Dorian Gray as Reflected in the Popular Press (1984)
Long and baffling German surrealist film that makes much reference to German silent cinema. Lots of avant garde set ups without any real point
Fantasy
The Double (2013)
Socially inept Jesse Eisenberg encounters a charming doppelganger that takes over his life. Richard Ayoade adapts a Dostoevsky novella but for some reason transplants it into a blackly comic dystopia
Double Dragon (1994)
Disappointing adaptation of the arcade videogame. The game is premised on mindless martial arts action but the film pitches everything down to pre-teen audiences and make the two brother protagonists into dorks
Doug’s 1st Movie (1999)
Film spinoff of a popular children’s animated tv series Doug about a kid and his observations on life. The film’s story has the title character befriending a local lake monster
Down to Earth (1947)
This was a semi-sequel to Here Comes Mr Jordan featuring Rita Hayworth as the goddess Terpsichore descended to Earth to inspire a Broadway producer
Down to Earth (2001)
Remake of Heaven Can Wait/Here Comes Mr Jordan as a vehicle for comedian Chris Rock where the heavenly body mix-up now becomes about a black man ending up in a white man’s body
Dr. Caligari (1989)
The original The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is a classic of silent German Expressionist cinema; this loose remake feels like Eraserhead reconceived with absurd Day-Glo disco decor
Dragon Knight (2022)
Quite a decent low-budget epic fantasy film from promising Scottish director Lawrie Brewster. This manages to create a reasonable suspension of disbelief on modest resources
Dragon Soldiers (2020)
Low-budget film directed by a former soldier about a troupe of mercenaries sent into the woods to round up vagrants who find they are fighting against a dragon
Dragon Tiger Gate (2006)
A Hong Kong martial arts film set among the triad wars that is made with an assured blend of turbo-charged and frequently fantastical CGI-assisted action sequences
Dragonball: Evolution (2009)
Disastrous and miscalculated live-action Hollywood version of the anime series. which turns the characters into just regular teenagers. Nobody involved seems to be making any effort.
DragonHeart (1996)
This places an amusing spin on the standard dragon fantasy, having the dragon and its would-be slayer team up to fool the peasantry out of money. The Sean Connery-voiced dragon looks like a big CGI cartoon
Dragonheart 3: The Sorcerer’s Curse (2015)
Sequel to a largely forgotten fantasy series. While never transcending formula, this fares somewhat better than the previous sequel largely because CGI effects have advanced since the original
DragonHeart: A New Beginning (2000)
A shabby video-released sequel to DragonHeart (the first of several). Although this is quite clearly not being made with the services of Industrial Light and Magic this time
Dragonheart: Battle for the Heartfire (2017)
The fourth film in the Dragonheart franchise. Is there truly anybody out there who was begging for this? Cheaply made in Romania where it seems to be straining to drag the original premise out for another film
DragonHeart: Vengeance (2020)
Quite why the largely forgotten DragonHeart has produced four sequels is beyond me. Where does such a loyal fanbase come from that they keep churning out more of these films?
Dragonslayer (1981)
An overlooked fantasy film. Although the spirit of Star Wars stands over it, it offers a dark and gritty vision of the Middle Ages and soars with a full flight of fantasy with some stunning dragon effects
Dragonworld (1994)
One of the better films produced by Charles Band. Despite variable dragon effects, this is a children’s film that captures a genteel sense of innocence
Dream a Little Dream (1989)
One of the forgotten entries in the mid-1980s spate of bodyswap comedies where elderly Jason Robards finds himself in teenager Corey Feldman’s body. This suffers from a very confused script
Dream One (1984)
Head-scratchingly odd fantasy film produced by John Boorman and family where a young boy is transported to a world where he mingles with characters from fiction
Dream Scenario (2023)
A film in which Nicolas Cage keeps appearing in other people’s dreams. This goes from an initial wild absurdism to something that becomes bitingly satiric as it takes on instant celebrity and Cancel Culture
Dreamchild (1985)
Dennis Potter scripted film with the great Coral Browne as the aging Alice Liddell, who inspired the fictional Alice in Wonderland, who imagines the creatures come to life to show her the hidden message in the book
Dreamkeeper (2003)
Beautifully made and written Hallmark tv mini-series directed by Steve Barron that brings to life a variety of different Native American myths and legends
Dreamland (2019)
Bruce McDonald, who directed the standout Pontypool, makes a crime film where Stephen McHattie plays both a hitman and a heroin-addicted trumpet player. For head-scratching reasons, the film also includes a vampire
Dreams (1990)
It is some surprise that Akira Kurosawa’s only full venture into fantastic cinema was with his penultimate film here. A beautifully filmed anthology of eight tales, including several ghost stories and two anti-nuclear parables
Drifting Home (2022)
Peculiar but very nicely made anime about a group of children who go on a fantastical journey in an abandoned apartment building that is washed away to sea
Drop Dead Fred (1991)
