Planet of the Apes (2001)
Tim Burton’s much disliked remake. Certainly, the ape makeups are superb. While Burton touches many points with the original, he has dropped the biting satire in favour of adventure, while the ending left everyone scratching their heads
Planet of the Sharks (2016)
Another gonzo killer shark from from The Asylum who made the Sharknado films. Played somewhat more seriously than other entries, this has been conceived as Waterworld with killer sharks
Planet of the Vampires (1965)
Cult Italian horror director Mario Bava makes an SF film where explorers find an alien planet where aliens possess the dead (not vampires despite the title). In many ways a precursor of Alien
Planet Terror (2007)
Robert Rodriguez’s half of the Grindhouse double-bill where Rodriguez makes an hilariously tongue-in-cheek zombie film with great absurd comic energy and packed with witty cameos from various stars
Planetquake (2024)
A B-budget disaster movie from The Asylum that concerns scientists trying to halt a vast ring of earthquakes that have been triggered around the world
Planzet (2010)
Anime that has clearly been modelled along the lines of Neon Genesis Evangelion Initially, the animation is conducted with a dazzlingly realistic textured look but once the giant robot action scenes take over, these seem increasingly absurd in their anthropomorphism
Platoon of the Dead (2009)
A painfully amateurish zombie films – the entire show has been shot in someone’s house. There are only two gore effects throughout and the titular platoon the soldiers is limited to only three in number
Play Dead (2022)
Bailee Madison takes a drug that fakes death and wakes up at the morgue – only to discover that coroner Jerry O’Connell is running an organ harvesting operation
Play It Again Sam (1972)
Comedy based on a Woody Allen play in which Allen plays his usual hapless character who receives romantic advice from the ghost of Humphrey Bogart
Play Misty for Me (1971)
Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut is a psycho-thriller that prefigures Fatal Attraction with Eastwood playing a radio DJ who is stalked by a deranged Jessica Walter
Playing With Dolls (2015)
Slasher film where a girl is hired as a housekeeper in a remote location only to find she is being stalked by a masked killer and forced to survive with her bare hands. Two sequels followed.
Playing With Dolls: Bloodlust (2016)
The second in a trilogy of slasher films about people being staked by a maniac at a backwoods cabin while everything is secretly being filmed by tv cameras
Playing With Dolls: Havoc (2017)
Third of a trilogy of slasher films where people isolated at a cabin are stalked by a hulking maniac in a barbed wire mask. This mixes the formula of the previous films up in some interesting ways
Pleasantville (1998)
Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon are modern teens who become trapped in a 1950s tv show and end up puncturing its innocence. The messages made end up being broad and heavy-handed but the premise and the visual palette of the film is extremely clever
Please Don’t Feed the Children (2024)
Steven Spielberg’s daughter Destry makes her directorial debut with a confused mix of an imprisonment thriller and a zombie film, albeit a zombie film that only produces a single zombie
Pleasurecraft (1999)
Softcore erotic film set aboard a space mission where a crew have to deliver an assignment of empathic alien women
Plurality (2021)
Taiwanese film in which multiple personalities are implanted into a prisoner’s body, one of which is a serial killer, in an effort to find a missing child
Plus One (2013)
An interesting and unusual film where teens attending a house party find that it has been invaded by doppelgangers of themselves who are taking over their lives
Pocahontas (1995)
Disney bases an animated film on the historical character but warps the story considerably. It feels that this is a Disney animated film made more to adhere to Political Correctness than it is a good one
Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998)
One of the better among the cheap video-released sequels to their animated films Disney released during the 1990s/2000s, this actually works better than the original
Pod (2015)
Mickey Keating film in which two siblings go to help a brother who appears in mental distress and claims to have imprisoned a monster in his basement
Poignant (2016)
This is one of a plethora of hard-to-differentiate apart ghost stories that have littered the dvd shelves in recent years, frequently copying Insidious in appropriating a sinister-seeming adjective as title. There is not a single directorial or musical cue, sound effect or line of dialogue that doesn’t feel like a cliche
Poison (1991)
Todd Haynes’ first film, three stories, two of which are fantastic … Being Haynes’ first film, this is less polished than his later work but circles through familiar themes of social outsiders, gay identity and recreations of previous cinematic styles, including one segment that is a mocked-up 1940s mad scientist film
Pokemon Detective Pikachu (2019)
