Tyrannosaurus Azteca (2007)
This comes with an intriguingly original concept – that Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes during his conquest of Mexico came up against dinosaurs
Science Fiction
UFO: Target Earth (1974)
Interest in UFO phenomena peaked in the 1970s with numerous books seriously studying it and twice as many crackpot ones. While there had been various flying saucers in 1950s alien invasion cinema, this obscure and rather dull oddity was the first fictional film investigating the phenomena
Uforia (1985)
Appealingly eccentric comedy set in the American Midwest where supermarket cashier Cindy Williams gains a cult following after preaching that the UFOs are coming
U.H.F. (1989)
A series of parody sketches based around the popularity of Weird Al Yankovic who plays the owner of a struggling cable tv station
Ultimate Avengers (2006)
The first of several animated films based on Marvel Comics properties, this does a solid job in adapting Mark Millar’s The Ultimates, a retelling of The Avengers origin story
Ultimate Avengers II (2006)
Follow-up to the previous animated Marvel Comics film featuring The Avengers, this serves to introduce Black Panther to the screen for the first time
The Ultimate Warrior (1975)
An early example of the post-apocalyptic action film with Yul Brynner as a lone fighter hired to defend a peaceful community
Ultramarines (2010)
Animated film based on the popular fantasy wargame. The set-up is a fascinating mix of SF and mediaeval religion but the plot rehashes Aliens without much payoff and the animation is B-budget
Ultraviolet (2006)
Milla Jovovich is a part of a vampire rebel underground in a dystopian future. A film filled with incredible design schemes and action scenes that are as spectacular as they are ridiculously improbable
The Unborn (1991)
Roger Corman produced film where Brooke Adams realises that something sinister might be happening with her pregnancy
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
Uncanny (2015)
This was made before Ex Machina and has a surprisingly similar plot – although takes it even further in many regards – where a woman journalist goes to interview a tech genius and ends up in a romantic triangle between him and his android creation
Undead (2003)
Appealingly quirky homemade zombie film that launched the career of Australia’s Spierig Brothers. The two demonstrate a considerable inventivity when it comes to the visual and makeup effects, which they created all themselves
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)
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
Under the Mountain (2009)
Big screen version of a classic New Zealand children’s story, directed by Jonathan King with an emphasis on gooey creature effects
Under the Skin (2013)
Fascinating film with Scarlett Johansson as an alien visitor luring male hitchhikers. The film is beautifully made but frustratingly opaque in terms of explanations for what is happening. indeed, feels like a science-fiction film that has been stripped of any easy science-fiction handholds
Undercover Brother (2002)
Conceived in the aftermath of the Austin Powers films, this is a rather funny parody of the Blaxploitation film from Spike Lee’s cousin Malcolm D. Lee
Underdog (2007)
Excruciating and unfunny live-action version of the animated tv series about a superpowered dog. Everything is now run over with lame slapstick and smartass one-liners
Underwater (2020)
Throwback to late 80s/early 90s films like The Abyss and Sphere with the crew of a sub-oceanic station fighting off a monster. Generic in plot terms bit directorially this is an intense and claustrophobic ride
Unearthly Stranger (1963)
A British response to the 1950s alien invader fad that swept the US. Despite a low-budget, this achieves an undeniable atmosphere of paranoia as a scientist discovers that his newlywed wife may be an alien infiltrator
Unforgettable (1996)
Thriller where Ray Liotta undergoes an experimental process to receive an injection of memories from his dead wife and from these sets out to try and solve her murder
Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956)
Fascinating quasi-documentary from the early days of the UFO phenomenon, made before all the nonsense about Greys, abductions, alien impregnation etc came in, which gives it a sober groundedness than many more polished productions lack
Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979)
A Disney version of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court where the story of a man thrown back in time to Camelot is dragged into the era of Star Wars with the addition of space shuttles and androids
Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms (1998)
The first of two cheap Universal Soldier sequels made in Canada with Matt Battaglia inheriting Jean-Claude Van Damme’s role
Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business (1998)
he second of two cheap video-released sequels to the Jean-Claude Van Damme film. This has the novelty of featuring Burt Reynolds as the bad guy
Universal Soldier (1992)
The first studio film from Roland Emmerich, a loud, noisy action featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as Vietnam Vets resurrected as super-soldiers
Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012)
Sixth entry in the series, this throws out all the themes the previous sequels operated by and feels like a Universal Soldier film written by Philip K. Dick with utterly fascinating results. John Hyams hits in with a brutal intensity that shows he is one of the most exciting up and coming action directors
Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)
The fifth of the Universal Soldier films reuniting both Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, while being given a tough, brutal action punch by director John Hyams
Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)
Sequel to Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier, this brings back Jean-Claude Van Damme but otherwise substitutes a brain dead plot that has him facing an evil A.I.
