From the Dark (2014)
A horror film stripped to the basics – just two characters at siege in a farmhouse from creatures that lurk in the dark – not even any explanation of what the creatures are
From the Dead of Night (1989)
A tv mini-series where Lindsay Wagner has a near-death experience and is then haunted by people come back from the dead to kill her. From the author of The Howling
From the Earth to the Moon (1958)
One of a series of Jules Verne adaptations that were popular in the 1950s about a Victorian-era Lunar rocket launch, this starts with great promise but loses impetus once it gets into orbit
Frontier(s) (2007)
Xavier Gens delivers a French copy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. This is largely by the numbers excepting for a gore level raised to what must be a maximum for the genre
Frost: Portrait of a Vampire (2001)
Kevin VanHook, otherwise a visual effects artist, directs a vampire hunter film that looks like a low-budget copy of better works like Blade and Vampires
Frostbite (2006)
Swedish film about vampires at a smalltown hospital and vampire pills thought to be party drugs that spread around the town. This is made with an uneven sense of black humour
Frozen (2010)
Not to be confused with the Disney animated film, this is a harrowing survival drama from Adam Green about three characters trapped in mid-air on a ski chairlift
Frozen (2013)
Disney animated film that supposedly adapts Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, although Andersen wouldn’t recognise it. This often feels like a ramshackle assemblage of formula elements rather than the classic it was hailed as
Frozen II (2019)
Frozen was the most successful animated film of all time. It also felt the most formulaic and least inspired Disney film of the 2000s. As part of Disney’s new business policy of recycling everything, this is a sequel.
Frozen With Fear (2001)
A psycho-thriller featuring Bo Derek as an agoraphobic wife dealing with the shock of seeing her husband murdered only to then find that his body has disappeared
Fuck You All: The Uwe Boll Story (2019)
Documentary about the so-called World’s Worst Director Uwe Boll. We get fascinating insight into Boll’s filmmaking methods, while the documentary fearlessly tackles the controversies associated with its subject
Fulci for Fake (2019)
A documentary about the life of cult Italian horror director Lucio Fulci that is a mix of talking heads interviews and scenes where an actor reenacts aspects of Fulci’s life
Full Circle (1977)
A Peter Straub adapted ghost story that sits in an ambiguous state about whether Mia Farrow is seeing her dead daughter or going mad. This comes influenced by Don’t Look Now
Full Metal Yakuza (1997)
An early work from Takashi Miike, an ultra-violent comic-book variant on RoboCop about a Yazkuza enforcer who is incarnated in a cyborg body and goes seeking revenge
Full Moon High (1982)
Werewolf films were all the thing around 1980-1 with hits like The Howling and An American Werewolf in London. This is cult director Larry Cohen’s often extremely silly but not entirely unamusing comedy take
Full Tilt Boogie (1997)
A documentary shot during the making of From Dusk Till Dawn, which gets to the heart of the issues in ways most making of documentaries don’t
Fullmetal Alchemist (2017)
Live-action adaptation of the popular manga and anime series. Despite having a reasonable budget thrown at it and treating the source material with fathfulness, this looks awkward on the screen
Fullmetal Alchemist: Final Transmutation (2022)
The concluding chapter of the trilogy of live-action Fullmetal Alchemist films, this follows the manga’s storyline closely and brings the series to an epic conclusion
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Revenge of Scar (2022)
The first of two sequels to the live-action Fullmetal Alchemist. The first felt uninspired but this and the third film expand the saga and its storyline out with considerable depth
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos (2011)
Film spinoff from the popular anime tv series that seems caught between a film and a tv episode. While the film reaches for epic scale, the usual run of power blasts, there is nothing that we haven’t seen before
Fun & Fancy Free (1947)
One of the Disney animated portmanteaus of the 1940s featuring stories about a circus bear and a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk starring Donald, Mickey and Goofy
Fun (1994)
This came out the same year as Peter Jackson’s overrated Heavenly Creatures, although wasn’t as recognised, but is a much better, more socially realistic version of the lesbian lovers-killers theme
Funeral Home (1980)
Forgotten Canadian film about a series of murders around a former funeral home that has been converted into a guest house. Released at the height of the slasher cycle but this comes more in the vein of Psycho
Fungus the Bogeyman (2004)
BBC mini-series adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ classic children’s book about a secret underworld of bogeys who love all that is filthy and disgusting and their encounter with a human family
Fungus the Bogeyman (2015)
Second tv version of the Raymond Briggs book about a secret society of bogeys who love all that is filthy and disgusting, This cheats when it comes to the bogeys but goes all out on the disgustingness of their lifestyle
Funny Games (1997)
Brutal Michael Haneke film where a family’s weekend getaway becomes a nightmare when two boys enter the house and proceed to torture and kill them. Haneke adds a level of meta-fiction that taunts the viewer’s participation
Funny Games U.S. (2007)
Michael Haneke’s English-language remake of his earlier home invasion film has a sense of pointlessness to it. But in following the original so closely, it also cannot help but work where it did
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
45 years on, George Miller returns with a fifth entry in his Mad Max saga, a prequel to Fury Road. As to be expected from Miller, this an exhilarating action piece and makes a welcome return to his post-apocalyptic junkyard world
Furry Vengeance (2010)
Excruciating CGI cute animals film where animals gang up to stop Brendan Fraser redeveloping their forest. Essentially a 1970s Nature’s Revenge film by way of the slapstick family-friendly violence of Home Alone
Future Cops (1993)
Manically paced Hong Kong action comedy about a time-travelling action team purportedly inspired by the Street Fighter videogame. Imagine The Terminator as a manic slapstick comedy with martial arts sequences.
