T
The Talented Mr Ripley – a closeted man envies and loves his rich friend so much he murders him and takes his identity | Director: Anthony Minghella Cast: Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow | |
Tár – a conductor is wrapped in scandal in this mesmerising film, open to multiple interpretations | Director: Todd Field Cast: Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant | |
Taxi Driver – a desperate nobody fixates on a woman, a Presidential candidate and a child prostitute. Gripping, essential. | Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Robert De Niro, Cybil Shepherd, Jodie Foster | |
The Ten Commandments – DeMille’s swan song, the biggest, campiest, most famous Biblical epic of them all | Director: Cecil B DeMille Cast: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter | |
Ten Rillington Place – excellent true-life crime drama, focusing on John Christie and the wrongful execution of Timothy Evans | Director: Richard Fleischer Cast: Richard Attenborough, John Hurt, Judy Geeson | |
Tender Mercies – a reformed country and western singer searches for joy in Chekovian drama | Director: Bruce Beresford Cast: Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Betty Buckley | |
Tenet – a secret agent is hired by a secret organisation, in this undefinable mix of Bond and time travel | Director: Christopher Nolan Cast: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Kenneth Branagh | |
Terminator 2: Judgment Day – superior sequel: a cyborg travels back in time to save the future leader of the human resistance | Director: James Cameron Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong | |
Terminator: Genisys – second attempt to kickstart the franchise, a messy, personality-free disaster | Director: Alan Taylor Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtenay | |
Terminator: Dark Fate – surely one final time to relaunch the franchise, a better movie but a box-office disaster | Director: Tim Miller Cast: Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger | |
Terms of Endearment – Best Picture winning tearjerker about the fractious relationship between a mother and daughter | Director: James L Brooks Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson | |
Tess – beautifully shot and tragic (if a little long) Hardy adaptation, filmed in France (for obvious legal reasons) | Director: Roman Polanski Cast: Nastassja Kinski, Peter Firth, Leigh Lawson | |
The Testament of Dr Mabuse – Lang’s masterful, chilling mix of psychological ghost-story and gangster film | Director: Fritz Lang Cast: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Otto Wernicke | |
Thank You For Smoking – a corporate lobbyist is a mouthpiece for the smoking industry | Director: Jason Reitman Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Katie Holmes, Maria Bello | |
Their Finest – making of a nation moving WW2 picture, the brain child of an undervalued female scriptwriter | Director: Lone Scherfig Cast: Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy | |
Thelma and Louise – iconic feminist movie, as two women go on the run after killing a would-be rapist | Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel | |
The Theory of Everything – sanitised but heart-warming Stephen Hawking biopic, focusing on his marriage | Director: James Marsh Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox | |
There Will Be Blood – one of the greatest film of the decade, a ruthless oil man will sacrifice anything for fortune | Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J O’Connor | |
They Made Me a Fugitive – don’t get confused with Odd Man Out… impressive man on the run drama | Director: Alberto Calvalcanti Cast: Trevor Howard, Sally Jones, Griffith Jones | |
They Shoot Horses Don’t They? – savage satire on cruel entertainment, sometimes heavy-handed | Director: Sydney Pollack Cast: Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Gig Young | |
The Thing – on an Antarctic base, a shapeshifting alien hunts down the crew. Body horror classic. | Director: John Carpenter Cast: Kurt Russell, Wilfrid Brimley, TK Carter | |
Things to Come – HG Wells utopia future has flat dialogue but great visuals in this sci-fi curiosity | Director: William Cameron Menzies Cast: Raymond Massey, Edward Chapman, Ralph Richardson | |
The Third Man – one of the greatest films ever made, a naive American finds out unfortunate facts about his dead friend | Director: Carol Reed Cast: Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Alida Valli | |
Thirteen Lives – the astonishing rescue of a group of boys from caves in Thailand brilliantly dramatised | Director: Ron Howard Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton, Tom Bateman | |
This Sporting Life – a self-loathing rugby player struggles to express his feelings in this hard-hitting kitchen sink drama | Director: Lindsay Anderson Cast: Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts, Alan Badel | |
Thor: Ragnarak – hilarious Marvel film, that brilliantly reinvents Thor as someone lighter, funnier and tragic | Director: Taika Waititi Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett | |
Thor: Love and Thunder – smug, unfunny, self-satisfied adventure, takes all the wrong lessons from Ragnorak | Director: Taika Waititi Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale | |
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – a mother campaigns for justice for her murdered son | Director: Martin McDonagh Cast: Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson | |
Three Colours: Blue – first of this legendary trilogy: the wife of a composer is consumed with grief by his death | Director: Krzysztof Kieślowski Cast: Juliette Binoche, Benoît Régent, Emmanuelle Riva | |
Three Colours: White – a husband has everything taken from him by his cheating wife and plans revenge | Director: Krzysztof Kieślowski Cast: Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy, Janusz Gajos | |
Three Colours: Red – final, and greatest, film in the trilogy: a student and a retired judge form an unlikely bond | Director: Krzysztof Kieślowski Cast: Irène Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jean-Pierre Lorit | |
Three Days of the Condor – after his whole team is killed on his bosses orders, a young CIA analyst tries to find out why | Director: Sydney Pollack Cast: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Max von Sydow | |
The Three Musketeers – rousing, swashbuckling fun with jokes, great Sunday afternoon entertainment | Director: Richard Lester Cast: Michael York, Raquel Welch, Charlton Heston | |
Through a Glass Darkly – a woman suffering schizophrenia doubts God’s existence in this Bergman Oscar-winner | Director: Ingmar Bergman Cast: Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow | |
Thunderball – Bond searches for lost nuclear weapons and spends a lot of time underwater in a film I’ve often found boring | Director: Terence Young Cast: Sean Connery, Alfredo Celi, Claudine Auger | |
Tick… Tick… Boom – Jonathan Larsen worries his chances of making his mark are fading, in this loving musical tribute | Director: Lin-Manuel Miranda Cast: Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesús | |
Time After Time – HG Wells builds a time machine and chases a fleeing Jack the Ripper to 1970s San Francisco | Director: Nicholas Meyer Cast: Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, Mary Steenburgen | |
Time Bandits – a young boy joins a group of time travelling dwarves in this wonderful fantasy for history buffs | Director: Terry Gilliam Cast: Craig Warnock, David Rappaport, Kenny Baker | |
The Time Machine – disastrously awful version, made worse by being directed by Wells’ Great-Grandson | Director: Simon Wells Cast: Guy Pearce, Samantha Mumba, Jeremy Irons | |
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – brilliant, atmospheric adaptation of Le Carré’s Mole-hunt classic | Director: Tomas Alfredson Cast: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch | |
To Catch a Thief – Cary Grant is the retired thief falsely accused of a new crime in his luscious but middle-road Hitchcock | Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis | |
Tokyo Story – a retired couple are ignored by their children in one of the greatest, and simplest, films ever made | Director: Yasujirō Ozu Cast: Chishū Ryū, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara | |
Tom Jones – Best Picture winning sex-farce about a rogueish adopted son of a country squire, which tries way to hard | Director: Tony Richardson Cast: Albert Finney, Susannah York, Hugh Griffith | |
Tomorrow Never Dies – Bond goes up against a media tycoon, planning to start a war for ratings. Brosnan on top form | Director: Roger Spottiswoode Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Jonathan Pryce, Michelle Yeoh | |
Tootsie – a difficult actor finds work disguised as a woman and winning a part on a TV soap. Superb, smart comedy | Director: Sydney Pollack Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr | |
Top Gun – Cruise flies planes and Goose dies: that’s the basic sum of the plot of this mega smash-hit | Director: Tony Scott Cast: Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards, Val Kilmer | |
Top Gun: Maverick – Tom Cruise flies again in this much-better-than-the-original sequel | Director: Joseph Kosinski Cast: Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, Jon Hamm | |
Top Hat – classic Astaire and Rogers dancing, in glorious top hat and tails | Director: Mark Sandrich Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton | |
Topsy-Turvy – brilliant Gilbert and Sullivan biopic, also a wonderful celebration of the power and magic of theatre | Director: Mike Leigh Cast: Jim Broadbent, Allan Corduner, Timothy Spall | |
Total Recall – action satire; in a dytopian future, a man has a fantasy of being a spy on Mars: but what if its actually true? | Director: Paul Verhoeven Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone | |
Touch of Evil – late Welles masterpiece about a corrupt cop in a Southern border-town, dealing with murder and mayhem | Director: Orson Welles Cast: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles | |
The Towering Inferno – does exactly what it says on the tin, in this classic all-star disaster film. | Director: Irwin Allen, John Guillermin Cast: Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway | |
Toy Story 4 – not sure there was a reason to make a fourth film, and this doesn’t really supply one | Director: Josh Cooley Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts | |
Trading Places – a banker and tramp’s lives are turned upside down in this very 80s slice of comedy | Director: John Landis Cast: Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Lee Curtis | |
The Tragedy of Macbeth – glorious, imaginative and compelling version one of the best Shakespeare films | Director: Joel Coen Cast: Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Corey Hawkins | |
The Train – a French resistance fighter frustrates a German general, stealing France’s art legacy by train | Director: John Frankenheimer Cast: Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau | |
Trainspotting – iconic film about addiction: Scottish youngsters cope with drug dependence | Director: Danny Boyle Cast: Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle | |
Transformers: Dark of the Moon – simply horrible, horrible film that plumbs almost every crude depth | Director: Michael Bay Cast: Shia LeBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro | |
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – brilliant gold hunting drama of obsession, greed and mistrust | Director: John Huston Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt | |
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – sentimental tear-jerker on the tough life of an Irish-American family | Director: Elia Kazan Cast: Peggy Ann Garner, Dorothy McGuire, James Dunn | |
The Trial – paranoia bought brilliantly to a film in a Kafka adaptation easier to admire than like | Director: Orson Welles Cast: Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles | |
The Trial of the Chicago 7 – solid, crowd-pleasing film about the trial of Democratic activists in 1968 | Director: Aaron Sorkin Cast: Edjie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt | |
Triangle of Sadness – rather obvious satire on the super-rich, as a yacht cruise turns into Lord of the Flies | Director: Ruben Östlund Cast: Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Dolly de Leon | |
Triple 9 – thieves plan to get away with a heist by distracting the cops by killing another cop somewhere else | Director: John Hillcoat Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Antony Mackie, Casey Affleck | |
Trouble in Paradise – two con artists in a relationship decide to con a rich woman: not helped when he falls in love with her | Director: Ernst Lubitsch Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall | |
Troy – revisionist Trojan war epic. One of those epic films I have a real soft spot for | Director: Wolfgang Petersen Cast: Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom | |
True Grit – Wayne wins the Oscar as an eye-patched Marshal in a film already old-fashioned when it was released | Director: Henry Hathaway Cast: John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell | |
The Truman Show – a man unwittingly lives in an invented world and is actually the star of a reality TV show | Director: Peter Weir Cast: Jim Carrey, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Natasha McElhone | |
Trumbo – biopic of the Hollywood scriptwriter, blacklisted and forced to work anonymously | Director: Jay Roach Cast: Bryan Cranston, Helen Mirren, Diane Lane | |
The Turning Point – two ballet dancers – one who retired young, one near the end of her career – deal with old resentments | Director: Herbert Ross Cast: Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine, Tom Skerritt | |
12 Angry Men – a single juror tries to win over the rest in one of the greatest trial dramas ever made | Director: Sidney Lumet Cast: Henry Fonda, Lee J Cobb, Ed Begley | |
12 Monkeys – a time-travelling criminal is sent back 40 years to 1996 to find the origins of a world-ending virus | Director: Terry Gilliam Cast: Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt | |
Twelve O’Clock High – a hot shot general tries not to buckle under pressure commanding a WW2 bomber wing | Director: Henry King Cast: Gregory Peck, Dean Jagger, Hugh Marlowe | |
Twentieth Century – a theatre producer tries to cajole his former star to return with him to Broadway | Director: Howard Hawks Cast: John Barrymore, Carole Lombard, Walter Connolly | |
23 Paces to Baker Street – despite the title, this murder mystery about a blind man has nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes | Director: Henry Hathaway Cast: Van Johnson, Vera Miles, Cecil Parker | |
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me – spin-off of the TV series, Lynch reclaims it with added weirdness and darkness | Director: David Lynch Cast: Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise, Mädchen Amick | |
Twister – storm chasers flirt and flee from the winds in this deeply silly disaster film | Director: Jan de Bont Cast: Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, Jami Gertz, Cary Elwes | |
The Two Popes – Benedict XVI meets with the future Pope Francis, in this witty, excellently acted odd-couple movie | Director: Fernando Meirelles Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Anthony Hopkins |
U
U-571 – American sailors steal the Enigma machine so their code breakers can crack it. Didn’t go down well in the UK | Director: Jonathan Mostow Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Harvey Keitel, Bill Paxton | |