Unknown Island (1948)
Routine B-budget lost world fantasy with a group of explorers stranded on an island filled with dinosaurs
Unknown World (1951)
Overlooked 1950s journey to the centre of the earth film that transcends its B-budget with an often uniquely melancholic poetry
Upgrade (2018)
Leigh Whannell, James Wan’s BFF and co-writer on the Saw and
Upside Down (2012)
The frustration of a film that has a scientifically nonsensical premise – two planets where gravity is oriented in opposing directions – that is also surprisingly imaginatively made. This creates some genuinely amazing visuals and designs of the two worlds and showing the people on them interacting
V (1983)
Very popular mini-series during its day (that was followed by a tv series) concerning the alien invasion and occupation of Earth, this has an utter banality that fails on almost every level – as human drama, science and even basic plausibility
V for Vendetta (2006)
Adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel with a script from The Wachowskis. Moore’s repudiation aside, this is a fine and literate work that retells the story of an anarchist trickster and potently politicises it for the era of the George W. Bush.
V: The Final Battle (1984)
Follow-up to the popular V mini-series, this is an absurd melodrama that is made up of incredibly bad science-fiction writing and directed with zero plausibility
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
It was a box-office bomb but this is one of the most breathtaking and completely designed SF work to ever cross the screen. In terms of effects, sets and costuming, Luc Besson gives us a work that is an overwhelming treat for the eyes
The Valley of Gwangi (1969)
Ray Harryhausen film featuring cowboys roping dinosaurs. The plot rehashes King Kong but with a dinosaur instead of an ape however it is Harryhausen’s amazing stop-motion animation effects that make the film watchable
Valley of the Dragons (1961)
Among the 1950s/60s spate of Jules Verne films, this was an adaptation of one of Vernr’s lesser-known works Hector Servadac/Off on a Comet. That said, all the but the notion of people swept up on a comet is thrown out and the rest played as a prehistoric lost world adventure
Vampirella (1996)
Disappointingly tatty rendering of the famous comic-book strip as a low-budget Roger Corman production. Vampirella is missing her distinctive costume and Talisa Soto comes nowhere near the comic-book character’s statuesque voluptuousness
Vanilla Sky (2001)
The English-language remake of Open Your Eyes, starring Tom Cruise. The Spanish version is still the superior of the two but this stays surprisingly faithful to the original
Vanishing on 7th Street (2010)
Enigmatic film in the vein of The Quiet Earth where everybody vanishes except for a handful of survivors who have to now deal with creatures the lurk in the dark
Vanishing Waves (2012)
Acclaimed Lithuanian film involving a venture into a person’s dreamscape a la The Cell and Inception. Some nicely cool visuals, a strong character arc and some potentially edgy sexual content but the film still remains in the shadow of Inception without quite finding enough original ideas
Varan the Unbelievable (1958)
Japanese monster movie from the same team that created the original Godzilla. The English-language version has simply kept the effects scenes and cut everything else, replacing it with scenes of the US military ordering the Japanese about
The Vast of Night (2019)
Indie film about UFOs and alien abductions in a small 1950s town. This comes with undeniably eerie effect that heralds a strong new directorial voice. It also has a perfectly realised sense of retro period detail.
The VelociPastor (2018)
Inspired by an autoccorrect error, this is deliberately ridiculous film about a priest who transforms into a dinosaur to fight evil, A film made with a full awareness of its own absurdities where the ineptitude of the shoestring effects adds to the charm.
