Darwin (2016)
This imagines a future where people have become so absorbed in online communication that they live in isolated cubicles. An interesting idea that the film does zero to make believable
Science Fiction
D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)
Barret Oliver plays an android boy on the run from his creators who shelters with a human family. This promptly employs all the cliches of the post-E.T. film
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
The Planet of the Apes series excels itself and stages a massively exciting inter-species war. The CGI/mocap apes come with an extraordinary range of nuance – quite whether it is performance or animation is up for debate but the results are outstanding
The Dawnseeker (2018)
A low-budget film about a group of soldiers crashed on another planet where they find themselves hunted by an alien. This channels the basics of Predator
The Day (2011)
A post-holocaust film that takes its tone from the bleak survivalism of The Road. Much focus on the grim harshness of trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world but there nothing particularly original in the film’s treatment
The Day After (1983)
From Nicholas Meyer, a TV movie (released theatrically in some countries) that was considered controversial in its day for its no-holds-barred depiction of a nuclear attack on the US
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
In another of his big budget disaster spectacles, Roland Emmerich embraces environmental concerns about Global Warming. Here he (unscientifically) imagines the abrupt onset of a new Ice Age worldwide
The Day Mars Invaded Earth (1962)
This was one of the last gasps of the 1950s alien body snatchers genre. Conducted on a low budget, this nevertheless comes with some modest effect as a scientist and his family face mysterious doppelgangers
Day of the Animals (1977)
A cheap 1970s Nature’s Revenge film that blatantly borrows all the essentials of The Birds in the story of a group of trampers in the High Sierras coming under attack by wildlife due to an ozone hole.
The Day of the Dolphin (1973)
George C. Scott is a marine biologist who has taught dolphins to speak but faces the military want to take his research. A serious work that all hinges on whether one is willing to accept the idea of dolphins talking in squawky voices
The Day of the Triffids (1962)
The first film version of John Wyndham’s novel about a catastrophe that renders most of the population blind and leaves them prey to lethal plants. This is killed by variable effects and the abandonment of much of the book
The Day of the Triffids (1981)
Excellent and extremely faithful tv adaptation of the John Wyndham book. This tells the story in terms of ordinary people forced to survive in a harsh world overtaken by killer plants and contains some exceptional writing
The Day of the Triffids (2009)
Disappointing tv mini-series remake of the John Wyndham novel about England overrun by killer plants. This abandons most of the book’s sociological portrait for cliche melodramatics
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)
Classic British end of the world movie that presents with enormous conviction a fundamentally implausible scenario in which nuclear tests tilt the Earth off its axis causing a massive heatwave and the attempts to right it
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
A classic of the 1950s Golden Age of SF, featuring Michael Rennie as an alien visitor film who comes to make a warning about the need to make peace. This stands at the start of the Atomic Age with a stark urgency
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
An interesting if uneven remake of the 1950s SF classic from Scott Derrickson that smartly updates the story from the Atomic Age to a post-9/11 era where it now delivers a modern environmental warning
The Day the Earth Stopped (2008)
A mockbuster from The Asylum that was released three days before the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. While some of The Asylum’s mockbusters have their amusements, this is cheaply and indifferently made
Day the World Ended (1955)
One of the first films from Roger Corman. Set among a group of survivors in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear holocaust, Corman blatantly steals the plot from Five and adds a mutant monster to the mix
The Day the World Ended (2001)
One of a series of films that borrow their titles from old 1950s films, this abandons any connection to the original end of the world film and concerns a boy who may be causing an alien monster to appear
The Day Time Ended (1980)
A B-budgeted film made not long after Close Encounters of the Third Kind about a family on a ranch encountering mysterious alien phenomena. An early Charles Band produced film
DC League of Super Pets (2022)
Superheroes have overrun screens. It is starting to seem a little too much when we now get an animated film about animal superheroes who form their own Justice League
Dead-End Drive-In (1986)
A remarkable little film from Australian director Brian Trenchard-Smith set in a satiric future where teens find they are trapped in a drive-theatre used as a prison for troubled youth
Dead Fire (1996)
Action film set aboard a space station that houses cryogenically frozen survivors of a devastated Earth as C. Thomas Howell tries to stop a mad Matt Frewer
Dead or Alive (1999)
A Yakuza film from Takashi Miike filled with ultra-violence and casual perversity before Miike goes nuts in a totally gonzo ending. Two unrelated sequels followed from Miike
Dead or Alive: Final (2002)
The third of Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive trilogy. While the previous entries are Yakuza films, this is an action film about androids set in Blade Runner-homaging Cyberpunk future
Dead Space: Downfall (2008)
