Altered (2006)
A fine film from The Blair Witch Project co-director Eduardo Sanchez about the tensions among a group of friends who hold a captured alien in their garage that then begins to affect them
Science Fiction
Altered (2025)
From Iron Sky director Timo Vuorensola, Tom Felton stars as a wheelchair-ridden hero battling a genetic dystopia. This emerges as a bizarre melding of Gattaca and Upgrade
Altered States (1980)
Ken Russell’s big studio-backed film about drug trips, the meaning of life and William Hurt reverting to a caveman is a glorious madcap and visually stunning work that reaches for the same cosmological grandeur that 2001: A Space Odyssey does
The Amazing Captain Nemo (1978)
TV mini-series released as a theatrical film in some parts of the world that resurrects Captain Nemo in the present-day. It is Irwin Allen returning to his tv roots where Captain Nemo’s adventures become a blatant attempt to copy Star Wars
The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)
One of the better of Bert I. Gordon’s B movies of the 1950s. This was rushed out not long after The Incredible Shrinking Man and displays some imagination despite cheap effects
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
The reasoning behind rebooting the Spider-Man franchise after ten years and only three films is a puzzle. That said, this offers an edgier origin story than Sam Raimi’s take and Andrew Garfield makes for a fine Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
One of the best among the modern Marvel Comics screen adaptations. All involved are at the absolute peak of their game and the balance of superheroic action, humour and tragedy makes you cheer at how well they get it right
The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)
Edgar G. Ulmer gained a small cult reputation as a director. Here he makes a very cheap invisible man film, one that spends more of its time as a 1940s crime melodrama
Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)
An anthology of comedy skits from several different directors including Joe Dante and John Landis. The result is fairly scattershot with moments of occasional humour falling between laughs that do not come off
The Ambulance (1990)
One of the last directorial outings from cult director Larry Cohen. Comic-book artist Eric Roberts is wound up in trying to trace a mysterious ambulance that is abducting women into illicit experiments
Amelia 2.0 (2017)
The theme of Mind Upload is waiting for the one film to come along and define its theme. This, in which a comatose wife’s body is loaded into an android body, is not that film and only reaches for cliches
America 3000 (1986)
Head-scratching oddity from Cannon Films, a gonzo post-holocaust film set in a satiric women-ruled world with a culture based on half-remembered fragments of the present
The American Astronaut (2001)
Genre-bending film that mixes B movie space opera cliches with rock’n’roll and a David Lynch-ian sense of surrealism. Interesting but the film left me scratching my head trying to get a handle on it
American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1992)
A routine post-apocalyptic action film with Nicole Hansen as the last fertile woman on the run hunted by killer cyborgs while being protected by Joe Lara
American Hero (2015)
Tired of the bombast of Marvel/DC Comics superheroics overunning screens? This is a superhero film for you – one welcomely brought down to Earth set in working class neighbouhoods and with a focus on real-life problems. The results are surprising and refreshing
An American Pickle (2020)
A sleeper awakes comedy where Seth Rogen falls into a vat of pickles in 1919 and is awakened in the present-day. A decided change of pace for Rogen who plays two lead roles throughout
Americathon (1979)
This seems like it had all the elements to be a biting satirical crosscut of the 1970s in which the US President holds a telethon to keep the country from going bankrupt but flounders in a series of unfunny skits
Amerigeddon (2016)
Chuck Norris’s son directs spectacularly bad film that acts as a fantasy for every lunatic right wing conspiracy where the UN wants to overthrow the US government and confiscate everybody’s guns
Amphibian Man (1961)
The Russian Aquaman. One of the most popular hits from the Soviet Union, a film about a merman who comes onto land to woo a woman. Said to have influenced Guillermo del Toro with The Shape of Water
And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird (1991)
Children manage to incarnate the soul of their late father inside a robot body. A children’s film where the title is the most imaginative thing about the show.
Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer (2019)
Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the greatest of all directors, having made films like Solaris and Stalker. This is a documentary about his life and films made up of archival material
Android (1982)
Witty and quite charming low-budget SF film with Don Opper as a gawky android on a space station trying to understand the human condition amid the arrival of escaped convicts
Android Apocalypse (2006)
A variation on The Defiant Ones with a human and an android chained together but this fails to find anything to say either about androids or prejudice
Android Cop (2014)
An Asylum mockbuster intended to come out at the same time as the RoboCop remake. Okay low-budget action and use of Cyberpunk tropes where the film’s saving grace is a sense of humour
Android Insurrection (2012)
A painfully cheap film that feels like an amateur effort that was accidentally given a dvd release. Essentially Resident Evil but with killer robots instead of zombies, this shouts its impoverishment from every scene
Andromeda Nebula (1967)
A Soviet SF film about the exploration of an alien planet. Though they tended to the dramatically stolid, these Soviet films had amazing budgets their US counterparts of the era never did
The Andromeda Strain (1971)
Robert Wise’s standout adaptation of Michael Crichton’s first novel about scientists trying to contain a virus brought back from space. This does a very faithful job of capturing Crichton’s fascination with the science
The Andromeda Strain (2008)
TV series remake of Michael Crichton’s novel about the attempts to contain a viral outbreak from space. Crichton’s story was a straightforward work, whereas the mini-series has been absurdly overburdened with other plots
Andromedia (1998)
An early Takashi Miike film where a teenage girl is killed and her personality uploaded to the internet, having been conveniently backed up by her father on three cd roms!
Andromina: The Pleasure Planet (2000)
Work of softcore erotica that gives the old 1950s B movie plot of astronauts encountering a planet inhabited only by women an Adults Only workover. Aside from the obvious reasons to watch this, the SF content is entirely negligible
Andron (2015)
A group of people whose memories have been blanked wake up in a mysterious labyrinth and have to survive death traps and each other. A promising mix of Cube and The Hunger Games killed by clumsy storytelling
Angels & Demons (2009)
Ron Howard and Tom Hanks follow up their adaptation of The Da Vinci Code by turning to an earlier Dan Brown novel concerning conspiratorial goings-on in The Vatican but the show collapses amid absurdly contrived plotting
Angel’s Egg (1985)
One of the earliest works of anime director Mamoru Oshii, later famous for Ghost in the Shell. This is a plotless, almost dialogueless work about a young girl journeying across a strange planet that is more surrealism than SF
The Angry Red Planet (1959)
1950s B movie about an expedition to Mars that encounters exotic and hostile lifeforms there. Not much happens before the aliens pronounce judgement on humanity
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)
A film spun out around a YouTube channel of videogame reviews. This sinks down into unfunny fannish in-joking, while the attempts to be a mock bad movie only seem silliness for its own sake
Aniara (2018)
Film based on a full-length Swedish SF poem that concerns the despair, emptiness and strange societies that emerge among those aboard a spaceship that is thrown off course
The Animal (2001)
One-gag comedy where Rob Schneider receives transplants of various animal parts and ends up exhibiting animal behaviours – usually at the most inopportune time
The Animal Kingdom (2023)
An award-winning and highly acclaimed French film set in a world that is affected by a series of mutations where people are transforming into animal hybrids
The Animatrix (2003)
To accompany their two Matrix sequels, The Wackowskis hired seven anime directors to each make a short film set in The Matrix universe. The results are often quite remarkable
Anna to the Infinite Power (1982)
A modest and quite well written children’s film about a gifted twelve year-old (Martha Byrne) who gradually discovers that she is a clone
Annihilation (2018)
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
The Anomaly (2014)
A surprisingly good conceptual SF film concerning a man trying to deal with a series of increasingly more surreal jumps in which he finds his body is being hijacked
Anon (2018)
Andrew Niccol is one of the consistently intelligent and original directors out there. This, set in a world where mass surveillance has erased the concept of anonymity, is the most fascinating and original depiction of a future in some time
Another Earth (2011)
An indie hit starring/co-written by Brit Marling that is a well-played mumblecore drama about redemption and loneliness. On the other hand, the central premise of a mirror Earth is preposterous science-fiction
Ant-Man (2015)
While there is little doubt that Edgar Wright would have made a much better film, this emerges with an engaging likeability. Less epic superheroics, this plays out more as a caper comedy where a good ensemble and comedic playing carry the show
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
Ant-Man was a lightweight but perfectly enjoyable entry in the horde of Marvel Comics adaptations. This sequel has amplified the comedy element, seemingly with the intent of being the joker among the MCU pack
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
