Alice in Terrorland (2023)
Following Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey and its trashing of a children’s classic, a horror version of Alice in Wonderland where the heroine has dark, hallucinatory visions of the characters
Alice in Wonderland (1933)
Studio adaptation that freely mixes elements from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and features an all-star cast line-up, this works far better than the purists would have it
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Disney’s animated adaptation is usually hated by Lewis Carroll purists for its free and easy treatment of the story but for everyone else comes with a splendidly demented visual absurdism
Alice in Wonderland (1985)
From Irwin Allen, the creator of Lost in Space etc, a tv version of Alice in Wonderland, conceived as an all-star musical that comes out as ponderous and leaden in Allen’s hands
Alice in Wonderland (1999)
A fairly reasonable tv mini-series adaptation of Lewis Carroll – a version that excels in terms of design and in using The Jim Henson Workshop to bring the Wonderland creatures to life
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Tim Burton takes on Lewis Carroll but Carroll gets lost beneath Burton doing his usual quirky eccentric thing and a plot that seems to want to turn Alice’s adventures into a modern epic fantasy
Alice Through the Looking Glass (1987)
Obscure animated children’s movie adaptation of Alice in Wonderland that commits the sin of modernising and Americanizing Alice
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)
Sequel to the 2010 Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland. This has even less in common with Lewis Carroll’s book sequel than its predecessor did – a total of two scenes. The sets and effects are just pretty eye candy
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972)
A live-action film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland that conducts a passable run through of Lewis Carroll with the supporting characters populated by an all-star British cast
Alien (1979)
One of the most influential films on this site, producing a host of sequels and making the careers of all involved. At heart, a simple monster on a spaceship film, it is made into a classic through Ridley Scott’s relentless suspense and H.R. Giger’s design work
Alien Abduction (2005)
An early film from The Asylum set in a hospital for alien abductees, which director Eric Forsberg evokes with some paranoia and a great ending
Alien Arsenal (1999)
A banal David De Coteau directed kid’s film about two teens who find an arsenal of alien equipment and put the suits on to become superheroes
Alien Beach Party Massacre (1996)
This seems to be intended as a parody of a 1960s beach party film but with the addition of comic aliens. Well and truly a black star film, this is excruciating on every level
Alien Cargo (1999)
Alien crossbred with The Crazies. Jason London and Missy Crider are crewmembers on a spaceship affected by an alien contaminant that makes them turn homicidal
Alien Conquest (2021)
The Asylum conduct a modernised remake of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds – for the second time. With resident mad scientist Joe Roche on script, the results are undeniably interesting
Alien Contamination (1980)
Luigi Cozzi directed quickie designed to copy the success of Alien. As with many Italian films of this era, it has largely been conceived around plentiful provision of gore and little else
Alien Express (2005)
A ridiculous film with Lou Diamond Phillips pursuing aliens aboard a runaway train. Cliches are piled on with absurd effect and the show killed by cheap effects
Alien from L.A. (1988)
Head-scratching Albert Pyun oddity made for Cannon Films with Kathy Ireland searching for Atlantis underground. This emerges as a weird mix of Valley Girl comedy and Journey to the Center of the Earth
Alien from the Deep (1989)
In his second to last film, Italian B-budget director Antonio Margheriti makes a cheap and not very good Alien copy that feels like a throwback to the 1950s monster movie
Alien Hunter (2003)
Film about a mysterious alien artifact unearthed in the Antarctic that falls apart due to a script that is constantly jumping all over the place and spending more time homaging other science-fiction films
Alien Implant (2017)
A film about a former alien abductee pottering endlessly about a cabin in order to lure the aliens who took her and take revenge. A film that is about as close to total amateurism as possible to get
Alien Invasion (2023)
From prolific producer Scott Jeffrey, best known for Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, a low-budget Alien copy, essentially an Alien that takes place in an English country mansion
Alien Invasion: S.U.M.1 (2017)
An enigmatic film set in a future where aliens have invaded the Earth as a lone soldier is sent to crew a remote post and imagines he is seeing things
Alien Nation (1988)
Made not longer after the buddy cop hit of Lethal Weapon, this has a curmudgeonly human paired up with an alien partner. A fairly ordinary cop show plot is boosted by two fantastic central performances
Alien Opponent (2011)
Predator as enacted by a bunch of comically caricatured rednecks and white trash characters in a junkyard. The film is a cheaply produced, one-note joke that soon becomes tedious
