Nothing But the Night (1972)
The one and only film produced by Christopher Lee’s production company, this sets up an interesting premise about a mysterious orphanage but fails to quite make it work
Nothing But Trouble (1991)
The only film ever directed by Dan Aykroyd, a bizarre oddity that was a huge flop on its initial release. The film is a strange comedy set in an American Gothic junkyard town where even the smallest legal infractions are punished by death. Aykroyd can’t seem to decide it the tone is comedy or horror
Nothing Left to Fear (2013)
A horror film produced by Slash of Guns’n’ Roses fame about a family moving to a new town only to find they have been brought there for a sinister purpose
Nothing Underneath (1985)
A superior example of the giallo film. Not quite up with the works of Dario Argento, this still has considerable stylishness, along with a plot that borrows from Eyes of Laura Mars
Notzilla (2020)
A really funny parody of Japanese monster movies. Sublimely silly nonsense
Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1972)
The second of Disney’s Dexter Reilly films with Kurt Russell as a teen genius who invents an invisibility formula
Now You See It (2005)
Not to be confused with Now You See Me, the one about the bank-robbing magicians, this is a surprisingly good film for the usual creative wasteland that is the Disney Channel about a reality show for illusionists who discovers a teen whose powers would appear to be real
Nr. 10 (2021)
Alex van Warmerdam makes a very strange black comedy, so deadpan you are not sure if you are meant to be laughing or not
Nude Nuns with Big Guns (2010)
Film in the faux grindhouse style created by Tarantino and Rodriguez made as homage to the so-called nunsploitation genre. While operating on a low-budget, this has a great pulp energy that delivers in aces on all three title promises
Nudist Colony of the Dead (1991)
This holds the distinction of being the world’s first gonzo zombie film – oh and the first zombie musical too. Not many zombies (or nude bodies), the song lyrics are occasionally amusing but the film’s humour is schoolboyish, and the effort amateurish on the whole
Nuoc 2030 (2014)
The novelty of the world’s first Vietnamese science-fiction film set in a future where many areas are underwater as a result of climate change. Much of this is a very dull film observing the day to day life of people affected but the SF elements intrude in occasionally interesting ways
Nurse 3-D (2013)
A splendidly trashy film that throws all good taste to the wind The title role is played by a sizzling, substantially undressed Paz de la Huerta. While deficient in acting ability, she delivers an hilarious voiceover
Nurse Sherri (1978)
Al Adamson was a director whose output closely resembled that of Edward D. Wood, Jr. This was Adamson’s contribution to the 1970s fad for possession and exorcism films, although is a dull film lacking even in many of the shock tropes that the other Exorcist copies pulled off
Nympho Libre (2007)
Following the release of Nacho Libre, we had this parody – a porn film about lucha libre (Mexican masked wrestlers), an idea that in practice ends up about as random and lame as it sounds
The Naked Gun (2025)
A revival of the Leslie Nielsen starring Naked Gun films, which were a parody of the hard-boiled detective film. With Liam Neeson playing Nielsen’s son. Featuring a surprising degree of SF content
The Naked Jungle (1954)
Vivid, well written production from George Pal with Charlton Heston as the owner of a South American plantation who faces an unstoppable horde of marabunta ants that are devouring everything in their path
The Naked Vampire (1970)
The second in the works of arty vampire erotica that gained French director Jean Rollin a cult following. The surreal visuals and in particular the costuming make for mind-boggling visuals
The Naked Witch (1964)
This was the first film from ultra low-budget director Larry Buchanan, a nudie about a witch burned at the stake who rises to seek vengeance against the descendants of her persecutors
The Nameless (1999)
The first film from Spanish director Jaume Balaguero, an adaptation of a Ramsey Campbell novel about a mother trying to rescue her daughter from a child sacrifice cult
The Nature of the Beast (1995)
From Jeepers Creepers director Victor Salva, a gripping road movie thriller that owes somewhat to The Hitcher with a series of psychological games between Lance Henriksen and hitcher Eric Roberts where we can never be sure what is what
The Navigator: A Mediaeval Odyssey (1988)
The hugely underrated Vincent Ward makes a film about Mediaeval pilgrims travelling through time to the present. Shot in an series of extraordinary images that show how bewildering the modern world would be to them
The Necromancer (2018)
A modestly effective film about a group of deserting soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars who enter a haunted forest
The Neon Demon (2016)
Nicolas Winding Refn makes a horror film set in the L.A. modelling world. A film of hypnotic, glittering surfaces with a disturbing undertow – the result is like Valley of the Dolls as remade by Dario Argento
