10 Rillington Place (1971)
One of the best true crime films, a chillingly good account of British serial killer Reginald Christie with an excellent Richard Attenborough in the role
1408 (2007)
Very spooky Stephen King adaptation about a haunted hotel room. In contrast to other haunted house films, this is a one-man show that keeps itself minimally contained inside the room with considerable effect
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
Disney’s adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel is a lavishly produced period adventure. This became the definitive version of the book and inspired a string of other period-set Verne adaptations over the next decade
2010 (1984)
2001: A Space Odyssey did not need a sequel but this fits the bill surprisingly well. A warmer and much more human film than Stanley Kubrick made, this has some of the very best effects of its era.
2046 (2004)
An exquisitely dreamy Wong Kar Wai film as a man remembers his liaisons with various women. Only peripherally a science-fiction film concerning a story the protagonist is writing.
300 (2007)
Zack Snyder’s adaptation of the classic Frank Miller graphic novel about the Greek battle of Thermopylae. In replicating the look of the original’s panels, Snyder pushes what would otherwise be a standard historical film into something extraordinarily stylised and fantastic
5-25-77 (2022)
Forget The Fabelmans, this is a superlative autobiography of a filmmaker and the influence Star Wars had on his life. Neck-deep in fannish enthusiasm for the genre and the love of Super 8 filmmaking
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
78/52 (2017)
The shower scene in Psycho is probably the most famous single scene in cinema history. The idea of an entire documentary devoted to analysing a single scene is a bit of a head scratcher at first but quickly the analysis of film’s context and the hidden meaning of shots proves completely fascinating
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
One of the classic films from cult stop motion animator Ray Harryhausen, an Arabian Nights fantasy adventure where Harryhausen’s creations prove to be quite wondrous
9 (2009)
Extraordinary animated film from Shane Acker concerning the lives of a series of stitchpunk dolls as they try to make sense of the world in the aftermath of civilisation
The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971)
Droll, elegant camp masterpiece with Vincent Price giving the best performance of his life as a deformed madman employing the Biblical Plagues of Egypt as a motif to take revenge against the surgeons who killed his wife
The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)
One of the inspired delights from Disney’s live-action era, a hit that became the template for their subsequent live-action films. The scenes with flying vehicles and basketball teams are entirely charming.
The Abyss (1989)
James Cameron had mixed success with this alien contact film. Much of the show is designed to highlight Cameron’s interest in diving and the effects on display are spectacular but the film peters out at a peculiarly abrupt non-ending
Ad Astra (2019)
In the same vein as Gravity and The Martian, this depicts spaceflight with scrupulous scientific regard. Essentially Apocalypse Now in space with Brad Pitt on a mission to Neptune to find his father who has gone rogue
The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
A Philip K. Dick adaptation in which Matt Damon gets an accidental glimpse of the people that manipulate fate. This proves very satisfying on a conceptual and storytelling level
An Adventure in Space and Time (2013)
A film about the origins of Doctor Who made for the series’ 50th anniversary. This comes packed with pieces of fanservice and origins of various iconic aspects. David Bradley gives a wonderfully nuanced and moving performance as William Hartnell
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989)
Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of the adventures of the world’s greatest liar was another problem ridden Gilliam production that emerges as an absurd, colourful spectacle filled with a dizzying greatness of imagination
Afraid of the Dark (1991)
Quiet a remarkable film – on one level ostensibly a psycho-thriller about a killer targeting blind women before conducting a unique reversal of perception to reveal something else altogether
After Life (1998)
Entirely charming film from Hirokazu Kore-eda about a group of people who find themselves in the afterlife and their often comical attempts to deal with the situation
Alice in Wonderland (1933)
Studio adaptation that freely mixes elements from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and features an all-star cast line-up, this works far better than the purists would have it
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Disney’s animated adaptation is usually hated by Lewis Carroll purists for its free and easy treatment of the story but for everyone else comes with a splendidly demented visual absurdism
Alien3 (1992)
Third of the Alien films, a directorial debut for David Fincher. A better film than was perceived at the time, this explores new character depths, while Fincher imprints his own visual style on the film
All Of Me (1984)
One of Steve Martin’s finest works, a variant of the bodyswap comedy in which he finds himself sharing his body with Lily Tomlin. Martin’s on-screen contortions are side-splitting
All That Money Can Buy (1941)
Classic film about a lawyer arguing in court to save a man who has sold his soul to The Devil. On screen, this is turned into a highly entertaining sentimentalised Frank Capra-type film about American greatness
Allegro Non Troppo (1976)
