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In the end not as good as Days, which has the better filmmaking and less necessary plot contrivance. But boy howdy is this pleasingly nihilistic, and frankly an excellent London film that just about believably takes in Canary Wharf, Greenwich foot tunnel, bits of the City, Regents Park, the Bakerloo line and Wembley Stadium, with some surburban streets ahere adn there for good measure.

Not quite Aliens to Days' Alien, but it's aiming for that and getting real close, and you can't complain there's a lack of ideas to think about, characters to care about, and visceral thrills to hide from.

You will hear the phrase 'Lockdown' a lot, in the most triggering way possible.

Frustrating film which lurches from slightly dull grief/guilt horror with ghosts and minor jump scares as some kind of non-specific metaphor, to a spectacularly silly (but in a good way!) supernatural conspiracy thriller/SFX horror to a rather sweet children's TV movie horror.

Not a fair way to review any film, but if it had stuck to one of those three options all the way through it would be more satisfying overall; thankfully it did not stick to version 1, which drearily if competently takes up the entire first half.

That said, there's fun to be had in the literal line reading/face acting moment when the film turns from grief melodrama to nutty thriller, pretty much dead on the half-way mark.

Child's Play / Chucky is the best overall slasher film series, and after watching this documentary that is mostly about the making of the original 7 films, you'll believe it's because the people who made them (especially the writer and producer) are good and decent people who are willing to take a risks on messing around with plot and tone, while keeping a tight lid on things like the importance of good puppetry. And the belief that a killer doll can be both scary and funny in equal measure.

I had thought the film was going to be much more about the daughters of some of the key filmmakers and what it was like having a killer doll as a big part of thier lives growing up, but that kind of only comes up a little at the end, and there's no exploration of the idea that this might be weird/scary/discomfiting. And in the end, that's because it clearly is none of those things - people what make nasty pictures are often very lovely.

Ultimately, this documentary about the Child's Play movies is not quite as much fun as watching any one of those films. Which is as it should be, and is surely not true of most (all?) other big horror franchises...

Does that difficult job of capturing the same mood and essence of the original film - not to mention the A-plot is just about identical - while also delivering new characters. Now, you could easily be cynical and wonder what the point is, but frankly the point is that sports films about nice kid vs nasty kid just work, and it's OK to have another go at telling that same story every now and then. Does it matter if you slap the 'Karate Kid' label on this one? I suppose as a fan of that original film, it gives this one a little something, but really it could just be a 'new' story and I'd like it just as well.

The boxing side-step in the B-plot here makes virtually no sense, except to invert a classic kid-sports trope, and who doesn't love Joshua Jackson?
Anyway, this is a nice film about nice people, more of that please.

Like, the first 2/3 of this film remain genuinely great. Delightful dys/eu/topia setting, glorious Dan Waters futurespeak, amazing costume and set design, and the cast all on the same page.
The last 1/3 is fine, but is overtaken by the conventions of the man-on-man action film chase-fight stuff. It's done well enough, and the final kill-by-chill decapitation is great, but even in 1993 nothing in the action staging stuck out.
It's not really a flaw, but the film does itself no favours by calling itself 'Demolition Man' and thus requiring Stallone to TrashDestroyExplode lots of things all the time.

Anyway, ignore all those gripes! This is Sci-Fi action at its most funnest, and not wtihout some genuinely interesting thought experiments, as all the best Sci-Fi promotes.

It's not just a Wes Anderson film, it's like Steve Zissou filtered through Grand Budapest Hotel, and naturally every bit as delightful and funny and gorgeously put together as you'd like. Kind of hard to fault, although I only love things in it, rather than 'it' as a whole. Still, top tier Anderson for me.

The big thing that sticks out in my head is that our man seems to be flirting with being an Edgelord:
The subtext stuff is all classic W. Anderson, but the actual TEXT is about horrifically horrible 'businessmen' who behave like spoiled children, think they're great at negotiating but aren't, and are ultimately engaged in carving up the middle east. To write and make such a film in the early 2020s can't be anything but pointed, can it?

And yet, the point maybe seems to be: some of these people are more awful than others, maybe they are redeemable if we just take all their money away?
And I haven't even begun to think what this film may or may not be saying about either Organised Religion or Faith in general.

Fascinating.

So much delightfully designed nonsense going on that I always have a fun time. It's been a while since I read the source comic but I think it adapts some sequences amazingly faithfully, and indeed makes them a less leery - although this is still a film about an oft-naked woman solving problems through sex, in a way that skirts the edges of consent. Fonda makes it works, though. And Durand-Durand is such a great villain.

Its place as a comics adaptiation is not unlike the 60s Batman TV show. Which is to say, pretty close but the direct translation from comics to film makes it feel more childish than it is? I think if you like that, you'll like this - but if you don't, you really won't.

Grim, very grim, but I had a good time. I suspect this is the film that most people who haven't / would never watch the original TCM would expect that to be. As in, a nasty, violent, bloody, metal, funny-ish but basically kinda average horror slasher type film. (Which I'm rating four stars because that's my bag)

This is as opposed to what the original actually is, i.e. an unmatched immaculate gore-light art-house high-tension comedy weirdo charnal-house fright experience...

This is like a double-period piece, being that its set in the 1930s, but made in the 1980s, and as far as I can tell it's basically about trying to get a handle on where 'mainstream' society (i.e. the entertainment industry) is at the point in of noticing and accepting and perhaps, just a little bit, actively celebrating homosexuality.

