Asterix and Obelix Vs. Cesar (1999)
Comic-Book Character
The first of the live-action films based on the famous comic-books set during the Roman period, starring Gerard Depardieu who seems born to play the part of Obelix
Film Series and Sequels
Asterix at the Olympic Games (2008)
Comic-Book Character
The third of the live-action Asterix films starring Gerard Depardieu as Obelix. This faithfully replicates the look and visuals of the original comic-books as the two head off to the Olympics
The Astro-Zombies (1968)
Mad Scientist Creates Zombies/Classic Bad Movie
A real Grade Z film. A mind-boggling stew involving John Carradine conducting mad science experiments, technical gaffes aplenty, spy capers featuring Tura Satana and even M.A.S.H.‘s Wayne Rogers on script
At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964)
Malevolent and Sadistic Undertaker
Brazil’s Ze do Caixao or Coffin Joe is one of the most evil characters ever created on film, spearheaded by director/star Jose Mojica Marins’s contempt for the weak and catalogue of brutalities and blasphemies
Atlantic Rim (2013)
Asylum Mockbuster/Giant Robots vs Giant Monsters
When Guillermo Del Toro made Pacific Rim, The Asylum conducted their own copy simply by switching US seaboards. While not exactly Oscar quality, this is one of The Asylum’s better mockbusters
Atlantic Rim: Resurrection (2018)
Asylum Mockbuster/Giant Robots vs Giant Monsters
When Guillermo Del Toro made Pacific Rim, The Asylum switched US seaboards to make Atlantic Rim. With the release of the Pacific Rim sequel, The Asylum followed in kind
Atlantis: Milo’s Return (2003)
Disney Animation Sequel
Another shabby Disney video-released sequel, in this case to Atlantis the Lost Empire. The result looks like three episodes of an unsold tv series slapped together to sell as a film
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Disney Animation/The Quest for Atlantis
One of the less successful films of the Disney renaissance of the 90s/00s. Disney has never done well with animated SF. That aside, this a very nicely animated Steampunk adventure
Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike (2012)
Libertarian Political Fantasy/Ayn Rand Adaptation
The second film from Ayn Rand’s libertarian fantasy. This gets more into the meat of Rand’s ideas (wherein the wealthy decide to ignore an undeserving world) and is even more ridiculous than the first film
Atlas Shrugged III: Who is John Galt? (2014)
Libertarian Political Fantasy/Ayn Rand Adaptation
The third of the trilogy of films adapted from Ayn Rand’s absurd fantasy wherein the leaders of the business world decide to go on strike because they don’t feel appreciated enough
Atlas Shrugged (2011)
Libertarian Political Fantasy/Ayn Rand Adaptation
The first in a three part film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novel that makes a heavy-handed and frequently tub-thumping argument for the virtues of selfishness and despisal of any rules of fairness
Atom Man vs. Superman (1950)
Serial/Comic-Book Superhero
This fifteen chapter serial was the second ever Superman film. It is a vigorously entertaining run through the comic’s basics and features the first screen appearance of Lex Luthor
Atomic Rulers of the World (1965)
Japanese Superhero Film
The US release of several short Japanese films featuring the superhero Starman. Cheap and entertainingly absurd, filled with tatty superheroics and laughable science
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)
Genre Spoof
One of the original genre parodies, a very silly and amateurish film that also manages to be occasionally quite funny. Three sequels and an animated tv series followed
Attack of the Monsters (1969)
Japanese Monster Movie
The fifth of the Gamera films, Japanese monster movies that are made for children. This abandons the relative realism of the earlier films for a colourful silliness with frequently lunatic results
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
Spy Movie Spoof
Third of the Austin Powers films and the point where the amusements of the other films topples over into a pandering indulgence to Mike Myers’ mugging, which is allowed to overtake the whole show
Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery (1997)
Spy Movie Spoof
The first of Mike Myers’ Austin Powers films is at times extremely silly and scatological but does offer a knowing and witty parody of the James Bond films. The result became a cult phenomenon
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
Spy Movie Spoof
The second of the Austin Powers films is less sharp in its parody of the James Bond film and more focused on a series of broad scatological gags. Mike Myers owns the show in a trio of entertainingly gregarious performances
