Project Hail Mary (2026)
A popular hit based on a book by Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian, where Ryan Gosling is a scientist who undergoes a space expedition and makes alien contact in an effort to save the Earth
Project Power (2020)
Suffering superhero fatigue from screens overwhelmed with Marvel and DC adaptations? This is one of the most original superhero treatments in some time, concerning a drug that give the user superpowers for five minutes only
The Projectionist (1971)
A Secret Life of Walter Mitty for movie lovers wherein a milquetoast projectionist daydreams himself into a variety of movie scenarios as an inept superhero. Quirkily charming if never more than a single idea. Something you feel should have been a cult film
Prospect (2018)
I can’t say the premise of this – a gold prospecting story located in space – did much for me. Contrary to expectation, this is a surprisingly good planetary adventure that does a fine job creating an alien world with minimalist effect and telling a strong character-driven story
Providence (1977)
Alain Resnais meta-fiction with John Gielgud as an aging writer sits in bed writing a story that is based on the people around him
Psycho Girls (1986)
The debut of Canadian director Gerard Ciccoritti who should have become more well known, this goes for broke and becomes splendidly deranged
Psycho III (1986)
Well worthwhile Psycho sequel directed by Anthony Perkins himself who makes an assured, even at times dazzling debut. The film has a playfulness and outrageousness that quite takes you aback
Psychokinesis (2018)
From the director of Train to Busan, this starts out as a psychic powers film before becoming a South Korean superhero film. Made with a nicely grounded realism that makes refreshing contrast to the bombast of the MCU et al.
Psychomania (1963)
Interestingly torrid 1960s psycho-thriller featuring a number of then unknown faces
Pulse (1988)
Modest and underrated film where the electrics all around start conspiring against people with murderous intent
Pulse (2001)
From Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a ghost story that creates an incredibly haunted atmosphere. As with most of Kurosawa’s work, dazzling ideas sit alongside a murky and impenetrable plot where you are baffled trying to make sense of what is happening
Punisher: War Zone (2008)
The Punisher (2004) with Thomas Jane was a dud among the 2000s Marvel Comics adaptations. Here the role is recast with Ray Stevenson and director Lexi Alexander gets the dark, violent tone of the comic-book right
Puppetmaster (1989)
The first in a series of killer doll films from Charles Band, which has generated some ten sequels. The original has an undeniable atmosphere
Puzzlehead (2005)
Interesting and well-made low-budget film about a scientist who builds an android duplicate of himself that starts to gain its own independence
Pyewacket (2017)
Chillingly effective film where a teenage girl casts a spell to kill her mother, only to become terrified and try to turn back what she has unleashed
Q Planes (1939)
British air adventure story with Ralph Richardson trying to stop an enemy armed with a raygun and all played with an appealingly eccentric comic tone
Quarantine (2008)
English-language remake of the Spanish Found Footage film [Rec]. A lesser work but in the hands of John Erick Dowdle one of the few English-language horror remakes that stands up to the original
Quatermass (1979)
The fourth and final of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass stores, which shows the professor as an old man in decaying future Britain trying to deal with an alien force manifest through ancient megaliths. A surprisingly bleak and cynical end to the saga but still with the greatness of Kneale’s writing
Quatermass 2 (1957)
The second of the Quatermass films. An alien body snatchers tale that suggests even the British government has been infiltrated. This is regarded by many as the best of the series
The Quatermass Experiment (2005)
A remake of the first Quatermass story conducted as a live broadcast tv movie. Quite a considerable technical achievement considering the limitations and one that works with quite reasonable results
The Queen of Black Magic (2019)
Kimo Stamboel, one half of the Mo Brothers, solo directs a film about an orphanage where deviltry and horrors are stirred on a return visit by children who were raised there
Queen of Blood (1966)
Another of Roger Corman’s films reusing footage from Soviet SF films. Director Curtis Harrington gives the tale of a spaceship crew who bring on board an alien vampire woman an eerie otherworldliness
The Queen of Spades (1949)
Classic British adaptation of the Alexander Pushkin’s story about a soldier who seeks the secret of selling one’s soul for a winning hand at cards
Quest for Love (1971)
One of the rare cinematic ventures into alternate history, a British film adapted from a story by John Wyndham. This holds up as a fair and reasonable alternate history outing, driven by a strong and original romantic story
A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
The third in the trilogy of A Quiet Place films, this is a prequel that takes us back to the start of the invasion
A Quiet Place in the Country (1968)
Strange, artistically stylised almost giallo film with Franco Nero as a frustrated artist blurring into visions from the past
Quills (2000)
Philip Kaufman conducts a biopic of the Marquis de Sade (played by a manic Geoffrey Rush) and how he continued to publish despite being confined to an asylum. This then becomes a debate about modern censorship
