean film is less a werewolf story than it is a love story about a feral child. The film seems overburdened by the need to pitch the film to the teen demographic and play the violins and heartstrings as a Twilight wannabe
We’ve Forgotten More Than We Ever Knew (2016)
Cryptic film about a couple wandering a post-apocalyptic terrain who discover an untouched and still working apartment tower. Less a work of SF than one of baffling surrealism
Whale Rider (2002)
Magical Realist tale set among New Zealand’s native Maori peoples concerning a young girl’s cautious defiance of traditions
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Vincent Ward is one of the least recognised great directors in the world. Here he creates an extraordinary vision of the afterlife in which he employs CGI to create a world that resembles classic artworks brought to life
What Men Want (2019)
A gender-swapped remake of What Women Want in which Taraji P. Henson gets the ability to read men’s thoughts. Henson displays no talent for comedy and this is a spectacularly unfunny film
What Women Want (2000)
Amiable romantic comedy in which Mel Gibson comes round after an accident in the shower to find he now has the ability to read women’s thoughts.
What Women Want (2011)
Chinese remake of the romcom where Mel Gibson was suddenly able to hear women’s thoughts. A second time over, the premise seems slight while the film crucially fails to create much passion between its two stars
Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (1999)
Eccentric Coming of Age story set during the 1970s punk era where, among the usual other funny travails, the protagonist’s father starts demonstrating psychic abilities
When in Rome (2010)
Agonisingly awful romantic comedy about a Fountain of Love. The plot is utterly vapid, its resolution never in the slightest doubt, while director Mark Steven (Daredevil, Ghost Rider) Johnson sets the entire film up around a series of painfully unfunny slapstick routines
When Marnie Was There (2014)
A ghost story from Studio Ghibli – although rather than any Western equivalent that sets out to scare the pants off us, this is a sweetly tender story of friendship between two girls. The result more than capably approaches some of Hayao Miyazaki’s best
When Pigs Fly (1993)
Peculiar film where Alfred Molina is the landlord of a pub who is visited by two ghosts appearing out of a rocking chair
When the Whales Came (1989)
This is what might result if Greenpeace were allowed to take over the BBC arts division. Nicely made but not necessarily a great period drama about a whale curse
Where is Anne Frank (2021)
Beautifully affecting animated film from Ari Folman in which the imaginary companion in Anne Frank’s diary comes to life in the present day
Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
Spike Jonze conducts his own unique and individualistic adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book about a young boy who sails away to an island of friendly monsters
A Whisker Away (2020)
A sweet and quite lovely anime where a girl befriends the boy she pines after being offered a mask that transforms her into a cat body – only to then have her own body stolen
The White Buffalo (1977)
Probably the strangest film that Charles Bronson ever made – a retelling of Moby Dick where he plays the real-life figure of Wild Bill Hickok hunting a mythic white buffalo instead of a whale. This was a big financial flop but is a not unworthwhile film
White Light (1991)
Cheap badly directed film starring Martin Kove as detective who is shot but comes back haunted by visions of the afterlife
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)
Groundbreaking film that hilariously imagines an alternate world where cartoon characters live alongside humans. The energy and creativity of the film is superlative
Who is Running? (1997)
Debut feature from Oxide Pang of the Pang Brothers fame. A variant on the tv series Early Edition in which a man receives newspapers that foretell the future and must race to prevent fates from occurring in order to earn karmic salvation for his girlfriend
The Whole Wide World (1996)
Biopic of Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja and others. Contains some fine acting from Vincent D/Onofrio and Renee Zellwegeras the teacher he becomes involved with
Wicked City (1987)
Anime from Yoshiaki Kawajiri about a war with a demon dimension that falls halfway between H.P. Lovecraft and a hard-boiled detective thriller and brims over wit fascinatingly pathological sexual imagery
Wicked City (1993)
Live-action version of a manga that was previously made as an anime. This Hong Kong-made version is the lesser, lacking the perverse sexual imagery of the anime. It does feature the wildly fantastical action scenes typical to HK fantasy of this era but this has been conducted on a low-budget and looks rubbery (*)
Wicked: For Good (2025)
The second half of the film adaptation of the musical Wicked. This essentially operates as Wizard of Oz fanfiction and substantially wrenches the characters and backstories from the 1939 film out of shape to write its own story
Wicked: Part 1 (2024)
The first half of a two-part adaptation of the hit Broadway musical that is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, showing The Wicked Witch’s origin story
Wicked Stepmother (1989)
The worst film from the usually great Larry Cohen, an unfunny comedy in which a household is taken over by a witch. Bette Davis quit soon into shooting and is replaced partway through by Barbara Carrera
The Wild (2006)
Likeable animated film about a group of zoo animals making an escape that ended up being overshadowed by the similar, more high-profile Madagascar
Wild at Heart (1990)
One of David Lynch’s finest films, with lovers Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern on the run in a road movie that travels through deranged places of the mind and explodes with crazy energy
Wilder Napalm (1993)
Quirkily eccentric comedy written by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan about two feuding brothers with pyrokinetic abilities
Willow (1988)
Outside of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, not much else that George Lucas has made has been a success. This Ron Howard-directed epic fantasy proved to be a big flop where Howard’s lightweight touch fails to make a one-dimensional plot fly