Avatar (2009)
War Between Human Colonists and Aliens
James Cameron’s film was a smash phenomenon. Cameron has relocated the plot of Dances With Wolves on another planet and uses motion capture to create one of the most dazzlingly realised alien worlds on film
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)
War Between Human Colonists and Aliens
James Cameron makes a third venture into the world of Pandora. The question is whether he finds any new territory to explore. What you cannot deny is that he creates a pretty and absorbing picture out of it all
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
War Between Human Colonists and Aliens
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)
Marvel Comics Superhero Team-Up
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
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Marvel Comics Superhero Team-Up
The first Avengers film came with a massive anticipation in seeing the characters come together and the snappiness of their interplay; here this seems more flat, while the rest is overrun by wall-to-wall action
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Marvel Comics Superhero Team-Up
Marvel conclude the cliffhanger they left Avengers: Infinity War on and offer up a bigger-than-big line-up, overspilling with just about every MCU character to ever appear on screen up to that point
Avengers Grimm: Time Wars (2018)
Team-Up Between Fairytale Princesses
Released at the same time as Avengers: Infinity War, this was a mockbuster from The Asylum involving a team-up between fairytale characters. The third in their Avengers Grimm series
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Marvel Comics Superhero Team-Up
Marvel’s third Avengers film, uniting almost every superhero under their roof, resulting in some thirty characters on screen and a plot that becomes a blur of changing locations and superheroic punch-ups
AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
Alien/Predator Series' Crossover
Beginning as fan mill speculation, 20th Century Fox finally brought their Alien and Predator franchises together on the screen here. The result is an okay effort in the hands of Paul W.S. Anderson, even if it never has the grueling intensity of the early entries in either series
AVPR: Aliens vs Predator Requiem (2007)
Alien/Predator Series' Crossover
Second of the Alien/Predator crossovers and the absolute nadir of either series. Gone is the suspense of either series’ earlier entries and the creatures are now no more than standard monsters in a teen horror film
The Awful Dr Orloff (1962)
Killer Surgeon
The first film from prolific horror and exploitation director Jesus Franco to which he would later make four sequels. This is a blatant copy of the French Eyes Without a Face served up with little directorial flair
Babe (1995)
Talking Animals
Runaway hit produced by George Miller of Mad Max fame that conducts what in any other terms would be an animated talking animals film in live-action with CGI and animatronics. The results are utterly charming.
Babe: Pig in the City (1998)
Talking Animals
For this sequel to the hit talking pig film, producer George Miller of Mad Max films fame steps into the director’s chair. However, the cuteness of the original promptly becomes buried under careening slapstick
Baby Blood (1990)
Woman Impregnated by a Blood-Drinking Parasite
A wildly deranged and gore-drenched ride. Imagine Rosemary’s Baby with an Alien chesburster where a woman is impregnated by a parasite that maintains a monologue as it urges her to kill and drink blood to feed it.
Baby Geniuses (1999)
Intelligent Baby Conspiracy
Film set around the premise that babies are secretly geniuses and talk in their own language. This makes a beeline for pee and poop jokes and seems to think we should applaud it for the cutsieness of seeing babies doing adult things
The Babysitter (2017)
Satanic Babysitter
McG has now become the new inheritor of the title of worst director currently at work in Hollywood, as amply evidenced in this ridiculous film starring Samara Weaving as a Satanist babysitter
Back to the Future (1985)
Time Travel
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)
Time Travel
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
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Time Travel
Third of the Back to the Future films, which takes everything back in time to the Old West. Probably the slightest of the trilogy, this nevertheless goes out with a rousing farewell
Bad Kids of Crestview Academy (2017)