Raaz (2002)
The rarity of a Bollywood horror film. This blatantly steals the plot of What Lies Beneath but spins it through the Bollywood formula with the addition of songs and much implied sensuality to create something unique
Raaz Reboot (2016)
For some reason, The Exorcist is hugely popular in Bollywood horror – this is the fourth in a series of otherwise unrelated films about possession. The film conducts its borrowings not unentertainingly and is boosted by a script that turns what we think is happening on its head with quite a degree of dexterity
Rabbit Trap (2025)
Another entry in the burgeoning Folk Horror genre, a moody work about a couple of musicians living in the Welsh countryside in the 1970s who befriend a very mysterious boy who shows them the secrets of the landscape
Rabid (1977)
The fourth film from David Cronenberg, a clear (although by no means uninteresting) attempt to repeat the success of Shivers with Marilyn Chambers as a woman with a vampiric skin parasite that turns victims into maddened killers
Rabies (2010)
Billed as Israel’s first horror film, this is more a dark and violent film that delights in taking a crosscut of characters and mercilessly putting the screws on them
Radio Flyer (1992)
Rare flop from Richard Donner, a Coming of Age story where a young Elijah Wood receives visions from a buffalo and dreams of flying away from an abusive childhood
Radio Free Steve (2000)
Wacky offbeat film about a group that set out across post-apocalyptic terrain in search of a pirate radio signal
Radius (2017)
This comes with a fascinatingly original premise – man wakes up with complete amnesia and finds that he has the ability to kill anyone within thirty feet of him. The case of a film that holds attention with a captivating and unusual plot and a series of constant whiplash reversals
Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (2015)
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, a scene-for-scene remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark, shot on video by two teenagers over seven years, has become the stuff of legend. This is a documentary about its making, filled with hair-raising story of seat of the pants filmmaking
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
I had a lot of liking for Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph, a depiction of the inside of a videogame from the viewpoint of the characters. This expands the concept to the internet. Despite being the ultimate product placement film, this also rather appealingly shows Disney poking fun at themselves
The Rambler (2013)
A man just out of jail leaves his wife after an argument and starts hitch-hiking. And then things start to get really weird
The Ranger (2018)
Slasher film with a diabolically funny sense of humour as a psychopathic park ranger stalks a group of partying punks
The Raven (1935)
An entertainingly madcap screen pairing of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi with the latter as a Poe-obsessed surgeon who has built a house of Poe-inspired torture devices
The Raven (1963)
The fifth of the Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe films. By this point, there was a clear desire for some novelty so this one is played as a comedy between duelling magicians
Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan (2011)
A documentary devoted to the life and films of stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen whose films, which include the Sinbad films and Jason and the Argonauts, have gained a cult following
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
The 59th animated film from Disney emerges as a modest effort with a cross-Asian cultural focus that eventually builds a strong character arc
Raze (2013)
Fifty girls have been abducted and are paired off and forced to fight to the death with their bare hands in an arena – essentially Saw by way of Girlfight. A tautly streamlined and grittily effective effort that succeeds modestly well at everything it sets out to do
Re-Cycle (2006)
A film from the Pang Brothers in which a heroine enters into an extraordinarily conceived fantasy world that would appear to be taking place in her own imagination
Re-Kill (2015)
The zombie film has become creatively exhausted of recent – this is one original treatment, mocked up as a reality tv show like Cops, following soldiers into infestation zones, all interspersed with a series of witty commercials
Ready or Not: Here I Come (2026)
Ready or Not was a reasonable hit with audiences. Now Samara Weaving and the same creative team are back with a sequel that expands the game and polishes the black humour to a point of perfection
Real Genius (1985)
Highly enjoyable comedy set among the hi-tech hijinks of a group of university science geeks. Val Kilmer owns the show in his second screen performance
Real Men (1987)
A really strange comedy where John Ritter is dragged away by Jim Belushi who claims to be a spy supposedly dealing with aliens
Reality (2014)
A film from Quentin Dupieux that comes in a series of quirky intersecting stories where the dreams and films different characters are watching/making keeping blurring together in mind-boggling ways
Realive (2016)
Strong and worthwhile film about the first man woken from cryogenic suspension in the future. A film from Alejandro Amenabar’s regular co-writer, the writer of Open Your Eyes
[Rec]3: Genesis (2012)
