Mirror Mirror (1990)
A 1990s video release, which plays out as a variant on Carrie where a bullied teen girl enacts vengeance against her tormentors with the aid of a cursed mirror
Mirror Mirror (2012)
Tarsem Singh makes a Snow White film. Tarsem’s sets, costumes and visuals are expectedly exquisite and extravagant but all is unwound by a campy, unserious approach
MirrorMask (2005)
Neil Gaiman and comic-book artist Dave McKean create a venture into a fantasy world with an extraordinary level of visual imagination and peopled with a remarkable panoply of creations
Mirrors (2008)
Alexandre Aja film about haunted mirrors. However, Aja is more a director of physical horror and seems less attuned to the supernatural mood. Based on an earlier Korean film.
Mirrors 2 (2010)
A sequel to Alexandre Aja’s Mirrors that abandons most of the basics of the first film and strips everything down to a series of gory, novelty deaths
Misbegotten (1997)
From a Larry Cohen script, a side-splitting effort with Kevin Dillon as a psychopathic sperm donor who forcibly intrudes into the life of his baby’s mother
Misery (1990)
A classic Stephen King adaptation from Rob Reiner with writer James Caan imprisoned by psycho fan Kathy Bates, who gives a terrifying performance that won her an Academy Award
Miss Meadows (2014)
There is an irresistible appeal to the idea of Katie Holmes as a sweetly smiling Miss Manners dressed in Sunday Best who, in between correcting people’s manners and punctuation, is also a gun-toting vigilante
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
Tim Burton used to be the great hope of fantastic cinema but his efforts since 2000 have disappointed. This Young Adult adaptation plays out like a fantasy version of the X-Men
Miss Potter (2006)
Renee Zellweger stars in a biopic of children’s author Beatrix Potter from Babe director Chris Noonan. Everything seems to be trying to be a British costume drama.
Miss Zombie (2013)
A remarkable little Japanese zombie film about a family who adopt a zombie maid. This is shot kitchen sink style and becomes a study in the way her blank presence begins to affect everyone around her
Missile to the Moon (1958)
A remake of the classic bad movie Cat-Women of the Moon in which explorers to the Moon encounter an all-women society. Things do not improve in the bad movie stakes here
Missing Link (2019)
Amiable knockabout stop-motion animated film from Laika Entertainment, although the title is a misnomer and the film is actually about a Bigfoot rather than a Missing Link
Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack (1979)
Episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica tv series that were recut and screened theatrically for international audiences
Mission Stardust (1967)
Film adapted from the popular German-language Perry Rhodan space operas that is cheap and quickly heads into bad movie stakes
Mission to Mars (2000)
Brian De Palma makes a surprisingly good hard science film about a rescue mission send to save the first manned Mars expedition and their encountering alien artifacts on the planet
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
The seventh of Mission: Impossible films with Tom Cruise still on great form at age 61. He and the team raise the bar for the series to a new high
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
The sixth of the Mission: Impossible films. Not the best of the series but Tom Cruise and associates have everything polished to an expertly honed formula by now and the film is a kinetic ride of intensive and often jaw-dropping action sequences
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
The best of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible films to this point. The live-action directorial debut of Pixar director Brad Bird proves an inspired move and Bird gets all the gadgetry just right along with a series of sensational action sequences
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
The Mission: Impossible films have become superbly polished vehicles with exotic locales, death-defying stuntwork and spectacular action sequences. This enacts it all well; the main problem is that Ghost Protocol is such a tough act to follow that this cannot help but fall in its shadow
Mission: Impossible II (2000)
The second of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible films where he has the smarts to hire John Woo as director who brings his customary stylish flair with action to transform the film into something exhiliraing
Mission: Impossible III (2006)
For his third outing in the series, Tom Cruise made a smart bet on giving the reins to J.J. Abrams who made his directorial debut and turned in the most enjoyable entry in the series to that point. One of the best moves is in the casting of Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain of the show
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025)
The eighth of the Mission: Impossible films. The previous entry Dead Reckoning was a high point in the series and this is left wrapping up the storyline in what would appear to be Tom Cruise’s final outing for the series