Alien Origin (2012)
The Asylum’s mockbuster version of Prometheus where they have settled for giving us Predator as a Found Footage film (with a good few doses of Ancient Astronauts nuttinesss)
Alien Outbreak (2020)
Fine little film about an invasion of dog-like alien robots and an outbreak of mass insanity that drives people to kill themselves, this does great things on next to nothing
Alien Tornado (2012)
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie. With the sheer amount of these films, many have been straining to come up novelty threats – you cannot deny the idea of a tornado of alien origin holds your attention
Alien Trespass (2009)
Homage to 1950s SF films, in particular It Came from Outer Space and The Blob, made not as a parody but as an affectionate tribute to the era with everything played seriously
Alien Uprising (2012)
Low-budget British alien invasion film shot in a hyperkinetic style using as many social collapse cliches as possible. Jean-Claude Van Damme turns up to deliver explanations for everything
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Ridley Scott makes a further Alien prequel that is an improvement on Prometheus. While the first half gives us the stuff of aliens hunting humans, the second less interestingly doglegs off into the story of a mad android
Alien: Resurrection (1997)
The fourth of the Alien films. French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet comes on board and delivers a comic-bookish run through of a Joss Whedon script that overspills with too many ideas
Alien: Romulus (2024)
Despite a director that has spent a career making bad sequels to other people’s franchises, you have to admit this is an Alien sequel emerges better than you expect it to do
Alien3 (1992)
Third of the Alien films, a directorial debut for David Fincher. A better film than was perceived at the time, this explores new character depths, while Fincher imprints his own visual style on the film
Alienate (2016)
An alien invasion film with a more character driven focus than most, telling the story through the eyes of a husband and wife separated across different states as he tries to get back home
Alienoid (2022)
A South Korean SF film that comes with a wide canvas involving alien invasion, time hopping between two eras and some epic action in possibly one of the most head-scratching plots seen in some time
Alienoid: Return to the Future (2024)
The second part of the Korean time-hopping/alien invasion film where many of the plot strands from the extremely confusing first film are at least wrapped up
Aliens (1986)
James Cameron’s follow-up to Alien is one of the few sequels that matches its predecessor. Adding a troupe of Marines, Cameron creates a powerhouse of a film that sustains itself with seat-edge tension throughout
Aliens in the Attic (2009)
A family film about a group of kids discovering alien invaders in their attic. A film that is largely construed around a series of slapstick set-pieces.
Aliens vs Titanic (2017)
Full marks for the title. Rather than any spacegoing version of Titanic, we have a spaceship named Titan1-C, which is soon abandoned and thereafter a cheesily ridiculous film about alien chestbusters
Aliens Vs. Avatars (2011)
This seems amusingly construed as a mash-up between two of James Cameron’s most famous titles … what we get is a painfully cheap film about people being pursued through the woods by an alien creature
Alison’s Birthday (1979)
Australian-made film about a heroine being drawn into occult conspiracies around her that only treads where Rosemary’s Baby went before
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
What was once a planned James Cameron adaptation of a manga about a cyborg girl is now brought to the screen by Robert Rodriguez but it is hard to say what an underwhelming disappointment the result is
All Cheerleaders Die (2001)
The first film of directors Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson, concerning a troupe of cheerleaders who are killed and resurrected from the dead. The two later returned to conduct a better-budgeted remake
All Cheerleaders Die (2013)
Directors Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson conduct a remake of their earlier film about resurrected cheerleaders. The question might be why – both have demonstrated they can do far better than this
All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)
One of the better animated films from Don Bluth that sets up a likeable arc in the relationship between a redeemable mobster dog who returns from Heaven and a young girl
All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (1996)
This is a video-released sequel to the Don Bluth animated film with dogs again returning from the afterlife. This is churned out with passable effort
All Fun & Games (2023)
Teenagers in Salem are forced to play a game where their lives are forfeit and they become possessed by a cursed knife dating from the witch trials
All Girls Weekend (2016)
This takes its title literally – it is made by a woman director and there are no men on screen. The result is somewhere between The Descent and The Blair Witch Project with an undeniably surprise twist ending
All Hallows’ Eve (2013)
