After Alice (1999)
Clairvoyant/Serial Killer Thriller
Kiefer Sutherland is a detective investigating a serial killer who finds he is having clairvoyant dreams. A fairly routine thriller on all counts.
Clairvoyance and Precognition
Clairvoyance is a Psychic Power. It deals with the ability to foresee the future or detect information at a distance. This usually come in the form of the clairvoyant receiving visions that offer cryptic clues. There are clairvoyants in the real world that claim to offer aid to police investigations (although there are no cited examples where they have actually solved a crime).
From the 1970s, there have been a number of thrillers featuring clairvoyants. Most of these are detective stories in which an individual receives a vision of events that have or are about to happen and then tries to solve a mystery or prevent a tragedy from happening. These are in effect detective thrillers but where psychic insight is used instead of the investigation of clues. Since Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), there has also been a body of these films about psychics seeing through the eyes of a killer.
Other forms of precognition can come from dreams. Other works deal with fortune-tellers who see futures via tarot cards and crystal balls. There are a smaller number of films about people who are able to predict or see the future with the aid of some science-fictional device.
The Appointment (1982)
Precognitive Dream
A very obscure title, this is a fascinatingly enigmatic and arty film in which Edward Woodward has a dream of having a car crash that then starts coming true as he sets out
Arrival (2016)
First Contact with Aliens
Most SF films gloss over the issue of communication with aliens, having them either speaking English or with devices like Universal Translators. This is a superbly intelligent film that grapples with how to communicate with something different
Baffled! (1972)
Clairvoyant Thriller
A young and dashing Leonard Nimoy plays a clairvoyant racing driver in this unsold tv pilot. The disappointment is that his powers amount to no more than a detective deducing clues in a standard murder mystery
The Bank (2001)
Stockmarket Prediction Formula
Smart and intelligent Australian thriller about the invention of a stockmarket prediction formula. This digs its teeth into the banking industry with considerable bite
The Barefoot Executive (1971)
Disney Comedy/Precognitive Chimpanzee
Very slight Disney live-action comedy with Kurt Russell as a tv network mailboy with a chimpanzee that can predict which tv shows are going to be hits
Beneath (2007)
Smalltown Secrets
Girl returns to her hometown after many years, encounters family secrets, ghostly figures, clairvoyant visions. The film holds interest for a time as you try to figure out what is going on but eventually proves a letdown
Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
Epic Legend
An interesting and worthwhile attempt to retell the epic legend of Beowulf but to give it grounding as an historical work. Filmed in Iceland with an international cast
Black Adam (2022)
Superhero Film
An entry from the abortive attempt to create a DC Comics shared universe. Dwayne Johnson takes on the role of the DC’s anti-hero in a film that is far more fun than the recent Marvel offerings
The Black Dahlia Haunting (2012)
Ghost of Famous Unsolved Murder Victim
For the stew of elements this throws together – a famous unsolved murder case, ghosts, a blind psychic killer, possession, a sinister psychiatrist – it is surprising how dull the film that emerges is
The Black Phone (2021)
Imprisonment Thriller/Ghostly Telephone
Scott Derrickson delivers an eerie film from a Joe Hill story about a child who is abducted and imprisoned by a serial killer but then receives message from beyond the grave on an old telephone.