Mississippi River Sharks (2017)
An appealingly tongue-in-cheek killer shark film with sharks attacking along the Mississippi
Mister Frost (1990)
Fine film that deserves wider recognition with Jeff Goldblum as a man in an asylum who claims to be The Devil
Mister Superinvisible (1970)
Antonio Margheriti, better known for his Gothic horror and giallo films, makes an invisible man comedy
Mistress Frankenstein (2000)
The Frankenstein film, which deals with grave robbing and hideously scarred corpses, seems an unlikely choice for adult movie treatment. This is one of the offerings
Mnemophrenia (2019)
Film that takes place across three future eras that questions what happens when Virtual Reality produces artificial memories more vivid than real world ones
Moana (2016)
Despite being a huge box-office and critical success and being nominated for an Academy Award, I am in a minority in disliking this. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that it appropriates the culture from my neck of the woods and only spins it out as a series of glib jokes and one-liners
Moana 2 (2024)
Disney make a sequel to Moana, their venture into Pacific Island mythology
Mockingbird (2014)
Bryan Bertino who made the impressive home invasion thriller The Strangers and this was his follow-up. This was held up so long in release that its originality has been rendered everyday by others milking the Found Footage genre
Modern Vampires (1998)
Richard Elfman film about chic vampires who have become an elite living in Hollywood. Despite promise and some interesting ideas, this is ruined by an atrociously overacting cast
Modesty Blaise (1966)
Modesty Blaise was a classic British comic-book about a smart female thief. On screen, it is turned into a copy of the James Bond films that goes for excruciatingly over-the-top camp excess
Moksha – Or The World and I, How Does That Work? (2012)
Imagine a weird mix between the basic premise of Saw and Waiting for Godot. A South Korean film about a man inexplicably chained up in a park that is less interested in his escape than it becomes a surreal existential allegory for life
Mold! (2012)
Very cheaply made film about a deadly mold going amok at a laboratory, which is only notable for some gory meltdown effects and the filmmaker’s laughable lack of knowledge about contamination procedures
Moloch (2022)
Folk Horror about the discovery of a witch’s body in a bog, this is a slow burn film that falls together with great subtlety
Molom, A Legend of Mongolia (1995)
Gentle affecting film about a boy learning Buddhist life lessons as he journeys across Mongolia with an old man
Mom & Dad (2017)
A captivating variant on the mass insanity film where parents are frenziedly driven to kill their children. As the murderous father, Nicolas Cage gives a performance where he lets all stops go, while director Brian Taylor, formerly one half of Neveldine/Taylor, makes a rather watchable film
Mom and Dad Save the World (1992)
Films about stupid people are rarely funny – this concerns a whole planet of stupid people. Despite reasonable production values, there is little that raises even a mild smile in this comedic take on Flash Gordon
Mom’s Got a Date With a Vampire (2000)
Amiably silly children’s vampire film that manages to take a juvenile approach off with tongue planted in cheek
Mommy (1995)
Patty McCormack played a psychopathic child in The Bad Seed. This is essentially a sequel where McCormack has grown up and become a mother
Mommy’s Day (1996)
Sequel to Mommy, which featured Patty McCormack as a psychopathic mother
Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2021)
Ana Lily Amirpour, director of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, returns with a film about a psychic girl and the eccentric grifters that accumulate around her
Mongolian Death Worm (2010)
Another low-budget monster movie for the Syfy Channel. Between Sean Patrick Flanery’s unconvincing adventurer hero and the filmmaker’s failure to even vaguely approximate what Mongolia or its locals look like, this quickly slides down into a tatty, indifferently made copy of Tremors
Mongrel (1982)
Incredibly shabby film about residents of a Texas boarding house being killed by a supernatural dog
Monkey Business (1952)
The only film that Marilyn Monroe will be written about for on this site. A classic screwball comedy about the accidental discovery of a formula that causes all who take it to revert to adolescence. Much madcap malarkey ensues but it does get very silly
Monkey King: Hero is Back (2015)
An animated version of the epic Chinese legend Journey to the West that was overshadowed by the hit live-action film that came out some months earlier that retold the tale with CGI
Monkey Shines (1988)
Disappointing George Romero film about a paraplegic man’s psychic link with his monkey that then comes to enact his suppressed anger. A fine idea drowns in shrill moral characterisations.