Live-action film version of the popular videogame phenomenon, this is capably made but almost entirely content free for anyone with an age in the double digits
Pokemon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (1998)
The first film spun off from the popular Pokemon phenomenon and animated series, this is largely incomprehensible to anyone who is not familiar with the series
Pokemon: The Power of One (1999)
The second of the animated films spun off around the Pokemon phenomenon and an altogether better film than its predecessor due to some imaginative animation
Polaroid (2019)
Horror film about a cursed Polaroid camera that kills everybody that appears in one of its photos
Poltergeist (1982)
Debate will always rage as to whether this was directed by Tobe Hooper or producer Steven Spielberg. It doesn’t alter the fact that it is a superlative rollercoaster of a ghost story that pulls its effects off flawlessly
Poltergeist (2015)
It has become an overused phrase in this site’s critical arsenal to say “yet another 70s/80s remake that is inferior to the original”. The 1982 Poltergeist was one of the great ghost stories of the era; this hits all the beats and with bigger effects but fails to find any of the haunted mood of the original
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)
This was the first sequel to Poltergeist but it only demonstrates that without Tobe Hopper in the director’s seat it is an unimaginative by-the-numbers effort
Poltergeist III (1988)
The third of the Poltergeist sequels, which moves the locale to an apartment building and is better than its predecessor thanks to a series of eerie mirror effects
Pom Poko (1994)
Delightful and charming Studio Ghibli film about shape-changing raccoons that blend with humanity when their forest is threatened
Pontypool (2008)
Bruce McDonald makes a standout fim with Stephen McHattie as a radio dj dealing with a zombie infection that inhabits the English language that breaks out in the town around him
Ponyo on a Cliff By the Sea (2008)
Probably the least great of Hayao Miyazaki’s films. The plot feels recycled from The Little Mermaid while Miyazaki’s recurrent themes seem more perfunctory and the film lacks many of the beautiful contrasts of epic and fragile he specialises in
Pool Party Massacre (2017)
Possibly the most entertaining no-budget movie ever made. Essentially shot around the director’s own home for a bunch of traded favours, this is a slasher film where the cast have been encouraged to plant tongue-in-cheek and go over the top with frequently sidesplitting results
Poor Things (2023)
Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone conduct a revisionist take on the Frankenstein film. This ended up a critical favourite at most of the 2023 awards with Emma winning the show in an hilarious performance
Pootie Tang in “Sine Your Pitty on the Runy Kine” (2001)
Film based on a Saturday Night Life sketch with Lance Crouther as a superhero who speaks a nonsense babble
Pop Skull (2007)
Micro-budgeted early Adam Wingard film that delves into the disturbed mental spaces of a depressed man
Popcorn (1991)
Surprisingly good modern slasher film set in a movie theatre during a festival of old horror films. The films come with surprisingly affectionate and well done recreations of old gimmick films
Popeye (1980)
Robert Altman’s adaptation of the Popeye comic-strip starring Robin Williams has become widely regarded as a turkey but Altman’s eccentricity makes for a by no means unenjoyable film
Popeye’s Revenge (2025)
One of several Popeye horror films that were made after the popular comic-strip character came into public domain in 2025. This is essentially Popeye by way of Friday the 13th
Population / 436 (2006)
Film about a sinister small town where the population must always be kept at the title figure. An interestingly strange scenario suffers from far too laidback direction
Porco Rosso (1992)
Hayao Miyazaki in a more whimsical comedic mood with this story of the adventures of a talking pig aviator. Even when in a lighter vein, Miyazaki cannot help but fill the film with images of charm and considerable beauty
Porno Holocaust (1981)
From cult director Joe D’Amato, this throws together hardcore erotica and gory zombie film in a conceptually bizarre mix that leaves you scratching your head
Portal (2009)
Low-budget occult film about guests at a motel trapped in a mysterious twilight zone. A work sits between the cheap and occasionally effective
Portals (2019)
Produced by Bloody Disgusting, an anthology from different directors about a series of mysterious alien portals that appear around the world
Portrait of Jennie (1948)
Classic, exquisitely made weepie romantic fantasy about an artist obsessed with a woman who appears to travel through time
Poseidon Rex (2013)
As formula monster movies go, this stands out from the rest – it takes itself seriously, has a better budget than usual, which allows some luxurious location shooting in Belize, and a better standard of effects
Possessed (1999)
Early film from Danish director Anders Rønnow-Klarlund. This starts out as a plague outbreak drama and then does a bizarre mid-film twist to become a possession film