The third of the films devoted to Marvel’s miniature superhero. This ventures into multiverse themes works well when it comes to introducing the MCU’s big new super-villain who ended up never happening
Antibirth (2016)
This has cult midnight hit written over it. It’s a loopy trip into people doing drugs, alien impregnation and government conspiracy that should have been quirky and funny but sort of goes asleep at the wheel
Antitrust (2001)
IT industry thriller that borrows the title from the Microsoft antitrust case that was in the headlines at the time and casts Tim Robbins as a villainous Bill Gates lookalike
Antiviral (2012)
Brandon Cronenberg makes an impressive writing-directing debut, taking up the thematic reins of his father’s earlier films in a darkly satiric future escalation of contemporary celebrity culture
A.P.E. (1976)
South Korean-made cheapie intended to ride the coattails of the 1976 remake of King Kong, this must be one of the worst films ever made with some of the most pitiful special effects ever put on film
Ape vs Mecha Ape (2023)
Ape vs Monster was The Asylum’s mockbuster take on Godzilla vs Kong. This is a sequel that takes a few leaves from Godzilla’s Mechagodzilla and pits the giant ape up against a giant robotic ape
Ape vs. Monster (2021)
The Asylum’s mockbuster version of Godzilla vs Kong that features a giant-sized chimpanzee and gila monster facing off against one another
Apex (1994)
Passable B-budget 1990s direct-to-video sf/action film about robots and humans warring across time that develops out an interesting plot about a changed timeline
Apex (2021)
Another of the last films that Bruce Willis made before his mental deterioration forced him to retire. A variation on The Most Dangerous Game where Bruce plays a bad-ass facing hunters with his bare hands
The Apocalypse (1997)
The title is a cheat as this is not about the End of the World, merely a film about a spaceship on a collision course with Earth. Essentially Die Hard aboard a spaceship
The Apocalypse (2007)
One of the bizarre early oddities from The Asylum, a disaster movie about an oncoming asteroid. This also try to jump aboard the mid-2000s fad for Biblical movies where faith elements are combined with the scenario in ways that are bizarre
Apocalypse Clown (2023)
Not another killer clown film as you might initially assume, but a really funny Irish comedy about a group of dysfunctional clowns in the aftermath of the collapse of civilisation
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022)
Richard Linklater makes a charming animated film about a kid selected for a secret Moon Landing. Most of all a film with a lovely nostalgia for growing up in the era of the Moon mission
Apollo 13 (1995)
Probably the best among Ron Howard’s mostly undistinguished films, a dramatisation of the real-life Apollo 13 space mission disaster. Once the film gets the capsule up into orbit, the drama is gripping
Apollo 18 (2011)
Clever and well made Found Footage film about a NASA crew encountering something alien on The Moon’s surface. Falls somewhere between Alien, Apollo 13 and Paranormal Activity
Aporia (2023)
Excellent low-key time travel film where Judy Greer is faced with the choice of eliminating the drunk driver who killed her husband from the timeline – only to end up with unexpected results
Apples (2020)
This is a strange and not particularly accessible deadpan Greek-made film where people are affected by a plague of amnesia. Similar to early Yorgos Lanthimos
Appleseed (1988)
The first anime film to be based on the manga, this is set in a future where the heroine is the head of a heavily armoured SWAT team fighting terrorists. Several different incarnations followed.
Appleseed (2004)
A dazzling reboot of the earlier manga/anime made with stunning photorealistic animation design and breathtaking action scenes that made this a benchmark for modern anime. Sequels followed.
Appleseed Alpha (2014)
Shinji Aramaki returns to the Appleseed franchise for a third time with this prequel. Though it abandons the Cyberpunk milieu, Aramaki crafts action scenes with a stunning realism
Appleseed Ex Machina (2007)
Shinji Aramaki’s immediate sequel to his reboot of the Appleseed franchise. This lacks the visually stunning qualities of its predecessor and seems more conceptually muddled but Aramaki eventually gets it together
Approaching the Unknown (2016)
This comes with the clear influence of The Martian, telling a similar but more low-key story of a lone astronaut having problems on the way to Mars. This is less about science ingenuity that his fracturing mental state
April and the Extraordinary World (2015)
Animated film that takes place in a Steampunk alternate history. This brims over with an extraordinary degree of visual invention from the amazingly detailed vistas of the world to a script tossing in quirky twists and wacky inventions
Aquaman (2018)
A few years ago Aquaman was regarded as a joke among superheroes. James Wan dispels any notion of Aquaman’s wimpiness in a series of jaw-dropping effects sequences that propel this ahead of anything the MCU is doing at the moment
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)
The sequel to the DCEU’s Aquaman reaches for epic effects spectacle, although the character of Aquaman undergoes a substantial shift and is now given more of a comedy playing
Arachnoquake (2012)
Giant fire-breathing spiders invade New Orleans. A passably entertaining film of its type made for the Syfy Channel with effects that are above-average and it taking itself seriously
Arcade (1994)
A quickie effort made by Albert Pyun for Charles Band’s Full Moon Productions to exploit the Virtual Reality themes popularised by The Lawnmower Man, concerning a malevolent VR videogame