Black Rainbow (1989)
Fake Medium's Abilities Become Real
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
Book of Days (2003)
Book With the Dates of People's Deaths
Christian film in which insurance agent Wil Wheaton receives the title book containing the dates on which people are going to die and uses it to make his quotas
Breaking Dawn Part Two (2012)
Twilight Sequel/Vampire Romance
Perhaps the best thing about this is that the Twilight saga is finally ended. This provides a moderately spectacular showdown but also wraps its plotlines up with absurd deus ex machina wimp outs and an infuriating twist ending
The Butcher’s Wife (1991)
Magical Realist Romance
Amiable romantic comedy with Demi Moore as a clairvoyant who dispenses prophetic advice to everybody while caught in her own romantic entanglements
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919)
Sinister Hypnotist/German Expressionism
Classic film that was groundbreaking for its designs – all distorted and angular sets, exaggerated shadows – that became defined as German Expressionism and its tale of a sinister hypnotist
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (2005)
German Expressionism Remake
A remake of the silent German Expressionist classic that replicates the unique look and sets. Interesting, although it now emerges more like a film noir with artistic pretensions than the avant garde work the original was
Camera Obscura (2017)
Camera That Predicts Deaths
Modest horror film in which a photographer obtains a camera that predicts deaths before they happen – only to then find it predicts his wife’s death
Cassandra (1987)
Clairvoyance Thriller
An Australian clairvoyance thriller that seems to have substantially drawn its influence from Eyes of Laura Mars. The film was little seen when it came out and the uninvolved direction does little to draw us into what is taking place
The Cell 2 (2009)
Psychic Link with a Serial Killer
Sequel to Tarsem Singh’s The Cell that feels made by people who haven’t even seen the original. The original’s fascinating journey into dream terrain is replaced by a dull psychic with a link to a serial killer plot
Children of Dune (2003)
Desert World/Intergalactic Politics/Precognitive Messiah
Follow-up to the 2000 tv mini-series adaptation of Dune, this adapts Frank Herbert’s two books sequels, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. The production lacks the depth of its predecessor
Children of the Corn (1984)
Pagan Child Cult/Stephen King Adaptation
A fifteen page Stephen King story about a patricidal child cult has spawned this film, nine sequels and a remake. Not a very good film, this is stuck with padding a very slight original out to a full-length film
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009)
Young Adult/Vampire Wars/Circus of Freaks
Adaptation of a series of Young Adult books that should have emerged as Harry Potter made with the sensibilities of a Tim Burton. But the result fails to come to life in Paul Weitz’s hands
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Greek Mythology Adventure
This would be the last of the films made by stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen where he turns his creations towards conducting another Greek Mythology adventure. With an all-star cast playing the Greek gods.
Countdown (2019)
Mobile App That Predicts People's Deaths
This feels like the Final Destination franchise updated for the mobile user generation concerning a sinister app that predicts how long the user has to live
The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005)
Resurrected Avenger
The third of The Crow sequels, starring a miscast Edward Furlong as a resurrected trailer park kid. This has a bad movie ridiculousness that killed the series off
The Crow (1994)
Resurrected Avenger/Graphic Novel Adaptation
Overshadowed by the tragedy of star Brandon Lee’s death on set, this is a beautifully dark and glistening Gothic tale of a murdered youth revived from the dead to attain vengeance against his killers. Several lesser sequels followed
The Crow: City of Angels (1996)
Resurrected Avenger
The first sequel to The Crow extends the look of the original into an amazingly lit Goth designer world. However, the plot (an early work from David S. Goyer) is no more than a rehash of the first film
The Dark (1979)
Alien Monster
An absurd monster movie that was started by Tobe Hooper who walked off set whereupon it was completed by another director whereupon SF elements were added to sell it as a copy of Alien
Dark House (2014)
House of Evil/Backwoods Deviltry
The underrated Victor Salva, director of Jeepers Creepers, takes on the deviltry and occult film where with his ability to conjure eerie jumps and outlandish images produces something original and out of this world
The Dark Tower (2017)
Stephen King Adaptation/Portal to a Parallel World
Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman gives us an utterly mangled version of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series that has little resemblance to the books, yet makes little sense if you haven’t read them
Dead of Night (1945)
Horror Anthology
Celebrated British horror anthology, which tells five ghost stories and tales of the supernatural. All are strong stories with The Ventriloquist’s Dummy segment in particular having become regarded as a classic
The Dead Zone (1983)
Clairvoyance/Stephen King Adaptation