With no skin in the game, seems to me it's doing an irable job of all that, albeit ina wish fulfimlemnt kind of way, but why not? Although it surely is hiding a 1980s version of drag acts / gay society behind a 1930s setting so it can get away with not quite doing it right? I dunno. It's fun and frothy but definitely a little long, and I'm barely ing the songs.

Yep, I still rate this reamke. Sure, it pales in comparison to the original, in the main because it tries to almost never be funny, but the actual ideas in it are interesting, the body horror is great, and there are some good performances in here.

I suppose if I'm being objective, it is more interesting as an attempt to modernise the old film, than it would be if this were a new film in its own right. But so what? I've seen the original Robocop enough times that sometimes I want a weird flavour of it.

I mean, if your goal is to redo The Fugitive, but this time tell the story from the Marshals' point of view, it works? But it's only 'quite good' as far as 90s action thrillers go.

Enjoyed this much more a second time, what with having seen a few more Lubitsch films since, and getting that it's as much about the staging and the sight gags as it is about the central plot.

This is also the unexected origin of Robocop's 'I'll buy that for a dollar!', which would be quite the film pairing.

I'm gona keep giving Amy Schumer a go, and I do like a romcom where you really like the central couple. But this isn't anything special, except perhaps for having the most outrageous "you lied to me!" concept, and I guess it's notable that the film has two 'comedy best-friend' roles, both likeable?

The ne plus ultra of spy movies:
You have to successfully do the crazily difficult thing or else TOTAL NUCELAR WAR will destroy the world
Also NO ONE TRUSTS EACH OTHER
Also top agents / government people have to WRESTLE WITH IMPOSSIBLE DILEMMAS
Now do stunts a lot, please.

And then there are the other bits, like the message that is is OK to take outrageous risks, even with other people's lives, it doesn't make you a bad person. Not sure who that meta-message is aimed at.

And the message that AI is really evil.

But mostly I found all that merely fine. There's no getting past the fact that this is all about the EXTENDED sequences with T Cruise doing the underwater thing and then the biplane thing, and the script just daring you to wonder how many small things they can make go wrong each time. Those sections wouldn't work without all the rest of the film - but also those are the only really good bits...

I haven't watched any Marx Brothers for decades - this is I think one of the better ones, certainly it feels very 'classic'. It's probably the first time I've really noticed just how massively in debt to these characters the Looney Tunes are.

Also pleasing to note that the basic template of 'cynical clown taking down other people' is inherently funny in a way that doesn't age. In this film too it feels like they're always punching up which is nice. Did I actually laugh? More like smiled, and certainly in iration of various bits of timing and physical comedy.

Its kinda weird watching 95-year-old wordplay jokes. Like, I get that it is funny, but often the actual jokes either don't make sense or rely on references I can't read, or are more classic than fresh. But, you can bet if I'd watched this brand new in 1929 I'd've been howling with laughter.

It's funnier than Shakespeare, that's for sure!

One of those films were bored 20/30-somethings have lots of conversations and lots of sex, which they seem to find no big deal but are clearly very hung up on. Also it is sad that there are so many run-down cinemas, even in LA, I guess?

Still, it's way better than its reputation, and quite probably does have something to say about the lives of Hollywood wannabees that I have no direct access to. As with a lot of Schrader's movies, it does that wonderful thing of showing you a person's life in a seemingly cool and enviable job (Hollywood producer/actor), and how kind of bland and unrewarding it is.

Question: how different is this much-hated film, really, than the much-adored American Gigolo?

I've avoided this film for nearly 30 years, would that I had stay committed.
I'm no big fan of the original film (my fault for reading the book first); this was famously felt to be MUCH worse - but lately, I've been hering that it was darker and more mean-spirited, and as such I thought it just might recapture some of the spirit of the book that I felt was missing from the first movie.
Instead, what we get is a kind of opposite version of the transition from Alien to Aliens.
In those movies, heroine Ripley goes from being a scold/reluctant hero to a total badass / out-and-out hero. In the Jurassic Parks, we get Ian Malcolm starting out as a badass not-at-all hero, and transitioning to a scold/reluctant hero. It is not a good transition, and it brings down the mood of the whole thing. Worse, there's not even any fun pseudo-science/chaos maths this time. There's only boring-science about the maternal instincts of T rexes.
I did wake up a bit for the dino rampage in the city, but at that point this is just a very feeble King Kong retread.

Postlethwaite is good, I'll give it that, and he gets a fine send-off. And sure, most of the bits with dinosaurs in are fun.

A fascinating exploration of the premise behind 'Final Destination', I absolutely can't imagine a future film in the franchise that surfs that wave better (although I'm sure someone will try!).

But also I kind of never cared, even as the characters were fun, and the cruel jokes amazingly cruel and funny and clever. I might have seen too many new horror films this year that fit a pattern of hiding their hearts behind the blood and the humour, and although I ought to love that there's something missing from all of them. Maybe I just want a really good monster?

As with X, I get almost nothing out of any 'theme' this movie has, but I did very much enjoy spending time with the characters and in this setting. The final visual of smiling, crying, demented Pearl as the credits roll in front of her face is a truly great bit of film.

Perhaps the film (and its surrounding trilogy) speak more to people who really REALLY want to make it in the film biz, which is obviously true of everyone who worked on the film, and for plenty of viewers?

As someone with no skin in this game but nostalgia, this holds up totally and without reservation. The colours!

Like, Top 5 Marvel for me. Decent adaptation of the Sentry storyline, and a fun 'misfits band together' action romp.

I particularly liked it when the dude is repeatedly punching his metaphor for depression in the face while others slowly realise 'this isn't right' and try solving a problem by being caring, not by smacking things around. Ish.

