Kim Newman

A star rating is not much help, since von Trier’s self-conscious arrogance is calculated to split audiences into extremist factions, but Antichrist delivers enough beauty, terror and wonder to qualify as the strangest and most original horror movie of the year.

Its intelligence makes it near-essential viewing.

The film never sentimentalises the old swine as it explores the nature of his genius. Terrific ballplayer, miserable human being. Unworthy subject, great movie.

Antibirth is intentionally ramshackle and hallucinatory as storytelling, seen through the viewpoint of characters who are mostly too stoned to concentrate – but it’s also highly crafted and unsettling.

Hokum isn’t just hokum. On top of an affecting personal quest for a non-despairing ending, it delivers a full evening of scares, chills, wicked jokes and haunted escape-room hijinks.

A slick thriller which takes place in a moral vacuum. It's fascinating rather than exciting, but makes for chilly thrills with two strong, charismatic lead performances, a great deal of style and amusingly repulsive, ruthless twists.

Significantly grittier than previous Bat-beginnings, this finds new things to do with, and say about, a character who's been around since 1938.

For once, a great remake, smartly executed. Great performances and a killing ending that will stay with you forever can't hurt, either.

The intricate work of a craftsman, and a beautiful appearance by the beguiling Simone Sigornet.

A touch too heavy on the Faust scenario, this is nevertheless a typically powerful effort from Stone especially strong on the nightmarish aspects of the war, as when a simple misundertsanding instantly becomes a massacre...Gripping stuff

Gorgeous and seductive, if pitched at Almodóvar fans and perhaps a touch long. Those drawn by Cruz’s divadom will wonder why it takes so long to get to her -- though she is wholly dazzling when it does.

The story isn't as strong as either Leone or Corbucci's best work, but the iconic imagery and solid central performance from Nero make it easy to see why this became a worldwide success.

A really satisfying backstage drama, this is an exhilarating tour around a man whose talent was almost as big as his ego.

Instantly gripping, with a powerhouse star performance, it'll make you want to speed through the weeks to get to part two.

Many will find Kansas City unbearable, because Leigh (with a mouth full of jagged teeth and a permanent snarl) and Richardson (who totters along in a druggy stupour), give brilliant performances as extremely unpleasant characters. Furthermore, the ending is a real slap-in-the-face downer. But if you can get past that, this is the real stuff.

Like it or not, Six has contributed something fresh and demented to pop culture.

Painful for many reasons, but highly recommended.

How to sum up? You have to make synapse-spark connections, interpret events to your own satisfaction, pick up visual cues (a long stretch of the film is dialogue-free) and be happy with not knowing all the answers (you know, like in life — but not in most motion pictures). A perfectly judged, strikingly beautiful film, but also a lunatic enterprise which invites — even welcomes — befuddlement as much as wonder. A true original.

Superbly adapted with blistering performances from Taylor and Hepburn.

It’s as wistful and sad as it is funny and charming, with the first of Nino Rota’s great scores to keep it burbling along.

The guy story is so strong that conventional romantic interludes with the woman torn between two men could easily have been dropped.

Tossing a malicious vampire kid among squabbling, not-exactly-un-dangerous humans is a recipe for a wickedly enjoyable thrill ride. One of the messiest vampire movies ever made, and winningly so.

Cultural clashes all over the place in this sweet and gently comedy.

Genre thrills with a big dose of originality.

Often, stories with terrific narrative hooks run out of steam, but Lábrèche and Léonard keep coming up with satisfying plot twists which take the film into unexpectedly deep emotional waters.

It deliberately makes no sense, but it has more bizarro gimmicks to the minute than any other horror picture of 1979.

A clever, funny, suspenseful, interestingly cynical science-fiction horror movie with a great collection of monsters — courtesy of make-up geniuses Dave and Lou Elsey — and a cast whose enthusiasm is, appropriately, infectious.

Written by Roddy Doyle this was never going to be a depressing tale of single parenthood. Instead we watch through rose-tinted glasses as the ever watchable Colm Meaney bonds with his family over his daughter's pregnancy out of wedlock in Catholic Ireland.