Possessed (2000)
Steven E. de Souza directs a film that supposedly tells the true story that inspired The Exorcist but in practice is just another excuse to trot out the possession and exorcism cliches
Possessed By the Night (1994)
B-budget dircetor Fred Olen Ray has taken the plot of Gremlins and thrown it together with one of his sofctore erotic films in which a mind-controlling goblin creature forces people to have sex
Possession (1981)
Bafflingly surreal film from Andrzej Zulawski in which Isabelle Adjani gives birth to a tentacled monster in a subway. Nobody has any idea what the film is about but it has become a cult work since
Possessor (2020)
The second film from Brandon Cronenberg, a fascinatingly original work about body-hopping assassins
Possible Loves (2001)
Brazilian-made variant on the alternate timelines film showing three very different outcomes of the lives of a man and a woman after a date
Possum (2018)
British horror film that develops a sense of uncanniness that resembles an Eraserhead at times with a man haunted by a puppet and giant spiders. The mood is unsettling, least of all that we are never sure what is real or taking place in the character’s head
Post Apocalyptic Commando Shark (2018)
Gonzo killer shark film that gets full marks for an entertainingly ridiculous title but is real bad movie material on all accounts
Postal (2007)
Another Uwe Boll videogame adaptation, a satire where Zack Ward sets out on a shooting spree. Boll sets out to offend as many people as possible but somehow forgets to make any of it funny
Posthumous Memoirs (2001)
Adapted from a classic Brazilian novel, a man narrates his life story from beyond the grave
Postmortem (1998)
Albert Pyun jumps aboard the post The Silence of the Lambs serial killer thriller fad with a routine that has Charlie Sheen as a writer in Glasgow being taunted by the killer he wrote a book about
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)
Troma film that has maybe the silliest movie title ever. This sets out to be so persistently moronic and wilfully offensive that it eventually attains a delirious absurdity
Powder (1995)
Film from the controversial Victor Salva with Sean Patrick Flanery as an alienated teenager who demonstrates remarkable powers
Power of Grayskull: The Definitive History of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2017)
A documentary about the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe phenomenon. This covers everything from the origins of the toys through the animated series to the live-action film
Power Rangers (2017)
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with its ridiculous rubber monsters and dementedly over-the-top acting as one of the key pop culture phenomena of the 1990s. The question is what audience do producers possibly think that there might be for a dark and gritty cinematic reboot?
Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)
Film spinoff from the Mighty Morphin Powers Rangers tv series that became a fad in the 90s. All the same rubber monsters and shrieking over-the-top acting is preserved intact
Practical Magic (1998)
Chick Flick with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock as two sisters from a family of witches. The film never really settles on a consistent tone between comedy, thriller or romance and veers all over the place
Prancer (1989)
An appealing bittersweet film based around the improbable premise of a young girl finding what she believes is one of Santa’s reindeer. In a genre that usually deals in sugary sentiment, this has a much more rewarding downbeat realism
Precious Find (1996)
Very cheap-looking attempt to essentially relocate a gold prospectors adventure into outer space
Predator (1987)
This takes the previous year’s big hit of Aliens and fuses it with The Most Dangerous Game, swapping that story’s bored aristocratic hunter for an alien hunting Arnold Schwarzenegger and a team of soldiers in the jungles of South America
Predator 2 (1990)
Predator was one of the better Alien/Aliens copies of the 1980s. This sequel does little more than serve the same up all over again bar the substitution of a near-future L.A. for the jungle but manages to generate a reasonably intensive ride out of the action
Predator: Badlands (2025)
The ninth Predator film. This changes the mix quite considerably from the usual alien huntsman vs human prey formula we have had so far. It also offers a return to the Alien universe, although not quite what we expect
Predator: Killer of Killers (2025)
The Predator series continues. Dan Trachtenberg, the director of Prey, makes an animated offering that tells three stories of encounters between human and Predator in different eras of history
Predators (2010)
Despite being hamstrung with Adrien Brody in Action Hero mode, this is a hard-edged film that goes some way to rescue the Predator franchise from its novelty crossovers with Alien(s)
Predestination (2014)
An exceptional time travel film, one of the best to emerge in some time. Adapted from a classic Robert Heinlein story, the pleasure of the film all comes in seeing its twists and turns come together into the most ingenious temporal paradox ever conceived