Also, i't s FAR more female-character heavy movie than the poster implies, which is a good thing, even if the film suffers a little from 'women are inherently competent while men are inherently dumb' stereotyping.

On this re-watch, I felt far more that this really is a film about genuinely spiritual people grappling with politics and ambition, not just about the viciousness of politics.

Except for that one guy, he's a total asshole.

Still fun! Still funny! Does that classic movie thing where you dislike one half of a couple, but by the end realise you liked the wrong half!
Basically lots of very nice / mostly nice people being mostly nice to each other, while still getting annoyed. I know there's this whole school of thought that stories are meant to be about horrible people, and you're an idiot if you can't handle that, but I wonder if it's just harder to tell stories about nice people and we should celebrate the efforts that do this well.

By gosh this is a beautiful film, with beyond immaculate period settings and lived-in worlds, and indeed delicious blurring of the old with the modern in various key places. Also it is clearly touching on LOTS of themes, several of which I don't and am perhaps not meant to understand. Although I got the bit about white musicians being vampires who suck the blood of out Black musicians. I got that alright. I am very curious if the film even has a position on the place of faith in the world (as opposed to its position on the church which is a bit more clear, if still blurred). Certainly it's an action film people could and hopefully will write essays on.

I also know that I had rather more fun watching Michael B Jordan being dapper as hell in two different versions, compared to being on frantic action mode in a dark barn.

The jokes still work, the characters are still charming - but I it being more about something than perhaps it is? It's kind of an extended sketch, albeit a very good one.
Just maybe, I'm blurring bits of it with the sequel, which might actually be a bit cleverer?

A 'behind the scenes' documentary that for some reason was, in my head, revered as one of the all-time great such things. It couldn't live up to that weight, but it's fun enough, and it very neatly gets across the sense of joy and camaraderie and fun of making a movie, along with how relentlessly hard of a job it is for 95% of the people involved.

I think I'd expected there to be more of a story about creative arguments and producer fights and such - but in fact, it generally seems like a film that was shot as scripted, with little outide intereference, and difficulties mostly down to things that just happen on film sets, like weather and fires and fights with unions.

If you've never seen a film about how films are made before, this is a good one, but I'm not sure it's the BEST one. One hopes working conditions have improved since 1995 - but also, one hopes people's sheer love of making movies has not dimmed one bit.

No question this has not quite retained its cool and its top-level exhilaration from when I saw it in the cinema.
But at least I got to watch it with two teens who had barely heard of the film and certainly did not see the big genre change coming. That really is the best thing about this film, and it's handled real well.

One to watch every 25 years, perhaps, with a new young crowd each time...

Just so freakin' cool, this film, where the word "cool" is allowed to mean "I recognise a whole bunch of obscure Spider-Mans from my comics-reading lifetime."

But also, the actual meat of the story, about what it means to be a fictional character with multiple variations, is super interesting.

It's probably the Hunter/Weaver combo, but I really like this film, even though it is very silly.
The thriller aspects just WORK, depsite the tonal mismatch of showing police officers working and talking through crime scenes in a way that feels wedded to realism, but then being utterly incompetent behind the scenes to allow the home invasion bit of the plot to unfold.

Mostly because two of the main characters are anthropologists, this put me in mind of a Barbara Pym novel, and that's a great place to be. Ethan Hawke once again on perfect 'selfish asshole but you get why people like him' form.

A witty film that people should be nicer to.

Like, a perfect adaptation of a formative work of literature, immaculately cast and just an all-around good time.

More of a sketch show than a full movie, and frankly the sketch bits that pepper the whole thing are the best bit.
This is also (I assume), an early offering in the 'Hollywood is institutionally racist against Black people' movie. I get the general impression that some of the concerns raised here genuinely have been overcome in the last 40 years... but a lot of them have not. There's a reason the same basic joke keeps coming back in TV and movies:
white filmmakers telling Black actors to 'be/talk/act more Black', and said Black actors angsting over whether it's better to take the work or to refuse to play into stereotypes.

This movie lays out this joke as clearly and plainly as it possibly can, and peppers it with some great sketches based around leaning into various of those steroetypes as hard as it can; the best skit being the 'Black Siskel & Ebert' review show.

"I BELIEVE this movie!" indeed.

The whole structure of this story is SO formal and SO generic that it can feel a bit like watching a well-crafted but not outrageous domino topple. The gunfights and the clock are the best bits, but the ridiculously strong cast breathe real life into their stock characters so it's never boring in the in-between bits.

You know, there were times in this film, particularly the early parts, that genuinely gave me the feeling I from my own childhood, watching the likes of Back to the Future or Temple of Doom or Labyrinth or Tron. Something about the irreverance, the silliness, but also the drama as felt by the main players. (And no doubt, the much on show 80s nostalgia).

The film does not maintain this feeling, but it's never terrible. Frankly, all those 80s films I reference above are hardly without reproach, and maybe this film will equal those in the long-term fondness stakes for today's kids.

It's fun and silly and knows it is and wants you to relax. Sure, it tries too hard sometimes but I'm not going to complain about that when the alternative is far worse...

Narrative contrivance aside, this is basically a perfect version of the film it is trying to be. It's just that said film is doomed from the start, because its protagonist is pointedly devoid of any but the smallest shred of an inner life. No matter, I like it a lot, but would only recommend it to a small number of people.

Maybe if this was a TV series, or had got a couple of sequels, you'd get to a really exciting place. But this is basically Mad Max (2) without the 'mad' part. Kurt Russell, and the script itself, are both SO committed to being this 'perfect soldier' idea that all the run-down sci-fi ravaged world / aleek Aliens-knock-off space marine fun you throw at it doesn't ever exactly sing.

