Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
Follow-up to Ghostbusters: Afterlife, reuniting that film’s mix of new and classic cast. However, this becomes a plotting juggle that is often straining to find somewhere to include everyone
Ghosthouse (1988)
From the notorious 1980s heyday of Italian horror, this reads as The Amityville Horror remade as a Lucio Fulci film with the addition of a series of gore-drenched dispatches
Ghostland (2018)
Pascal Laugier emerged as a most promising director with Martyrs. All of his films hang on improbably contrived twists. This starts out as a home invasion film not unakin to The Strangers but nothing is as it seems
Ghostriders (1987)
An obscure and drearily made film about avenging ghosts of a gang of western outlaws who are resurrected in the present day
Ghosts … of the Civil Dead (1988)
The first film from Australian director John Hillcoat, a brutally tough depiction of a maximum security prison set in the future. Singer Nick Cave gives an extremely disturbing performance as an inmate
Ghosts Can’t Do It (1989)
An erotic film starring Donald Trump – I kid you not! A legendarily awful Bo Derek film where she is a widow who searches the world for the perfect body for her late husband’s ghost to reincarnate in
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)
From the period when Matthew McConaughey was coasting through romcoms without making any effort. This rewrites A Christmas Carol where playboy McConaughey is visited by the ghosts of three ex’s
Ghosts of Mars (2001)
John Carpenter returns to cinema screens amid the 2000-1 spate of Mars movies. Despite promise, this ends up being not much more than his early film Assault on Precinct 13 relocated on Mars
Ghosts of the Ozarks (2021)
Worthwhile film that has a strong vibe of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village about a post-US Civil War town that comes under attack by mysterious creatures
Ghosts of War (2020)
US soldiers arrive at a chateau in Nazi-occupied France during World War II that appears to be haunted. In a conceptual reversal twist, everything is not what it seems
Ghosts on the Loose (1943)
Comedy where the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys encounter Bela Lugosi running a Nazi fifth column operation from a haunted house, although the ghosts part eventually proves misleading
Ghosts With Shit Jobs (2012)
Fascinating film interviewing people about the jobs they are forced to take in an economically collapsed future. Despite a minuscule budget, this has the grip of strong, intelligent SF
Ghosts – Italian Style (1967)
A lightweight Italian comedy of errors where Sophia Loren and husband move into a mansion being offered cheaply only to find it is haunted by the ghosts of the previous owners
Ghostwatch (1992)
Classic BBC live broadcast tv special where a camera crew investigate a haunted house. Cited as one of the first Found Footage films, this does some ingenious things blending fact and fiction and messing with its audience
Ghostwatcher (2002)
A B-budget horror film about an agoraphobic woman who is unable to go over of her apartment who then finds that it is haunted by a ghost
Ghoulies (1985)
A copy of Gremlins produced by Charles Band’s Empire, featuring much slime and cheap-looking creatures. A surprise hit on video shelves; three sequels followed.
Ghoulies IV (1993)
The fourth and final of the Ghoulies films. This one comes from B-budget hack Jim Wynorski who seems to not be taking any of the show seriously
Giallo (2009)
Dario Argento makes a disappointing return to the giallo thriller where he made his name. With Argento’s characteristic murder set-pieces having been toned down, the results are nothing special
Giant from the Unknown (1958)
1950s B movie that jumps aboard the fad for big/small people films created by The Incredible Shrinking Man. Only you end up feeling that the film’s 6’6″ resurrected Conquistador is a letdown on the title promise
Ginger Snaps (2000)
Witty, wryly sarcastic modern take on the werewolf film where two teenage sister become affected – sort of like a remake of I Was a Teenage Werewolf by way of Ghost World. Two sequels followed.