Future Force (1989)
1990s VHS SF/action with David Carradine as a future cyborg bounty hunter on the run with a wrongly convicted girl while hunted by his own side
Future Hunters (1986)
Undeniably entertaining Filipino action film that tries to throw in everything including time travel, post-holocaust action, adventure quests, magical artifacts, lost worlds, Nazis and dwarves
Future Kick (1991)
Cheap Cyberpunk action film that borrows the basics of Cyborg with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson as android bounty hunter engaged in stopping corporate skulduggery
Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD (2014)
A documentary about 2000AD, a weekly British comic-book that gave birth to Judge Dredd and featured some of the earliest works from names like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, among others
Future World (2018)
James Franco co-directed effort about an android on a quest across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Franco draws on cliches established by the Mad Max films and only makes an Albert Pyun film with pretensions
Future-Kill (1984)
Low-budget attempt to make a Cyberpunk film. Essentially The Warriors with New Wave fashions as a group of frat boys are pursued by a relentless, psychopathic cyborg
Futuresport (1998)
This borrows the basics of Rollerball and concerns a futuristic sports game played aboard hoverboards. Cocky player Dean Cain decides a showdown with terrorists must be settled over the outcome of a game
Futureworld (1976)
A sequel to the original Westworld. Here the cleverness of Michael Crichton’s film is rehashed as a B movie plot about the amusement park now hosting android takeover conspiracies
Le Fear II: Le Sequel (2015)
A rather funny comedy about the making of a disaster-laden low-budget horror film where the filmmaking style depicted makes Ed Wood’s films seem like works of art
Le Frisson des Vampires (1971)
One of the early films of French director Jean Rollin who gained a cult following for his vampire films that offer a near-plotless blend of artily surreal imagery and erotica
The 4D Man (1959)
Surprisingly good 1950s film in which scientist Robert Lansing invents a process that allows him to become insubstantial and walk through walls. The effects are very good and this attains some eerie effect
The 4th Dimension (2006)
A reality-bending film somewhat influenced by Pi about a withdrawn man who receives a mystery clock that may be able to bend time and space
The 4th Floor (1999)
A thriller that develops quite a degree of eerie suspense as Juliette Lewis moves into a new apartment and finds she is surrounded by some very strange neighbours
The 5000 Fingers of Dr T (1953)
Live-action film from a Dr Seuss script about children imprisoned by a mad piano teacher. As to be expected from Seuss, this is gloriously madcap with extravagantly surreal set designs and nonsense choreogrphy
The 5th Wave (2016)
Wannabe in the fad for Young Adult films. An alien invasion story that takes place without drama or engagement in anything that happens. This seems more interested in its teen love triangle than combatting the alien threat
The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958)
Czech Jules Verne adaptation that conducts an extraordinary blend of animation and live-action. Maybe the purest evocation of Steampunk that has ever been placed on screen. A work of underappreciated genius
The Face of Another (1966)
A neglected Japanese classic. This is a haunting existential meditation on identity as a man loses his face in an accident but is then granted a lifelike mask
The Face of Fu Manchu (1965)
The first and best of the series of films featuring Christopher Lee at his ice cold best as the Chinese super-villain Fu Manchu. This was made at the height of the Anglo-horror cycle and employs the production values to superlative regard.