Vengeance (1962)
The third film version of Curt Siodmak’s novel Donovan’s Brain, this abandons much of the book. Not a terribly interesting effort, mostly noted as the directorial debut of Anglo-horror regular Freddie Francis
The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967)
The third of the fifilms with Christopher Lee as the Chinese super-villain Fu Manchu and generally the point the series started to go downhill
Venom (2018)
Anything with the Marvel Comics name on it is box-office gold. This spins a standalone film off from one of the main villains of the Spider-Man comic-book. This is watchable by several showstopping effects set-pieces.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)
The first sequel to the passable Venom. Next to Batman & Robin, this could be a strong contender for the worst big-budget superhero film ever made
Venom: The Last Dance (2024)
The third of the Venom films, which has become one of the worst of the modern Marvel spinoffs. By this point any pretence that the films are taking themselves seriously has been long forgotten
Venomous (2001)
Low-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes a head-scratching crosshatch between a plague outbreak film and an Animals Amok film with a town being attacked by snakes infected with a deadly virus
Vesper (2022)
Visually extraordinary film set in an environmentally devastated future, this place enormous creativity into depicting a strange, very alien world
Vexille (2007)
Anime film about an android-overrun future Japan that resembles another episode of the Appleseed franchise
Vice (2015)
Bruce Willis is the CEO of a corporation that provides customers with androids to use for whatever vices they want. Very similar to tv’s recent Westworld but has a script so boneheaded you can almost imagine it acted as an example for Westworld to do the exact opposite
Videodrome (1983)
Absolutely fascinating David Cronenberg film that swims with a heady mix of ideas that blur tv, reality and the human body
A View to a Kill (1985)
The final outing as James Bond for a visibly aging Roger Moore, the fourteenth Bond film all told. One of the more anonymous among the giant unserious cartoon shows the Moore Bond films became
Viking (2022)
A sublimely funny comedy about a group in a habitat who have been selected to roleplay the astronauts on a Mars mission
Village of the Damned (1960)
Classic adaptation of the John Wyndham novel about the women in a sleepy English village being impregnated and producing emotionless alien children with vast psychic powers. This translates the paranoia of US alien invasion films with considerable effectiveness
Village of the Damned (1995)
Director John Carpenter did amazing things with his remake of The Thing but was not able to replicate such with his remake of Village of the Damned, which misses the taut atmosphere of the 1960 film
Village of the Giants (1965)
Bert I. Gordon, who spent most of his career making giant animal and people films, makes a film about giant rock’n’rolling teenagers. Supposedly adapted from a novel by H.G. Wells
Vincent (2014)
The peculiar story of a man who gains super-strength and various other powers whenever he is in water, this essentially plays out as a superhero film but in a more low key way without any costumes. Quirky, charming and rather likeably appealing
The Vindicator (1986)
Canadian film about a man rebuilt inside a cyborg body. What started as a Frankenstein film is turned into a copy of The Terminator
Virtual Combat (1995)
Completely ridiculous martial arts SF film with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson as a future cop fighting a videogame character incarnated in the real world
Virtual Girl (1998)
One of the numerous Virtual Reality films to come out in the mid-90s, this seems undecided whether it wants to be an SF or an erotic film
Virtual Seduction (1995)
Produced by Roger Corman back when the idea of Virtual Reality was new and fascinated with the erotic possibilities. Jeff Fahey tests out a VR system and becomes lost in it after creating a simulation of his late girlfriend
Virtual Sexuality (1999)
Essentially a frothy British romantic comedy version of Weird Science where a girl manifests the perfect guy. The VR aspect is no more than a trendy buzzword appropriated as explain-all
Virtuosity (1995)
Director Brett Leonard started the fascination with Virtual Reality off with The Lawnmower Man but shot himself in the foot with this absurd braindead follow-up in which Denzel Washington pursues a madly OTT Russell Crowe as an android serial killer
Virus (1999)
This has the novelty of a monster that is an evolving fusion of machinery and organics. While it is all directed with much noise and fury, it is ultimately no more than another copy of Alien
The Visit: An Alien Encounter (2015)
Absolutely fascinating documentary that speculates what the likely reactions would be if aliens were to arrive on Earth where we get input from various scientists and UN spokespeople. The answers are compelling and completely different from anything that you usually get in SF cinema
Visit to a Small Planet (1960)
A satirical Gore Vidal play is bent out of shape to become a vehicle for the slapstick nonsense of Jerry Lewis, cast as an alien visitor. Lewis is a love him or hate him actor; depending on one’s tolerance for such, this has much fast-paced silliness
The Visitor (1979)
Head-scratchingly strange Italian film that seems made as a crosshatch of 1970s Devil Child films and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Makes no sense in terms of story but worth watching for the bizarreness of its imagery
The Visitor from the Future (2022)
A French film about a time traveller come to prevent the catastrophic explosion of a nuclear power plant. A low expectation film that turns out to be a comedy that sparkles with wit and inventivity
The Void (2001)
Film where scientists creates an an atom-sized black hole that has the potential to destroy the Earth
Volcano (1997)
A disaster movie made early into the CGI era based around the ludicrous notion of an active volcano suddenly appearing in Los Angeles
The Voyage Home: Star Trek IV (1986)