The Neptune Factor: An Undersea Odyssey (1973)
An underwater adventure movie about a submarine that ventures to explore the depths. This tries to emulate 2001: A Space Odyssey but has a bad movie reputation
The Net (1995)
Film that tried to jump aboard the newly arrived paradigm of the internet but is mostly a cliched thriller about Sandra Bullock trying to recover her erased identity
The Neverending Story (1984)
A popular fantasy film of the 80s that sits just between the imaginative, particularly when it comes to some its creature effects and design work, and the mawkish. It also comes with an intriguing level of meta-fiction that delivers some odd messages
The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter (1990)
Sequel to The Neverending Story made with a better budget. This delivers some amazing sets and creature designs but is killed with a script that discards the metaphors and complex level of meta-fiction of the original
The Neverending Story III (1994)
Abysmal third entry in the series. The creatures lack any conviction and everything is wrecked by taking the story out of Fantasia back to Earth amid hip contemporary jokes
The New Adventures of Pinocchio (1999)
Sequel to the 1996 CGI The Adventures of Pinocchio, this is a shabby and drearily made piece of filler that unimaginatively shuffles around the basic elements of the first film without making an effort at all
The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (1988)
Ill-conceived US version of the popular children’s book character created by Astrid Lindgren. The result feels less a film as it does a kindergarten playground gone entirely out of control
The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935)
A serial Tarzan adventure that stood outside the regular Johnny Weissmuller films. A producer formed a business partnership with Edgar Rice Burroughs and went to Guatemala to shoot
The New Barbarians (1983)
One of a number of Italian-made copies of Mad Max 2 from Enzo G. Castellari. This is cheap and in some of the writing and dialogue frequently laughable
The New Kids (1985)
Sean S. Cunningham, director of Friday the 13th, transplants a 70s revenge exploitation film into a high school setting. Featuring a dynamic performance from a young James Spader
The New Legend of Shaolin (1994)
Hugely enjoyable entry in Hong Kong’s Wu Xia/flying swordsmen genre filled with wildly over-the-top moves
The New Mutants (2020)
What will be the very last of 20th Century Fox’s X-Men films, this is more like a superheroic version of The Breakfast Club than any of the other X-Men films
The Next One (1984)
A very strange film where widow Adrienne Barbeau finds an amnesiac Keir Dullea on a Greek island who shows mysterious abilities and may have come from the future
The Next Voice You Hear … (1950)
A film that could have only been made in the 1950s where the voice of God suddenly appears on the radio around the world. Starring later-to-be US First Lady Nancy Reagan
The Night (2020)
A modestly effective Iranian horror film where a married couple become trapped in a hotel of shifting realities. One of the few films that favourably compares to the mood of The Shining
The Night Caller (1965)
This has the most ridiculous premise of any alien invasion film – an alien is abducting women from ads for models placed in girlie magazines – but is played with a stone-faced seriousness that defies you to laugh
The Night Chronicles 1: Devil (2010)
Clever concept of five people trapped in an elevator where one of them is The Devil. One of the better films to come out under the much debased name of M. Night Shyamalan who lends his name as producer
The Night Eats the World (2018)
The zombie genre has become creatively overused and exhausted in recent years but this French entry plays with an appealing originality, sort of like a low-key version of Dawn of the Dead where a man builds a Parisian apartment building into his own paradise
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)
A giallo film with Anthony Steffen as an aristocrat who likes to pick up red-haired girls and kill them in the dungeon in his villa, who then becomes haunted by the ghost of his late wife
The Night Flier (1997)
Okay but nothing standout Stephen King adaptation with Miguel Ferrer as a tabloid journalist covering a series of killings before realising he is tracking a vampire
The Night Has Eyes (1942)
James Mason stars as a brooding composer who may be a murderer in this Gothic thriller
The Night House (2020)
Rebecca Hall gives a standout performance in an eerie ghost story about a woman possibly haunted and discovering disturbing things in the aftermath of her husband’s death
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Absolutely extraordinary directorial debut from actor Charles Laughton who transforms the story of an evil preacher (Robert Mitchum) pursuing two children into something approaching a stylised Expressionist fairytale
The Night Stalker (1972)
Witty and funny attempt to update the vampire to the present day being hunted by a reporter. Darren McGavin gives an enormously entertaining performance. A hit tv movie that was spun out into a series.