The Facility (2012)
Modestly creepy film about a group of subjects locked in a hospital as part of a drug trial that proceeds to go wrong as some of the group have an adverse reaction and turn crazed
The Factory (2012)
A Dark Horse Entertainment film that traipses through a tired serial killer plot that comes out resembling a weak episode of CSI before a frankly unbelievable twist ending
The Faculty (1998)
Robert Rodriguez directs from a script by Scream writer Kevin Williamson. This wittily deconstructs the 1950s alien body snatchers film by way of The Breakfast Club
The Fades (2011)
An underrated mini-series – sort of the anti-Supernatural. This creates a highly original afterlife mythology and some great characters arcs, while overspilling with wry nerdish in-humour
The Fairy (2011)
Entirely charming film about a woman who claims to be a fairy. In the best tradition of Jacques Tati, this consists of a series of deliriously nonsensical sight gags that become an utter delight
The Fall (2006)
A fable that was a personal project for Tarsem Singh. A film made for the pure beauty of its visuals, Tarsem eschews visual effects and shoots exotic real world locations to create something exquisitely fantastical
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)
Early silent adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story that treats the story liberally, drops Poe’s mood of desolation and despair for one more of melancholy, but holds an undeniable style
The Fall of the House of Usher (1979)
Maybe the worst Edgar Allan Poe adaptation ever, a version made for tv that fails utterly to project any of Poe’s gloom and despair, while a badly overacting Martin Landau is disastrously miscast as Roderick Usher
The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)
Mike Flanagan mini-series that expands on the story to incorporate a host of other Poe stories. More like another of Mike Flanagan’s cross-generational ghost stories by way of tv’s Succession with a lot of Poe-esque margin notes
The Fall of Usher (2021)
Not an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story but a film about a man in a troubled state of mind that comes filled with numerous Poe references
The Falls (1980)
Early Peter Greenaway film where in typically eccentric fashion he tells a series of absurd stories about survivors of a mysterious event who names all begin with Fall who have begun to mutate and develop an obsession with birds
The Family Complete (2010)
Controversial Japanese film about a virus that causes members of a family to engage in gay incest. This is perhaps the dullest taboo-breaking film I have ever sat through
The Family Man (2000)
Brett Ratner conducts a likeable variation on It’s a Wonderful Life with banker Nicolas Cage suddenly finding himself in an alternate life as a regular working class man with wife and kids
The Fan (1981)
A film made not long after the John Lennon shooting with Lauren Bacall as a Hollywood star stalked by fan Michael Biehn who snaps and turns psycho after a perceived rejection
The Fan (1996)
A dense, visually afire film from the great Tony Scott starring Robert De Niro as a sports fan who snaps from the pressures of ordinary life and then stalks baseball star Wesley Snipes
The Fantasist (1986)
Robin Hardy, director of The Wicker Man, makes an Irish-set thriller in which a country girl moved to the city is stalked by a serial killer who sends his victims poetry
The Fantastic 4: First Steps (2025)
After several other film incarnations that went nowhere, The Fantastic Four make their first appearance in The MCU. The film creates a wonderful retro world of 1960s futurism based on their original comic-books for them to inhabit
The Fantastic Four (1994)
The film version of the comic-book that was made by Roger Corman intended to never be released. This has a reputation as a bad movie and is extremely impoverished adaptation but is more authentic to the comic-book than other big-budget films
The Fantastic Water Babes (2010)
Hong Kong cinema specialises in a type of frenetic, high-energy slapstick. This – a romance set around a swimming competition in which the girl thinks she has been blessed by a water god – is not one of the more inspired
The Fantasticks (2000)
This film version of the massively popular Broadway musical was a miserable flop. The musical is a minimalist one but the film has replaced all of that with literalisations that kill the effect
The Father (2020)
A film that received great acclaim at awards season. Anthony Hopkins is a dementia-ridden senior and we experience his state of mind subjectively in a constantly shifting sense of what is real
The Fear (1994)
Rather confused film about people on a therapy retreat to confront their fears who then have to deal with a wooden dummy that has maybe come to life
The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
Roman Polanski misfired with this vampire comedy intended as a spoof of Hammer Films. Beautifully produced but comedy is not Polanski’s forte and the film seems to consists of much slapstick running around
The Feast (2021)
Excellent slow burn film that becomes a work of Folk Horror. This is focused around preparations for a dinner party joined by a mystery waitress where you just know things are going to go badly wrong
The Field Guide to Evil (2018)
From the producers of the ABCs of Death films, a further horror anthology where nine directors from around the world deliver eight episodes based on the folklore of their region
The Fields (2011)
This feels like Children of the Corn remade by Terrence Malick. The film does nicely with the wry, quietly observed naturalism of its Coming of Age story, less so when it moves into horror territory
The Fiend (1971)
British-made film with Tony Beckley as a sexually repressed psycho raised in a religious cult who goes out and kills women. The film seems more interested in the sexploitation elements than it does in the psycho elements
The Fiendish Plot of Dr Fu Manchu (1980)
Peter Sellers’ last film and usually lambasted by his fans. Spoofing the great villain, Sellers indulges his penchant for playing multiple roles and the result is some likeable silliness
The Fifth Element (1997)
A big-budget space opera from Luc Besson. This offers a dazzlingly designed future but the plot is an inane hodgepodge of bad SF elements with a tone that flails between action and camp
The Final Conflict (1981)
The third and by general consensus the weakest of The Omen films. It fails to deliver its promise of depicting the Armageddon but Sam Neill gives a performance of magnificently dark charisma as the grown-up Damien
The Final Countdown (1980)
A big-budget film that has one of the great SF premises – what if a modern aircraft carrier were transported back in time to the eve of Pearl Harbor – only to end up blowing it.