Sort of Harvey remade by way of Beetlejuice wherein Phoebe Cates’s childhood imaginary companion returns to wreak havoc. A film that makes a beeline for mud-pie throwing and general anarchy
The Dude in Me (2019)
A South Korean film where a tough gangster and a bullied teenager end up swapping bodies whereupon the gangster ends up transforming the teen’s life by employing gangland tactics in the school playground
Dudes & Dragons (2015)
This sets out to parody the Lord of the Rings fantasy. Or at least you think that is what it is trying to do. All suspension of disbelief is killed by a series of grating and anachronistic quips
Dudes (1987)
From director Penelope Spheeries, this is an almost unclassifiable oddity. As three punks set out in a search of a better life, this becomes a road movie and Western homage (with ghost cowboys)
Dudley Do-Right (1999)
A live-action film adaptation of the old animated tv show with Brendan Fraser in the title role as a bumbling mountie. This drowns in excruciating slapstick and one-dimensional pantomime caricatures
The Duel (2000)
A Wu Xia film from Andrew Lau, the director of the Infernal Affairs films, in which the two top martial artists in the world issue a challenge to a duel on the roof of the imperial palace
Duel to the Death (1983)
An early entry in the Wu Xia genre, filled with wildly over-the-top martial arts and swordplay sequences. One of the first films from Ching Siu-Tung, later a major Hong Kong action choreographer.
Dumbo (1941)
One of the classic films from Disney’s Golden Age, a beautiful piece of anthropomorphism in the tale of an ungainly elephant that flies with its oversized ears. Considered controversial in more recent years.
Dumbo (2019)
Another in the spate of live-action remakes of Disney animated films – one of four to be released in 2019 alone. This comes from Tim Burton who reconceives as Dumbo as another of his oddball outsiders.
The Dungeonmaster (1984)
An anthology film produced by Charles Band where assorted directors turn in seven episodes all centred around a videogame warrior put through a series of tests by The Devil
Dungeons & Dragons (2000)
Film based on the enormously popular roleplaying game, this appears to have been quickly thrown together in advance of The Lord of the Rings films but is a shabby effort filled with some disastrous off-tone casting
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
A new film based on the role-playing game. The first film several years ago is poorly regarded. This is an attempt to reboot a film series but suffers badly from being handed to two comedy directors and their flip treatment
Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness (2012)
The third film based on the roleplaying game. The previous two films were forgettable but this is surprisingly good, taking a far darker tone than the usual sword-and-sorcery adventure and adding considerable moral complexity
Dust Bunny (2025)
A completely indescribable film about a young girl who befriends a hitman and asks him to protect her from an imaginary monster. The result falls somewhere between Leon/The Professional and a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film
The Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993)
A Hong Kong Wu Xia film from Jeffrey Lau that is near plotless and made at a madcap level of slapstick comedy that is frequently exhausting.
Early Man (2018)
Claymation film from Aardman Animations that is in effect a prehistoric comedy like The Flintstones or The Croods mixed up with a sports film, but is Aardman’s slightest work so far
Earthsea (2004)
This TV mini-series adaptation of the Ursula Le Guin books is an insult. This was quickly mounted on the back of the success of The Lord of the Rings films but feels like tv filler that has zero affinity for Le Guin’s richly cultured world
Earwig and the Witch (2020)
Charming anime from Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro about a young girl adopted into a witch’s strange household. The occasion where Studio Ghibli made the switch over to computer animation
East Meets West (2011)
Hong Kong comedy designed to bring together an ensemble of local stars. The film starts out about the efforts to reunite a band and turns into a wacky effort where everybody discovers they are avatars of deities
Ed and His Dead Mother (1993)
A very eccentric comedy in which momma’s boy Steve Buscemi accepts a deal from a strange salesman to resurrect his beloved mother (Miriam Margolyes) from the dead
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp in one of their best collaborations. Burton creates this sweet oddball fable that is a take on Frankenstein where the monster becomes an alienated youth with scissors for hands
18 Again (1988)
One of the spate of 1980s bodyswap comedies a la Big, Vice Versa and Like Father, Like Son in which octogenarian George Burns swaps bodies with his teenage grandson Charlie Schlatter
Elektra (2005)
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
Elemental (2023)
Pixar release that received uneven box-office and a critical drubbing. Despite being lumbered with a weak premise – talking elements! – it is not entirely unwatchable
11.22.63 (2016)
Stephen King adapted mini-series in which James Franco finds a mysterious door that leads back to 1960 and sets out to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy
Elf (2003)
Jon Favreau directed Christmas film premised entirely around the premise of 6’3″ Will Ferrell as an ungainly Christmas elf. The film works entirely to the extent one has a tolerance for Ferrell’s screen presence.