Prehistoric Women (1950)
Laughable prehistoric drama about cave women searching for mates – too cheap to afford stop-motion animated dinosaurs and filled with ridiculous dialogue howlers
Prehysteria! (1993)
In the aftermath of the success of Jurassic Park, Albert and Charles Band quickly responded with this children’s dinosaur film that contains some of the most pitiful effects in any film of this era
Prehysteria! 2 (1994)
The second and worst of Albert and Charles Band’s dinosaur films made for children, this suffers from the most pitiful and immobile effects of any film of the era
Prehysteria! 3 (1995)
The third and probably the best of the children’s dinosaur films from Charles Band where the pitiful effects are at least compensated for by an eccentric sense of humour
Prelude to a Kiss (1992)
Beautifully written film where newlywed bride Meg Ryan ends up swapping bodies with an old man
Premature Burial (1962)
The third of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films, the only one without Vincent Price. Here Ray Milland develops a fearful obsession of being buried alive
Premonition (1972)
The first film from the acclaimed Alan Rudolph, a hippie era nightmare where smoking marijuana causes people to have disturbing visions of sinister figures
Premonition (2004)
Japanese horror film about a professor who receives newspaper headlines that predict deaths before they occur
Premonition (2007)
Weepie drama in which Sandra Bullock becomes unstuck in time flipping back and forward with the foreknowledge that her husband Julian McMahon will befall a tragedy
Presence (2024)
Steven Soderbergh is one of the foremost independent directors in the US. He has dipped into numerous different genres and here takes on the ghost story in a film shot from the ghost’s point-of-view
Pretty Ghost (1991)
One of a popular spate of 80s/90s Hong Kong ghost comedies where a man gets the aid of an annoying ghost girl as he pursues the woman of his dreams
Prettykill (1987)
A shabby Canadian police procedural with David Birney as a detective hunting a killer who is targeting prostitutes
Prevenge (2016)
Directed by and starring actress Alice Lowe, this comes in a blackly funny vein. Lowe plays a pregnant woman driven by the voice of her baby as she starts dispatching everything from sleazy men to those who annoy her
Prey (2004)
Obscure Australian film about people being hunted by a mythical creature known as The Yowie
Prey (2019)
Franck Khalfoun, a former Alexandre Aja associate, who has made the quite reasonable likes of P2 and the remake of Maniac, directs a desert island survival story where the jungle lurks with horrors
Prey (2021)
Not to be confused with the recent Predator sequel. this is a German survival horror where a group of trampers abruptly find themselves hunted in the woods
Prey (2022)
The seventh film in the Predator franchise. This received some of the best reviews of any film in the series and comes with the unique idea of pitting Native Americans up against a Predator
Prey for the Devil (2022)
Daniel Stamm, the director who made the standout
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)
Based on the book that led a publishing phenomenon in which literary classics are mashed up with monsters, this has the difficult balancing act – that of making Jane Austen’s Regency romance sit alongside zombies – nevertheless manages to play both with an impeccably straight-face
Priest (2011)
This spends much effort creating an imaginative future where priests battle vampires who are banished to reservations only to do nothing with it other than reach for the tropes of the Western
Primal Rage (2018)
Strong and effective Bigfoot horror film from makeup effects artist Patrick Magee. The film is never better than when Magee is in his element, creating a uniquely designed Bigfoot that is capable of blending into its surroundings unnoticed
Primal: Tales of Savagery (2019)
A surprisingly good animated film about the relationship between a caveman and a dinosaur, all without a line of dialogue. From the director of the Hotel Transylvania films
Primate (2025)
Johannes Roberts is a director that has been producing some solid work since the 2000s. Here he makes a film about a rabid killer chimpanzee that ratchets up some great tension
Primer (2004)
Complex and fascinating film where two friends accidentally create a time machine and soon faces multiple versions of themselves
Primeval (2007)
One of several killer crocodile films that came out in 2007. This has some big-budget CGI effects but is cliched and was overshadowed by far better entries from the same year with Rogue and Black Water
Primitive War (2025)
Essentially Platoon meets Jurassic Park. A surprisingly watchable film that places a unit of soldiers in the midst of the Vietnam War up against dinosaurs where things get bloody and ferocious
Prince Charming (2000)
Fairly silly fairytale parody with a prince transformed into a frog trying to find a modern girl to give him the kiss of true love