Dinotopia (2002)
A TV mini-series based on the popular illustrated books by James Gurney about the discovery of a lost land where dinosaurs have evolved into their own civilisation
Science Fiction
Diplomatic Siege (1999)
One of the numerous action films to use a variant on the Die Hard scenario (with an added nuclear threat). For once, this has an okay script and a sense of humour but is killed by a fatal miscasting of its two leads
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (2010)
Extraordinary anime where the members of an after school club secretly harbour great powers. From there, this expands out with reality-bending scope
Disaster Movie (2008)
The movie parodies of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, which consist of crude, witless gags run over replication of scenes from films of the last twelve months, are painfully unfunny. This doesn’t even spoof the disaster movie
Disclosure (1994)
It is telling that the only film made about workplace sexual harassment up to this point is one that painted the male as a victim. This adaptation of a Michael Crichton book came mired in controversy
Disclosure Day (2026)
Steven Spielberg makes a thoughtful return to the theme of alien contact. Rather than the rosy optimism of Close Encounters and E.T. , he seems to have embraced the dark conspiratorial view of The X Files
Discontinued (2022)
We’ve all heard the theory that we might be living in The Matrix. This asks the question of what happens when it is announced that the simulation is being shut down
The Discovery (2017)
Robert Redford plays a scientist who finds proof of the existence of the afterlife only to then face a worldwide rash of suicides. From the director of the fascinatingly weird The One I Love
District 9 (2009)
Neill Blomkamp’s first film starts well as a strong, highly politicised work about human-alien prejudice. However, Blomkamp loses steam about halfway through where it feel as though he didn’t know where to take the story
A Disturbance in the Force: How The Star Wars Holiday Special Happened (2023)
The Star Wars Holiday Special has a legendary awfulness in Star Wars fandom – least of all that George Lucas has done all in his power to quash its existence. This is a documentary about what happened
Disturbing Behavior (1998)
A smart and modestly enjoyable film that plays like a high school version of The Stepford Wives where troubled students are being brainwashed and turned into preppy high-achievers
Divergent (2014)
Designed as a copycat of The Hunger Games, this Young Adult film as a modest hit. The premise is fundamentally implausible as human psychology – and when there’s no basic credibility, you cease to care about the contrived dramatics
The Divide (2011)
Tough and brutal depiction of the collapse of civilised order among a group of survivors of a nuclear holocaust holed up in a cellar. This holds an incredibly bleak depiction of human nature
DNA (1997)
Another variant on Alien – a monster movie with Mark Dacascos as a doctor facing a genetically engineered insect monster in the jungles of Borneo
DOA: Dead or Alive (2006)
Videogame adaptation that emerges as a conceptual combination of Charlie’s Angels (2000) – a trio of girls, in kickass poses and jaw-droppingly scanty costumery – and Mortal Kombat
Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)
Very silly AIP comedy that parodies the massively popular James Bond films of the era, as well as features Vincent Price as the villain spoofing his appearances in the studio’s Edgar Allan Poe films
Dr No (1962)
The first of the James Bond films. While the formula of the series is not quite established yet, this is a slick exciting work that did a number of groundbreaking things and created some iconic images
Dr Strangelove or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Stanley Kubrick decided the only way to make a film about nuclear war was to resort to black comedy. Aided by three sidesplitting performances from Peter Sellers, the result are mercilessly funny
Dr Who and the Daleks (1965)
This was the first of two Doctor Who movies produced during the height of Dalekmania during the 1960s. Alas a comedy element in the form of the asinine buffoonery of Roy Castle is allowed to dominate and kills the show off
Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde (1995)
Another variation on the Dr Jekyll and Hyde becomes a woman theme. This version is played as a modern comedy wherein Tim Daly turns into Sean Young who plays to bitchy excess
Dogora the Space Monster (1964)
One of the overlooked Japanese monster movies directed by Godzilla’s creator Ishiro Honda concerning a giant alien blob that appears in the sky and sucks up coal and diamonds
Doin’ Time on Planet Earth (1988)
A peculiarity from Cannon Films that was a flop, a comedy in which a weird teenager believes he is an alien and suddenly attracts the attention of a bunch of UFO cultists
Dollman (1990)
A highly entertaining effort from Charles Band and Full Moon Productions directed by Albert Pyun featuring Tim Thomerson as a hard-boiled miniature alien cop come to Earth