Or, to speak more to my own tastes, this is an amazingly faithful Rogue Trooper movie, only without the biochips. So, you know, the early Fr1day version of Rogue Trooper. I feel like I read somehwere once that the film was indeed at one point intended to be a Rogue Trooper movie, but can find no hard evidence of that. Probably it's just a touchpoint PWS Anderson was thinking about in development, if he had any sense, that is.

A whole bunch of short films mostly themed around romantic love - but other kinds of love, too - set in Paris. Each film is pleasingly short, and aims for at least some sort of twist/surprise ending, and all good short stories ought.

Can't imagine rushing to rewatch any of these films, or indeed the whole thing again, but really all of them are worth your time, and it's a pleasing exercise overall.

For what it's worth, I liek Paris itself fine, but don't love it. It's kind of an annoying city in lots of ways.

As far as I can tell, when this film was made it was mostly a tract to warn of the wickedness of captial punishment. Since that was abolished (in the UK) not long after, it is surely more ed as an early version of the 'true story that puts you in the mind of a serial killer'.

It's pretty good at both, while also reminding you that serial killers, too, are victims of class warfare and the struggle of grinding poverty in post-war Britain.

Weird and nasty.

I feel this film has rather unfairly fallen out of the film-going consciousness. Sure, it's not as polished as Amélie (which came later), or quite as nasty as Delicatessen (which came before), but it's really good!
It's definitely one of the top 5 kid-venture movies, and while it might push some boundaries nothing here I think an 8-year-old couldn't handle.

In case anyone doesn't know...
this is the one about a mad scientist who lives on an abandoned oil rig who kindaps children in order to (try to) share in their dreams. He is assisted (ish) by a brain in a jar, a little lady, and a set of bumbling clones. Meanwhile a circus strongman teams up with an Arftul Dodger type to rescue said children, while avoiding evil simaese twin Fagins and a man who trains fleas to turn people into murderers.

If nothing in that list of curious ideas piques your interest, then stay away! Otherwise, strap in an enjoy a good time at the movies, please.

Like, it's totally fine? Maybe if you're really leaning in to making Jurassic Park (by way of ET) but with Unicorns as the Velociraptors, own that more and end the film like 5 minutes earlier than you did?

A tough watch, this one. I have yet to see a film about working life in America that makes it seem even remotely appealing. But, you know, this is also a slice of life type film, and I think it's meant to be breezy as well as sad? There are funny bits in it!

Much more sensitive than its trailer, and exactly the sort of film that would've gone down much better in a packed cinema, rather than the 90% empty screen I was in.

Anyway, good solid action/comedy/gorey fun, kind of a 90s retread in ways that appeal to me for sure: True Romance, Desperado, Scream - looking at you...

Very impressive, definitely exciting and heartfelt, as with too many films of late, a bit too pleased with its foregrounding of trauma and grief and personal growth. I continue to ire Godzilla as a concept without falling in love with it.

Sadly not in 3-D, but happily a surprinsingly successful go around at telling this story with a view to making the central murder family be the good guys. For a long-running franchise, this sort of twist is worth a go!

There are lots of solid funny bits, and Bridget gets to be very Bridget-y in many cool ways.

But I'll be mean and say that the overall film comes across as rather too smug about how MUCH it is tackling themes of grief and acceptance. Yes, it is good to include that in a silly RomCom, but maybe you didn't have to go on and on about it? It doesn't leave wuite enough room for hte more important 'which of the three impossibly handsome men is right for Ms Jones' question. Or perhaps it was the extreme reliance on facial close-ups that bugged me.

Still, Bridget Jones continues to be a cinematic treasure of a character, and I'm all in for the concept of a RomCom that can wring a franchise out of its basic formula like it was a Friday the 13th film.

One of those films where you think the central characters blunder through a day and it could all be boring and pointless but, little by little, you find yourself just really keen to watch things unfold, and to wish for some sort of happy ending to the day.

I found the Florida Project to be just a little too worthy for my tastes; this earlier film, although very pointedly also about underloved and underseen people, is instead an engaging story.

I'm not at all interested in these live action remakes of old cartoons, and have avoided pretty much all of them until now. The bits that recreate the original are essentially redundant, but at least this includes quite a lot of new material that attempts to flesh out the story. And I'm happy to report that the parts that were scary in the cartoon are recreated to be just as scary here.

They do a perfectly good job of making Snow White even more central to the plot than she already was (and sure, the essence of the fairy tale is not very progressive in its sexual politics, but also its perfectly to enjoy both the original and this one as a stroy of two strong-willed women battling each other).

This version kind of falls down by having the Wicked Queen being a Panto villain while Snow White is a fantasy heroine, two tones that don't quite mesh. But, you know it's a kids film, and a perfectly OK one.

It might have been 25 years since I last watched this one. I ed the most Croneberg-y bits - the delightful body horror, the mad scientists, the bizarre art - but had completely forgotten all the running around and shooting and explosions that fill up most of the middle section.

I still think this is the best representation of telepathy in fiction generally, let alone on film.

And it's probably also still the best entry-point for Cronenberg watching, bridging his early grunge work with his more studio-funded work? You'll get to see plnety of much better films, but also find out right away if the kinds of characters and stories he delivers are something you're interested in at all...

At this point I've probably seen more Blaxploitation parody films than conventional ones, and for whatever reason - as with spy movies - this is a subgenre where the parody efforts pretty much always work, even if you've barely seen any of the things it's mocking.

Funny and charming. Probably, with 2025 eyes, relying a bit TOO much on the fact that it's a knowing parody to get away with the sexism and (anti-Chinese) racism on display. But it's actually funny, so maybe who cares?