Animated spinoff of the videogame. Your first impression is that animation is not suited for a gore-drenched film. One’s misgivings are silenced by the wildly phantasmagoric range of creatures the film throws at you
The Deadly Bees (1967)
An Amicus film directed by Freddie Francis and with a script by Robert Bloch that proves the dictum that there is no such thing as a good killer bee movie
The Deadly Mantis (1957)
Routine entry in the giant bug cycle of the 1950s, this essentially rehashes The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms with a revived prehistoric giant mantis on the attack
Deadly Skies (2006)
Very low-budget film about an impending asteroid collision. Possibly the first LGBT disaster movie depending on which version you see
The Deadly Spawn (1982)
Fan filmmaking back from the day when filmmakers struggled with technologies like Super 8, a film driven by its makers’ immense enthusiasm and some surprisingly good creature effects, making one of the few highly original variations on the Alien alien
Deadman Apocalypse (2016)
Despite the hope that this might have been an adaptation of DC’s disembodied superhero, this is no more than a post-apocalyptic adventure that takes place in tunnels only about three feet high, including the car chases
Deadpool (2016)
Maybe the smartest and wittiest of the modern Marvel Comics adaptations, this takes every opportunity to deflate its own seriousness, not to mention frequently breaks the fourth wall with side-splitting results
Deadpool 2 (2018)
Deadpool was an hilarious breath of fresh air amid the Marvel Comics adaptations. This sequel is even better, with the self-deflating, fourth-wall breaking humour even funnier and more slickly polished action
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
In his third cinematic outing, Deadpool gets into the multiverse game, creating a hilarious team-up with Wolverine and a crossover with an assortment of other cancelled Marvel franchises
Deal of the Century (1983)
The great William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist and other works, had a flop with this unfunny Chevy Chase and Sigourney Weaver comedy about arms dealing and the efforts to obtain a robot plane
The Death Cure (2018)
The Maze Runner was a solid Young Adult effort that built out an effective Conceptual Breakthrough story; this, the second of two sequels, feeld like a series of canned action scenes in search of a purpose
Death Dimension (1978)
One of the film from legendary bad movie maker Al Adamson. While it has some SF elements, this is mostly an action film where Adamson has set out to mine the burgeoning Blaxploitation and kung fu genres of the day
Death Machine (1995)
One really good killer robot film, featuring a lethal non-humanoid machine and directed with a ferociity that resembles the best of James Cameron. This has similarities to Hardware that came out earlier
Death of a President (2006)
Mockumentary that caused outrage at the time in depicting the assassination of then-sitting US President George W. Bush. This does not hold back in some damning political punches
The Death of Superman (2018)
The Death of Superman is still is the top-selling comic-book title of all-time after 25 years. This was the first half of a two-part animated adaptation of the storyline, which brings it to life with a fair and reasonable telling
The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened? (2015)
Fascinating documentary examining the proposed Superman Lives film from Tim Burton starring Nicolas Cage that never ended up going ahead. The competing personalities make for compulsive watching
Death Race 2 (2010)
The first of three sequels (actually a prequel) to Paul W.S. Anderson’s Death Race, this gives the origins of Frankenstein and the Death Race. This rehashes much of the first film as generic direct-to-dvd fodder
Death Race 3: Inferno (2012)
By tthis third film, the Death Race series is straining trying to find something original to do with a ry limited premise. The Death Race now takes place in the South African desert but the action scenes prove monotonous
Death Race 2000 (1975)
Satiric hit produced by Roger Corman, a spoof of Rollerball, with David Carradine as a driver in a futuristic road race where points are won by running down pedestrians. Also featuring a young unknown Sylvester Stallone
Death Race (2008)
Paul W.S. Anderson’s remake of Death Race 2000 strips the satire from the original and turns it into a modern action movie – a to-the-death car chase film set in a near-future prison
Death Race 2050 (2017)
Death Race 2000 was a hit for producer Roger Corman. It was remade minus the satire as a straight action film with Death Race; here Corman remakes the original (albeit very cheaply) and restores the satire
Death Race: Beyond Anarchy (2018)
The third sequel to Death Race and the most interesting of the series. This sets up an Escape from New York scenario and has fun with bad-ass posturing in depicting the interior of the prison as a open air biker bar
Deathsport (1978)
Terrible film made to exploit the success of Death Race 2000 with David Carradine as a mystical post-apocalyptic Range Guide. This is however a post-apocalyptic action film that prefigures much of Mad Max 2
Deathwatch (1980)
Quietly understated French SF film set in a future where all illness has been abolished and a woman becomes a media sensation when she is diagnosed with a terminal condition
D.E.B.S. (2004)
An extremely witty parody of Charlie’s Angels (that also tapps the whole Austin Powers spy spoof fad). This amusingly rewrites the tv show in terms of lesbian attraction
Debug (2014)
Actor David Hewlett directs a B-budget film where a team of convicted hackers are sent to clean out the computers on a spaceship only to come up against a malevolent A.I.