From the director of the Terrifier films, a horror anthology in which a babysitter and kids sit down to watch a mysterious videotape on Halloween night. The first screen appearance of Art the Clown
All Of Me (1984)
One of Steve Martin’s finest works, a variant of the bodyswap comedy in which he finds himself sharing his body with Lily Tomlin. Martin’s on-screen contortions are side-splitting
All Superheroes Must Die (2011)
Low-budget superhero film. With a plot that strips the superheroes of their powers and them facing a villain’s deathtraps, we end up with little more than a Saw copy in funny costumes
All Superheroes Must Die 2: The Last Superhero (2016)
Sequel to one of the few original (ie. non comic-book) superhero films of the 2010s. this takes the interesting route of telling it as a investigative tv report into someone killing off all the superheroes
All That Jazz (1979)
Dance choreographer/director Bob Fosse makes an autobiographical film in which dance choreographer (played by Roy Scheider) reflects on his life to the Angel of Death
All That Money Can Buy (1941)
Classic film about a lawyer arguing in court to save a man who has sold his soul to The Devil. On screen, this is turned into a highly entertaining sentimentalised Frank Capra-type film about American greatness
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006)
Quite why this received a theatrical release is a major scratch of the head. A slasher film that is slickly put together but beneath that a work of thorough ordinariness
All Through the House (2015)
A strong and effective reworking of the psycho Santa slasher film. This conducts a well-oiled rehearsal of all the slasher tropes and delivers exactly what we expect of it
All You Need is Death (2023)
A unique and original Irish variant on the Folk Horror genre about a couple who become wound up into the obsessive quest for a cursed folk song and the effect it has
All-Star Superman (2011)
Another of the DC animated films, based on a work that reinterpreted Superman. This is somewhat bitsy in condensing a 12-issue series to a 73-minute film but holds some moments of great writing
Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986)
This is a sequel to Cannon Films’ excruciating camp version of King Solomon’s Mines. Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone are back. This is a marginal improvement but far from a good film
Allegiant (2016)
The Divergent series is a fundamentally implausible scenario for people that think horoscopes are a profound insight into human nature. This is the most interesting of the films and gives us an imaginative future world
Allegro Non Troppo (1976)
An Italian-made homage to/parody of Fantasia offering an anthology of animated tales. This is witty and more adult in tone, yet perfectly charming and delightful in its own way
Alleluia (2014)
The story of the true-life killers Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, most famously adapted into The Honeymoon Killers, gets a retelling from Fabrice du Welz with a modern updating
Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival (2016)
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman makes a rock musical about a war between a gaudily exotic Heaven and Hell. A full-length expansion of Bousman’s earlier short film
Alligator (1980)
Amid the spate of post-Jaws Animals Amok films, this, which comes armed with a John Sayles script and plays on the urban legend of baby alligators flushed into the sewers, was a rather enjoyable effort that plants tongue in cheek
Alligator II: The Mutation (1991)
The 1980 Alligator was amusing but this hardly one of the sequels the world was burning to see. An utterly formulaic copy that is killed by impoverished giant alligator effects
Almighty Thor (2011)
Another of The Asylum’s mockbusters in this case blatantly ripping off the then recent Marvel Comics adaptation Thor, all made with The Asylum’s typical cut-rate production values
Almost an Angel (1990)
Paul Hogan became a huge international star with the Crocodile Dundee films. He next went on to appear in this oddity star as an aging ex-con who believes he is an angel
Almost Dead (1994)
This a dull ghost story in which Shannen Doherty plays a parapsychological researcher who believes she is seeing the ghost of her mother everywhere
Alone (2007)
Thai ghost story about a woman haunted by the ghost of her dead conjoined twin sister. This produces a mix of jumps that fall between the effective and routine but falls apart in a contrived twist ending
Alone (2017)
A French variant on The Quiet Earth adapted from a comic-book about a group of young people who wake up to find themselves alone in a deserted city
Alone (2020)
English-language version of the Korean zombie film #Alive about a guy stranded in an apartment during the zombie apocalypse trying to communicate with the girl across the street
Alone (2020)
Survival thriller in which a woman is abducted by a man but affects an escape where she must then make a harrowing run through the woods while pursued by him
Alone (Don’t Grow Up) (2015)
A French-Spanish film in which a group of troubled youths escaped from a reform centre only to discover that all the adults around them have become zombies
Alone in the Dark (1982)