Ella Enchanted (2004)
Excruciatingly awful take on Cinderella, which overruns the fairytale with hip contemporary in-jokes and pop culture references, shredding any suspension of disbelief in its desire to appeal to a modern teen cool
The Emerald Forest (1985)
John Boorman film with Powers Boothe searching for his son who has been snatched by Indians in the Amazon. A mystical film, the first to bring issues of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest to public attention
The Emoji Movie (2017)
An animated film that bizarrely speculates that the emojis in your text messages are actually living entities that have lives inside the phone. A not-too-well-thought out concept that leaves you with strange questions about its world
Empathy (2007)
British clairvoyance thriller with an almost identical premise to The Dead Zone. Familiar material told with a modest effectiveness
Emperor Visits the Hell (2012)
The idea of (some chapters of) the classic Chinese legend Journey to the West retold in contemporary terms. This makes for some amusing interpolations, while also acting as a social critique of modern-day Chinese society
The Emperor’s New Clothes (1987)
One of the shabby fairytales produced by Cannon Films. Here the clear and simple moral sting of the Hans Christian Andersen original disappears under buffoonish comedy
The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)
One of the head-scratching animated oddities produced by Disney during the 2000s. Not unlikeable, the story concerns a self-centered Aztec emperor who is transformed into a llama
The Emperor’s New Groove 2: Kronk’s New Groove (2005)
Another of the cheap made-for-video Disney animated sequels that were made during the 1990s/2000s, they tries to get by on association with its predecessor’s name
Empire of Passion (1978)
A Japanese ghost story in the neo-realist style where a wife and her lover conspire to kill her husband and then dump his body down a well only for him to return to them as a ghost
The Empty Mirror (1997)
A bizarre film that features Adolf Hitler sitting around in the afterlife joined by Sigmund Freud and others as he reflects on his image
Encanto (2021)
One of the best Disney animated films in some time. Set around a Colombian American family that have hereditary magic powers and live in a magical house, this comes with an enormous degree of colour and energy
Enchanted (2007)
Disney film where an animated fairytale princess emerges into the real world to become Amy Adams. This becomes the opportunity to wittily puncture the unreal world of the Disney fairytale
The Enchanted Cottage (1945)
An old-fashioned weepie melodrama about a cottage that allows a disfigured soldier and a plain woman to find love where the magic there allows them to see the other as perfect
The Enchanted Cottage (2016)
A modern remake of an old play filmed twice before about a magical cottage that allows plain and disfigured lovers who stay there to see the other one as beautiful
End of Days, Inc. (2015)
A comedy in which office staff working overtime gradually realise their efforts are in preparation for the end of the world. This needed more of a dark bite to fully work but has occasional amusement
Endless Poetry (2016)
At the age of 87, Alejandro Jodorowsky makes second of his autobiographical films following The Dance of Reality. In Jodorowsky’s hands, the story of his adolescence is turned into a gaudy and gloriously surreal mardi gras
Enemy (2013)
Denis Villeneuve slips into a very Cronenbergian vein to deliver a film about Jake Gyllenhaal and a mysterious doppelganger. A fascinatingly oblique and cryptic work, just as long as one does not require that it comes with any easy explanations
Enter the Void (2009)
Gaspar Noe’s hallucinatory Day-Glo vision of a soul’s departure into the afterlife all shot in first-person perspective. This could be a 2001: A Space Odyssey for the trance culture generation
Entropy (1999)
An autobiographical film from music video and film director Phil Joanou, this comes with a number of surreal fantastical touches
Epic (2013)
The animated films of Blue Sky Studios (the people behind the Ice Age sequels) have become so formulaic they have been drained of any spark of originality or creativity. This feels more like a series of test-marketing cues than a film
Epic Movie (2007)
Probably the worst of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer witless and painfully unfunny films – this just consists of a series of vulgar gags run over a bunch of scenes from films that came out in the last twelve months
Epidemic (1987)
Lars von Trier’s second and most obscure film. Made on a shoestring budget, it is mostly about two filmmakers trying to make a film about a plague outbreak but does burst out into a fantastic shaggy dog ending
Eragon (2006)
A dragon fantasy adapted from a popular book series that has Lord of the Rings wannabe stamped all over it and only unimaginatively follows in Peter Jackson’s footsteps
Eraserhead (1977)
