Don’t Go Near the Park (1979)
Another of the ‘don’t __’- titled entries of the 1970s. This is a bizarre bad movie about teenage runaways in L.A.’s Griffith Park who fall prey to flesh-eating immortals
Don’t Kill It (2016)
An enthusiastically full-tilt horror comedy. This draws from the classic The Hidden in its premise of a demon that hops between bodies, possessing the person that kills its previous host. Dolph Lundgren has the time of his life
Don’t Knock Twice (2016)
Welsh director Caradog James impressed with his previous film The Machine. Here he makes a horror film concerning an urban legend about an old crone haunting those who disturb her, but fails to do anything notable
Don’t Let Go (2019)
Blumhouse film that borrows the basics of Frequency where a detective starts receiving phone calls from his murdered niece from several days in the past and tries to prevent her murder
Don’t Look Away (2023)
Horror film from regular Canadian genre director Micheal Bafaro about a group of friends who enact a curse in which they are pursued and killed by a mannequin come to life
Don’t Look Back (2009)
French actress-director Marina de Van makes a film about a woman who finds her identity being occluded by someone else’s life. de Van creates a superbly paranoid sense of dis-ease that compares favourably to Polanski’s The Tenant
Don’t Look Now (1973)
Nicolas Roeg’s masterwork. Ostensibly a film about grief and precognition, this is a film that exists as a series of taunting visual clues that constantly map over onto each other with a hidden geometry
Don’t Look Up (2009)
Fruit Chan conducts an English-language remake of a Japanese horror film. A confused and hokey effort about a haunted film set that is only centred around the provision of schlock effects
Don’t Look Up (2021)
The perfect film for the Covid era. A devastatingly on the ball satire on the ineptitude of people’s response in the face of an extinction level threat to the Earth from an oncoming comet as government agencies tries to minimise the news
Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984)
The 1980s slasher fad brought a number of ventures into the Christmas slasher film, which has grown into its own genre niche since then. This is one British entry in the genre about a killer targeting people dressed as Santa
Don’t Speak (2015)
Spanish film that prefigures the subsequent A Quiet Place concerning an island where anybody who makes a noise is killed. This fails to use its premise in any interesting way.
Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)
One of the early films from Lucio Fulci – the film that he always insisted was his best – concerning a series of child killings in a small town. Quite different to the sort of film Fulci became known for
Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
Actress Olivia Wilde creates a variant on The Stepford Wives set in an idyllic 1950s town where the women seem to be prisoners. Wilde is making a feminist parable but the plausibility of her SF scenario falls apart
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1976)
A hit Brazilian film with Sonia Braga as a widow who remarries only for her wayward late husband to reappear as a ghost after she finds she is missing his passion. Charming and whimsical
Donkey Skin (1970)
Eccentric French fairytale filled with appealingly absurdist and surreal touches and with visuals that remind of the extravagance of a Barbarella. Charming and visually engaging
Donner Pass (2012)
Disappointingly, this is not about the famous pioneer expedition that turned to cannibalism but a modern slasher film that takes place near where the incident occurred. Okay on its own terms.
Donnie Darko (2001)
A thoroughly overrated cult classic. A baffling mixture of precognition, time travel, sinister talking bunnies and 1980s satire. What this doesn’t do is ever fall together into a coherent explanation about what is going on
Donovan’s Brain (1953)
The second version of the multiply filmed novel by Curt Siodmak about a malevolent brain in a tank. Its greatest distinction is featuring later to be First Lady Nancy Davis Reagan as the heroine
Donovan’s Echo (2011)
Film about clairvoyance and predestination that owes much to Don’t Look Now. Unfortunately, this reduces everything to the prosaic level of a tv movie thriller
Doom (2005)
Disappointing film version of the videogame. The film seems to either miss or water down the principal appeals of the game, although you do get Dwayne Johnson (still billed as The Rock) as the bad guy
Doom: Annihilation (2019)
This was the second film based based on the Doom game and actually does a far better job of getting the essence of the game and paying fanservice to its elements than the earlier 2005 film did
Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four (2015)
The 1994 film version of The Fantastic Four is the stuff of legend – made for $1 million budget solely to secure a copyright and never intended to be released. This is a documentary about its making
Doomsday (2008)
Immensely satisfying film from Neil Marshall set in a walled-off, post-pandemic Scotland where he seems to have set out to pay homage to sf/action films like Escape from New York and Mad Max 2
Doomsday (2015)
Not to be confused with Neil Marshall’s Doomsday. This is a surprisingly good, low-budget British SF film that serves up the essential plot of The Terminator but with a number of clever touches of its own
Doomsday Book (2012)
South Korean anthology containing a trio of tales on the theme of the end of the world. The standout is the middle segment, a very Asimovian tale wherein a robot claims to have logically attained Buddhist enlightenment
Doomsday Machine (1972)
Incredibly cheaply made film about astronauts on a spaceship to Venus who survive the destruction of the Earth. So cheap that most of the film takes place on two sets
Doomsday Man (1998)
Thriller with Esai Morales as a virologist called out of retirement to track down his brother James Marshall who has gone rogue and stolen vials of a deadly bacteriological agent
Doomsday Meteor (2023)
Another enterprising low-budget disaster movie from The Asylum about a meteor on a collision course with the Earth. The great Joe Roche is on script and creates an amazingly almost plausible scenario
Doomsdayer (2000)
A low-budget video-released action effort that attempts to copy the James Bond films featuring the hunt for a device that can trigger all nuclear reactors
Doomwatch (1972)
The film spinoff of a 1970s British tv series about a group who investigate scientific and ecological abuses. The film depicts an outbreak of aromegaly on an island near where growth stimulants have been dumped.