Horror film in which a group of maniacs escape from an asylum set out to track down the new psychiatrist. This starts with tongue amusingly planted in cheek and contains a great cast line-up
Alone in the Dark (2005)
Uwe Boll gained a reputation as the world’s worst director on the basis of his videogame adaptations. Prize exhibit was Alone in the Dark, which abandons the game and is a series of action scenes without explanatory rationale
Alone with a Stranger (2000)
Excellent psycho-thriller in which family man William R. Moses has his life taken over by an evil twin. Filled with a series of gripping unexpected twists and tensions
Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days (2018)
Sequel to the hit Korean film Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds about a journey of redemption through the afterlife. This is a much better polished effort than its predecessor
Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds (2017)
A massive hit in South Korea about a firefighter’s journey through the afterlife and the trials he must undergo. On the other hand, the director seems to be trying to turn a moral redemption story into a superhero film
Alp (2016)
Another venture into the sleep paralysis theme. A film that has an amateurism on every level and looks as though it made by people who failed the first year of a film school program
Alpha (2018)
The prehistoric film seems a bit dated and hoary on screen these days. Albert Hughes solves the problem of revitalising the genre a series of jaw-droppingly kinetic action moves and stunning hyper-real landscapes
Alpha (2025)
Julia Ducournau, who made transgressive, out there films like Raw and Titane, returns with a film about a strange infection that causes people to calcify
Alpha and Omega (2010)
A contender in the animation stakes that never rises above formula and cutsie slapstick. Against its many competitors, it offers up only B-budget animation
Alpha Girls (2013)
A blatant copy of The Craft where a new girl gets wound up into occult rites going on in a sorority house. Featuring porn star Ron Jeremy as a Catholic priest
Alphaville (1965)
Surrealistic cinematic joke from French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard that mashes up film noir and SF where hard-boiled detective travels to another planet represented by contemporary Paris
Alraune (1928)
A classic German Expressionist film where Metropolis‘s Brigitte Helm gives a sizzlingly seductive performance as a woman born via artificial insemination who grows up as an emotionless man-eater
Altar (2014)
Nick Willing is a genre director who has consistently impressed. Here he ventures into the English ghost story where your expectation is that he is going to turn the genre on its head – only he doesn’t
Alter Egos (2012)
Indie superhero comedy that reads a good deal funnier on paper than it ever produces laughs on screen. The production lacks the budget to produce more than a handful of cheap superheroic digital effects
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
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
Altergeist (2014)
Film about ghosthunters investigating a reputedly haunted California winery. The scares are about as generic and forgettable as they come, although the end takes a very strange left field turn
Altitude (2010)
Essentially a feature version of The Twilight Zone‘s classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode, this generates some remarkable tension with a group trapped in mid-air in a small plane before a lame twist ending
Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007)
The squeaky helium-voiced Chipmunks are brought to life via CGI in this live-action film, featuring the chipmunks causing chaos, cracking smart-ass one-liners and lots of pee and poop jokes. The results are excrutiating
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011)
It may say how doomed the Western world is that people have paid to watch three films so far all centred around these annoyingly cutsie helium-voiced chipmunks. This is marginally less annoying that the preceding two
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015)
The end of Western civilisation is surely upon us that studios have devoted multi-million dollar resources to making four of these films and that audiences flock to them despite universally terribly reviews. Ok so maybe I hated this one marginally less than the preceding three
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009)
The first of the sequels to Alvin and the Chipmunks. Marginally less grating than the first film but that’s being relative – all the things that one hated the first time are back
Always (1989)
One of Steven Spielberg’s more overlooked and quieter films, a remake of the 1940s guardian angel fantasy A Guy Named Joe. Spielberg never much ignites the love story but the film has some magical moments and a scene-stealing John Goodman
Alyce (2011)
The director of Zombie Strippers! offers up Alice in Wonderland as a modern urban tale that becomes an allegory for a drug-induced journey into a disturbed headspace
Amateur Porn Star Killer (2007)
Extraordinary Found Footage film from Shane Ryan shot from the viewpoint of a killer as he seduces and kills a girl. A quasi-pornographic film that makes us question our own complicity in what we are watching