The first film from David Lynch, a surrealist work that is one the cult films of all-time. A masterpiece of mood that swims in an atmosphere of dream and Freudian symbolism of cryptically inscrutable meaning
Erik the Viking (1989)
Terry Jones of Monty Python fame makes a comedy with Tim Robbins as a non-violent Viking on a quest to bring about Ragnarok. A film that seems to think it is funnier than it ends up being
Ernest and Celestine (2012)
Entirely charming French animated film from the directors of A Town Called Panic. This is a children’s film that comes with a beautiful simplicity, a duo of winning characters and some side-splitting visual gags
Ernest Goes to Jail (1990)
The third of Jim Varney’s Ernest films where he is mistaken for a wanted criminal who is his double – only to go to the electric chair and this to cause his body to become magnetised
Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)
This was the second of Jim Varney’s Ernest P. Worrel comedies. It sees Santa Claus looking for a replacement and Ernest coming to the aid amid a series of comic shenanigans
Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)
The fourth of Jim Varney’s Ernest P. Worrel comedies. This pits Ernest in a series of knockabouts routines against a troll that is resurrected on Halloween
Erotic Ghost Story (1990)
Hong Kong film that blends gauzy erotica and supernatural (although no ghosts despite the title). Not as a good as the first sequel (one of several that followed) due to crude direction
Erotic Ghost Story III (1992)
The third and least interesting of the Hong Kong series that blends erotica and the supernatural. Unlike the other films, this takes itself mostly seriously
Erotic Ghost Story II (1991)
The second and best in the series of Hong Kong films filled with wonderfully tongue-in-cheek erotica and a series of entertainingly over-the-top fantastical set-pieces
Erotic Ghost Story – Perfect Match (1997)
Film posing as a sequel in the Hong Kong-made Erotic Ghost Story series, this consists of random sexual encounters and comic interludes without much connecting plot
Erotic Possessions (1999)
An erotic film in which Shauna O’Brien is possessed by the spirit of an actress from the 1940s who sets out to win the big role she missed out on in her previous life
Escape from Tomorrow (2013)
This has the novelty of being shot guerilla-style at Disneyland and Disney World without permission. Nothing prepares you for the amazingly dark work you get, a surreal hallucinatory drift through the park’s underbelly
The Escapist (2008)
This is principally a prison escape drama, at which it works well with a strong ensemble cast. It also has a left field ending that reveals it is a fantasy film, which remains its least satisfying aspect
The Eternal Daughter (2022)
This received acclaim on the arthouse circuit. Tilda Swinton plays both the daughter and her mother who go to stay a hotel that may be haunted. Everything hovers in a state of ambiguity
Evan Almighty (2007)
Sequel to Bruce Almighty in which Steve Carell is transformed into a modern-day Noah. This was pitched to the Christian audiences but feels like a series of lame gags playing on Noah and the Ark devoid of any biblical context
EverAfter (1998)
Witty and very charming retelling of Cinderella that strips out all of the fantasy elements and substitutes a pseudo-historical realism. The cast positively shine.
Every Day (2018)
Don’t be put off by the Young Adult label. Look past this and you will end up with one of the most original premises and one of the most beautifully written films seen in some time.
Every Home Should Have One (1970)
A vehicle for Marty Feldman, a peculiar comedy where he plays an advertising executive who has Walter Mitty-like sexual fantasies
Every Time I Die (2019)
Film with an interestingly original premise where a guy is murdered and then inhabits the bodies of a group of friends as he tries to expose the killer
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
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
Eve’s Bayou (1997)
Actress Kasi Lemmons directs a strong African-American Coming of Age story set in a backwater Louisiana town, one where voodoo is a regular part of the culture
Excalibur (1981)
The definitive film version of the Arthurian legends. John Boorman gives us a magnificent and soaring work of beautiful impassioned imagery that delves deep into the rich mythology of the cycle
Exit 8 (2025)
Enigmatic adaptation of a Japanese videogame where the protagonist is trapped inside a railway platform tunnel and must walk through the same corridor that repeats itself with minute variations to find the exit
The Exterminating Angel (1962)
An acclaimed surrealistic film from Luis Buñuel in which a group of people attend an upper-class dinner party but then find themselves inexplicably unable to leave the room
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec (2010)
Luc Besson adapts a French comic-book – sort of a female version of Tintin – with uneven but generally amiable regard. The result is somewhere between an Indiana Jones adventure and the quirkness of an Amelie