Monkeybone (2001)
Henry Selick’s first venture into live-action in which Brendan Fraser becomes trapped in a bizarre afterlife while a mischievous monkey steals his body
Monolith (1994)
Ridiculous action film produced at the peak of The X Files popularity about two detectives against a body-hopping alien and sinister government agency
Monolith (2022)
The title monolith is a cheat, this is however a creepy Australian film about a series of ultra-mysterious objects
Monster (1979)
Obscure 1970s film about a monster emerging from a Colombian lake. The film taps a bunch of subplots and cliche themes but fails to make any of them even remotely interesting. The entire show though is plunged into bad movie stakes by the emergence of the ridiculous monster at the end
Monster (2003)
Patty Jenkins and Charlize Theron combine forces on their portrait of female serial killer Aileen Wuornos. The result won Theron, who undergoes an amazing transformation, an Academy Award for Best Actress
Monster Brawl (2011)
This has the mildly amusing idea of taking films like Dracula vs Frankenstein et al one step further and actually pitting various classic monsters against one another in a wrestling match
Monster from Green Hell (1957)
Possibly the worst film to be made out of the 1950s giant bug cycle concerning giant wasps marauding in Africa. All the dramatic scenes are composed of scenes cannibalised from other adventure films, while the effects have a shoddiness that frequently reduces you to laughter
Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954)
One of the first films produced by Roger Corman, a routine B monster movie that has mostly been made around obtaining the use of a one-man submersible
Monster from the Surf (1965)
Another Z movie attempt to join the 1960s beach party movie fad with the additions of monsters that ends up being fairly ridiculous on all counts
Monster House (2006)
Delightful motion capture animated film about children discovering a neighbourhood house that is alive. Written with refreshingly well-rounded characters and directed with a great sense of comic grotesque
Monster Hunt (2015)
Apparently the biggest grossing film in China ever. What we get is not much more than a rehash of E.T. with the addition of flying swordsmen. What kills the film is an emphasis of excrutiating slapstick and low-res CGI that makes the various creatures resemble versions of Mr Blobby
Monster Hunt 2 (2018)
Sequel to Monster Hunt, an audience pleasing comedy about a couple and a cute monster that became the biggest hit in Chinese box-office history. This offers more of the same
Monster Hunter (2020)
Resident Evil series director Paul W.S. Anderson and star Milla Jovovich return with an adaptation of another popular videogame series
Monster in the Closet (1986)
Monster movie parody that spoofs a number of classic films, including King Kong where it takes the title literally and the monster makes off with the hero giving the film a certain LGBT community relevance in its day. Contains quite an impressive cast list, including featuring both Paul Walker and singer Fergie as kids
Monster Island (1981)
Supposedly an adaptation of Jules Verns’s Mysterious Island from low-budget Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon, one that gives the impression nobody actually read the book
Monster Island (2019)
One of the better mockbusters from The Asylum, timed to come out at the same time as the US Godzilla, King of the Monsters and actually far more modestly enjoyable
Monster Mash (2024)
The Asylum conduct a monster bash – a crossover between the Famous Monsters – and actually do a modest and quite enjoyable job that pays affectionate homage to the characters
Monster on a Plane (2024)
A couple of years before this, Germany made the standout Blood Red Sky about vampires loose on a plane. Conceived in a similar vein, this is an hilariously bad German film about a monster loose on a plane
Monster on the Campus (1958)
One of Jack Arnold’s lesser films, a Jekyll and Hyde story where a scientist finds himself reveting to a caveman after scraping his hand on a prehistoric coelacanth
Monster Party (2018)
This has an interesting premise where a trio of house burglars break into a mansion during a dinner party only to stumble into a support group for serial killers
Monster Trucks (2016)
You can almost see the process in the scriptwriters head “What if we had Monster Truck rallies where the trucks were actual monsters?”. Way more entertaining than you ever expect it to be
Monster Zero (1965)
The sixth Godzilla film, the first where the series combines elements of space opera – a typical entry of the era and colourfully entertaining about it too
Monster: The Ed Gein Story (2025)
An eight-episode tv mini-series based on true-life necrophile/grave robber Ed Gein. This expands the story out and considerably embellishes the facts but is one of the most outrageously out there pieces of tv watching you will ever come across
Monsternado (2023)
This tries to go one up on Sharknado and offers a tornado made up of assorted animals and prehistoric life. A completely ridiculous film from prolific British producer Scott Jeffrey
Monsters (2010)
Cloverfield by way of Stalker – a unique and original film about zones on Earth overrun by alien creatures. Director Gareth Edwards creates his own effects that far surpass many big budget efforts