Dollman Vs. the Demonic Toys (1993)
Full Moon production that offers the novelty of bringing together their Dollman and Demonic Toys franchises, although nearly a third of the film is comprised of recycled footage from said films
The Domestics (2018)
Solidly effective work of post-holocaust survivalism with a couple on a 400 mile journey where they have to pass through territories held by various gangs
Donovan’s Brain (1953)
The second version of the multiply filmed novel by Curt Siodmak about a malevolent brain in a tank. Its greatest distinction is featuring later to be First Lady Nancy Davis Reagan as the heroine
Don’t Look Up (2021)
The perfect film for the Covid era. A devastatingly on the ball satire on the ineptitude of people’s response in the face of an extinction level threat to the Earth from an oncoming comet as government agencies tries to minimise the news
Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
Actress Olivia Wilde creates a variant on The Stepford Wives set in an idyllic 1950s town where the women seem to be prisoners. Wilde is making a feminist parable but the plausibility of her SF scenario falls apart
Doom (2005)
Disappointing film version of the videogame. The film seems to either miss or water down the principal appeals of the game, although you do get Dwayne Johnson (still billed as The Rock) as the bad guy
Doom: Annihilation (2019)
This was the second film based based on the Doom game and actually does a far better job of getting the essence of the game and paying fanservice to its elements than the earlier 2005 film did
Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four (2015)
The 1994 film version of The Fantastic Four is the stuff of legend – made for $1 million budget solely to secure a copyright and never intended to be released. This is a documentary about its making
Doomsday (2008)
Immensely satisfying film from Neil Marshall set in a walled-off, post-pandemic Scotland where he seems to have set out to pay homage to sf/action films like Escape from New York and Mad Max 2
Doomsday (2015)
Not to be confused with Neil Marshall’s Doomsday. This is a surprisingly good, low-budget British SF film that serves up the essential plot of The Terminator but with a number of clever touches of its own
Doomsday Book (2012)
South Korean anthology containing a trio of tales on the theme of the end of the world. The standout is the middle segment, a very Asimovian tale wherein a robot claims to have logically attained Buddhist enlightenment
Doomsday Machine (1972)
Incredibly cheaply made film about astronauts on a spaceship to Venus who survive the destruction of the Earth. So cheap that most of the film takes place on two sets
Doomsday Man (1998)
Thriller with Esai Morales as a virologist called out of retirement to track down his brother James Marshall who has gone rogue and stolen vials of a deadly bacteriological agent
Doomsday Meteor (2023)
Another enterprising low-budget disaster movie from The Asylum about a meteor on a collision course with the Earth. The great Joe Roche is on script and creates an amazingly almost plausible scenario
Doomsdayer (2000)
A low-budget video-released action effort that attempts to copy the James Bond films featuring the hunt for a device that can trigger all nuclear reactors
Doomwatch (1972)
The film spinoff of a 1970s British tv series about a group who investigate scientific and ecological abuses. The film depicts an outbreak of aromegaly on an island near where growth stimulants have been dumped.
The Door Into Summer (2021)
Robert Heinlein’s time travel novel gets a surprisingly faithful adaptation from Japan. This keeps the story’s double structure that tells one story and then with considerable conceptual dexterity reveals another hidden in the margins
Doors (2021)
Multi-director anthology about a series of mysterious portals that appear around the world, this creates a sense of something genuinely alien and otherworldly
Doppelganger (1969)
Gerry Anderson was best known for his puppet tv shows. This was his first film with live actors based around the absurd notion of a space expedition to a planet on the far side of the sun that is a mirror opposite of the Earth
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
Downdraft (1996)
Modest and conceptually packed B-budget action film in which a motley team are sent to break into a bunker that has been hijacked by a scientist who is threatening to fire nuclear missiles
Downsizing (2017)
Matt Damon gets shrunken to five inches tall in this effort from Alexander Payne, an award-winning director who usually makes films about men undergoing mid-life crises. The film has a cleverness but Payne often misses the possibilities raised
Dr Cyclops (1940)
From the people behind King Kong, a film in which a mad scientist shrinks a group of people to a few inches tall. Some excellent effects for the era, making this one of the best films on the theme of miniaturisation
Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966)