An Italian-made homage to/parody of Fantasia offering an anthology of animated tales. This is witty and more adult in tone, yet perfectly charming and delightful in its own way
Alone with a Stranger (2000)
Excellent psycho-thriller in which family man William R. Moses has his life taken over by an evil twin. Filled with a series of gripping unexpected twists and tensions
Altered States (1980)
Ken Russell’s big studio-backed film about drug trips, the meaning of life and William Hurt reverting to a caveman is a glorious madcap and visually stunning work that reaches for the same cosmological grandeur that 2001: A Space Odyssey does
Amateur Porn Star Killer (2007)
Extraordinary Found Footage film from Shane Ryan shot from the viewpoint of a killer as he seduces and kills a girl. A quasi-pornographic film that makes us question our own complicity in what we are watching
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
One of the best among the modern Marvel Comics screen adaptations. All involved are at the absolute peak of their game and the balance of superheroic action, humour and tragedy makes you cheer at how well they get it right
Amer (2009)
An exquisitely directed homage to giallo cinema – a fascinating work that has been stripped of almost all dialogue that takes place on a purely visual level of sensation and body movement
American Movie: The Making of Northwestern (1999)
An unexpectedly hilarious documentary focused on regional filmmaker Mark Borchardt whose amateur filmmaking methods approach something of an Edward D. Wood Jr
American Perfekt (1997)
A surprisingly good road movie psycho-thriller focusing on various people travelling a desert highway where it becomes apparent that one of them is a serial killer
American Psycho (2000)
Mary Harron takes on Bret Easton Ellis’s controversial work about a yuppie serial killer and refines it to a blackly funny satire on 1980s pop culture and corporate greed
Anatomie (2000)
Extremely satisfying German medical thriller about a secret society that conducts illicit experiments. The film comes with a torturous suspense and goes way out on a limb in the gore department
Angel Heart (1987)
Dazzling mash-up of 1940s film noir and the horror genre. One of the most beautifully filmed of all horror films, Alan Parker creates a bygone world with a visual sensuality that constantly edges over into the fantastic
Annette (2021)
As a follow-up to Holy Motors, Leos Carax returns with of all things a musical. As might be expected of Carax, this is a wildly surrealistic film, not the least of which is one of the characters is a singing puppet
Anon (2018)
Andrew Niccol is one of the consistently intelligent and original directors out there. This, set in a world where mass surveillance has erased the concept of anonymity, is the most fascinating and original depiction of a future in some time
Antiviral (2012)
Brandon Cronenberg makes an impressive writing-directing debut, taking up the thematic reins of his father’s earlier films in a darkly satiric future escalation of contemporary celebrity culture
Antz (1998)
The first animated film from DreamWorks, a rather charming effort that takes place in an ant nest with Woody Allen perfectly voice cast as a nebbish ant who decides to defy the crowd
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022)
Richard Linklater makes a charming animated film about a kid selected for a secret Moon Landing. Most of all a film with a lovely nostalgia for growing up in the era of the Moon mission
Appleseed (2004)
A dazzling reboot of the earlier manga/anime made with stunning photorealistic animation design and breathtaking action scenes that made this a benchmark for modern anime. Sequels followed.
April and the Extraordinary World (2015)
Animated film that takes place in a Steampunk alternate history. This brims over with an extraordinary degree of visual invention from the amazingly detailed vistas of the world to a script tossing in quirky twists and wacky inventions
Aquaman (2018)
A few years ago Aquaman was regarded as a joke among superheroes. James Wan dispels any notion of Aquaman’s wimpiness in a series of jaw-dropping effects sequences that propel this ahead of anything the MCU is doing at the moment
Arabian Nights (1974)
Controversial director Pier Paolo Pasolini offers up a far more adult telling of the Arabian Nights than we are used to, not to mention one that goes on location in the real Arabia
Arabian Nights (2000)
Hallmark tv mini-series adaptation of the classic tales has been granted a decent budget that allows the stories to emerge with lavish spectacle and the fantasy to fly with exceptional regard
Arrietty (2010)
Studio Ghibli tackle Mary Norton’s classic books about a miniature family that live inside the walls of a house. Norton’s essential Englishness translates surprisingly well to anime and the results are quite magical
The Artifice Girl (2022)
One of the best of the recent spate of artificial intelligence films. A programmer creates an A.I. for the purpose of trapping sexual predators on the internet only to be faced with ethical questions about what he has created
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
The second film from John Carpenter, a powerful and effective work about a handful of police and prisoners trapped in a police station at siege from an all-out assault by gang members outside
The Astronaut Farmer (2006)
The Polish Brothers are a greatly underrated force in US filmmaking. Here they make a fine film with Billy Bob Thornton as an everyday farmer who decides to build and launch his own space rocket
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001)
A strong and powerful depiction of historic Inuit culture in the Arctic Circle, which has been shot and acted by Inuit people. Included here because of some Magical Realist elements.