What a treat! I was totally fooled by the trailer which defintely made this look like one kind of spy thriller, when it turns out to be entirely another kind...

...a murder mystery, complete with mutiple dinner party scenes.

It does feel a bit like a fun exercise from Koepp and Soderberg, but on the other hand there's something about the way Fassbender in particular operates that is just classic Soderberg disassociated-from-life weirdo, and I love it.

Bonus points for nailing the rich, bored posh London arsehole aesthetic.

Funny and clever and weird.

As discussed in Kevin Grant’s book ‘Vigilantes: private justice in popular cinema.’

It’s a fine read; the gist is that the long tradition of vigilantes in real life, and to a lesser extent in cinema, is a lot of racism masquerading as righteousness. The rape revenge subgenre a little bit different.

And, in recent years, the mainstream wish-fulfilment vigilante picture has been rather overshadowed by superheroes. They are vigilante adjacent, sure, but not included in the book or this list.

• Act of Vengeance
• The Annihilators
• Barbary Coast
• The Beast of the City
• The Big Heat
• The Big Racket
• Billy Jack
• The Birth of a Nation
• Black Legion
• Boardwalk

...plus 104 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

What’s the difference between a remake and a new film based on an existing book/play/comic? I guess it’s when the original film is more celebrated than whatever the original source material was.
Anyway, all but two of these remakes are better than the original film.

• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
• The Fly
• Cat People
• The Thomas Crown Affair
• Freaky Friday
• The Departed
• The Hills Have Eyes
• The Thing
• RoboCop

• Bride of Frankenstein
• Dawn of the Dead
• Mad Max 2
• Demons 2
• Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II
• Back to the Future Part II
• Child's Play 2
• Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
• 28 Weeks Later
• Paddington 2

I had to open up the parameters pretty wide to find 10 prequels I would actively recommend - and then ended up with 11!

• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• X-Men: First Class
• Captain Marvel
• The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
• Wicked
• The First Omen
• Amityville II: The Possession
• Prometheus

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My ranking of what answer to give if someone says "I'm curious about Nic Cage, recommend me a film of his to watch."

'Spider-Verse' and 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' are the mid-points, since they're both very good films but hardly count as Nic Cage vehicles.

The star ratings are a rough judge of the quality of the film; that should be easily undestood as NOT the same thing as determining how fun each film is as a Nic Cage experience.

• Wild at Heart
• Vampire's Kiss
• Moonstruck
• Face/Off
• Valley Girl
• Con Air
• Pig
• The Rock
• Adaptation.
• Longlegs

...plus 65 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films in which, to whatever extent, the main characters learn something about life, and themselves, as part of growing both older and more independent. Or at least, grapple with these concerns. Roughly speaking, that means characters aged 10 to mid-20s. Am only listing films I've seen, because it's not always obvious which films actually deal with presonal development, and which just happen to be about a bunch of characters in their tweens/teens/twenties. (In case you're wondering why I've included some but not all sex comedies and teen slashers...)

We can all agree this is the best genre.

• I Was Born, But...
• Gone with the Wind
• Pinocchio
• How Green Was My Valley
• Great Expectations
• The Young and the Damned
• I Vitelloni
• The Wild One
• Sabrina
• Rebel Without a Cause

...plus 537 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Stories of real life women, Scientists preferred, ideally not straight up documentaries.

• Hidden Figures
• Ammonite
• Battle of the Sexes
• RBG
• CodeGirl
• Picture a Scientist
• Jane
• Hannah Arendt
• Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker
• On the Basis of Sex

...plus 47 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

If you squint, these ultra-cool films about ultra-competent loners - and their cars - are actually criticisms. You don’t have to squint much. 🥸

• Le Samouraï
• Badlands
• Taxi Driver
• The Driver
• Collateral
• Drive
• Baby Driver

A list of the videos that were in rotation in Orley Farm Junior School c.1986-1989 when it was too rainy to go to the playground duyring breaks. Obvs we never got to watch any film all the way through in one go, which makes for quite a weird experience and disted memories. They'd just hit play on whatever video was in, wherever it left off, then put in a new one if it finished too soon.

I basically hated all these films at the time, although I acknowledge now that they're all beloved classics. Mostly I hated that they kept interrupting a story with bloody singing and dancing. The patriarchy in the 80s man, it was NOT kind to the musical. Mind you, this was an all-boys school, so credit to the (all female) teachers for not giving in to demands to only play Star Wars and Indiana Jones films.

I still can't stand Mary Poppins, mind.

(In the senior school we had regular access to Animal Farm and Watership Down, those were totally more my jam)

• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
• Mary Poppins
• Dumbo
• Pinocchio
• Bugsy Malone

1. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

   Perhaps the only film in the series to get everything right?

2. Friday the 13th

   There's no getting away from the power (and fond memories) of the last 10 minutes, even if the preceeding 70 minutes would be bettered by many film later in the series.

3. Friday the 13th Part 2

   Better than the first in every way except for the very last bit, which copies and diminishes and as such means I'll always rank the first film higher, even if this one is technically superior as a horror movie.

4. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

   Honestly, I might push this higher next time I watch it, but I it being disappointingly light on gore, while the comedic tone only does so much to offset that.

5. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning

   Points for being the sleaziest version, perhaps therefore delivering the most of what you might want from a film (indeed, a film series) that exists to show teens having sex and getting murdered.

6. Friday the 13th

   Competent and nasty

7. Jason X

   If you're in the right mood, this is a fab time - the most overtly funny/silly one.