Italian-made sequel to the campy Vincent Price starring Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. Directed by the usually great Mario Bava and overrun by the buffoonish clowning of Italian comics Franco and Ciccio
Dr M (1990)
Claude Chabrol updates Fritz Lang super-villain Dr Mabuse to a millennial West Berlin where Alan Bates is a tv mogul who masterminds a mass suicide cult via messages hidden inside advertising
Dragonwasps (2012)
Typical Syfy Channel creature film with people encountering giant fire-breathing genetically-engineered wasps in the jungles of Belize
Dreamcatcher (2003)
Lawrence Kasdan directs an adaptation of the Stephen King novel about a group of men on a weekend get together in the woods who find themselves in the midst of an alien invasion
Dreamscape (1984)
The original version of Inception almost, featuring psychics entering into people’s dreams and then attempts to dream assassinate the US President. Despite much promise, the idea is prosaic in its handling
Dreamtrips (1999)
A Virtual Reality film that came out the same year as The Matrix and prefigures the dreamscape themes of Inception. Despite the possibilities, this has a dreary pace that very nearly approaches falling asleep
Dredd (2012)
A second film version of the Judge Dredd comic-book. More faithful than the Sylvester Stallone version, this comes with a satisfyingly visceral kick, yet a low-budget means that we see little of Dredd’s satiric future
Dual (2022)
Film in which a dying Karen Gillan has a clone made of herself only to make an unexpected recovery and be forced into a televised duel to death with the clone for ownership of her life
Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000)
A bizarrely surreal, anything goes comedy as two bros set out to find their car after a night partying. This feels like Repo Man as though directed by the Farrelly Brothers after they had inhaled a few bongs
Dune (1984)
David Lynch disowned his film version of the classic Frank Herbert SF novel. However, Lynch may be incapable of making a bad film and this, while acting freely with the book, has a visual grandeur that makes it highly watchable
Dune (2000)
This TV mini-series remake of the Frank Herbert novel is much more faithful to the essence and complexity of the book, even if it lacks the visual resplendence of the film versions
Dune Drifter (2020)
Modestly well made low-budget planetary survival film about a pilot crashlanded on a hostile world. An entire space opera that was shot in the director’s apartment during the Covid-19 lockdown
Dune Part One (2021)
Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic SF novel comes with a determination to give the story and its richly detailed world faithful life on screen. Villeneuve adapts freely in many areas but gets the complexity of the saga
Dune Part Two (2024)
The second part of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic SF novel Dune, this delves more deeply into the world of the Fremen, although starts to diverge more from the book
The Dustwalker (2019)
A zombie film of sorts in which the people of an Australian outback town are taken over by an alien force. A zombie film that seems to be trying not to be a zombie film.
The Dyatlov Pass Incident (2013)
The Dyatlov Pass Incident has gained a fascination as an unexplained mystery. Here Renny Harlin makes a Found Footage film that heads for full on conspiracy theory explanations
Eagle Eye (2008)
Shia LaBeouf ends up on the run from the FBI in a conspiracy involving an A.I. A thriller about the surveillance society that, despite much sound and fury, finds almost nothing to say about its subject
Earth Abides (2024)
Earth Abides is a classic novel that essentially defined the theme of survival in the aftermath of the collapse of civilisation. This is a TV mini-series adaptation of the book but badly fumbles it
The Earth Dies Screaming (1964)
Terence Fisher was a cornerstone figures at Hammer Films. Less well-regarded is his 1960s trilogy of science-fiction films. This is an alien invasion film that is a model of economy, told with a stark effective tension
Earth Girls Are Easy (1989)
Wackily funny SF musical with Jeff Goldblum, Damon Wayans and Jim Carrey as aliens who land in the San Fernando Valley. Directed by Julien Temple with a giddily effervescent silliness
Earth Star Voyager (1988)
TV mini-series that came out hoping to ride the coattails of Star Trek: The Next Generation but looks dated barely ten years later. Somehow the idea of teenagers on a space mission didn’t get many audiences enthused
Earth to Echo (2014)
Found Footage film that nostalgically homages, if not outrightly borrows, from E.T.. It does build a sense of wonder well but then dissolves into far too much near-identical running around
Earth vs the Flying Saucers (1956)
Cult stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen jumps aboard the 1950s flying saucer fad, making one of the era’s better alien invader films, climaxing in some great scenes with the saucers demolishing much of Washington D.C.
