Galaxy Express 999 (1979)
Classic anime space opera adventure made not long after Star Wars and filled with moments of glorious visual poetry including the conceptually absurd image of a spacegoing train
Science Fiction
Galaxy of Terror (1981)
An Alien copy produced by Roger Corman that creates a constantly eerie atmosphere in between the usual slime-drooling monster attacks. With production design by a then unknown James Cameron
Galaxy Turnpike (2015)
Japanese comedy with various humans and aliens interacting around an interstellar burger restaurant on the road from Earth, although none of it seems that funny
GalaxyQuest (1999)
An extremely funny parody of Star Trek that sends up both the show, the actors and the fandom. A very witty and knowing script that has definitely been written by fans
Gamer (2009)
Film somewhere between Counterstrike and The Running Man where convicts are controlled as avatars inside a live-action videogame. A difficult to believe premise that is pumped up with hyper-adrenalised action visuals
Gamera 2: Assault of Legion (1996)
Shusuke Kaneko did extraordinary things in revitalising the Japanese monster movie in the 1990s with his trilogy of Gamera films. This was the second of them, usually seen as the weakest of the trilogy
Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999)
An extraordinary reworking of the Japanese kaiju series with stunning CGI effects sequences. This set a new standard and is among the best of the modern Japanese monster movies
Gamera: Super Monster (1980)
Possibly the worst Kaiju film ever made – produced by a bankrupt studio in order to recoup losses and cheaply slung together by rehashing footage from the other Gamera films
Gamera, The Guardian of the Universe (1995)
Here Shusuke Kaneko revived the Gamera series of the 1960s/70s with a series of stunning effects. The result promptly set a new standard for the Japanese monster movie
Gamera vs Barugon (1966)
The 1960s Gamera films were always a copy of the Godzilla films, aimed at a more juvenile level and with crappier effects. This was the second of them, somewhat better produced than the others and taking proceedings seriously
Gamera vs Gyaos (1967)
The third of Daiei’s 1960s Gamera films, this takes the series back into children’s movie territory. Some moments of goofy silliness and variable effects ensue in a likeable enough combination
Gamera vs Jiger (1970)
The fifth of the 1960s Gamera films. This comes with inane plotting, sub-par effects and silly monster fight scenes, even a plot stolen from Fantastic Voyage about a submarine journey into the monster’s body
Gamera vs. Zigra (1971)
This was the seventh of the 1960s Gamera films and one of the worst of the series. By now, the film is pitched entirely to juvenile audiences, while the effects are pitiful
The Gamma People (1956)
One of the early films from Anglo-horror director John Gilling, this takes place in a fictional Soviet republic and features experiments to create a race of super-children
Gammera the Invincible (1965)
This was made as a copy of the Godzilla films by rival studio Daiei. This proved sufficiently successful that it too spawned a long-running series of sequels and monster bashes
Gandahar (1988)
The final film of French animator Rene Laloux, a planetary adventure set on a world where Laloux delights in creating exotically trippy aliens and landscapes. Released in English as Light Years with an Isaac Asimov script
Gappa the Triphibian Monster (1967)
This was a fairly crappy and terrible Japanese monster movie from a rival company seeking to copy the success of Toho’s Godzilla films
Gas; or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It (1970)
Satiric Roger Corman film in which a gas kills everyone in the world over the age of 25. Corman indulges his droll and surreal sense of humour in what amounts to a parody of his own films
The Gateway (2018)
The parallel worlds/alternate timelines theme is one rich in possibilities but this Australian film is one of the least imaginative treatments, serving up only tired good/bad double plots
Gattaca (1997)
The first film from Andrew Niccol, a smart work set in a dystopian future where genetic engineering has perfected the human species and those who are born naturally are doomed to an underclass
Gemini Man (2019)
Ang Lee dips his feet into the action genre in a conceptually fascinating work where assassin Will Smith facies a younger clone of himself. Smith’s performance and the effects used to de-age his double are top-notch
The Gendarme and the Extra-Terrestrials (1979)
An entry in a popular series of French slapstick comedies with Louis de Funes as a comic gendarme. In this, the series sole genre entry, he goes up against alien visitors
The Gene Generation (2007)
Modest Cyberpunk film set in a future where gene editing and hacking has become a norm. Bai Ling owns the show as the kick-ass fetish-gear clad heroine
Genesis (2018)
Apparently the first in a projected trilogy. The ambitiousness of this aside, the film only trades in unoriginal cliches of post-apocalyptic survival and android self-awareness
Genesis II (1973)
An unsold Gene Roddenberry tv pilot that is a fascinating almost-ran. Roddenberry rehashes Star Trek by way of Buck Rogers in a post-holocaust setting. This could have made for a worthwhile series
Genocidal Organ (2017)