8. Freddy vs. Jason

   Slightly more of a Freddy film than a Jason one, but the Jason-focussed bits are delightfully straighforward stalking and killing.

9. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

   Interesting spin on the series formula, and a genuinely weird horror film if taken in isolation.

10. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

    Kind of a fun story but far too light on gore. One of the better Jason performances; one of the worse set of 'every other character' performances.

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A pair of high school kids, ideally not blessed with many brains, stumble upon a piece of science magic which will either result in: getting a ing grade, getting a date, or ending the world. Possibly all three.

• WarGames
• My Science Project
• Weird Science
• C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud
• Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

• To Be or Not to Be
• Arsenic and Old Lace
• Time Bandits
• Romancing the Stone
• ¡Three Amigos!
• Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
• Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
• The Hudsucker Proxy
• Thank You for Smoking
• The Death of Stalin

• White House Down
• Attack the Block
• Spider-Man
• Versus
• Con Air
• Die Hard
• Police Story
• Return of the Jedi
• Mad Max 2
• The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

Films that don’t get enough praise in my opinion

• Audrey Rose
• The Legend of Billie Jean
• Cherry 2000
• Tucker: The Man and His Dream
• Underground
• A Room for Romeo Brass
• Tamara Drewe
• Dog Eat Dog
• I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore
• Moxie

• It Happened One Night
• The Philadelphia Story
• Romancing the Stone
• The Sure Thing
• The Tall Guy
• When Harry Met Sally...
• So I Married an Axe Murderer
• Clueless
• The Wedding Singer
• Sideways

Not ranked, just adored

• Puberty Blues
• The Breakfast Club
• The Legend of Billie Jean
• Pretty in Pink
• Heathers
• Clueless
• Donnie Darko
• Napoleon Dynamite
• Son of Rambow
• Sing Street

Not as big a list as you might think.

• Star Wars
• Live and Let Die
• Time Bandits
• Clash of the Titans
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• The Terminator
• Tango & Cash
• RoboCop
• Clueless
• Dumbo

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Martyrs
• Scream
• Candyman
• Vampire's Kiss
• Hellraiser
• The Fly
• The Return of the Living Dead
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
• The Wicker Man
• The Invisible Man

• Dawn of the Dead
• Mad Max
• Altered States
• Time Bandits
• Grease 2
• Return of the Jedi
• The Terminator
• The Sure Thing
• The Fly
• Project A Part II

...plus 36 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A handful of movies directly based on stories that ran in 2000AD, the UK Sci-Fi comic institution, a handful that may nice have been intended to be adaptations of 2000AD stories, and a smattering of movies that just have something of 2000AD about them...

• Hardware

  Based on Shok!

• Judge Dredd
• Dredd
• Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD

  A documentary about the comic and its impact on culture generally

• RoboCop

  Still the best Judge Dredd movie...

• Universal Soldier

  Was this inspired by the 2000AD strip of the same name? Would’ve been much better if it had been!

• Soldier

  It’s not a million miles from a Rogue Trooper.

• Underworld

  This one’s almost certainly coincidence, but A Love Like Blood is a good vamps vs werewolves love story...

• BloodRayne

  Someone’s been looking at Durham Red.

• Avatar

  No one accused Avatar of being original, plot wise, but here are two 2000AD connections:
  Maniac 5, about a disabled soldier who fights after being ed into a robot body;
  Firekind, about an explorer who falls in love with a race of peaceful, dragon-riding aliens who have t defend their world tree from evil human mineral resource exploiters.

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

As defined by Jess Regan on the 'Mulholland Drive' episode of the wonderful Best Pick Podcast.
Got to be set not just in/around L.A., but specifically relating to the movie industry, and although similar it's not noir, there's got to be something otherworldy or weird or indeed outright horror going on. Sunset Blvd. is pretty much the exact test case - for me it's noir rather than gothic...

If they ever adapt 'The Fade Out' or 'Hope...' from comics to movies, they'd definitely slot right into this subgenre.

Frankly this is far from my area of expertise, any suggestions appreciated!

• Mulholland Drive
• Inland Empire
• The Player
• Barton Fink
• New Nightmare
• Starry Eyes
• Body Double
• Maps to the Stars

After maybe 5 years of reading the books (well, I dipped in and out of the first three, only actually read all of Books 4 and 7) and watching the films with my now 12 year-olds, I feel almost qualified to do this.
Also won't be upset if I never watch any of these films again - but equally, won't make a point of NOT watching them if pressed.

• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

  I think I enjoy this one the most because it feels the purest version of a kids adventure film, that doesn't suffer the first film's troible of having to explain everything all the time.
  It's not the 'best' film, but for me it's the most successful version of what a fun and slightly scary version of Harrry Potter.

• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

  Of course this is the 'best' of the films - I think I haven't forgiven it for making me think I was meant to be surprised when the bloke called 'Lupin' turned out to be a wolf...

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

  Imelda Staunton really makes this one.

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

  I mostly hated this when I saw it in the cinema, but I kind of ire how well it sets up this immersive world.

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

  Perhaps the single worst film to watch immediately after reading the book.

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

  I honestly can't anything about this film, except that it was very blue-grey.

People liked these movies when they came out but no one talks about them anymore.

• The People Under the Stairs
• Dead Again
• Pump Up the Volume
• Mermaids
• L.A. Story
• Strictly Ballroom
• Hero
• Dave
• Cliffhanger
• Red Rock West

...plus 37 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films that have, at one time or another, been in contention for my favourite ever

1. King Kong

   I suspect my favourite film up to the age of 5ish

2. Star Wars

   Definitely my favourite film as a pre-teen

3. Gremlins

   Depending on my mood, this is the one film that may have challenged Star Wars for supremacy

4. The Karate Kid Part II

   I beginning a new year at school age 10 (going on 11), and the teacher asked us all to name I favourite film. At the time, in my heart, this was my favourite (I'd watched it just the once, but only a few weeks earlier). But I didn't declare this...