Door to the Other Side (2016)
Haunted house story that is not substantially different from the 7000 on this site. This has some novel twists in that it focuses on an old man afraid to go out of doors who appears to open up a supernatural doorway as he sleeps
Doors (2021)
Multi-director anthology about a series of mysterious portals that appear around the world, this creates a sense of something genuinely alien and otherworldly
Doppelganger (1969)
Gerry Anderson was best known for his puppet tv shows. This was his first film with live actors based around the absurd notion of a space expedition to a planet on the far side of the sun that is a mirror opposite of the Earth
Doppelganger (1993)
Horror film in which Drew Barrymore is haunted by a doppelganger. Before allowing the film to collapse into incomprehensibility, director Avi Nesher creates some fascinatingly weird images
Dorian (2003)
A modernised version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray where a male model transfers his image to a photograph that ages while he remains immortal
Dorian Gray (2009)
Beautifully produced version of the Oscar Wilde story about a libertine who becomes immortal by transferring his soul into a portrait. This easily stands out as one of the best film versions of the story to date
Dorian Gray as Reflected in the Popular Press (1984)
Long and baffling German surrealist film that makes much reference to German silent cinema. Lots of avant garde set ups without any real point
Double Blind (2023)
Ireland has been producing a strong body of horror films in recent years. This concerns drug experiments that force a group of subjects to stay awake – just as things start to go wrong
Double Dragon (1994)
Disappointing adaptation of the arcade videogame. The game is premised on mindless martial arts action but the film pitches everything down to pre-teen audiences and make the two brother protagonists into dorks
Double Exposure (1981)
Psychic thriller that draws much from Eyes of Laura Mars as photographer Michael Callan has visions of his models being killed before they are in reality
Doug’s 1st Movie (1999)
Film spinoff of a popular children’s animated tv series Doug about a kid and his observations on life. The film’s story has the title character befriending a local lake monster
Down a Dark Hall (2018)
Rodrigo Cortes, who made the fine Buried, directs a Young Adult horror, which is produced by no less than Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, concerning supernatural happenings at a girl’s boarding school.
Down to Earth (1947)
This was a semi-sequel to Here Comes Mr Jordan featuring Rita Hayworth as the goddess Terpsichore descended to Earth to inspire a Broadway producer
Down to Earth (2001)
Remake of Heaven Can Wait/Here Comes Mr Jordan as a vehicle for comedian Chris Rock where the heavenly body mix-up now becomes about a black man ending up in a white man’s body
Downdraft (1996)
Modest and conceptually packed B-budget action film in which a motley team are sent to break into a bunker that has been hijacked by a scientist who is threatening to fire nuclear missiles
Downrange (2017)
Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura creates a gripping survival thriller about a group of friends driving home who become trapped on a small stretch of road by a sniper
Downsizing (2017)
Matt Damon gets shrunken to five inches tall in this effort from Alexander Payne, an award-winning director who usually makes films about men undergoing mid-life crises. The film has a cleverness but Payne often misses the possibilities raised
Dr Black and Mr Hyde (1976)
After the Blaxploitation fad gave us Blacula and Blackenstein, there came this wild variation on the Jekyll/Hyde story where a good African-American doctor takes a potion and turns into a rampaging white monster
Dr Cyclops (1940)
From the people behind King Kong, a film in which a mad scientist shrinks a group of people to a few inches tall. Some excellent effects for the era, making this one of the best films on the theme of miniaturisation
Dr Dolittle (1998)
Complete and utter bastardisation of Hugh Lofting’s charming Doctor Dolittle stories, which are turned into a modern comedy with Eddie Murphy and talking animals doing lots of pee and poop jokes
Dr Dolittle: Tail to the Chief (2008)
The second of the video-released Dr Dolittle films featuring his teenage daughter Kyla Pratt. This is marginally better and less excruciating in its humour than its predecessor Dr. Dolittle 3 was
Dr Giggles (1992)
A darkly funny take on the slasher film with Larry Drake standing out in a memorable performance as the title mad doctor. This delivers more medical novelty deaths and bad puns than one believed possible
Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)
Very silly AIP comedy that parodies the massively popular James Bond films of the era, as well as features Vincent Price as the villain spoofing his appearances in the studio’s Edgar Allan Poe films
Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966)
Italian-made sequel to the campy Vincent Price starring Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. Directed by the usually great Mario Bava and overrun by the buffoonish clowning of Italian comics Franco and Ciccio
Dr Hackenstein (1988)
