Kim Newman

One of the problems is that King usually writes about cliche subjects so well that you don’t notice the hackneyed aspects of his books, and so when all the character detail, precise backgrounding and elaborate plot setting-up mechanisms are pruned away, all you get is a dumb TV movie with characters doing insanely stupid things to prolong the agony.

This remains a compelling Hitchcock thriller but it's Tippi Hedron's remarkable central performance which steals the show.

Strays slightly from the formula and therefore loses some of its mindless fun credentials.

This pleasant 1940 comedy-drama hit on the successful double-act teaming of crooner Bing Crosby and patter comic Bob Hope, throwing in sarong-clad Dorothy Lamour for glamour and working through a trivial plot about fleeing responsibility for a South Seas idyll.

Bruno Ganz is excellent as the victim deceived into committing murder.

A good performance from Barrymore, the admirable Gilbert (who talks as her character on Roseanne would if she was covered by an 18 certificate) and director Katt Shea Ruben, a Roger Gorman associate hitherto best known for sleaze thrillers set in strip clubs.

Ferrera successfully breathes life into an old franchise, with only a slight small change in the narrative but making the aliens significantly more frightening. Anwar is equally intuitive and sassy enough to make her a likeable and believable heroine and although the effects aren't up to much, there are still plenty of scary moments.

Great performances lifts this movie above its stilted script and production.

Bottom-rung dreck.

Even one-scene characters are unforgettable, but Sayles really gets under the skin of his struggling-to-be-heroic leads, Sam and Pilar. Long after this summer's crop of action flicks is gone, you'll watch this for the third or fourth time and see fresh material. Outstanding.

If you set aside Frankenstein as more of a horror film and King Kong as a fantasy, The Invisible Man is the first truly great American science fiction film.

It stands as a hugely enjoyable, occasionally chilling, musical.

This really is the musical for people who don’t like musicals.

The later stretches, which are forced to become oblique and symbolic in the absence of any hard evidence about what really happened to the sailor, showcase some of Firth’s best screen work.

All style and no anything else, especially plot coherence.

A curiously resistable drama, despite several strong elements - the most notable being newcomer Idina Menzel.

Splendid landscapes and interesting faces - the usual virtues of the Western - keep the film burbling along, even as the actual plot is falling apart.

Strange, stylish and intelligent, this is a rare anime film that delivers on its Eastern promise.

More Damon Runyan than Irvine Welsh, but as entertaining as it is important.

Depressing and trivial.

Surprisingly, even after waiting 20 years, they managed to turn out a smart, darkly-comic thriller with some imaginative twists.

Remember the film you hoped "Snakes On A Plane" would be – this is it! By any sane cinematic standards, meretricious trash … but thrown at you with such good-humoured glee that it's hard to resist. It's a bumper-sticker of a movie: honk if you love tits and gore! Honk honk honk.

Eichhorn, who should have had a much bigger career, is luminous as the sad-eyed heroine, while Heard pulls off the showy role - especially in a climax that finds him rampaging through a posh party at the Cord estate in search of justice.

Alternating gritty realism and red‑hued fantasy, this is one of those '70s films that wears well, universal in its heart while picking out specifics which are exactly of their time.

Beautiful photography, a heartbreaking story, and iconic moments from beginning to end. Absolutely unmissable.

A lurid gothic gangster psychodrama from Roger Corman, this is Shelley Winters’ finest hour-and-a-half, cast as Arizona Clark ‘Ma’ Barker, a role it would be impossible to overplay.

Keeping the dialogue minimal and the action high on the agenda, life in Paris' underworld proves to be surprisingly yet suitably violent and threatening.

Though Clay is unbearably watchable, the mis-cast director means this comedy would be better as an action flick - it isn't funny but the violence is well executed.