Ginger Snaps Back: The Begining (2004)
Third of the Ginger Snaps films, a prequel set during the pioneer era with Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle again as sisters taking refuge at a fort under attack by werewolves. The scene-setting and atmosphere of foreboding is superlative
Ginger Snaps: Unleashed (2004)
The first of two sequels to the Canadian werewolf film. This takes place with the surviving sister placed in a rehab facility and is the best of the trilogy, even better than the first film was in its writing and characters
Gintama (2017)
The live-action adaptation of a popular anime and manga, this takes place in an alternate history version of Japan where samurai fight following an alien invasion
Girl at the Window (2022)
From Mark Hartley, known for his documentaries about cult cinema, a film that borrows the premise of Disturbia where a teenage girl thinks her neighbour is a serial killer
Girl in Woods (2016)
For a reasonable part of the runtime, this plays as a wilderness survival drama about a woman abandoned in the woods. Somewhat directionless before being redeemed by its twist ending
Girl Next (2021)
This involves girls abducted into a sex trafficking operation, along with mad science and possible cloning. Quite what it is all about is a good question
Girl on the Third Floor (2019)
Wrestler C.M. Punk does a halfway reasonable job of branching out as an actor, playing a regular guy engaged in home renovation who has to deal with a malevolent house
Girlfriend from Hell (1989)
An inane comedy in which a wimpy teenager goes on a date with Liane Curtis who then becomes possessed by The Devil who is pursued by a chaser of devils
Girlhouse (2014)
Slasher film that comes with the interestingly original setting of a college dorm webcam porn site. Unfortunately, the film takes an awfully safe and tasteful route in delivering it
Girls Against Boys (2012)
In the vein of films like I Spit on Your Grave and especially Baise-Moi, two girls go on a killing spree against rapists and asshole men. Undeniably interesting but this gets sabotaged by the film’s gaping moral blindspots
Girls School Screamers (1985)
Catholic schoolgirls are being killed in a big old haunted house. This was unable to find a release in its original form whereupon it was bought up by Troma, given a much more sensationalistic title and released with extra gore scenes
Glass (2019)
Unbreakable was M. Night Shyamalan’s everyday superhero film. Here he merges the characters from Unbreakable and Split to create his own shared universe. This could in effect be the kitchen sink version of The Avengers
Glass House: The Good Mother (2006)
A sequel to The Glass House, this time with different cast or orphaned kids and different evil step-parents. This has the bland feel of a tv movie
Glen and Randa (1971)
One of a handful of 70s films about how the Love Children would inherit the Earth. A fascinating, almost Terrence Malick-like work about innocents drifting through the detritus of civilisation, trying to understand what they see
Glen or Glenda? (1952)
Classic film from Edward D. Wood Jr, an hilarious pseudo-documentary where Wood earnestly tries to make a case for transvestism. This has bad movie moments that are utterly surreal.
Glorious (2022)
Film with a literally off-the-wall premise in which Ryan Kwanten is trapped in a rest stop bathroom with a Lovecraftian deity that speaks through a glory hole in the next stall
Gnaw: Food of the Gods II (1989)
An incredibly bad Canadian-made sequel to Food of the Gods about a scientist who devises a growth hormone that accidentally creates a horde of giant rats
Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)
Surely the most outlandish film premise ever slung together for an animated film – a version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet conducted between talking garden gnomes in rival backyards
Goal of the Dead (2014)
Zombies and soccer! Ok? From co-director of the ferocious French zombie film The Horde, a rather entertaining effort that resembles something of Shaun of the Dead in its comedy approach
God Told Me To (1976)
One of the key films in the cult of director Larry Cohen, this throws in a mind-bending mix involving an androgynous alien messiah, random shootings, alien abduction and Catholicism
Goddess of Love (2015)
Imagine a version of Fatal Attraction where the Glenn Close character is the protagonist, this also has an unnerving Repulsion-like quality where what we think is happening keeps blurring and shifting
Godkiller: Walk Among Us (2010)
An ‘illustrated film’ – essentially comic-book panels with voiceover narration. The story about gods inhabiting a burned-out future is far more ambitious than can be crammed into the film
Gods and Monsters (1998)
Biopic of James Whale, director of the Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein. Whale’s movies are used to echo a tale of friendship between the aging gay Whale (Ian McKellan) and his straight gardener (Brendan Fraser)
Gods of Egypt (2016)
This could be considered the Michael Bay version of Ancient Egyptian mythology, a film buried under numbing CGI overkill. For all that, Alex Proyas gives it a loopy grandeur that you can’t entirely dislike
Gods of the Deep (2023)
Charlie Steeds is a low-budget British director who has shown reasonable promise. Here he makes an H.P. Lovecraft homage about a submarine expedition that awakens Cthulhu on the ocean floor
Godsend (2004)
Film about a couple going to an institute where Robert De Niro promises a clone of their dead child. The film goes off the rails in an absurd and blatantly manipulative script that tries to turn this into a ghost story
Godzilla (1954)
The very first Godzilla film. Essentially a copy of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, it has incredibly stark effect despite the primitiveness of the effects. In it you can see Japanese nation struggling to expiate the pain of the Atomic Bomb.