Earth vs the Spider (1958)
Rather tatty effort in the 1950s giant bug cycle from director Bert I. Gordon who spent most of this era making similar films about big and small creatures and people
Earth vs. the Spider (2001)
One of a spate of remakes of old AIP titles conducted in 2001, this spins the original giant spider amok film out into a superhero-gone-wrong take on Spider-Man
Earthquake (1974)
Disaster movie in which Los Angeles is devastated by an earthquake Size 7 on the Richter scale. Despite a script by Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather, this is the usual soap opera melodramatics
Earthrise (2014)
Low-budget SF film about a space expedition from Mars to Earth where before you can say Solaris the crew start to experience hallucinations of their loved ones. Sort of The Crazies in space
Earth’s Final Hours (2011)
Another Syfy Channel low-budget disaster film. This creates a fascinating if scientifically dubious end of the world premise about a white hole but spends the show on the routine stuff of car chases and gunfights
Earthtastrophe (2016)
Syfy Channel disaster movie where Earth is suddenly transported into another Solar System amid cheap effects and an improbable time travel solution is sought to reverse this
Ed Wood (1994)
In one of his finest films, Tim Burton makes a ennobling tribute to the so-called world’s worst director Edward D. Wood Jr who, in Johnny Depp’s performance, becomes Burton’s ultimate outsider hero
Eden Log (2007)
Cryptic and baffling French art science-fiction film involving strange happenings at a laboratory where we never get any explanations about what is going on
Edge of Darkness (1985)
One of the great tv series of the 1980s, a powerful and incisive snapshot of Thatcherite England, the backroom politics of the nuclear power industry and the environmentalist movement. A brilliantly written show featuring great performances
Edge of Darkness (2010)
A film remake of one of the great tv series of the 1980s. A complete betrayal by the original’s director Martin Campbell that strips all the politics and simply makes it into a Mel Gibson revenge film
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
The rarity of a summer blockbuster with smarts – think Groundhog Day reworked by way of Battle Los Angeles. The timeloop idea is dealt with in clever ways making for an action film driven by an original sf story
Eegah (1962)
Z movie classic with Richard Kiel as a revived caveman facing hot rodding teenagers. Much bad movie hilarity and hilarious dialogue ensues, plus a rock’n’roll soundtrack
Eight Legged Freaks (2002)
Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin turn their attentions to revamping the 1950s giant insect film. They bring top-drawer effects to bear but everything else plays to standard formula
Einstein’s God Model (2016)
A conceptually wild film about the use of a device that can contact the dead that winds in the use of Thomas Edison’s spirit phone, modern physics and multiverse theory in something uniquely different
Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014)
Absolutely fascinating documentary about Golan and Globus, the producers of a great deal of action, ninja, Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson films in the 1980s, plus many genre works, under the Cannon Films banner
Electric Dreams (1984)
Lightweight, rather silly effort where Lenny Von Dohlen’s home computer becomes sentient and the two compete for the love of neighbour Virginia Madsen
The Electric State (2025)
This is a film that had the capacity within its hands to be a classic work about A.I. and robotics. Adapted from the art of Simon Stålenhag and directed by the Russo Brothers who were behind the last two Avengers films
Electroma (2006)
Full-length film made by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk based around the robot guises the band adopts. Resembles an extended student film and feels exactly like an SF version of The Brown Bunny
The Electronic Monster (1960)
The very first dreamscape film, prefiguring many other films that have taken up the theme, most notably Inception. By contrast this is a dull affair that lets most of the possibilities slip through its hands.
The Element of Crime (1984)
The first feature film from Lars von Trier, a crime thriller set in a futuristic Europe. There are glimmers of the visual style von Trier would develop but the film also badly drags
Elevation (2024)
Quite a good variant on A Quiet Place where humanity is in hiding from monsters that exist below eight thousand feet altitude. This develops some fine seat-edge tension
Eliminators (1986)
One of the more enjoyable films from Charles Band’s Empire Productions, a comic-book of a film that assembles an action team of various abilities on an adventure up against a mad scientist
Elizabeth Harvest (2018)
A novel take on the story of Bluebeard who forbids his wives to enter a room and kills them when they do. Here Bluebeard is a scientist who keeps cloning the same wife over. A sophisticated and intelligent film full of sharp and intriguing twists
Elstree 1976 (2015)
A documentary devoted to the extras and bit players who appeared in Star Wars. Gently affectionate, it tells the story of people who never much else notable and how being part of such a cultural landmark impacted their lives
Elysium (2013)
The second film from Neill Blomkamp. As in District 9, he starts out making a savage and biting social critique about social privilege and financial elites only to let the film descend into action moves in the third act
Embers (2015)
An often hauntingly made film set in a world where the populace is affected by periodic amnesia and memory resets. Memento in effect recast as an apocalyptic story
Embryo (1976)
Scientist Rock Hudson brings an unborn embryo to life as beautiful emotionless Barbara Carrera. Though it uses the trappings of modern science, this still has its feet in the creaky old mad scientist film
Emmanuelle in Space: First Contact (1994)
The original Emmanuelle was a supposedly autobiographical memoir about the sexual dalliances of a bored wife in Thailand. Here Emmanuelle is now abducted by aliens for further encounters
The Empire of Corpses (2015)
Fascinatingly original anime set in an alternate history Steampunk version of Victorian England that has developed a technology based on Frankenstein’s corpse resurrection experiments
Empire of the Ants (1977)
In the 1950s Bert I. Gordon specialised in cheap giant insect films. Here he takes H.G. Wells’ name in vain and jumps aboard the 1970s Animals Amok cycle but still makes another shoddy film about giant ants
Empire of the Apes (2013)
When 20th Century Fox began their Planet of the Apes reboot series, director Mark Polonia quickly jumped in with his own Z-budget mockbuster take. Several sequels followed