The Final Cut (2004)
Fine and underrated Sf film set in a future where memory recording devices are commonplace with Robin Williams as a man whose job is to edit these for funeral services
The Final Destination (2009)
The fourth in the series of films about a series of deaths for survivors after premonition of disaster at a speedway. This is shot in 3D but the novelty death set-pieces have become preposterous
The Final Girls (2015)
A wittily clever deconstruction of the slasher film where a bunch of contemporary characters are transported inside a 1980s slasher movie where their modern ways proceed to hilariously upset the cliches
The Final Programme (1974)
Michael Moorcock’s psychedelic adventurer hero Jerry Cornelius gets a disappointing film adaptation here. There are imaginative sets but the plot plays out as a pedestrian spy thriller
The Final Storm (2010)
Uwe Boll seems to be improving. Here he has abandoned action for a character-driven drama about the appearance of an ambiguous stranger heralding the Biblical end of the world
The Final Terror (1983)
From the heyday of the slasher film, this seems to be trying to conduct a slasher version of Deliverance. Largely forgotten today and unremarkable but for an amazing cast of before-they-were-famous faces
The First Deadly Sin (1980)
Dreary police procedural with middle-aged detective Frank Sinatra hunting a serial killer. Mostly, the film seems to be about getting old and the thriller aspect is developed with almost minimal interest
The First Men in the Moon (1964)
Adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel about a Victorian journey to the Moon and encounter with its denizens. The film comes with Ray Harryhausen effects but is considerably weakened by a buffoonish tone
The First Men in the Moon (2010)
A very nicely produced BBC retelling of the H.G. Wells novel that conducts an extremely faithful adaptation of the story and captures a perfect period sense of wonder
The First Night of My Life (1998)
Spanish comedy produced to celebrate the turn of the millennium in which the fates of several people wind together on the eve of the end of the century
The First Omen (2024)
Did the world ask for a prequel to the events of The Omen, explaining how Damien was born etc? It’s not an issue that has given me sleepless night, but it is a question the film sets out to answer anyway
The First Power (1990)
This was made not long after Wes Craven’s Shocker. Here detective Lou Diamond Phillips faces a serial killer who comes back from the dead after going to the gas chamber and can hop between bodies
The First Purge (2018)
Blumhouse have handed the reigns of The Purge series to African-American filmmaker Gerard McMurray who takes the opportunity to get political and drag the series into the era of Black Lives Matter
The Fisher King (1991)
Terry Gilliam’s finest moment, a modernised knightly quest where radio dj Jeff Bridges is dragged into helping homeless man Robin Williams find the Holy Grail. A film made by its performances and warm and eventually soaring characterisations
The Fitzroy (2017)
Eccentric and unclassifiable British film that takes place in some kind of gonzo alternate reality aboard a submarine converted into a hotel. The nearest equivalent one can think of in comparison is Delicatessen
The Flame Barrier (1958)
An odd mix of 1950s alien invasion film and low-budget jungle adventure as explorers in the wilds of Mexico encounter a glowing amorphous blob in the jungle
The Flash (2023)
Despite a poor box-office performance and a troubled production behind the scenes, it is a surprise what a good film this is, easily outstripping the last half-dozen MCU films put together
The Flesh and Blood Show (1972)
One of the earlier films from British director Pete Walker, a whodunnit with a psycho stalking the cast of a theatrical rehearsal. Walker doesn’t stint on the flesh but proves tamer than usual when it comes to the blood
The Flesh Eaters (1964)
A true-bred exploitation film with castaways arriving on an island where they encounter a Nazi mad scientist breeding flesh eating slugs. This has been cited as the first gore film
The Flight of Dragons (1982)
One of Rankin-Bass’s animated films, this has an ambitious epic fantasy plot with original themes about the line between science and magic, although this is undone by Rankin-Bass’s limited animation
The Flight That Disappeared (1961)
Film in which a plane in whisked outside of space and time and the passengers are placed on trial from the children of the future for their part in designing nuclear weapons