An excruciatingly bad mad scientist film about a scientist tying to find a body to reattach his wife’s head. This treads only where Re-Animator went before. Much of this feels like it should have been played as a comedy
Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (2002)
Excellent tv movie adaptation of the Jekyll/Hyde story starring John Hannah. This is mounted with exquisite period detail and brings new depths and interpretations of an oft-told tale
Dr Jekyll and His Women (1981)
Retelling of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde from cult Euro erotica director Walerian Borowczyk. Not quite the erotic retelling one expects, this nevertheless conducts some radical revisions
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941)
Version of the Jekyll/Hyde story starring Spencer Tracy and with Ingrid Bergman as the dancehall girl he liaises with. This has been made in the vogue for Freudian psychology so the transformation is tricked out with dubious symbolism
Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971)
Rather enjoyable latter day Hammer Film, which plays its title pun surprisingly seriously. Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick are perfectly matched as the gender-changing Dr Jekyll
Dr Jekyll and the Wolfman (1972)
The fifth film where cult Spanish horror actor Paul Naschy played the werewolf Waldermar Daninsky. Here Waldemar is pitted up against Dr Jekyll with Naschy playing both Waldemar and Mr Hyde
Dr Jekyll’s Dungeon of Death (1979)
Not a Jekyll and Hyde film but instead about Jekyll’s grandson who conducts a series of experiments in harnessing aggression. An almost sordid exploitation film
Dr M (1990)
Claude Chabrol updates Fritz Lang super-villain Dr Mabuse to a millennial West Berlin where Alan Bates is a tv mogul who masterminds a mass suicide cult via messages hidden inside advertising
Dr Mabuse, The Gambler (1922)
Dr Mabuse is one of the great villains of cinema. Fritz Lang was one of the greatest directors of the silent era and his first Mabuse film is extraordinary where Lang indulges in visual tricks that still look sensational today
Dr No (1962)
The first of the James Bond films. While the formula of the series is not quite established yet, this is a slick exciting work that did a number of groundbreaking things and created some iconic images
Dr Petiot (1990)
French film about true-life serial killer Marcel Petiot, a respectable doctor who operated a lifeline for Jewish refugees during WWII only to kill them
Dr Phibes Rises Again (1972)
Sequel to The Abominable Dr Phibes that brings back Vincent Price and seeks to replicate the same droll campy humour as before but with more mixed results this time
Dr Renault’s Secret (1942)
A film from the heyday of the mad scientist film in which George Zucco turns an ape into a human being. Zucco is on marvellously demented form as the title doctor
Dr Strangelove or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Stanley Kubrick decided the only way to make a film about nuclear war was to resort to black comedy. Aided by three sidesplitting performances from Peter Sellers, the result are mercilessly funny
Dr Terror’s Gallery of Horrors (1967)
UK’s Amicus Films had a reasonable hit with their horror anthology Dr Terror’s House of Horrors. Director/producer David L. Hewitt jumped in with a copy with a soundalike title produced on a poverty row budget
Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)
The first of Amicus’s horror anthologies. The stories are rehashes of five popular horror tropes, all united by Peter Cushing as the title doctor telling the fortunes of five passengers on a train carriage
Dr Who and the Daleks (1965)
This was the first of two Doctor Who movies produced during the height of Dalekmania during the 1960s. Alas a comedy element in the form of the asinine buffoonery of Roy Castle is allowed to dominate and kills the show off
Dr. Caligari (1989)
The original The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is a classic of silent German Expressionist cinema; this loose remake feels like Eraserhead reconceived with absurd Day-Glo disco decor
Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001)
A sequel to the Eddie Murphy Dr Dolittle remake. This is still an insult to the original stories but under director Steve Carr at least proves a more amiable comedy than the first film did
Dr. Dolittle 3 (2006)
Sequel to the Eddie Murphy Dr Dolittle films without Murphy where the title role is inherited by Kyla Pratt as his teenage daughter. The humour is pitched at an excruciating level of inanity
Dr. Jekyll & Mistress Hyde (2003)
Softcore all-girl take on the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story concerning a formula that brings out repressed sexuality. The expected tumblings are handled with an arty flair that makes for an undeniably interesting watch
Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2008)
Modernised version of the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story starring Dougary Scott. The principal novelty here is that the bulk of the story takes place in a courtroom as Hyde is placed on trial for murder
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913)
The fourth film version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde starring King Baggot in the title roles. This is very faithful to the story, even if it reads as largely unremarkable today