Godzilla (1998)
Much disliked English-language version of Godzilla from Roland Emmerich is a more watchable film than one might think. Emmerich does well when the film allows him to do what he does best – being a big, budget, massively scaled epic of mass destruction
Godzilla (2014)
A slightly different beast to its Japanese counterparts and an impressive revival of the series. Gareth Edwards, who made the excellent Monsters, delivers mass destruction on a mind-bogglingly vast scale in ways that approach painterly beauty
Godzilla 1985 (1984)
Reboot of the Godzilla series that forgets about all the sequels and acts as a direct follow-up to the original film. This uses top drawer effects technology of the era to create Godzilla as the fearsome creation he originally was
Godzilla 2000 (1999)
The 23rd Godzilla film where the effects were at such a peak for the genre that this became the first Godzilla film to be given a US theatrical release in fifteen years
Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)
The 26th Japanese Godzilla film, the fourth pitting him against Mechagodzilla. After a slow first hour, the film delivers all the exhilarating mass destruction sequences we expect of it as the monsters go head to head
Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (1992)
The 19th Godzilla film, part of the 1990s revival where the series started to employ modern animatronics. This revives Mothra in quite beautiful ways and mounts to a rousing monster battle
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
The 33rd Japanese Godzilla film and the one to receive the greatest acclaim of any in the series so far, including the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. This takes the series back to the beginnings
Godzilla Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
The 25th Godzilla film which employs director Shusuke Kaneko who had done amazing things reviving the Gamera franchise. Kaneko doesn’t quite deliver the epic expected of him but does produce an amazing effects spectacle
Godzilla vs Gigan (1972)
The twelfth Godzilla film. Under director Jun Fukuda, a juvenile inanity had by now come to dominate the series by this point. The special effects, often recycled from previous films, are very cheesy
Godzilla vs Megaguirus (2000)
The 24th Godzilla film where Godzilla faces a giant prehistoric dragonfly. While the modern Godzilla films have readily adopted CGI and animatronics, the effects here are much more variable
Godzilla vs Megalon (1973)
The thirteenth Godzilla film and a point that the series was no longer taking itself seriously. On the other hand, this is something that actually works in the films favour to create a sublime silliness
Godzilla vs Space Godzilla (1994)
Space Godzilla is one the strangest nemeses to turn up in these kaiju films – a blue counterpart of the Big G with a giant glowing mass of crystal on its shoulders. One of the more routine entries in the modern Godzilla series
Godzilla vs the Cosmic Monster (1974)
The fourteenth Godzilla film, noted for the introduction of Mecha-Godzilla, a robot copy of Godzilla that became a recurring nemesis. By this point in the series, the effects and quality of production had become very shabby
Godzilla vs the Sea Monster (1966)
The sixth Godzilla film and the point where the series started to become silly and juvenile in its focus. A weak entry featuring some of the shabbiest effects of this era.
Godzilla vs the Smog Monster (1971)
The eleventh Godzilla in which Godzilla faces the pollution monster Hedorah. For some reason, this gets a listing in The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time, but there are far worse entries in the series
Godzilla vs the Thing (1964)
The fourth Godzilla film, the first in which Godzilla battled another Toho monster, namely Mothra. Colourfully enjoyable and taking itself more seriously than many of the entries that would follow
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
The 17th Godzilla film and the second of the modern era where Toho started to employ top drawer effects. Toho created a new nemesis, the plant monster Biollante, although this was not popular with the public
Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
The eighteenth Godzilla film and one of the best of the modern era. This has the most conceptually audacious plot of any Godzilla film and overflows with wild ideas involving time travel and changing the timeline
Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
One of fantastic cinema’s great titles bouts is a spectacular effects show. At the same time, it also has one of the single most ridiculous script I have ever come across in the entire time I have been running this site
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
A follow-up to Godzilla vs Kong, this tries to offer more of the same but suffers another ridiculous script. This ended up being overshadowed by the acclaim that the Japanese-made Godzilla: Minus One received
Godzilla’s Revenge (1969)
The tenth Godzilla film and a low point of the series with the focus now going on the slapstick pratfalls of Godzilla’s son. Many special effects scenes are recycled from previous entries.