High School Detention Slasher
Sequel to the sarcastically amusing Bad Kids Go to Hell, which is set at the same school a few years later as someone starts eliminating people in detention
Balto (1995)
Animation/Talking Husky Dogs
One of the better animated films produced by Amblin, this is based on the true story of a husky rescue in Alaska, albeit turned into a film where the dogs now talk
Bambi II (2006)
Disney Animation/Talking Animals
One of the better video-released Disney sequels churned out during the 90s/00s, this finds some of the innocence of the original even if it never scales the same heights
Bambi (1942)
Disney Animation/Talking Animals
One of the unquestionable classics from Disney’s Golden Age of animation between 1939 and 1942. This is an absolute delight for its unalloyed innocence and tragically affecting emotions
Banlieue 13 (2004)
French Future Action/Walled-Off Neighbourhood
Luc Besson written/produced film that is a French rehash of Escape from New York but director Pierre Morel gives it a series of exhilarating action and parkour sequences
Banlieue 13: Ultimatum (2009)
French Future Action/Walled-Off Neighbourhood
Sequel to the French action hit. The plot shuffles the same basic elements around but it is the action we have come for, which is slow to start but soon kicks into exhilarating high gear
Barbarian Queen (1985)
Sword and Sorcery
One of a series of low-budget sword-and-sorcery films of the 1980s. This predates both Red Sonja and Xena with its depiction of a fierce warrior woman. Produced by Roger Corman
The Bare Wench 3: Nymphs of Mystery Mountain (2002)
Softcore Blair Witch Spoof
Another in the interminable softcore Blair Witch parodies with a group of minimally talented and clothed bimbos wandering around the woods and failing to take proceedings seriously
The Bare Wench Project (1999)
Softcore Blair Witch Spoof
Following the success of The Blair Witch Project, this was an excruciatingly lame softcore parody with a group of girls tramping in the woods finding almost any excuse to undress and conduct sex-related takes on Blair Witch
Bare Wench Project 2: Scared Topless (2000)
Softcore Blair Witch Spoof
The Bare Wench Project was an inane softcore parody of The Blair Witch Project. This is the first of four sequels in which another troupe of girls go wandering in the woods while finding almost any opportunity to take their clothes off
Bartok the Magnificent (1999)
Talking Bat's Adventures/Animation
Animator Don Bluth conducts a spinoff from his previous film Anastasia, focusing on the adventures of the talking bat sidekick
Basic Instinct (1992)
Psycho-Sexual Thriller
This slick eroticised thriller was a huge success and made the career of Sharon Stone. The absurd plot bears no resemblance to human motivation but Paul Verhoeven makes an undeniably provocative and entertaining package
Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
Psycho-Sexual Thriller
Sequel to Basic Instinct made fourteen years later. Sharon Stone vamps her way across the screen but the heated sexuality of the original has been watered down to a lukewarm whimper
Basket Case 2 (1990)
Psychotic Siamese Twin/Gonzo Deformities
Frank Henenlotter takes the commercial route and makes a sequel to his no-budget cult film. A bigger budget allows the film to become a comic variant on Freaks featuring a series of way-out makeup effects
Basket Case 3 (1991)
Psychotic Siamese Twin/Gonzo Deformities
The third of Frank Henenlotter’s Basket Case films but by this point the perverse wit of the original has become replaced by a cartoonish absurdity
Basket Case (1982)
Psychotic Siamese Twin
Remarkable little no-budget film from Frank Henenlotter about the relationship between a man and the deformed, psychopathic torso of his severed Siamese twin
Bates Motel (1987)
Psycho TV Pilot Spinoff
Not the tv series, this is an unsold earlier tv pilot that attempted to spin a series off from Psycho, An ill-conceived disaster, the film’s clumsy
direction could not be further away from Alfred Hitchcock if it tried
Batman (1943)
Comic-Book Superhero/Serial
Batman’s first screen appearance in a fifteen-chapter serial. This is a dull, impoverished adaptation, which sees Batman and Robin rewritten in the service of the US government fighting a Japanese invasion force
Batman (1989)
Comic-Book Superhero
Tim Burton borrows from the dark brooding graphic novels of the era and gives us a beautiful, stunningly designed film that digs deep into the psychological recesses of the masks and funny faces
Batman and Robin (1949)
Comic-Book Superhero/Serial
