Ian Nathan

Ostensibly a haunted house story, it manages to traverse a complex world of incipient madness, spectral murder and supernatural visions ...and also makes you jump.

An unknown treasure of a fantasy film and well worth a look for fans of the genre.

While it's all grand opera, and driven by sweeping gestures and pompous, overwritten dialogue, it is prone to plain silliness - especially in granting us the big showdown at the close. But the sheer dynamism of the action, coupled with Hans Zimmer's lavish score and the forcefield of Crowe, still makes this a fiercesome competitor in the summer movie stakes.

If director Chuck Workman maps a familiar rise and fall of rule-breaking brilliance it is vindicated by the great raconteur and in-depth praise from an impressive roster.

Roald Dahl's immortal, sugar-coated morality play finds Gene Wilder as disturbing and fault-ridden but compelling as the book described. Okay, so its pacing may be slightly off (taking nearly 40 minutes to arrive at the factory gates), but this is still a Golden Ticket if ever there was one.

With Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things, screenwriter Steven Knight has proved his ear for London's darker rhythms. Here, though, there's little to raise the pulse.

A solidly made, sternly acted, and faithful realisation of the distopian novel.

Charming in that neurotically adorable way Charles Schulz established over many years, this is a fond continuation of the Snoopyverse.

It doesn't have the dark edge of Joe Dante's other works, but brilliant performances by Martin Short and Meg Ryan make it a joy from start to finish.

Bond meets Star Wars in one of the series' sillier outings.

Frantic is Polanski's most satisfying film since Chinatown, and one of the best traditional thrillers to come down the pike in quite some time.

More than an average thriller, but far from Lumet's finest hour.

One of the least famous of Clint's Western this is an enigma of the genre with ambiguity and psychological depth all over the place.

A resonant film which has a speudo-cult status as everyone has seen it late one night on TV and it's never left them.

Never revealing too much, Becker keeps us intrigued to the end, whilst Pacino and Barkin unexpectedly sizzle.

A bit silly really but it has a bizarre mix of a cast and some tension in places.

It's a slight tale, of course, and incredibly short, but the characters and songs are pretty much perfect viewing time and again.

Certainly not Raimi at his best, but some knowing genre nods and an array of great effects make up much of the deficit.

The sugar level is positively diabetic, but the whole aura of warmth and cuddliness is hard to resist.

Petersen pulls off the thrills at a stomach lurching pace, and with its requisite Hollywood ham - husband and wife reuniting over piles of haemorrhaging bodies - loud performances, crashing stunts and a fearsome, hypochondria-inducing conceit, there's barely room to catch your breath, let alone cry foul.

Buffeted by a lack of suspense, threadbare characters, and a very poor script, the stunning visuals, gloopy madness, and sterling Fassbenderiness can't prevent Prometheus feeling like Alien's poor relation.

A persuasive, warts-and-bolts depiction of warfare from the guts of a tank yoked to an overwrought, sub-Private Ryan account of innocence under fire — so a hit and a miss.

As a direct tribute to the dignity of the solider facing attacks on both their bodies and their souls it puts things in a salutary context.

The tale from the past is very nostalgic, heartwarming and mouth-watering and all, as Idgie and Ruth cook up a storm, are kindly to their black domestics and stand up to piggy men while events fitfully progress to a courtroom climax. And Masterson is a peach. But the best bits belong to Bates as her dreary Evelyn raises her consciousness, lowers her weight and starts speaking her mind. It's a nice, pleasant celebration of friendship, but without much meat to chew on.

The only movie to truly deliver the visceral power of a dental drill, John Schlesinger’s taut, well written if far-fetched and baffling thriller, is the film that gives you a tooth ache in a good way.

This is a criminally neglected piece of good gothic fairy tale fun.

This sprawling epic rewards patience with an emotional pay-off and non-triumphant ending that reminds us all too starkly of the sacrifices made during war.

Classic War caper with a few too many plot contrivances but high on adventure.