L’Atlantide (1921)
The first and best film version of a classic story about an expedition finding the city ruled by an immortal queen in the desert. This was shot in the real locations and comes with a stunning sense of expansiveness
Automata (2014)
This Blade Runner-influenced work about robots that develop artificial intelligence is exceptional, featuring a particularly captivating last half with Antonio Banderas journeying with strangely alive robots
Avalon (2001)
Visually stunning live-action film from Mamoru Oshii, director of Ghost in the Shell, set in the beautifully stylised faded sepia tone world of a Virtual Reality game
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
James Cameron finally delivers his sequel to Avatar. Nothing could quite repeat the same phenomenon a second time but this does well with Cameron taking the opportunity to show more depth to his alien world
The Avengers (2012)
The culmination of one of the most ambitious cinematic exercises ever conducted, with Marvel weaving storylines through several films to finally merge here with flawless regard. The characters get far more depth than in all of their previous films
The Babadook (2014)
A film about childhood boogeymen that takes place as a work of psychological horrors, where everything could be happening in the imagination of a stressed mother’s collapsing mental state. An extraordinarily assured directorial debut
The Baby of Mâcon (1993)
Peter Greenaway film about a woman claiming her baby is divinely conceived. As fascinating for Greenaway’s constant visual games as for the film’s brutal taboo-defying impact
Babycall (2011)
Pål Sletaune is a Norwegian director who deserves more attention for his reality-bending surrealism. Here mother Noomi Rapace moves into new apartment where ghostly screams come through the baby monitor and she soon finds that she cannot be sure what is real
Back to the Future (1985)
This was a huge hit at the time and has become one of the most indisputable pop culture artifacts of its era. The film takes a clever time travel plot and infuses it with an effortless energy to prove a considerable winner
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
The first of the Back to the Future sequels has a whiplash ingenuity that propels us through several different scenarios, including a trip to the future, a dark alternate present and requiring Michael J. Fox to duck unseen in and around the margins of the first film
Backrooms (2026)
A fascinating word-of-mouth hit based on a YouTube series about the exploration of a labyrinth of extra-dimensional office rooms built on an eerily alien design scheme
Bad Influence (1990)
Fine Curtis Hanson psycho-thriller in which dull yuppie James Spader befriends charismatic psychopath Rob Lowe and is drawn into a series of taunting psychological games
Bad Taste (1988)
Peter Jackson first appeared with this no-budget splatter comedy. A miracle of DIY filmmaking, the film plays out like a live-action Roadunner cartoon where the creativity of Jackson’s home-made gore effects is positively ingenious
Badlands (1973)
Terrence Malick’s first film, very loosely based on the murder spree of Charles Starkweather, albeit one where Malick reinvents Starkweather and girlfriend Caril Fugate as innocents adrift in the great American landscape
Baise-Moi (2000)
Splendidly nasty French film that feels like Thelma and Louise by way of Natural Born Killers where two women pick up guns and go on a shooting spree against men who are abusive jerks. Directed by two women and cast with porn actresses, this holds little back
Barbarella (1968)
Charmingly capricious and silly adaptation of the comic-strip with a wide-eyed Jane Fonda as the spacegoing heroine. Filled with some wonderfully naughty gags and a production and costume design scheme that goes to a gorgeously deranged excess
Baron Munchausen (1962)
A version of the Baron’s tall tales from the great, underrated Karel Zeman. Zeman’s dizzying blend of live-action, animation and cutouts and deadpan absurdism is perfect, resulting in the best Baron Munchausen film to date
Barton Fink (1991)
Hollywood noir from the Coen Brothers, this takes us inside the crumbling mental state of a screenwriter in the 1930s. Like a David Lynch remake of Day of the Locust, this comes rich in the Coens’ black uncomfortable humour
The Bat (1926)
The first of the screen’s Old Dark House thrillers set around large mansions with the cast stalked by a masked killer. None of this prepares you for the utterly sensational visuals of this film, which leap off the screen with vivid effect
The Bat Whispers (1930)
Sound remake of the silent Old Dark House classic The Bat. This retains the original’s extraordinary visuals, including use of a mobile camera, something that was groundbreaking technology for the time in ways that still astonish today
Batman Begins (2005)
After Joel Schumacher killed off the cinematic Batman franchise, Christopher Nolan successfully revives it, bringing back the dark, psychologically brooding superhero and telling a Batman origin story
Batman: The Killing Joke (2016)
Adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel, one of the most famous comic-book titles of all time. The notoriously cranky Moore need have no reason to shun this film version, which recreates his work right down to preserving his dialogue and replicating the set-up of individual panels
Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Mini-series that reconstructs the old Battlestar Galactica into smart and intelligent SF with strong characters, a gritty realism and sensational effects. A tv series followed and became one of the best SF shows of the 2000s
The Beast (1975)
An exquisitely dreamlike erotic fairytale from cult director Walerian Borowczyk, a variant on Beauty and the Beast involving the liaison between a girl and a beast.