Arcadian (2024)
A post-apocalyptic film that seems a conceptual merging of I Am Legend and A Quiet Place where Nicolas Cage and sons are at siege from monsters that surround their farmhouse every night
Archenemy (2020)
An interestingly odd film where a videographer looking for a story investigates homeless man Joe Manganiello’s claims to being a superhero, which may or may not be true
Archive (2020)
One of the better in the fad for Artificial Intelligence films we have had since the 2010s with Theo James trying to place his late wife’s consciousness into an android body
Arctic Blast (2010)
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie featuring a cold wave that freezes everything in its path. As expected, this ignores basic science while offering cut-price digital mass destruction effects
Arctic Hollow (2024)
A low-budget film about a venture into the Hollow Earth in search of a missing person and encounters with creatures there. So low budget the underground caves seem shot in a darkened room
Area 51 (2011)
Not to be confused with the Oren Peli Found Footage film. Sean Connery’s son Jason directs a film where a host of alien nasties imprisoned at Area 51 manage to escape
Area 51 (2015)
Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli’s second film – a gripping Found Footage film about a group breaking into Area 51 in search of evidence of the alien visitors that the US government is holding
Area 407 (2012)
Found Footage film as survivors from a commercial airliner that has crashed on a top secret government test site find themselves hunted by mysterious creatures
Armageddon (1998)
A film that relentlessly celebrates its own brainlessness. Michael Bay directs an asteroid collision film amid plenty of loud noise, mass destruction, flag-waving patriotism and resolute heroism
Armageddon Tales (2021)
An anthology of short films from three different directors set in the world after the collapse of civilisation
Armed Response (2017)
Behind the generic action movie title, this is an SF about a unit of soldiers led by Wesley Snipes venturing into an automated prison to investigate the death of personnel by an unknown force
Around the World in 80 Days (2004)
Jules Verne’s classic adventure novel is turned into a comedy vehicle for Jackie Chan. One of Chan’s biggest flops, an overblown turkey packed with celebrity cameos and replacing Verne’s adventure with incredibly unfunny slapstick
Around the World Under the Sea (1966)
Inspired by Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, this was one among the spate of 1960s underwater adventures. Passable adventure following a team on a quest to plant earthquake sensors on the ocean floor
ARQ (2016)
Another variant on the Groundhog Day theme with characters trapped in a timeloop. This come with an SF rationale and contains the plot in a single location while spinning each repeat through some smart twists
Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1938)
One of a series of Hollywood films based on popular British adventurer hero Bulldog Drummond. This throws Drummond into the midst of a plot to obtain a raygun
The Arrival (1991)
This is a weird little film about an alien vampire that is slowly rejuvenating. This has an interesting swim of strange ideas but in reality isn’t very good
The Arrival (1996)
An alien invasion and takeover film that was clearly inspired by the success of tv’s The X Files. This is a smart effort that emerges as something unworldly in David Twohy’s hands
Arrival (2016)
Most SF films gloss over the issue of communication with aliens, having them either speaking English or with devices like Universal Translators. This is a superbly intelligent film that grapples with how to communicate with something different
The Artifice Girl (2022)
One of the best of the recent spate of artificial intelligence films. A programmer creates an A.I. for the purpose of trapping sexual predators on the internet only to be faced with ethical questions about what he has created
As Time Goes By (1988)
A very eccentric Australian film about a man wound into solving a temporal paradox by aliens who time travel in a greasy spoon diner
Ascendant (2021)
A variant on Buried, which had Ryan Reynolds trapped in a coffin for the duration, featuring a girl trapped in an elevator as it conducts high-speed rises and drops, all before a bizarre left field SF ending
Ascension (2014)
Fascinating tv mini-series set around the notion of a generation ship – the show explores the scenario in interesting ways then proceeds to put some wild spins on what we think is happening
Ash (2025)
The rapper turned filmmaker Flying Lotus directs a copy of Alien with an amnesiac crewmember of a ship landed on a hostile planet where the crew are hunted by an alien nasty
Assassin 33 A.D. (2020)
A faith-based film that comes with a great hook where a time-traveller seeks to go back and kill Jesus, eliminating Christianity from history
Assassin (2023)
Another of the low-budget films Bruce Willis made before his retirement, this has a plot about body-hopping assassins that has surprising similarities to Possessor
Assault Girls (2009)
Disappointing live-action film from anime director Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell fame, construed as nothing beyond a live-action videogame with kick-ass girls engaged in serial combat encounters
The Assessment (2024)
An hilariously black, deadpan film set in a future as a couple undergo assessment for whether they are fit to be parents. This involves Alicia Vikander moving into the house and play-acting being a child with absolutely chaotic effect