5. A Nightmare on Elm Street

   This is what I claimed was my favourite film, age 10 (11), although at that time I'd only ever seen the first 30 minutes, deciding it was too much for me following Tina's death scene and her boyfriend's time in jail. When I did eventually watch the whole thing I liked it well enough, but it has never really been a favourite. (I kinda prefer parts 2 and 3, for whatever that's worth)

6. The Birds
7. The Terminator

   This is the film I've seen the most times, certainly in my memory as a conscious film watcher, rather than as a child with a video player and parents who liked to sleep in late on a weekend...

8. RoboCop
9. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

   I watched this three times in a row (almost) on the day I rented it - not something I've ever been moved to do since. Still my favourite and perhaps the best ever 'message' movie.

10. The Fly

    David Cronenberg was the first director who I consciously thinking was my favourite, and wanting to seek out all his films, knowing I would find something to like in all them. Haven't gone wrong yet!

...plus 37 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I'm an unashamed fan of zombie films. And I think that's because there happen to be an awful lot of very good ones. Sure, there are an even larger number of very bad ones - but I haven't seen any of them. Well, maybe one or two.

This list includes all the zombie films I've seen, plus a decent-sized number that I haven't, but believe are also in the 'very good' category. In chronological order, to prove the point about how consistently good these films have been.

I'm using the loose definition of zombie here, to include infected / metaphorical monsters. On the other hand, I’m focussing on the 'film about dread of living death / mindlessness / hordes besieging people' formula, rather than 'any film that happens to feature a character that could be described as a zombie' formula (So yes to 'infecteds', but no to Frankensteins, Re-Animators or Evil Deads).

• White Zombie

  Zombies as mindless creatures controlled by an evil monster

• I Walked with a Zombie

  Zombies as incredibly creepy 'people' - very much something you would never wish to become

• The Last Man on Earth

  Zombies as menacing horde that just want you to be 'like them'

• The Plague of the Zombies

  Zombies as metaphor for British colonialism / class struggle

• Night of the Living Dead

  Zombies as a mindless plague; humans as mindful people unable to cooperate in a life-threatening situation; fear of trust generally

• Tombs of the Blind Dead

  Zombies as cool looking and terrrifying monsters

• Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things
• Horror Express

  Zombie plague on a train

• A Virgin Among the Living Dead
• Messiah of Evil

...plus 71 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Based on how jazzed I felt immediately after seeing it for the first time, with little thought to how well-crafted or rewarding each film may or may not be on a rewatch. I have not seen The Wolverine, suspect I will not like it much.

• X2
• X-Men: First Class
• Logan
• The New Mutants
• X-Men
• Deadpool 2
• X-Men: Days of Future Past
• Deadpool
• X-Men: Apocalypse
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films adapted from comics, specifically ones that are adapting a particular story - I'm not counting films based on comics characters that either mash up many storylines or, more often, invent new ones.
Ranked according to a combination of how well I think the filmmakers adapt the source comic, combined with how much I like the film. (Sorry, Oldboy fans!)

Please do suggest more - there are lots I haven't seen. For exmaple, I haven't seen any of the animated Marvel or DC films that adapt specific tales. I hear some are quite good, though.

1. Ghost World

   Captures the spirit and tone of the comic perfectly, sometimes just plain recreating s and sequences, but ultimately telling a new and slightly different story.

2. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

   RIDICULOUSLY faithful to the source comics, almost to the point of redundancy. On the other hand, it's a sheer delight of a film that successfully adapts those parts of the comic you'd think would be utterly stupid on film, and they're not.

3. Tamara Drewe

   This is a terrible poster for a terrific film. Technically the comic is an adaptation of 'Far from the Madding Crowd' but this movie is very much based on the comic, with a few alterations that up some drama, I think in a fun way. Overlooked gem, this.

4. The Death of Stalin

   Bit of a cheat as I haven't read the comic (yet), but the film is bloody marvellous. I wonder if the comic could be quite as funny - hope so.

5. The Adventures of Tintin

   A mash-up of 'Crab with the Golden Claws' and 'The Secret of the Unicorn', with a touch of 'Red Rackham's Treasure' thrown in. They had ot invent a new villain to make that work but otherwise this really is astonishingly faithful to the comics, especially the characterisation and the madcap chases. Might be my favourite Speilberg, but only because I bloody love Tintin and the steady hands of Jackson, Wright and Cornish were involved. I do hope they make more one day...

6. Persepolis

   This is basically the same creator telling the same story in the same style but using a different medium. Both film and comic are excellent, but I can't help but think Satrapi made the film partly because she wanted to have a go, and partly because she knew more people would see it than read it. The book is, ultimately, better - if only because it fits more story in.

7. Snowpiercer

   It deviates from the basic plot of the first comic in various but mostly small ways but very much holds to the spirit of the thing. It's weird how well this completely loopy 'could NOT work in reality' concept just seems to be so rich for storytelling.

8. A History of Violence

   Another film that is better than the comic, this time the changes to the story are small but very significant. Despite the title, the comic is pretty good-natured overall, about a good man trapped in a bad world. The film is the opposite - a bad man trying to lose himself inside a good world and finding he can't. But the acting, man, the acting.