David Cronenberg adapts a Stephen King novel with Christopher Walken waking from a coma with clairvoyant abilities. An okay film if one that lacks the personal intensity and rich themes of Cronenberg’s original works
Deep Red (1976)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
Another of the giallo psycho-thrillers from Dario Argento in his heyday as David Hemmings is witness to a murder and tries to find the killer. As with Argento’s films of this period, focused around a series of stylish and sadistic dispatches
The Demon (1981)
Slasher Film
A South African-made copycat of Halloween with a figure in a black mask stalking women. Cameron Mitchell turns up as a weird clairvoyant hired to find one of the missing girls
Disaster Movie (2008)
Parodies of Various Films
The movie parodies of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, which consist of crude, witless gags run over replication of scenes from films of the last twelve months, are painfully unfunny. This doesn’t even spoof the disaster movie
Donnie Darko (2001)
Troubled Teen's Precognitive Visions
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 Echo (2011)
Precognition
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
Don’t Look Now (1973)
Precognition
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
Double Exposure (1981)
Psychic Link with a Killer
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
Dreamkeeper (2003)
American Indian Myths and Legends
Beautifully made and written Hallmark tv mini-series directed by Steve Barron that brings to life a variety of different Native American myths and legends
Dune (1984)
Desert World/Intergalactic Politics/Precognitive Messiah
David Lynch disowned his film version of the classic Frank Herbert SF novel. However, Lynch may be incapable of making a bad film and this, while acting freely with the book, has a visual grandeur that makes it highly watchable
Dune (2000)
Desert World/Intergalactic Politics/Precognitive Messiah
This TV mini-series remake of the Frank Herbert novel is much more faithful to the essence and complexity of the book, even if it lacks the visual resplendence of the film versions
Dune Part One (2021)
Desert World/Intergalactic Politics/Precognitive Messiah
Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic SF novel comes with a determination to give the story and its richly detailed world faithful life on screen. Villeneuve adapts freely in many areas but gets the complexity of the saga
Dune Part Two (2024)
Desert World/Intergalactic Politics/Precognitive Messiah
The second part of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic SF novel Dune, this delves more deeply into the world of the Fremen, although starts to diverge more from the book
Eclipse (2010)
Twilight Sequel/Vampire Romance
The third of the Twilight films. This extrudes the dramatic irresolution of the last film’s cliffhanger – should Bella marry Edward or does she really love Jacob? – with over-padded momentousness
Empathy (2007)
Clairvoyance Thriller
British clairvoyance thriller with an almost identical premise to The Dead Zone. Familiar material told with a modest effectiveness
Emperor Visits the Hell (2012)
Modernised Journey to the West
The idea of (some chapters of) the classic Chinese legend Journey to the West retold in contemporary terms. This makes for some amusing interpolations, while also acting as a social critique of modern-day Chinese society
Encanto (2021)
Disney Animation/Magical House
One of the best Disney animated films in some time. Set around a Colombian American family that have hereditary magic powers and live in a magical house, this comes with an enormous degree of colour and energy
The Eye (2002)
Woman Sees the Dead
Thailand’s Pang Brothers proved themselves some of the best horror directors in the world with this eerie film in which a woman starts to see the dead after receiving corneal implants. Several sequels and an English-language remake followed
The Eye (2008)
Woman Sees the Dead
An English-language remake of the ghost story from the Pang Brothers follows the other film faithfully but in terms of atmosphere is a pallid copy of the original
Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)
Psychic Link with a Serial Killer
Faye Dunaway is a fashion photographer who gains a psychic link into the mind of a killer. From a John Carpenter script but the thriller plotting is never up to the chic suggestiveness the film is given
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)
Harry Potter Spinoff
Third of the Fantastic Beasts films, this comes as a mix of ennui with the franchise and promise. It feels like about right now would be a good time to retire the series
Fear (1990)
Psychic Link with a Serial Killer
Fine copy of Eyes of Laura Mars from Rockne S. O’Bannon in which clairvoyant Ally Sheedy gains the ability to see through the eyes of a serial killer
Femme Fatale (2002)
Psycho-Thriller
Brian De Palma makes a return to the classic psycho-thrillers where he made his name, shouting virtuoso directorial flourish from the rafters and pulling off an amazingly contrived plot
Final Destination (2000)
Precognition/Doomed Air Crash Survivors
This spins the old plot about a clairvoyant dream of an airline disaster out as a teen horror film based around a series of bizarre novelty deaths. This became the first in a franchise of popular horror films.