The Night Strangler (1973)
Less famous sequel to the cult tv movie The Night Stalker but a far superior work. This repeats much of the first film but with Darren McGavin’s Kolchak hunting an immortal killer. Much better script and featuring a superbly eerie climactic venture down into the Seattle Underground
The Night Walker (1965)
William Castle psycho-thriller (from a Robert Bloch script) that creates an incredibly haunted mood between dream and reality only to fall apart in an absurdly contrived ending
The Night Watchmen (2017)
Horror comedy set in an office building as a group of inept security guards fight off a vampire outbreak among the staff. Very similar to the earlier Bloodsucking Bastards, this balances comedy and horror but director Mitchell Altieri demonstrates comedy is not his strong point
The Nightcomers (1971)
Michael Winner makes a prequel to the classic, multiply filmed psychological ghost story The Turn of the Screw but erases all the ambiguity in his clodding and unsubtle direction
The Nightmare (2015)
Rodney Ascher, director of the fascinatingly whacked Room 237, returns with a documentary about sleep paralysis that travels into a territory more creepy than most horror films get
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Tim Burton and Henry Selick combine on this stop-motion animated fantasy made in Burton’s characteristcially eccentric style, a beautifully stylised and dark fantasy in which assorted Halloween denizens invade Christmas
The Nines (2007)
Fascinating directorial debut from screenwriter John August that tells three stories about Ryan Reynolds who gradually makes mind-boggling discoveries about the nature of reality
The Ninth (2019)
Visually stunning Russian film with a clairvoyant and a police inspector teaming up to solve a series of occult murders in 19th Century St Petersburg
The Ninth Configuration (1979)
The directorial debut of William Peter Blatty, the writer of The Exorcist, a strange and unclassifiable black comedy set in a military asylum. Imagine One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest directed by Robert Altman
The Ninth Gate (1999)
Roman Polanski makes a return to Rosemary’s Baby territory in this work with Johnny Depp as a rare book collector on the trail of an occult tome. Polanski great a great sense of sinister forces surrounding Depp but the film reaches an unsatisfying ending
The Noah (1975)
Experimental film about the last man left on Earth after a nuclear war who develops a series of imaginary companions
The Noah’s Ark Principle (1984)
Roland Emmerich’s first film, made while he was still a student, involving intrigue aboard a weather control station
The Northlander (2016)
Post-holocaust film made by and starring Canadian First Nations people. While the film uses the aftermath of a civilisation as a setting, it never seems that interested in exploring it. The film peters out in an uninteresting resoution and features some appallingly pretentious dialogue
The Northman (2022)
Robert Eggers, the director who made The Witch and The Lighthouse, makes a violent, primal Viking film steeped in Norse mythology
The Nosferatu Diaries: Embrace of the Vampire (1995)
Vampire erotica that is largely premised around seeing Alyssa Milano take her clothes off and little else
The Nude Bomb (1980)
A flop theatrical film spinoff from the Get Smart tv series with Don Adams’ Maxwell Smart trying to stop a bomb that renders people naked
The Number 23 (2007)
Demented Joel Schumacher film in which Jim Carrey sees occurrences of the number 23 everywhere and finds his life is being predicted by a book. Featuring one of the most absurd scripts ever written
The Nun (2018)
Another spinoff from The Conjuring films. James Wan is one of the finest horror directors of the 2010s but has had difficulty imparting his skills to the directors of the films he has produced. This feels like a fairground haunted house show of tedious and repetitive pop-up shocks that runs free of any connection to a plot
The Nun II (2023)
More from James Wan’s The Conjuring Universe, this places more focus on mood and atmosphere than The Nun’s ludicrous jump effects
The Nurse (1997)
Psycho-thriller with Lisa Zane as a nurse seeking vengeance for the death of her father
The Nut Job (2014)
I went into this with zero expectations, expecting no more than a work of formula family entertainment and came out gently surprised. Essentially a talking cartoon animals variant on a heist plot, it does the formula likeably and with none of the relentless smart-ass cynicism of too many contemporaries
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)
Big, no-expense-spared Disney production of the fairytale. The film is stunning to look at it in terms of design and costuming but has a simplicity that leaves little for adults to engage with
The Nutty Professor (1963)
Jerry Lewis is either a low him or hate him figure; whatever the case, one should give this, his best film, a chance … It is Lewis offering his own comedic spin on the Jekyll/Hyde story, which contains a great performance on his part as he swings between a socially inept nerd and smooth lounge singer
The Nutty Professor (1996)
Remake of the Jerry Lewis film is a comedic tour-de-force for Eddie Murphy as he swings between a shy 400 lb professor and a manic, testostoronally charged health junkie
The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)
Sequel to the Eddie Murphy remake of The Nutty Professor. That film’s tour-de-force was a scene with Murphy playing all the members of his family. Here the family have been brought to the fore. Murphy’s performance and the effects are expectedly great but the plot is all over the place