Godzilla, King of the Monsters (2019)
Follow-up to the 2014 US-made Godzilla. This introduces other monsters from the Japanese series and tries to create a shared universe. But when the film is all massively-scaled mass destruction, it seems hard to root for the monsters
Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018)
The second of the anime Godzilla films and much more successful than its predecessor. The reconceptions of some of the classic monsters has a dazzling ambitiousness while Godzilla has all the ferocity it should have had in the first film
Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)
The 28th Godzilla film, made for the series fiftieth anniversary and bringing every monster ever created by Toho together for a massive battle. The results are immensely satisfying
Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017)
The 30th Japanese Godzilla film, this is the first anime Godzilla film and the first in a trilogy. More disappointingly, it is more a space opera and planetary adventure than it is ever a Godzilla film
Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018)
The concluding chapter in the trilogy of Godzilla anime films. This reintroduces two familiar monsters but takes a long time to build to the monster bash we have come to see
Gog (1954)
Underrated 1950s SF film, a murder mystery as the equipment at a space research laboratory tries to kill people. Contains the first ever depiction of a computer virus
Gogol: The Beginning (2017)
The first in a trilogy of Russian dark fantasy films featuring the real-life horror writer Nikolai Gogol as an occult detective investigating a series of supernatural mysteries
Going Postal (2010)
A disappointing tv mini-series adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel, which has been (largely) played as a straight adventure with the usual Pratchett comedy taking a backseat
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968)
A thoroughly demented Japanese sf/horror film about passengers of a crashed plane being menaced by a body-snatching alien vampire. Quite unlike any other Japanese monster movie, the colour schemes alone leave you giddy
Gold (1934)
A work from the great era of German Expressionism. This concerns an engineering process that can turn lead to gold and contains some amazing effects, as well as Brigitte Helm from Metropolis as a seductress
Golden Kingdom (2015)
A depiction of the lives of Buddhist orphans in remote Myanmar, this also has a number of Magical Realist elements. What the film lacks in big dramatics, it makes up for with some genteel and lovely imagery
GoldenEye (1995)
The 17th James Bond film, the first featuring Pierce Brosnan who gives a dazzlingly ruthless performance. The series is rebooted and takes the opportunity to reconstruct the mythos in terms of modern politics in ways that often take you aback
Goldfinger (1964)
The third of the James Bond films and the point where everything that has been defined as the formula of the series – the gadgets, the villains, the henchmen, the cars, the world domination plots – falls into place perfectly
Goldilocks and the Three Bears (1995)
A modernised version of the Goldilocks fairytale, which now comes with the addition of an environmentalist subplot and where the bears are made into an endangered species
Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Death & Porridge (2024)
Another in the spate of horror versions of children’s stories, this is essentially The Strangers played out with people terrorised by a group dressed as Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Golem (1980)
Not an adaptation of the oft-filmed story from Jewish legend about the creation of a creature of clay but a Polish SF film set in a slightly dystopian future featuring the possible creation of artificial people
Gone (2012)
This feels like a post-Silence of the Lambs thriller with Amanda Seyfried as an abduction survivor trying to find her missing sister. The film never rises above the cliches of the genre
Good Against Evil (1977)
From the great and underrated Paul Wendkos, a 1970s tv movie that taps the deviltry movie fads of the day and becomes a blatant copy of The Exorcist, albeit cleaned up for tv sensibilities
Good Boy (2022)
A wonderfully disturbed film from Norway. A girl goes on a date with a man and discovers he has a roommate who wears a furrie suit and lives as a dog. And then things start to get really twisted
Good Boy (2025)
It is said that animals like dogs can perceive the supernatural. This runs with that idea and is a ghost story told entirely from the point of view of the dog. The results are unexpectedly effective
Good Boy! (2003)
An infuriatingly inane film about a boy discovering that all dogs can talk and are alien visitors from Jim Henson Pictures. No sooner is the dog talking that it is tossing off smartass one-liners
Good Fortune (2025)
The film where Keanu Reeves plays an angel. Directed/written by and starring Aziz Ansari as a hapless gig worker who Keanu’s angel’s tries to help only to accidentally swap the lives of Ansari and tech bro Seth Rogen
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (2025)
A completely mad and all over the place film with Sam Rockwell as a time traveller (or madman) arrived at a diner to recruit six people on a mission to save the world from an evil A.I.
Good Omens (2019)
TV mini-series based on the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett novel that spoofs The Omen and Biblical End Times prophecies. The series is very close to the book as though it didn’t want to edit any precious gag
Good Samaritan (2020)
Directorial outing from the creator of Final Destination about bystanders who are witness to a murder but do nothing and are afterwards killed by a possible supernatural agency
Good Tidings (2016)
Another psycho Santa film – a genre that is almost gaining its own niche. This British entry fearlessly pushes its elements to an extreme that most of these other Christmas horrors balk at
Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017)
Biopic of A.A. Milne that tells the story of how he came up with his most famous creation Winnie the Pooh. The film takes some time to warm to, but eventually opens up with some heartwarming charms
Goodbye World (2013)
Another End of the World film concerning the collapse of society as a group of friends gather. Feels more like a variant on The Big Chill than a film about the end of everything but is not without its moments
Goodnight Mommy (2014)
Effective and disturbing work about two boys who begin to think that someone else might have taken their mother’s place after she returns in bandages. The film reaches a particularly chill and nasty climax
Goodnight Mommy (2022)
The Austrian Goodnight Mommy was one of the most effective horror films of recent years. This is the toned-down English-language remake starring Naomi Watts as the mother
Goosebumps (2015)
A film based on the hugely popular children’s horror series. The film creates a story where the creatures from all the books are unleashed. This is fun to watch, yet what we ultimately have is easy, undemanding horror for family audiences
Goosebumps 2 (2018)
The second film spun off from R.L. Stine’s popular horror stories promotes the wonderfully evil ventriloquist’s dummy Slappy to principal nemesis. The rest of the film is predictable but Slappy deserves his own series