Deceit (1989)
Albert Pyun film that takes place entirely in a warehouse where a woman is taken prisoner by a man who may or may not be an alien. As with much of Pyun’s output from this period, this is cheap and eventually incoherent
Deep Blue Sea (1999)
A killer shark film by way of Jurassic Park. The perpetually terrible Renny Harlin creates something almost watchable that vies between moments of tension and the entertainingly absurd
Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018)
For some reason, nineteen years years later, someone has decided to produce a sequel to Renny Harlin’s unintentionally funny killer shark film only to give it a pitiful budget that causes it to sink well into bad movie stakes
Deep Blue Sea 3 (2020)
After the genuinely terrible Deep Blue Sea 2, all it took to improve the Deep Blue Sea series was a better director. This no more than a B movie but is certainly halfway watchable
Deep Impact (1998)
Big serious attempt at creating an asteroid collides with Earth film, this came out the same year as Armageddon. Despite arraying much acting talent and effects artistry, this disappears into a melodramatic blandness
Deep Red (1994)
A confused and incomprehensible film in which Michael Biehn is drawn in to the hunt for a girl whose blood contains an immortality virus
Deep Rescue (2005)
This has an interesting premise of a returning space shuttle that crashes and sinks at sea and the attempts to rescue it. Alas, this has the misfortune of being produced on a minuscule budget and with pitiful effects
Deep Rising (1998)
Early Stephen Sommers film that feels like it has been mounted as Alien meets Titanic. Between the ridiculous one-dimensional writing and Sommers’ CGI overkill, this heads well into bad movie material
Deep Space (1988)
An enterprising B-budget copy of Alien from prolific director Fred Olen Ray, this amusingly transfers the basics of Alien down to Earth and replaces the crew of the Nostromo with Charles Napier as a tough, grizzled LAPD cop
Deepstar Six (1989)
Entertainingly cheesy monster underwater film from Friday the 13th director Sean S. Cunningham. One of several such Aliens located underwater films that came out the same year that James Cameron made The Abyss
Defcon-4 (1985)
A breath of originality in a decade overrun with Mad Max copies, a clever and original little film in which the crew of a space station return to Earth after the nuclear holocaust
Defcon 2012 (2010)
Amateur low-budget production about mysterious happenings in the aftermath of an alien invasion. This has many ideas but none of them much coalesce into a plot
Deja Vu (2006)
Tony Scott directed time travel film with Denzel Washington viewing and then entering into events of the past in an effort to stop a terrorist bombing. Action driven as you might expect with Jerry Bruckheimer as producer
Delete (2013)
The return of the talented Steve Barron after a decade’s absence in a film that was shot in my own backyard (literally). Disappointingly, all we get is a work that unimaginatively rehashes cliches about amok A.I.s
Delicatessen (1991)
In their debut, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro make an hilariously eccentric and unclassifiable film about the inhabitants of a strange apartment building
Deluge (1933)
The world’s first disaster movie concerning a worldwide flood. This has some extremely impressive effects for the era showing New York being drowned. Less interesting are the dramatics in the ruins
Demolition Man (1993)
One of Sylvester Stallone’s better films, a satirically funny work where he plays a contemporary police officer unfrozen in a future overrun by Political Correctness to chase down criminal Wesley Snipes
The Demolitionist (1996)
Nicole Eggert stars in this cheap and rather laughable copy of RoboCop, where she is a police officer killed in the line of duty who is resurrected as an avenging cyborg vigilante
Demon Seed (1977)
Adaptation of an early Dean R. Koontz novel about an A.I who imprisons a woman in her own home with the intention of impregnating her. A variant on Rosemary’s Baby conducted far more tastefully than you might think
Le Dernier Combat (1983)
Luc Besson made his directorial debut with this remarkable film. At a time when everybody was making copies of Mad Max 2, Besson demonstrates a poetry in depicting a post-apocalyptic world where people have lost the ability to speak
Despicable Me (2010)
An animated effort about a mad scientist and three orphans. One entered this with zero expectation only for it to unexpectedly emerge as a side-splitting and completely charming pleasure
Despicable Me 2 (2013)
Despicable Me was a charming lightning in the bottle hit. Here Illumination Entertainment merely recyclethe familiar and already the cute sweetness and gags of the original are starting to feel like processed formula
Despicable Me 3 (2017)
Despicable Me was a delightful debut for Illumination Entertainment but has come close to making the studio a one-hit wonder they have milked that one hit for all they can
Despicable Me 4 (2024)
More from the world’s cuddliest super-villain and those manic ritalin-deprived kids that are the Minions. Is there are life and creativity left in a franchise that has been milked for six films now?