The Final Destination (2009)
Precognition/Doomed Accident Survivors
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
Final Destination 2 (2003)
Precognition/Doomed Car Crash Survivors
The first of the sequels, this has a group receiving bizarre deaths after receiving a premonition that prevents a deadly pile-up on the highway. It reveals the problems of creating a sequel to a film that was never intended to be a series
Final Destination 3 (2006)
Precognition/Doomed Rollercoaster Crash Survivors
The original creative team behind the Final Destination series, James Wong and Glen Morgan, return for this sequel but only provide a routine series of bizarre novelty deaths following the premonition of a rollercoaster disaster
Final Destination 5 (2011)
Precognition/Doomed Bridge Collapse Survivors
The series drags another entry out set around the premonition of a bridge collapse. This one is played with such an enthusiasm for the bizarrely improbable deaths that it is one of the best of the sequels
Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)
Precognition/Descendants of a Doomed Survivor
A return to the Final Destination franchise after fourteen years, this comes with an undeniable sense of humour, producing a series of highly entertaining despatches to make the best entry in the series so far
First Light (1992)
Action/Psychic Soldier
Dreary action film with Michael Paré as a soldier with the army’s psychic warfare unit who is sent on a mission to rescue a girl from the hands of terrorists
5ive Days to Midnight (2004)
Briefcase from the Future
Mini-series with the intriguing premise of Timothy Hutton receiving a briefcase from the future with clues that foretells his death in five days time. This befalls utterly predictable handling and is padded out to fill a five-hour slot
Flesh and Fantasy (1943)
Fantasy Anthology
A really great and overlooked anthology of fantastical tales from the 1940s. The three stories told here by Julien Duvivier blow you away with their extraordinary visual stylishness
Fortunes (2005)
Fortune Teller's Prophecy/Indie Film
Frustratingly insipid indie slice-of-life film following three guys affected by a fortune-teller’s prophecy, this never surmounts the banalities of its characters’ lives
The Fourth Man (1983)
Precognitive Dreams/Deadly Seductress
One of the early films from Paul Verhoeven, an amusingly blasphemous tale that draws more than a little from Don’t Look Now with gay writer Jeroen Krabbe becoming wound into the dealings of femme fatale Renee Soutendijk
The Gemini Factor (1987)
Mysterious Link Between Twins
Modest and well-made British children’s tv mini-series about the mysterious psychic connection between two twins each unaware of the other’s existence
The Gift (1990)
Clairvoyant Youth
A modestly made BBC mini-series concerning a boy who discovers he has the titular gift of clairvoyant visions and how those around him try to exploit this
The Gift (2000)
Clairvoyant Murder Mystery
An uncommon misstep from Sam Raimi. Despite the fact he has a sterling cast onboard and a script from Billy Bob Thornton, the medium thriller plot rehashes comes out fairly bland
Gogol: The Beginning (2017)
Occult Investigator
The first in a trilogy of Russian dark fantasy films featuring the real-life horror writer Nikolai Gogol as an occult detective investigating a series of supernatural mysteries
Hanussen (1988)
Charismatic Clairvoyant/Hypnotist
Excellent film based on the real-life figure of Erik Jan Hanussen, a clairvoyant and hypnotist who found fame in Nazi Germany. Featuring a magnetic performance from Klaus Maria Brandauer
The Haunted Mansion (2003)
Haunted House Comedy
Lightweight film based around the Disney theme park attraction that becomes a Eddie Murphy comedy where he and his family enter a big old mansion that proves to be haunted
The Haunting (1963)
Haunted House
This is the finest haunted house film of all. In Robert Wise’s hands, the ghosts are unseen and only ever psychological and suggested – the results are terrifying. Adapted from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019)
True Crime/Precognitive Dreams
Released for the fiftieth anniversary of the Manson Killings, this details the attacks on Sharon Tate by the Manson Family. The film expands on the claim that Tate had a precognitive dream about what was going to happen
Hearts in Atlantis (2001)
Clairvoyance/Stephen King Adaptation
Another in the spate of serious Stephen King adaptations that seeks to avoid the horror label. Although psychic powers do feature, this is more of a wistful 1960s Coming of Age story
Heaven (1998)
Precognition
New Zealand-made film about criminal dealings also involving clairvoyance in a series of daring editing schemes that recall something of Don’t Look Now
Hercules (2014)
Greek Mythological Hero's Ordinary Exploits
Dwayne Johnson starring Hercules film that just wants to be a big dumb cartoon without a brain cell in its body. This takes the interesting approach that Hercules was an ordinary man whose exploits were all down to PR
Hideaway (1995)
Psychic Link with a Serial Killer
A Dean R. Koontz adaptation from the director of The Lawnmower Man, this is a numbingly predictable film in which Jeff Goldblum returns from the dead to find he has a psychic link with a serial killer
The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985)
Backroads Brutality
Wes Craven makes a sequel to his earlier Backwoods Brutality classic but the result is a mess that is all over the place and counts as one of Craven’s worst films
The House of the Spirits (1993)
Latin American Family Saga/Magical Realism
A star-studded but ponderous adaptation of Isabel Allende’s cross-generational family saga set in an unnamed South American republic that comes with Magical Realist elements
How I Became a Super-Hero (2020)
Superpowers Film
The title suggests either a comedic take on the superhero film or a teen film about a kid discovering superpowers. The least thing you expect this to be is a French police thriller about a unit investigating super-powered crimes
The Illustrated Man (1969)
Ray Bradbury Anthology
An anthology that adapts three stories from Ray Bradbury’s short story collection but does so with singularly heavy-handed regard. The best aspect of the film is the framing story with a brooding Rod Steiger in the title role.