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Third entry in the Spanish Found Footage series. The Found Footage look is abandoned soon in but this decides to have fun and turns out the gore-drenched goods
Reckless Kelly (1993)
The second of the films directed, written by and starring Yahoo Serious where he plays a descendant of Australian outlaw Ned Kelly who discovers fame in Hollywood
The Reconstruction of William Zero (2014)
A low key but modestly effective film where an amnesiac man comes to the gradual realisation that he is a clone
Recreator (2012)
Unknown, no-name film that proves an unexpected surprise. Three friends go camping on an island are are stalked by cloned doppelgangers of themselves. Economically constructed, full of twists and undercurrents and a fine set of double performances
Rectuma (2003)
The sort of film that might make Troma radioactive green with envy they didn’t make it concerning a giant rampaging ass. Mind-boggling and willing to be stupid and in frequent bad taste
Red 11 (2019)
Robert Rodriguez made his first film for $7000 and repeats the same here to show anyone can do it. The result is a wild, mind-bending work loosely based on his own experience as a human test subject in drug trials
Red Planet (2000)
One of a spate of scientifically grounded Mars movies that came out in 2000, featuring a space mission crew stranded on the planet
Red Room: The Forbidden King Game (1999)
Extremely twisted Japanese film that plays out like a conceptual mix of Saw and Fear Factor (even though it predates either) wherein contestants are locked in a room and get to challenge each other to engage in more and more extreme acts against the other
Red Shift (1978)
TV adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Alan Garner of the mysterious connections between three stories that take place in different historic eras
Red Sonja, Queen of Plagues (2016)
Surprisingly good animated revival of Robert E. Howard’s warrior woman with a script by comic-book writer Gail Simone that gets the character just right
Redux Redux (2025)
A strong and intelligent multiverse film filled with some great twists where a woman travels across multiple worlds to track down and kill different versions of the man who murdered her daughter
Reeker (2005)
An initially low-assumption film that rapidly becomes highly watchable thanks to some way out jumps and creature appearances that propel it into real WTF territory. Where it falters is its arrival a well and truly cliched twist ending but the ride there is undeniably memorable
Reflection in a Dead Diamond (2025)
An extraordinarily stylised homage to the 1960s spy movie, which strips everything down to a series of provocative, stylised high-end fashion poses. The visuals in the film are quite extraordinary
Reflections of Murder (1974)
This tv movie was the first English-language remake of the classic French thriller Les Diaboliques. It follows the original closely and still works effectively, although being shot in colour rather than black-and-white lacks the stark tension. Sam Waterston gives a performance of amazing cruelty as the husband
Reign of the Supermen (2019)
Second half of the two-part animated adaptation of The Death of Superman, which depicts the aftermath where Metropolis is puzzled over the appearance of four impostors all claiming to be the real Superman
Relic (2020)
A beautiful slow burn of a film that avoids almost any labels one tries to apply. It could be a film about dementia, it starts out seeming like a work about a haunted house but refuses to adhere to any of the tropes and instead heads for a remarkable and unique place of its own
The Reluctant Dragon (1941)
One of the more obscure films in the Disney catalogue. A part live-action, part animated dramatised tour of Disney Studios, showing how the studio runs and screening several animated short pieces
Reminiscence (2021)
Lisa Joy, co-creator of tv’s Westworld, directs a work of future noir in an ingenious plot involving a memory recording device and Hugh Jackman obsessed with a missing woman
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)
Film adaptation of the popular Destroyer novels about a martial arts super-spy that proves enjoyably tongue-in-cheek. Clearly launched as an attempt to make another James Bond type series, this was not successful but is so appealing you wish had it been
Rent-a-Pal (2020)
Horror film about a downtrodden man tending a dementia-ridden mother who encounters a video friendship service where Wil Wheaton proves a cheery but increasingly disturbing new best friend
Repeat Performance (1947)
Unusual fantasy film where a woman is allowed to replay the last year again and tries to prevent it ending in her shooting her husband
Repeaters (2010)
Groundhog Day with drug addicts – a familiar timeloop scenario that makes for a reasonable story about redemption and reconciliation
Replace (2017)
Undeniably creepy film co-written by Richard Stanley about a woman with a skin condition who finds she can only return to normal by stealing the skin from others
The Replacement (2017)
Mini-series made for the BBC that seems to have closely studied the late 80s/90s psycho-thriller – Fatal Attraction, Single White Female. Morven Christie is a pregnant mother who takes a leave of absence from work only to discover that her replacement appears to be plotting to kill her
Replicant (2001)
Halfway reasonable Jean-Claude Van Damme film in which he plays the clone of a serial killer who is brought to life in attempt to track down the original