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)
Classic silent version of the Jekyll and Hyde story. A reasonable if not truly standout version, dominated by John Barrymore’s highly melodramatic performance in the title roles
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
The definitive version of the Jekyll/Hyde story in this author’s opinion, winning a Best Actor Oscar for Fredric March. Rouben Mamoulian uses some unique directorial effects and laces the show with a strong undercurrent of repressed sexuality
Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde (1995)
Another variation on the Dr Jekyll and Hyde becomes a woman theme. This version is played as a modern comedy wherein Tim Daly turns into Sean Young who plays to bitchy excess
Dr. Strange (1978)
Forgotten, unsold tv pilot based on the Marvel Comics sorceror superhero. Unlike other Marvel tv properties of this era, this has an imaginativeness in its reach for esoteric spaces that favourably compares to the comic-book original
Dracula (1931)
The classic adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel that made Bela Lugosi into a horror icon and created the image of the vampire in dinner-suit and with East European accent. For all its stature, it is a dull and talky film and Lugosi is overwrought
Dracula (1931)
The legendary Spanish-language version of Dracula that was shot on the same sets as the classic Bela Lugosi version. Although it ultimately stands too much in the shadow of the Lugosi film, it is the better of the two films
Dracula (1958)
The point where the legend of Hammer Films and the careers of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing began. A vivid colour remake of the Bram Stoker book that put a stake through the heart of the staid Universal horrors and created a new English horror industry
Dracula (1974)
TV movie version of Bram Stoker’s book that was released to theatres in some places. Richard Matheson’s script brings back many aspects of the book that are dropped by other productions but the film suffers the fatal miscasting of Jack Palance in the title role
Dracula (1979)
Lushly produced, big-budget adaptation of Bram Stoker starring Frank Langella that places much more of a romantic emphasis on the story than any other version. Here is the beginning of the darkly romantic vampire film
Dracula (1980)
Not an adaptation of Bram Stoker but an anime based on the Marvel comic-book Tomb of Dracula (the same title that gave birth to Blade)
Dracula (2002)
This conducts the interesting idea of updating Bram Stoker’s book to the present day with Patrick Bergin as Dracula. Ultimately, this suffers from low tv movie horizons
Dracula (2006)
BBC costume drama version of the Bram Stoker novel, which offers the most radical take on the story of any version made to date, substantially changing many of the familiar characters
Dracula (2009)
Interestingly odd attempt to update and relocate Dracula to present-day Hollywood. This has promise despite a low-budget but eventually flounders amid a non-linear story and an entirely confused ending
Dracula (2012)
Hard to describe what an utter disappointment Dario Argento’s take on Bram Stoker is. Argento seems to have entirely lost the mojo. Thomas Kretschmann makes for the screen’s mellowest Dracula
Dracula (2020)
BBC mini-series retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that deconstructs and widely expands on sections of the book to create something relentlessly modernistic, sometimes in ways that take you aback
Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) (1969)
This may possibly be the worst Dracula film ever made. A nudie film that has been dubbed over with excruciatingly unfunny one-liners that makes it sound more like a rifftrack film
Dracula 2000 (2000)
An interesting attempt to bring Dracula into the modern day – the film that Dracula A.D. 1972 should have been. An unknown Gerard Butler makes a captivatingly magnetic Dracula
Dracula 3000 (2004)
There is undeniable interest to the idea of Dracula in the future but all we get is a standard Alien copy with Dracula on a spaceship. The acting and dialogue frequently enters into the absurd
Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)
For their seventh Dracula films, Hammer introduced Dracula to the present-day. The result was a wild mishmash where Christopher Lee plays second fiddle to Hammer’s belated attempts to jump aboard the Swinging 60s youth scene
Dracula Blows His Cool (1979)
Excruciating West German-made vampire sex comedy (that doesn’t feature Count Dracula despite the title). Painful and agonisingly unfunny comedy routines directed by someone who has no idea how to set them up
Dracula Exotica (1980)
The inevitable adult version of Count Dracula. Beyond the obvious, this is halfway watchable, having a sense of humour and even a story, which plays out as a straight version of Love at First Bite
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
The fourth of Hammer’s Dracula films. There is a certain amount of silliness to the plot but new director Freddie Francis is on fine form. Christopher Lee is not given much to do
Dracula II: Ascension (2003)
The first of two sequels to Dracula 2000. This is based around the idea of trying to scientifically examine a vampire’s body, sort of a vampire film by way of CSI