An extraordinary anime adapted from Project Itoh, a conceptually challenging work concerning a villain who can manipulate language to drive populations to genocide
Gentlemen Broncos (2009)
Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess visits the same territory with this comedy in which teenager Michael Angarano has his manuscript stolen by SF writer Jemaine Clement
Geo-Disaster (2017)
A disaster movie mockbuster from The Asylum that was intended to exploit the (non)-success of Geostorm. Directed by the writer of the Sharknado films
Geostorm (2017)
Directorial debut of Roland Emmerich’s regular screenwriter Dean Devlin who has clearly been given orders to make another Emmerich film. Thus we get all the same effects-driven mass destruction spectacle, absurd science and pro-environmental messages
Gerry Anderson: A Life Uncharted (2022)
Fascinating documentary about the life of cult producer Gerry Anderson, the creator of puppet shows like Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet et al. Made by Anderson’s son Jamie
Get a Life! (2012)
The William Shatner directed documentary can be a unique beast. Here he makes a quite reasonable effort to examine what is at the heart of Star Trek fandom
Get Smart (2008)
There seems something crushingly redundant about conducting a big screen revival of tv’s Get Smart in the era after Austin Powers. The film is a middle-of-the-road comedy that never finds the zaniness of the original
The Ghastly Love of Johnny X (2012)
A beautifully shot b/w homage to exploitation films that feels like a 1950s rock‘n’roll musical injected with a host of gonzo elements including aliens, UFOs and the resurrected dead
Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
The fifth Godzilla film, the point where Godzilla becomes a good guy joining Mothra and Rodan to battle Ghidrah. The best Godzilla film from this period with the effects team operating at the peak of their game
Ghost in the Machine (1993)
Made in the aftermath of The Lawnmower Man, this utterly ridiculous film has a serial killer uploaded to the internet. Written by people who know nothing about computers and filled with absurdly over-the-top effects
Ghost in the Shell (2017)
This US-made live-action adaptation of the cult anime is a disaster on every level. The original’s haunting meditation on the dividing line between machine and human is diluted to being no more than a Cyberpunk action film
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
Mamoru Oshii’s follow-up to Ghost in the Shell where he makes a work that pushes both an artistic envelope at the same time as taking his philosophical fascination with the Cyberpunk world to a stunning level
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Classic anime from Mamoru Oshii, a Cyberpunk work with a heroine who is a cyborg special forces officer, a work that delves deeply into the philosophical questions of what is human and what is machine
Ghost in the Shell: Arise (2013-2014)
Reboot of the Ghost in the Shell series in a quartet of prequel stories. This funnels the essence of Cyberpunk superbly, creating a dazzling world with cyborgised security services fighting terrorists hacking people’s brains
Ghost in the Shell (2015)
Another anime film in the Ghost in the Shell franchise. This was the fifth episode of the Ghost in the Shell: Arise reboot series that received a theatrical release
Ghost Machine (2009)
A Virtual Reality/horror film about a malevolent spirit incarnated inside a videogame. This churns all the Virtual Reality cliches as though nothing had changed since the tide of shabby 1990s Lawnmower Man copies
The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918)
An early film from Willis O’Brien, the creator of King Kong, where a man finds a telescope that offers a view of the prehistoric past
Ghosts of Mars (2001)
John Carpenter returns to cinema screens amid the 2000-1 spate of Mars movies. Despite promise, this ends up being not much more than his early film Assault on Precinct 13 relocated on Mars
Ghosts … of the Civil Dead (1988)
The first film from Australian director John Hillcoat, a brutally tough depiction of a maximum security prison set in the future. Singer Nick Cave gives an extremely disturbing performance as an inmate
Ghosts of War (2020)
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
Ghosts With Shit Jobs (2012)
Fascinating film interviewing people about the jobs they are forced to take in an economically collapsed future. Despite a minuscule budget, this has the grip of strong, intelligent SF
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)
You can’t complain that this is not exactly what you expect it to be – two hours of cartoonish action during which the brain singularly fails to engage. This is less unapologetic about being a military fantasy than the first film
G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra (2009)
Stephen Sommers make a film based on the popular action toy line. Barring one exhilarating sequence in the middle, this consists of lots of sound and CGI fury amounting to very little at all
The Giant Behemoth (1958)
The director of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms essentially rehashes the same film here with another atomically revived dinosaur this time attacking London instead of New York
The Giant Claw (1957)
1950s monster movie about a giant alien bird. A standard B movie of the era that is shot down by one of the most pathetic and ridiculous looking monsters ever put on screen