Not to be confused with the Joel Schumacher atrocity, this was the second Batman film ever made, a 15-chapter serial. This is mostly worth watching as a novelty in its laughable attempts to approximate the superheroics of the comic-book in comparison to modern counterparts
Batman & Robin (1997)
Comic-Book Superhero
Possibly the worst film ever made on a big studio budget, Joel Schumacher’s follow-up to Tim Buton’s standout Batman films where he turns everything into an absurd Day Glo realm with a script for two year-olds, campy puns and badly overacting super-villains
Batman Begins (2005)
Comic-Book Superhero
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 Forever (1995)
Comic-Book Superhero
Tim Burton’s superlative duo of Batman films were wrecked after Joel Schumacher took up the director’s chair and turned the films into giant camp fests. Here he allows a madly overacting Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones loose as the villains
Batman Ninja vs Yakuza League (2025)
Batman Anime
A sequel to Batman Ninja, which offered an anime treatment of Batman. This gives us a bizarre alternate Yakuza-ruled Japan with versions of the Justice League working for them
Batman Returns (1992)
Comic-Book Superhero
The second of Tim Burton’s Batman films is even more beautifully dark and glistering than the first, introducing Michelle Pfeiffer as a sizzling Cat Woman and Danny De Vito as a venomous Penguin who respectively own the show
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
DC Comics Superhero Team-Up
It took DC Comics the better part of a decade to catch up with the massive success Marvel Comics are having on screen in crossing their characters over. Zack Snyder comes to the party offering up THE biggest headline double-bill in superherodom
Bats (1999)
Killer Bats
There has yet to be a decent killer bat movie. This redresses the balance somewhat by offering up CGI bat effects but otherwise falls prey to a cliche-ridden script
Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)
Planet of the Apes Sequel
The fifth and final of the original Planet of the Apes films. After four well worthwhile entries up to this point, a tired air infects this production as it assembles the elements in a haphazard clutter
Battle Royale (2000)
Deadly Elimination Game
An entertainingly violent Japanese comic-book of a movie in which a classroom of school pupils is abandoned on an island with weapons to eliminate one another. Frequently cited as the inspiration for The Hunger Games
Battle Royale II: Requiem (2003)
Deadly Elimination Game
This was the sequel to Battle Royale and ups the scale of the conflict but somewhere loses the gleeful fun of the original and strays off to become a war film
Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Space Opera
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
Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome (2012)
Space Opera/Web Series Prequel
Web-series/film prequel to the 2003-9 revival of Battlestar Galactica with a rookie Commander Adama arriving aboard the Galactica. Easily one the best of the Galactica spinoff films to date
Battlestar Galactica (1978)
Space Opera
The original Battlestar Galactica tv series was an incredibly blatant copy built on the success of Star Wars. This is the pilot, which aired on tv in the US but was released theatrically to theatres in other countries
Battlestar Galactica: Razor (2007)
Space Opera
A spinoff film from the Battlestar Galactica revival series that flashes back to tell the story of the divisive figure of Commander Cain, featuring fine performances and the series’ usual high level of writing
Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (2009)
Space Opera
This was the second of the films spun off from the 2000s Battlestar Galactica revival series, and ingeniously retells the events of the series as seen through the eyes of the Cylons
Beach Babes from Beyond (1993)
Alien Beach Bunnies
Prolific low-budget hack David DeCoteau directs what feels like a very softcore version of a Gidget film crossbred with Earth Girls Are Easy (albeit with the sexes reversed). A film that quickly sinks into awfulness
Beast of Blood (1971)
Filipino Exploitation Film/Mad Scientist
Third of the Filipino-shot Blood Island films. This has a slow first half before getting to what we expect of a Filipino monster movie – an overacting mad scientist, a cheesy monster, schlocky gore and gratuitous toplessness
Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time (1991)
The Beastmaster Comes to L.A.
Excruciating sequel to The Beastmaster that transports Marc Singer’s Dar to contemporary L.A. The whole film is wrecked by an attitude that seems unable to take the proceedings seriously.