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
Extraordinary Sundance breakout hit that sits between a portrayal of a unique backwoods culture and a Magical Realist child’s eye viewpoint. A quite amazing film that announces one of the freshest directorial voices to emerge in ages
Beauties of the Night (1952)
Delightful and completely charming Rene Clair comedy about a daydreamer. A much better version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty than either of the official film adaptations
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
The start of the 90s renaissance of Disney animation, a beautifully made adaptation of the fairytale that hearkens back to the Disney Golden Age. The only animated film nominated for an Academy Award Best Picture
Beauty and the Beast (2014)
Adaptation of the fairytale that takes place in an exquisitely dreamy sumptuousness – a stunningly designed, costumed and photographed world that has a genuine magic. However, the motion-capture animated Beast looks far too much like a CGI effect
Bedlam (1946)
The last of the classic Val Lewton produced horror films, a work set around the true-life 18th Century asylum lorded over by Boris Karloff where an innocent Anna Lee is committed
The Beguiled (1971)
Underrated work of Southern Gothic with Clint Eastwood as a wounded soldier sheltered at a Confederate girl’s school during the Civil War where he succeeds in manipulating the sexual tensions of the teachers and schoolgirls to his advantage
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
What starts out as a seeming mockumentary about a serial killer turns into an hilarious deconstruction of the tropes and cliches of the slasher film. Imagine a film like Man Bites Dog crossbred with Scream
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Hilariously eccentric Spike Jonze-Charlie Kaufman collaboration in which John Cusack finds an office building that has a portal that takes someone through into actor John Malkovich’s head. The wacky spins that the script places on the idea are ingenious
Being There (1979)
The penultimate screen role of Peter Sellers, a sublimely deadpan satire in which he plays a gardener with the blank innocence of a child whose simple-minded utterances are taken as words of great profundity
Bellflower (2011)
Unclassifiable film about two fans trying to enact Mad Max fantasies. About the point when this delves down into a seriously disturbed mental space, the results are quite stunning
Big (1988)
The most charming among the spate of bodyswap fantasies of the 80s. Tom Hanks was Academy Award nominated for his role as a boy who makes a wish to “be big” and wakes up to find himself in a man’s body
Big Bad Wolves (2013)
Israeli film about a parent who abducts and tortures a man they believe responsible for killing their child. This proves immensely entertaining with its whiplash plot reversals and hilarious pepperings of black humour
The Bird People in China (1998)
An early Takashi Miike film that forsakes his usual ultra-violence and surreal weirdness for a genteel road movie through backwater China to the discovery of a lost culture
Birth/Rebirth (2023)
A standout modern variant on the Frankenstein film where two women conspire to cross waaay over medical ethic lines to revive a child from the dead
Black Death (2010)
Powerful film from Christopher Smith set during the Middle Ages about a group on a journey to a village where a priestess can purportedly raise the dead. The film’s skewering of faith in an unforgettable ending is stunning
Black Eyed Susan (2024)
From the extraordinary and underrated Scooter McCrae, a dark and very disturbing film about the development of a sex robot for men who like to beat and abuse women
Black Hollow Cage (2017)
Cryptic Spanish film that eventually coalesces into a unique time travel story, like a more enigmatic version of Timecrimes as we watch pieces of a beautifully wrought temporal jigsaw puzzle slot into place
Black Orpheus (1959)
An extraordinary film that offers a modern retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, relocating it amid the Rio Carnival with striking and colourful results
Black Rainbow (1989)
Enormously underrated film from Mike Hodges with Rosanna Arquette as a fake medium whose abilities start to become real. The quality of writing and Arquette’s performance is exceptional
Black Sabbath (1963)
The great Mario Bava directs a horror anthology of three tales, delivering each with considerable spooky atmosphere. The standout among these is The Wurdulak with Boris Karloff as a vampire preying on his family.
Black Sunday (1960)
Classic work that defined the Italian Gothic cycle of the 1960s and turned Barbara Steele into a cult actress. Mario Bava shoots vivid, incredibly atmospheric scenes in black-and-white in ways that no other director does
Black Water (2007)
Although overshadowed by the same year’s Rogue, this is another Australian killer crocodile film that racks up a remarkable degree of raw, seat-gouging tension in managing to confine its cast of three to a tree for the duration
Blade II (2002)
Blade was a solid vampire/action film but the sequel is a quantum leap over that, a visually kinetic and immensely exciting comic-book of a movie thanks to the employment of Guillermo Del Toro in the director’s chair
Blindness (2008)
A hugely underrated film that depicts the brutal collapse of society that occurs when the entire world is affected by a plague that causes blindness. Directed in strong and powerful images
Blood (2000)
One of the most impressive overhaulings of the vampire theme in recent years in which vampirism is treated as an addiction in which humans become hooked on the vampire’s blood