Destination Inner Space (1966)
A B movie that essentially locates The Thing from Another World underwater with an alien monster invading a sub-oceanic research laboratory. Not dissimilar to a host of B movie copying Alien in the 80s/90s
Destination Moon (1950)
The film that started the great 1950s age of science fiction. A bold exciting work from George Pal and Robert Heinlein that says the Moon is our to conquer and lays out a credible road map about how to do so
Destination Moonbase-Alpha (1979)
A two-part episode of the Gerry Anderson tv series Space: 1999 that was repackaged as a feature film to take advantage of the late 1970s post-Star Wars SF boom
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
The 20th Toho monster movie where the studio decided to gather Godzilla and all the other monsters under their roof together for a massive tag team brawl. Disappointingly, the monsters are upstaged by space opera elements for long sections
The Destructors (1968)
An entry amid the 1960s spy fad that suffers a pedestrian dullness. A stocky Richard Egan seems miscast as a playboy spy up against a bikini designer villain who seeks a powerful laser weapon
Deterrence (1999)
A thriller with Kevin Pollak as the US President caught at a diner by a blizzard where he is faced with the hard choice of whether or not to launch a nuclear attack on Iraq
Deus (2022)
This has distinct overtones of 2001: Space Odyssey and Event Horizon about an expedition to Mars to investigate a mysterious black sphere – only to find that it offers a gateway to Heaven
Devil Girl from Mars (1954)
British entry in the 1950s alien invader genre with a female invader come to Earth to select male breeding specimens. The invader looks like a dominatrix from outer space who comes accompanied by a ridiculous robot
Devil’s Gate (2017)
This comes with a great initial set-up as it becomes apparent that law enforcement investigating a missing woman are dealing with alien abductions
Devil’s Triangle (2021)
An adventure potboiler from The Asylum about the crew of a plane who pass through the Bermuda Triangle to end up in Atlantis just as the Atlanteans prepare to declare war on the surface world
Devs (2020)
Alex Garland directed-written tv mini-series that grasps at big ideas about the meaning of it all concerning a computer that can track every particle and predict past and future. This emerges as one of the finest SF work of the last few years
The Diabolical (2015)
This gives all appearance to being another copy of Insidious – a ghost story with an evil-sounding adjective for a title. The film settles in in predictable ways; then throws the ghost story angle on its head with a surprise SF twist
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
The seventh James Bond film where Sean Connery was inveigled back to the role with a heft salary increase. However, the result is the worst of all the Connery Bonds with an incoherent plot and uneven action scenes
Dick Barton Strikes Back (1949)
From the early days of Hammer Films, one of several films based on Dick Barton, a popular radio hero. A progenitor of the spy movie with the title hero trying to prevent foreign agents unleashing a deadly sonic ray
Dick Dynamite: 1944 (2023)
A gonzo parody of WWII heroics a la Inglourious Basterds with the addition of Nazi zombies, over-the-top splatter and some decidedly non-PC humour, this proves an enormously entertainingly comic-book of a film
Dick Tracy (1937)
This is a standout serial based on the famous comic-book detective, featuring some of the best of all serial cliffhangers and action set-pieces, not to mention wonderfully creative super-science inventions
Die Another Day (2002)
Pierce Brosnan’s final outing as James Bond lacks the sharpness of the preceding entries and is hampered by Halle Berry who is given great presence but nothing to do. Despite which this has some of the best action scenes of any Bond film
Die, Monster, Die! (1965)
Adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space, directed by Roger Corman’s production designer Daniel Haller that draws on the look and mood of Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films
Digby, The Biggest Dog in the World (1973)
British children’s film in which a dog is made giant sized after being fed a growth formula by scientist Spike Milligan. Amiable but nothing great
Digital Man (1995)
Fairly average 90s SF/action video release about soldiers hunting an amok military android before realising the androids have also infiltrated their troupe
The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy (1915)
The very first film from stop-motion animator Willis O’Brien, the creator of King Kong. A rather slight piece about the comic shenanigans among a group of cave people but it was the first film to ever depict a dinosaur on screen.
Dinosaur Hotel (2021)
A head-scratching oddity from the people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey with people enter in a reality tv show where they are hunted by dinosaurs within the confines of a hotel
Dinosaur Island (1994)
A collaboration between B-budget hacks Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski. Made not long after Jurassic Park, the two have simply made one of their usual softcore T&A films and slapped the word dinosaur on it
Dinosaurus! (1960)
A low-budget effort but amiable effort about dinosaurs and a caveman that are revived on an island. The cheap effects, culminating in a battle between a dinosaur and a crane, have some imagination
Dinoshark (2010)
One of the earliest entries in the gonzo killer shark fad, predating Sharknado even. This comes produced by Roger Corman and concerns a prehistoric shark that is revived