The Beastmaster (1982)
Sword and Sorcery
Don Coscarelli, director of the culty Phantasm, made this as part of the early 1980s sword and sorcery fad with Marc Singer as a muscular hero who has the ability to communicate with animals
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Disney Animation/Fairy-Tale
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
Becky (2020)
Young Girl Fights off a Home Invasion
Essentially Home Alone as a horror film where Lulu Wilson gives a standout performance as a child who fends off a home invasion by escaped criminals led by Kevin James in a surprisingly effective villainous turn
Beetlejuice (1988)
Gonzo Afterlife Comedy
This was where the world took notice of Tim Burton in his second film. This throws the standard ghost story on its head with the dead trying to exorcise the living. The show is dominated by Burton’s wild set-pieces and Michael Keaton’s OTT title performance
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Gonzo Afterlife Comedy
After 36 years and several abortive attempts, Tim Burton, Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder reunite to make a sequel to Beetlejuice, but the essentials that fired up the young Burton now feel as they come by the numbers
Ben (1972)
Willard Sequel/Rats Amok
Sequel to the hit killer rat film Willard, which brings back the scene-stealing bad rat but kills the film off by pairing him with a nauseatingly cute kid
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
Planet of the Apes Sequel/Telepathic Mutants
The second and most underrated of the Planet of the Apes films. For a time it repeats the original but gains considerable imagination and a striking satiric bite with the introduction of the mutants
Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008)
Talking Dogs
One of the most inane talking animals film ever – the tale of a spoiled Beverly Hills dogs who has to make her way home after being abandoned in Mexico. Filled with excruciating slapstick and animals spouting smartass one-liners
Beware! The Blob (1972)
The Blob Comedy Sequel
A sequel to The Blob, although this plays everything for comedy. The one and only film directed by actor Larry Hagman, no less than J.R. Ewing of Dallas fame
Beyond Re-Animator (2003)
Re-Animator Sequel
The second sequel to the cult splatter hit Re-Animator is a superior effort to its predecessor, getting the original’s sense of black humour down pat and arriving at a memorably apocalyptic climax
Beyond Skyline (2017)
Alien Invasion
Skyline was a modest alien invasion film; this is a long-planned sequel. The new director has simply turned it into an action film and tediously deals with every alien encounter with gunfire, stunts and explosions
Big Top Pee-Wee (1988)
Overgrown Adolescent's Absurdist Adventures
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure proved a quirky hit and so Pee-Wee was spun out in this sequel. This lacks the zany touch of Tim Burton in the director’s chair, nevertheless has its own moments
Bigfoot vs The Illuminati (2020)
Gonzo Animation/Bigfoot Resurrected in Space
From the director of Trump vs the Illuminati, gonzo animation where Bigfoot and several resurrected historical figures fight off invading aliens that include Stalin, Aleister Crowley and Anubis
Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)
Time-Travelling Slackers Reach Middle-Age
The two time-travelling slackers are back after nearly thirty years and the film amusingly sees them having reached uneasy middle-age. But was the wait worth it?
Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)
Slackers in the Afterlife
The sequel to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure where the first film’s humour gets lost amid repetition and blown up by a big-budget. William Sadler’s Death however proves a scene-stealer
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)
Time-Travelling Slackers
A quirky hit that jumped aboard the 1980s popularity of time travel themes and laid into them with an appealingly offbeat eccentricity. The film that propelled Keanu Reeves onto become a star
Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
Spy Film
Third of the Harry Palmer spy films starring Michael Caine, which were made as a more grounded alternative to James Bond. Unfortunately, this has been placed in the hands of Ken Russell who overblows everything with a giddy eatravagance
Bird Box (2018)
Mysterious Catastrophe After Which People Are Forced to Not Look Outside
Very similar to A Quiet Place from several months earlier where here people cannot look outdoors and must remain blindfolded. Hindered by a frustrating lack of any explanations as to what is happening
Bird Box: Barcelona (2023)
Mysterious Catastrophe After Which People Are Forced to Not Look Outside
Bird Box was a hit on Netflix and this is a sequel. The talented Pastor Brothers take the basics of the original and actually make a much better film out of them filled with fine tension
Birdemic 2: The Resurrection (2013)
Bird Attacks
Birdemic was a cult bad movie – incredibly, despite the better budget that must have come his way, James Nguyen has gone and made the same thing filled with laughably flat dialogue and the worst effects ever seen on screen
Birdemic 3 – Sea Eagle (2022)
Bird Attacks
At one point, Birdemic had a bad movie cult that rivalled The Room. Whether we asked for it or not, this is a third film in the series. James Nguyen seems to think everybody has come for a lecture about Global Warming.
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008)
Bird Attacks/Cult Bad Movie
The new contender for the Worst Film Ever Made, this fully lives up to its reputation, full of astounding technical ineptitudes, bad acting and hilarious one-liners. A blatant ripoff of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds
The Birds (1963)
Birds Attack Humanity
Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film inspired a series of Nature’s Revenge films throughout the 1970s. Expectedly, Hitchcock creates masterful set-pieces but the most effective thing the film does is to remove explanations creating a work of anxious uncertainty
Black Mask (1996)
Masked Superhero/Hong Kong Action
A Jet Li vehicle that falls into the masked superhero genre where the show has taken a few leaves from the tv series The Green Hornet. Enjoyable fun with some exhilarating action sequences
Black Mask 2: City of Masks (2002)
Masked Superhero/Hong Kong Action
Tsui Hark takes over the directorial reins of the sequel, filling it with much more fantastical elements, pitting the hero against a mad scientist and his mutant creations in a series of wild martial arts scenes