The Giant Gila Monster (1959)
A cheap and impoverished entry in the 1950s fad for giant animal movies with the giant monster being unconvincingly represented by an optically enlarged lizard
The Giant Spider Invasion (1975)
From Bill Rebane, a film about a rampaging giant spider (having emerged from a black hole we are told). This has a bad movie reputation, although on most accounts it emerges as strictly average
Gintama (2017)
The live-action adaptation of a popular anime and manga, this takes place in an alternate history version of Japan where samurai fight following an alien invasion
The Girl from Monday (2005)
Hal Hartley was one of the foremost independent directors of the 1990s. Here he makes a film set in satiric future dominated by the advertising industry featuring a visit from an alien girl
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)
Mamoru Hosoda delivers an appealingly sweet anime about a girl who discovers that she has the ability to travel through time. Based on a popular Japanese Young Adult novel
The Giver (2014)
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
The Gladiators (1969)
Film from the muchly underrated Peter Watkins about a future where nations maintain peace by holding televised war games. As always with Watkins, this is stark, potent and highly politicised
The Glass Bottom Boat (1966)
Comedy where Doris Day is a NASA employee drawn into spy shenanigans. It feels as though Day has been cast in a Jerry Lewis role and the whole film is nothing more than a series of slapstick set-pieces
Glen and Randa (1971)
One of a handful of 70s films about how the Love Children would inherit the Earth. A fascinating, almost Terrence Malick-like work about innocents drifting through the detritus of civilisation, trying to understand what they see
A Glitch in the Matrix (2021)
Rodney Ascher, who made the wacko Room 237, makes another fascinating documentary that discusses the theory that we might all be living in a virtual simulation
Gnaw: Food of the Gods II (1989)
An incredibly bad Canadian-made sequel to Food of the Gods about a scientist who devises a growth hormone that accidentally creates a horde of giant rats
The Go-Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films (2014)
A documentary about Cannon Films and legendary producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. This one was authorised by Golan and Globus and makes interesting comparison to Electric Boogaloo
God Told Me To (1976)
One of the key films in the cult of director Larry Cohen, this throws in a mind-bending mix involving an androgynous alien messiah, random shootings, alien abduction and Catholicism
Gods of the Deep (2023)
Charlie Steeds is a low-budget British director who has shown reasonable promise. Here he makes an H.P. Lovecraft homage about a submarine expedition that awakens Cthulhu on the ocean floor
Godsend (2004)
Film about a couple going to an institute where Robert De Niro promises a clone of their dead child. The film goes off the rails in an absurd and blatantly manipulative script that tries to turn this into a ghost story
Godzilla (1998)
Much disliked English-language version of Godzilla from Roland Emmerich is a more watchable film than one might think. Emmerich does well when the film allows him to do what he does best – being a big, budget, massively scaled epic of mass destruction
Godzilla (2014)
A slightly different beast to its Japanese counterparts and an impressive revival of the series. Gareth Edwards, who made the excellent Monsters, delivers mass destruction on a mind-bogglingly vast scale in ways that approach painterly beauty
Godzilla 1985 (1984)
Reboot of the Godzilla series that forgets about all the sequels and acts as a direct follow-up to the original film. This uses top drawer effects technology of the era to create Godzilla as the fearsome creation he originally was
Godzilla 2000 (1999)
The 23rd Godzilla film where the effects were at such a peak for the genre that this became the first Godzilla film to be given a US theatrical release in fifteen years
Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)
The 26th Japanese Godzilla film, the fourth pitting him against Mechagodzilla. After a slow first hour, the film delivers all the exhilarating mass destruction sequences we expect of it as the monsters go head to head
Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (1992)
The 19th Godzilla film, part of the 1990s revival where the series started to employ modern animatronics. This revives Mothra in quite beautiful ways and mounts to a rousing monster battle
Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018)
The second of the anime Godzilla films and much more successful than its predecessor. The reconceptions of some of the classic monsters has a dazzling ambitiousness while Godzilla has all the ferocity it should have had in the first film
Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)
The 28th Godzilla film, made for the series fiftieth anniversary and bringing every monster ever created by Toho together for a massive battle. The results are immensely satisfying
Godzilla (1954)
The very first Godzilla film. Essentially a copy of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, it has incredibly stark effect despite the primitiveness of the effects. In it you can see Japanese nation struggling to expiate the pain of the Atomic Bomb.