The Reptile (1966)
Classic Hammer film in which Jacqueline Pearce turns into a snake creature. This seems to have been conceived as one of Hammer’s Dracula films but with snakes. It is given more than reasonable atmosphere by director John Gilling
Requiem for a Vampire (1972)
The fourth of the works of arty vampire erotica from cult director Jean Rollin. Rollin has discovered more in the way of plot by this point, while the film has a beautifully dreamy fairytale-like quality
The Resident (2011)
The second effort from the revived Hammer Films, which creates some reasonable creepy effect in the story of Hilary Swank dealing with Jeffrey Dean Morgan as a stalker landlord after moving into a dream apartment
Resolution (2012)
Starting out as a gritty intervention drama, for some time this is not even a horror film. In the background are suggestions of increasingly more disturbed happenings until the film becomes something eerily cryptic – sort of The Evil Dead by way of The Picnic at Hanging Rock
The Resurrected (1992)
Alien scripter Dan O’Bannon jumps aboard the 80s/early 90s fad for H.P. Lovecraft adaptations is this directorial outing that eventually develops quite reasonable effect
Resurrection (1999)
Quite reasonable serial killer thriller, undeniably influenced by Se7en, with Christopher Lambert tracking a killer who believes he can resurrect Christ
Resurrection Man (1998)
Strong and effective film set against the backdrop of The Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s depicting a gang of psychopaths that killed and tortured people on the streets
The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler (1971)
This has the distinction of being the first film to depict cloning. An edgy conspiracy thriller where Senator Bradford Dillman wakes in a secret medical facility that clones important people
Retroactive (1997)
Modest and halfway reasonable variant on Groundhog Day with a group of people caught in the same loop of time where everything manages to go wrong each time
The Return of Captain Invincible (1983)
Witty and overlooked parody of the superhero with Alan Arkin as a retired superhero trying to get back into the game. Made before superhero films became big and has a number of charms that were ahead of its time
The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (1930)
The second of the films made about the Chinese super-villain Fu Manchu, the first made in sound. This is where the film series started to find itself, turning in some superlative thrills and a wonderful battle of wits between hero and villain. Pulp thrills at their best
The Return of Dr Mabuse (1961)
The first of five West German-made sequels featuring Fritz Lang’s great criminal mastermind Dr Mabuse, who this time is masterminding a plot to create mind controlled zombies
The Return of Dr X (1939)
Not a sequel to Doctor X despite the title, The main footnote this has is that it stars Humphrey Bogart as a vampire lab assistant. Halfway reasonable despite a bad reputation.
Return of the Living Dead III (1993)
Brian Yuzna’s entry is the only worthwhile effort among the sequels to Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Deadwhere Yuzna adds an original plot about a zombie girlfriend and the film is spiked with perverse imagery
The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994)
The third sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Usually reviled by fans, this is not unworthwhile, capped by a genuinely insane performance from a then-unknown Matthew McConaughey
Returner (2002)
Japanese SF film that makes a rather enjoyable magpie collage out of a Terminator time travel action plot married to John Woo and Matrix action stylistics
Revealer (2022)
This sells you with its concept – a stripper and a religious fundamentalist are trapped together in a peepshow as the apocalypse occurs – and works surprisingly well
Revelation Trail (2013)
Quite well made effort that throws zombies into a Western setting
The Revenant (2009)
Not to be confused with the high-profile Leonardo DiCaprio film, this is a rather amusing film about a soldier who returns home as undead. Rather than the usual zombie/vampire film one would expect, this develops a wonderfully sustained sarcastic tone to expand out as a kind of undead Boondock Saints
Revenge of the Creature (1955)
The first sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon where The Creature is brought back to civilisation. Director Jack Arnold again creates sympathy and pathos for the monster
Revolt (2017)
Modestly effective film with an amnesiac soldier trying to make his way across Africa in the aftermath of an alien invasion. Featuring some fine and well staged effects
Riddick (2013)
The third Riddick film abandons the dark space opera of the less popular Chronicles of Riddick and tries to return to the planetary survival story of Pitch Black. Despite the effort showing at times, the film gets to be a good deal of fun when it gets to the scenes of Riddick outwitting the mercenaries
Rideshare (2018)
Jumping aboard the contemporary fad for companies like Uber, this concerns a psychopathic driver who sarcastically ridicules his customer before proceeding to kill them. Pleasingly dark and twisted and decidedly u-PC at times
Ring (1998)
Kaidan eiga (Japanese ghost story) that was a huge hit, spawning several sequels and an English-language remake, plus a horde of imitators. For all its reputation, the film is often crude, nevertheless does evince an eerie atmosphere