Fourth of the original Star Trek films jumps on board the popularity of time travel themes following Back to the Future to have the regulars time travel back to the present for a series of amiable, easy comic encounters
Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984)
Forgotten 1980s obscurity about aliens come to Earth in search of rock music that feels like someone attempted to conduct a version of Grease for the Star Wars crowd. Filled with utterly excruciating slapstick humour and bland songs from bands that nobody has heard from again
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)
The film that inspired the popular tv series. As always with Irwin Allen, stolid dramatics, bad science and colourful spectacle
Voyage to the End of the Universe (1963)
Czech film from a Stanislaw Lem novel made from the height of the Soviet era depicting day-to-day life about a space mission to explore another planet
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)
Another Roger Corman film made up out of footage recycled from Russian SF films and pseudnonymously directed by a young Peter Bogdanovich in a rather silly plot about astronauts encountering dinosaur-worshipping women on Venus
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)
Roger Corman had a good deal of success in the 1960s by buying up footage from Soviet SF films, shooting English language inserts and reissuing them. Bar a handful of scenes with some Hollywood actors, this is almost the whole of the Russian film Storm Planet
Voyagers (2021)
The promising idea of a generation ship story, although you realise soon in that this has been conceived as no more than Lord of the Flies in space
Wall-E (2008)
A near-dialogueless story of a lonely robot clearing up junk in the aftermath of civilisation. This is surely Pixar’s most endearing film to date where they are operating at the peak of their creativity
The Wandering Earth (2019)
Chinese attempt to make a Roland Emmerich-type mass destruction spectacle about the moving of the Earth. Much effects spectacle but the film suffers from plain absurd science
The Wandering Earth II (2023)
Prequel to the Chinese spectacular about the construction of an engineering project to move the Earth, this comes with some epic-sized effects sequences
War Between the Planets (1966)
One of the various Italian space operas of the 1960s from director Antonio Margheriti. This has a certain colourful ambition despite frequently being let down by cheap effects
The War Game (1965)
Peter Watkins stark, brutal mockumentary about a nuclear strike on England, this was banned from the BBC and still makes for harsh viewing today
War Machine (2026)
The military action film is a genre that does nothing for me. But this does have a furious, survival-oriented pace as it pits Alan Ritchson and a detachment of soldiery up against an alien killer robot
War of the Colossal Beast (1958)
Bert I. Gordon makes a sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man. The film cheats where a good chunk of running time is padded with footage from the original
War of the Gargantuas (1966)
From Ishiro Honda, the creator of Godzilla, this bizarrely features two giant Frankenstein monsters battling it out. A fairly typical Japanese monster movie of its era featuring cheesily ridiculous rubber monsters, copious mass destruction and a largely irrelevant human element
War of the Planet of the Apes (2017)
The third film in the rebooted Planet of the Apes series. The motion capture effects are at an absolute peak of the art and the motion capture performances astonishing. The whole film almost seems to consist of heart-tugging moments to make you go “aww”
War of the Satellites (1958)
An early film from legendary B movie producer/director Roger Corman. This is an alien invasion film but has been twisted out of shape to exploit the fascination with satellites after the launch of Sputnik several months before the film came out
The War of the Worlds (1953)
First and best adaptation of the book, this takes liberties with the H.G. Wells original but smartly updates the book’s underlying anxieties to the Cold War era (in so doing becoming the grandaddy of the 1950s alien invader film) and providing what was top notch effects spectacle for the era
War of the Worlds (2005)
Where the legend of The Asylum and their low-budget mockbusters began, this was a cheap modernised version of the H.G. Wells novel that was released a day before the Spielberg film. Despite cheap effects, this adheres closer to Wells than Spielberg did and is better written than most Asylum product
The War of the Worlds (2005)
Released just before the Spielberg film, this was an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel set in the Victorian period that attempts to tell the story as it was written. The film has ambition way beyond the resources at hand but you cannot help but applaud what it tries to do
War of the Worlds (2005)
Steven Spielberg remakes the classic H.G. Wells alien invasion story, liberally rewriting it for the post-9/11 world. Not Spielberg’s best film but a more than solid work on most grounds
War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave (2008)
Sequel to The Asylum mockbuster version. Sequelising H.G. Wells is a daunting prospect and not too surprisingly this throws much of Wells out and creates its own film, which is undercut by a typical Asylum low budget
The War of the Worlds (2019)
BBC mini-series that sets out to restore the H.G. Wells novel to the era it was written. This it does, as well as restores many aspects that other films change. At the same time, it also introduces some radical changes that make it the most variant of the adaptations to date
War of the Worlds (2025)
An adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic alien invasion novel modernised into the era of mass data surveillance, social media and Amazon delivery drivers. Shot in the Screenlife process where the film screen becomes a computer screen
War of the Worlds: Goliath (2012)
Sequel to the H.G. Wells novel that imagines a fascinating alternate history that might have occurred following the Martian invasion. The clear appeal has been creating a series of scenes showing humanity tackling invading tripods in giant Steampunk manned robots