9. Lady Snowblood

   I haven't actaully read the comic so I don't know how faithfully the film is adapted from it, but I suspect it is very much the same story, with some bits cut out, and perhaps more gleeful violence borne of revenge added in.

   From the Manga by the same team that wrote Lone Wolf and Cub - which I have read a bit of but have not seen the film series. If it's as good as Lady Snowblood, I really ought!

10. Akira

    I confessd I've only dipped in and out of the original manga, and I'm not entirely sure this really counts as an adaptation, or if it's more a case of a creator making the comic alongside / in preparation for telling a story that he always envisioned as a movie. Still, it's weird and delightful and crams a lot into a film, although it does kind of go off the rails about half way through, storywise. Must read the manga properly one day!

...plus 27 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The first few films I watching. Probably spanning more like 3 years rather than 1!

• The Fox and the Hound
• The Black Hole
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
• The Jungle Book
• Asterix and Cleopatra
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Star Wars
• King Kong
• Return of the Jedi
• The Phantom of the Opera

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

...from Brett Goldstein's podcast, innit.

• The Black Hole

  The first film I seeing.
  Mostly I the cute robots, the scary robot, and the weird ending.

• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

  Inevitably it ends up on the list! Don't think it was the first film I saw in the cinema but I was taken to see it so many times for a while I thought 'going to the cinema' meant 'going to see ET'. I didn't even like the film all that much! (Although it was both scary and made me cry)

• A Nightmare on Elm Street

  Film that scared me the most, part 1.
  I guess I would have been 8 when my big brother rented the film, and I tried to watch it with him but by the time it got to Tina's death scene it was too much for me and I went to bed, pretty terrified, and then listened to the continued screaming from the TV next door as I failed to fall asleep.

• The Fly

  Film that scared me the most (that I actually watched all of). I this one scaring me plenty even the second and third times I watched it. In particular, it was the build up to the various moments when I knew I was about to see something super horrible, right up until the fly-vomit-hand-melting.

  I understand the concept that what you don't actually see if often the scariest thing in a film, but every now and then a filmmaker manages to create something that you do see, and it's still super-scary. For this, Cronenberg is the king! (well, and his design/music/SFX crew, of course)

• My Girl

  Film that made me cry the most. Specifically, the second time I watched it, as a grown-up, when I knew all the sad things that were going to happen. There is an air of death that hangs over this whole film, impressive for something kinda saccharine at heart.

• Police Academy 3: Back in Training

  A film I used to love but now am not so sure...
  technically this is a cheat as I haven't re-watched this film (or any in the series) since I was a child, but I can't imagine anything other than cringing my way through gay panic jokes and gurning goons ogling boobs. For some reason, I had a special love for Part 3, which was more PG rated, and more silly rather than action-packed (except for the big jet-ski finale set piece).

• A Life Less Ordinary

  A film people hate but that I love unreservedly. I have always loved this, and was very confused when I first learned it had been a flop at the cinema and in general. I s it just too different tonally from Trainspotting? It's charming and breezy and the two angels at the centre of it (Holly Hunter + Delroy Lindo) are all-time awesome buddy-cop heroes.

• Predator

  The film that means the most to me, because of when/how I watched it. I first saw Predator with a group at my friend's 11th birthday party. None of us had seen it before and it tore a hole right through all of us, hitting alternating beats of horror, repulsive gore, thrilling violence, absurd machismo, red humour and air-punching delight. I know it's not considered a horror film (rightly), but this was perhaps the first and best experience I had of being very scared watching a film with a group of friends, and loving it.

• The Tall Guy

  Sexiest film, part 1.
  Probably the first sex scene I really watching, and perhaps one of the best as it makes sex look above all else fun, rather than overly romantic or somewhat sinful. (Or indeed monotonous, as in some of the earlier scenes in the same film) It probably gave me false ideas about quite how much bouncing around was involved in sex, though.

• Sirens

  Sexiest film, part 2.
  SO MUCH NUDITY. Also more lingering and less creepy than Basic Instinct.

...plus 9 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

One film for each year going backwards from my date of birth.

• Audrey Rose
• Network
• Shivers
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
• Enter the Dragon
• The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
• The Devils
• Le Cercle Rouge
• Last Summer
• 2001: A Space Odyssey

...plus 48 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

These movies more or less explicitly inspired the plots and/or characters for various strips in 2000AD, Britain’s superior weekly SciFi anthology comic

• Death Race 2000

  Helped inform the look of Judge Dredd. Plus, the mix of violence and comedy is very 2000AD.
  Less memorably, the actual plot of the film also informed the strip Babe Race 2000.

• Hell Drivers

  The lead character inspired the look of Bill Savage (from the strips Invasion, Disaster 1990 and, of course, Savage) who is also a hard-nosed lorry driver.

• Rollerball

  It’s Harlem Heroes! Or, more accurately, its sequel: Inferno.

• The Six Million Dollar Man

  More the TV show than the movie, but this became M.A.C.H. One

• Jaws

  Jaws begat Hookjaw, a killer shark strip in Action comic, which begat Shako!, a killer polar bear comic in 2000AD.

• Damnation Alley

  Inspired the basic structure of Judge Dredd: the Cursed Earth, if not the actual details of the story itself.

• Pulp Fiction

• Revenge of the Nerds
• Real Genius
• Sixteen Candles
• Napoleon Dynamite
• Tron
• Rocket Science
• October Sky
• The Inbetweeners Movie
• American Splendor
• Explorers

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Not all are as good as the original, but these do at least have something positive to offer.

• Psycho II
• Amityville II: The Possession
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
• A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
• Halloween III: Season of the Witch
• Friday the 13th Part 2
• Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
• Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
• Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

...plus 40 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.