Godzilla, King of the Monsters (2019)
Follow-up to the 2014 US-made Godzilla. This introduces other monsters from the Japanese series and tries to create a shared universe. But when the film is all massively-scaled mass destruction, it seems hard to root for the monsters
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
The 33rd Japanese Godzilla film and the one to receive the greatest acclaim of any in the series so far, including the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. This takes the series back to the beginnings
Godzilla Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
The 25th Godzilla film which employs director Shusuke Kaneko who had done amazing things reviving the Gamera franchise. Kaneko doesn’t quite deliver the epic expected of him but does produce an amazing effects spectacle
Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017)
The 30th Japanese Godzilla film, this is the first anime Godzilla film and the first in a trilogy. More disappointingly, it is more a space opera and planetary adventure than it is ever a Godzilla film
Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018)
The concluding chapter in the trilogy of Godzilla anime films. This reintroduces two familiar monsters but takes a long time to build to the monster bash we have come to see
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
The 17th Godzilla film and the second of the modern era where Toho started to employ top drawer effects. Toho created a new nemesis, the plant monster Biollante, although this was not popular with the public
Godzilla vs Gigan (1972)
The twelfth Godzilla film. Under director Jun Fukuda, a juvenile inanity had by now come to dominate the series by this point. The special effects, often recycled from previous films, are very cheesy
Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
The eighteenth Godzilla film and one of the best of the modern era. This has the most conceptually audacious plot of any Godzilla film and overflows with wild ideas involving time travel and changing the timeline
Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
One of fantastic cinema’s great titles bouts is a spectacular effects show. At the same time, it also has one of the single most ridiculous script I have ever come across in the entire time I have been running this site
Godzilla vs Megaguirus (2000)
The 24th Godzilla film where Godzilla faces a giant prehistoric dragonfly. While the modern Godzilla films have readily adopted CGI and animatronics, the effects here are much more variable
Godzilla vs Megalon (1973)
The thirteenth Godzilla film and a point that the series was no longer taking itself seriously. On the other hand, this is something that actually works in the films favour to create a sublime silliness
Godzilla vs Space Godzilla (1994)
Space Godzilla is one the strangest nemeses to turn up in these kaiju films – a blue counterpart of the Big G with a giant glowing mass of crystal on its shoulders. One of the more routine entries in the modern Godzilla series
Godzilla vs the Cosmic Monster (1974)
The fourteenth Godzilla film, noted for the introduction of Mecha-Godzilla, a robot copy of Godzilla that became a recurring nemesis. By this point in the series, the effects and quality of production had become very shabby
Godzilla vs the Sea Monster (1966)
The sixth Godzilla film and the point where the series started to become silly and juvenile in its focus. A weak entry featuring some of the shabbiest effects of this era.
Godzilla vs the Smog Monster (1971)
The eleventh Godzilla in which Godzilla faces the pollution monster Hedorah. For some reason, this gets a listing in The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time, but there are far worse entries in the series
Godzilla vs the Thing (1964)
The fourth Godzilla film, the first in which Godzilla battled another Toho monster, namely Mothra. Colourfully enjoyable and taking itself more seriously than many of the entries that would follow
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
A follow-up to Godzilla vs Kong, this tries to offer more of the same but suffers another ridiculous script. This ended up being overshadowed by the acclaim that the Japanese-made Godzilla: Minus One received
Godzilla’s Revenge (1969)
The tenth Godzilla film and a low point of the series with the focus now going on the slapstick pratfalls of Godzilla’s son. Many special effects scenes are recycled from previous entries.
Gog (1954)
Underrated 1950s SF film, a murder mystery as the equipment at a space research laboratory tries to kill people. Contains the first ever depiction of a computer virus
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968)
A thoroughly demented Japanese sf/horror film about passengers of a crashed plane being menaced by a body-snatching alien vampire. Quite unlike any other Japanese monster movie, the colour schemes alone leave you giddy
Gold (1934)
A work from the great era of German Expressionism. This concerns an engineering process that can turn lead to gold and contains some amazing effects, as well as Brigitte Helm from Metropolis as a seductress
GoldenEye (1995)
The 17th James Bond film, the first featuring Pierce Brosnan who gives a dazzlingly ruthless performance. The series is rebooted and takes the opportunity to reconstruct the mythos in terms of modern politics in ways that often take you aback
Goldfinger (1964)
The third of the James Bond films and the point where everything that has been defined as the formula of the series – the gadgets, the villains, the henchmen, the cars, the world domination plots – falls into place perfectly
Golem (1980)
Not an adaptation of the oft-filmed story from Jewish legend about the creation of a creature of clay but a Polish SF film set in a slightly dystopian future featuring the possible creation of artificial people
Good Boy! (2003)
An infuriatingly inane film about a boy discovering that all dogs can talk and are alien visitors from Jim Henson Pictures. No sooner is the dog talking that it is tossing off smartass one-liners
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (2025)
A completely mad and all over the place film with Sam Rockwell as a time traveller (or madman) arrived at a diner to recruit six people on a mission to save the world from an evil A.I.