Imagine That (2009)
Stock Predictions from a Child's Invisible Companions
Eddie Murphy in another of the lame flops that marked his career in the 2000s where he plays a stockbroker who gets stock tips from his daughter’s imaginary companion
Immortals (2011)
Greek Myth
A venture into Greek myth retelling the story of Theseus and the labyrinth. Tarsem Singh, a director with a visually extraordinary eye, lavishes everything on the sets and costumes. One film of the 3D overkill fad that needs to be seen in 3D
In Dreams (1999)
Clairvoyance Thriller
In one of his more mainstream films, Neil Jordan takes a leaf from Eyes of Laura Mars as Annette Bening gains psychic insight into the mind of serial killer Robert Downey Jr
In/Sight (2011)
Clairvoyance Thriller
There are few fantastic themes more tired than the clairvoyant thriller – a standard murder mystery where the detective just intuits all their deductions psychically. Apart from a couple of interesting twists, this is no different
The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells (2001)
Anthology of H.G. Wells Stories/TV Mini-Series
TV mini-series that adapts six less well known short stories by H.G. Wells into an anthology with Wells as the central character. A couple of good stories, some that never hit the mark
Inland Empire (2006)
Surrealism
David Lynch’s last theatrical films and probably the most divided of Lynch’s films. Another delve into cryptic surrealism that arrives at no clear plot destinations or clues about what is going on
It Happened Tomorrow (1944)
Newspaper That Predicts Tomorrow’s Headlines Comedy
A classic screwball comedy with Dick Powell as a journalist who becomes recipient of newspapers that predict tomorrow’s headlines. The same premise has appeared in a number of other works since.
Jack Be Nimble (1993)
Psychically Linked Brother-Sister
An over-the-top New Zealand-made Gothic horror with Alexis Arquette and Sarah Smuts-Kennedy as psychically connected brother and sister who set out on a quest to find their parents, killing all in the way
Jack the Ripper (1988)
Jack the Ripper Killings/TV Mini-Series
TV mini-series made for the 100th anniversary of the Jack the Ripper killings. While the show adheres more to the facts of the case of any filmed work up to that point and to have uncovered new evidence, it should be considered fiction
Jessabelle (2014)
Haunted Southern Home
Ghost story from one of the directors of the Saw sequels that settles in with halfway reasonable build-up, before being killed off by an improbable left field twist ending
Jubilee (1978)
Punk Future
Early Derek Jarman film that acts as a snapshot of the 70s punk movement, a rambling indulgent treatise that depicts a future England that has collapsed into anarchy
Kaboom (2010)
Modern Sexuality/Gonzo SF Ending
Gregg Araki film that centres around sexually conflicted university student Thomas Dekker and his various liaisons amid witches, a doomsday weapon, cults and premonitions
Krull (1983)
Sword and Sorcery
A big-budget fantasy film made too much in the shadow of Star Wars by people with little understanding of the genre. The fantasy elements feel leaden and fail to take any imaginative flight
Last Night in Soho (2021)
Ghosts of 1960s Soho
Edgar Wright creates a dazzlingly stylish recreation of 1960s London in a work with Thomasine McKenzie as a modern girl haunted by ghosts of the era’s dark underside
Let Me Die Quietly (2009)
Clairvoyance Thriller
Neo-noir variation on a clairvoyant murder mystery. This works well in terms of capturing an extraordinary sense of its the central character’s loneliness and melancholy
The Life of Chuck (2024)
Stephen King Adaptation
A Mike Flanagan adaptation of a Stephen King story, this received a great deal of acclaim, but comes with a very peculiar story structure that opens out into a series of unfolding revelations
Live and Let Die (1973)
James Bond vs Voodoo
The eighth James Bond film and Roger Moore’s debut in the role. This is one of the most variant Bond films also incorporating Blaxploitation and voodoo elements
London Fields (2018)
Near Future/Femme Fatale/Precognitive Dream
Based on an acclaimed book, once to be directed by David Cronenberg. This opened to bad reviews but is not uninteresting. A near future setting, precognitive dreams and Amber Heard as a sizzling femme fatale