Monsters from the Id (2008)
Documentary about science in the modern world and its reflections in the media
Monsters University (2013)
Pixar’s creative decline has been the point they started making these sequels to their hits. This is a disappointing prequel to Monsters, Inc. that largely recycles the cliches of the Revenge of the Nerds films and seems lacking in any of the wacky humour or moments of cuteness we expect of a Pixar film
Monsters vs Aliens (2009)
Cutley appealing DreamWorks animated film that brings together a bunch of oddball creatures clearly intended as an affectionate homage to various 1950s sf films
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
This was the fourth animated film from Pixar and is a winning and delightful Maurice Sendakian tale about the monsters in the closet and their friendship with a young girl
Monsters: Dark Continent (2014)
This offers the expectation of a sequel to the sleeper hit of Monsters; what we instead get is not many monsters and a film about recruits in a Middle Eastern war zone. That said, you cannot deny that what we have is an undeniably well made film
Monstersdotcom (2003)
Video-released compilation of above average horror short films all set around the titular website
Monstrosity (1964)
An amusingly lurid Z budget film with a widow using an atomic reactor to transfer her mind into a younger body
Monstrous (2022)
Film in which Christina Ricci fears her son is being drawn to a monster in the lake, this hangs around a very contrived twist ending
Monstrum (2018)
South Korean attempt to make a Wu Xia film with swordsmen up against a hulking monster
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
The first of the Monty Python films, a wickedly funny, willfully nonsensical take on King Arthur and the knightly quest. Contains many classic Python gags
Monty Python’s The Life of Brian (1979)
The Monty Python team’s finest hour, a wickedly irreverent spoof on Christianity that contains some of their most side-splitting gags
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983)
The third and last of the Monty Python films, a variety of skits that are variously outrageous and frequently leave behind all good taste
Mood Indigo (2013)
After the disastrous misstep of The Green Hornet, Michel Gondry returns to the surreal whimsy of The Science of Sleep. A film where Gondry delights in scene after scene of visual nonsense and serving up all the appealingly capricious silliness he can muster – creativity for creativity’s sake alone
Moon (2009)
SF film with Sam Rockwell as a lone man stationed on The Moon discovering the truth of his existence, this gained much word of mouth when it came out
Moon 44 (1990)
Early Roland Emmerich film with Michael Paré investigating pirates targeting a mining moon. As usual with Emmerich, the focus is on action while neglecting the plausibility of the scenario
Moon Crash (2022)
The Asylum offer up a mockbuster copy of Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall that is far more entertaining than the original
Moon Man (2012)
Beautifully made children’s film that is a refreshing change from most of the formulaic product released in the US mainstream. Comes with a sweet simplicity and an enormous freshness, while the animation is rendered with a considerable beauty that makes it just as much a film for adults
Moon Man (2022)
Comedy from China about a man abandoned on the Moon, the last person left alive in the aftermath of the destruction of the Earth
Moon Pilot (1962)
Disney comedy starring Tom Tyron as an astronaut caught up in comedic antics with alien visitor Dany Saval
Moon Rainbow (1983)
Obscure work of Soviet era SF. Clearly influenced by Stalker, this concerns an investigation into a mysterious alien zone that has left astronauts with psychic powers. Most of the film drowns in endless discussion and an almost complete lack of drama
Moon Zero Two (1969)
Muchly ridiculed Hammer film that was billed as a ‘Space Western’. Once one gets past that it is actually a far more interesting film than it suggests
Moonchild (1972)
A film about strange happenings at a mission where all the characters may be reincarnations. A film of the hippie era that gets lost in mysticism and trippiness
Moonfall (2022)
Roland Emmerich returns to mass destruction with a film about The Moon on a collision course with Earth, which heads in some conceptually challenging directions
Moonraker (1979)
The eleventh James Bond film and one that sees that series trying to compete with the success of Star Wars and taking Roger Moore into orbit. One of the most spectacular productions of the series, it is also killed by a cartoonish unserious tone
Moonshot (2022)
From Arrowverse producer Greg Berlanti, a film about a nerd who stows away on a voyage to Mars
Moonwalker (1988)
A collection of Michael Jackson short pieces, leading up to the 25 minute Smooth Criminal segment where he transforms into a godlike being. Fascinating in its bizarreness, largely a Michael Jackson ego trip
Morbius (2022)
Sony’s attempts to wring everything possible from the Spider-Man copyright in order to compete with the MCU continue with this film devoted to the Spider-Man vampire villain