Unbroken – a POW survives incredible suffering and being stranded at sea during WW2 | Director: Angelina Jolie Cast: Jack O’Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund | |
Uncut Gems – a luckless gem dealer needs a big score to clear his gambling debts in this electric comedy thriller | Director: Benny & Josh Safdie Cast: Adam Sandler, Lakeith Stanfield, Julia Fox | |
Under Fire – well-made but naive film about Nicaragua that pulls its punches and settles for melodrama | Director: Roger Spottiswoode Cast: Nick Nolte, Gene Hackman, Joanna Cassidy | |
Unforgiven – brilliant Best Picture winning Western: a retired killer is lured back and slowly finds he can still kill | Director: Clint Eastwood Cast: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman | |
A United Kingdom – an African Prince marries a British woman but they face huge obstacles to stay together | Director: Amma Assante Cast: David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike, Terry Pheto | |
The Untouchables – FBI Agents take on Al Capone in this superb cops and robbers film (with added Eisenstein homage) | Director: Brian de Palma Cast: Kevin Coster, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro, Andy Garcia | |
Up in the Air – a consultant who flies across America, firing people for downsizing companies, questions his choices | Director: Jason Reitman Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick | |
Us – creep horror as a woman encounters a sinister doppelganger of herself – is there a dark mystery behind it? | Director: Jordan Peele Cast: Lupita N’yongo, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph | |
The Usual Suspects – a mismatched gang of crooks are recruited by a mysterious mastermind. But who is he? | Director: Bryan Singer Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri |
V
Vampyr – nightmareish vampire movie, full of haunting images and unexplained terrors | Director: Carl Theodore Dreyer Cast: Julian West, Maurice Schitz, Rena Mandel | |
Venom – utterly unoriginal comic book antics, saved by Hardy’s inventive performance | Director: Ruben Fleischer Cast: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed | |
Vera Drake – a 1950s abortionist is arrested in this superb social issues drama, possibly Leigh’s best film | Director: Mike Leigh Cast: Imelda Staunton, Phil Davis, Peter Wight | |
Vertical Limit – dreadful Wages of Fears rip-off, as mountainers carry explosives up a mountain to dig out stranded friends | Director: Martin Campbell Cast: Chris O’Donnell, Bill Paxton, Scott Glenn | |
Vertigo – a detective has fear of heights and an obsession with the woman he’s been hired to follow. One of the greatest films ever made. | Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara bel Geddes | |
Vice – terrible, smug and obvious Dick Cheney polemic | Director: Adam McKay Cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell | |
Victim – a closeted lawyer is blackmailed in this pioneering drama on gay rights | Director: Basil Dearden Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Sims, Derek Price | |
Victoria and Abdul – sentimental and feeble royal friendship drama, that has nothing interesting to say | Director: Stephen Frears Cast: Judi Dench, Ali Farzal, Tim Pigott-Smith | |
The Vikings – swashbuckler about a Viking prince and a Saxon slave with a mysterious background | Director: Richard Fleischer Cast: Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh | |
The Virgin Spring – a senseless killing leads to loss of faith in Bergman’s challenging but essential ‘other’ Medieval film | Director: Ingmar Bergman Cast: Max von Sydow, Birgitta Valberg, Birgitta Pettersson | |
Vita and Virginia – Virginia Woold and Vita Sackville West fall in love and have an affair in this odd film | Director: Chanya Button Cast: Gemma Arterton, Elizabeth Debicki, Isabella Rossellini | |
Volcano – dreadful, predictable and very silly disaster film as a volcano erupts under LA. What are the odds?! | Director: Mick Jackson Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche |
W
The Wages of Fear – penniless workers have to drive explosive chemicals over dangerous terrain in this gripping thriller | Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot Cast: Yves Montard, Charles Vanel, Folco Lilli | |
Waiting Women – three women share stories of their marriage in Bergman’s experiment with form and genre | Director: Ingmar Bergman Cast: Anita Björk, Eva Dahlbeck, Maj-Britt Nilsson | |
Walk the Line – heartfelt Johnny Cash biopic | Director: James Mangold Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Reece Witherspoon | |
Walkabout – dreamlike coming-of-age story set in the Australian outback | Director: Nicolas Roeg Cast: Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg, David Gulpilil | |
War and Peace – Hollywood produces it’s simplified, romantic version of Tolstoy – Gone with the Snow | Director: King Vidor Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Mel Ferrer | |
War of the Planet of the Apes – Caesar seeks revenge after tragedy hits his family, during a war between man and ape | Director: Matt Reeves Cast: Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn | |
WarGames – a computer wants to play a game: unfortunately the game is Thermonuclear war… | Director: John Badham Cast: Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, John Wood | |
Watch on the Rhine – dated at the time anti-Nazi film, too wordy and not dramatic enough | Director: Herman Shumlin Cast: Bette Davis, Paul Lukas, Lucile Watson | |
Watchmen – reverent graphic novel adaptation that captures the visuals but not the depth | Director: Zach Snyder Cast: Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode | |
The Water Diviner – after his sons are MIA after Gallipoli, a father travels to Turkey to find their bodies | Director: Russell Crowe Cast: Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Dylan Georgiades | |
Waterloo – practically a reconstruction of the battle, shot on a massive scale; the sort of film I’m a sucker for | Director: Sergei Bondarchuk Cast: Rod Steiger, Christopher Plummer, Orson Welles | |
WaterWorld – a mutant mariner helps a woman and child in a water-soaked dystopian world. Legendary box office bomb. | Director: Kevin Reynolds Cast: Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, Jeanne Tripplehorn | |
The Way Back – in the 1940s men escape from a Siberian Gulag and walk across Asia to freedom | Director: Peter Weir Cast: Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Saoirse Ronan | |
West Side Story – Best Picture winning classic musical about dancing street gangs with some of the best dancing you’ll ever see | Director: Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins Cast: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno | |
West Side Story – vibrant and dynamic remake that places Puerto Rican culture more at its heart | Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, Mike Faist | |
The Westerner – Ford western bromance between a cowboy and Judge Roy Bean | Director: William Wyler Cast: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Doris Davenport | |
The Whale – dishonest, disingenuous, manipulative, sentimental – a dying obese man tries connect with his daughter | Director: Darren Aronofsky Cast: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau | |
What We Do In the Shadows – very funny spoof, as a group of vampires house-share in New Zealand | Director: Jermaine Clement, Taika Waititi Cast: Taika Waititi, Jermaine Clement, Jonathan Brudgh | |
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? – two sisters feud over the past in the first ever “hag horror” | Director: Robert Aldrich Cast: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono | |
What’s Love Got to Do With It? – hard-hitting Tina Turner biopic, passionately acted | Director: Brian Gibson Cast: Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne | |
White Heat – Cagney makes it to the top of the world as possibly the most psychotic gangster this side of Goodfellas | Director: Raoul Walsh Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien | |
The White Ribbon – chilling parable: a village in 1900s Germany faces a series of outrages possibly carried out by children | Director: Micheal Haneke Cast: Christian Friedel, Ernst Jacobi, Burghart Klaußner | |
The White Tiger – a poor Indian works as a chauffeur for a rich couple and is asked to take the blame for their mistakes | Director: Ramin Bahrani Cast: Adarsh Gourav, Priyanka Chopra Jones, Rajkummar Rao | |
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – a married couple play psychological games with themselves and their guests | Director: Mike Nichols Cast: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, George Segal, Sandy Dennis | |
Widows – the wives of a gang of late-criminals, have no choice but to complete the final heist they planned | Director: Steve McQueen Cast: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki | |
The Wife – a celebrated writer picks up a Nobel Prize: but how much of his success should actually be credited to his wife? | Director: Björn Runge Cast: Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater | |
Wild – a woman wants to recover from grief and addiction by an epic hike: a lot more than just Eat, Pray, Hike | Director: Jean-Marc Vallée Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski | |
Wild at Heart – a released killer and his girl go on the run in this dark and irritating Lynchian film | Director: David Lynch Cast: Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd | |
The Wild Bunch – a bunch of old cowboys rage against the dying of the light in this hugely violent, brilliant Western | Director: Sam Peckinpah Cast: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan | |
Wild Rose – an irresponsible cleaner with a powerful voice dreams of being a country and western singer | Director: Tom Harper Cast: Jessie Buckley, Julie Walters, Sophie Okonedo | |
Wild Strawberries – an aged doctor reflects on life and loss in Bergman’s surprisingly optimistic road-trip movie | Director: Ingmar Bergman Cast: Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin | |
Wilde – biopic, with a perfectly cast Fry, that sometimes feels a little uncertain on its attitudes and tone | Director: Brian Gilbert Cast: Stephen Fry, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle | |
Wilson – Zanuck’s dream project, a very earnest biography of Woodrow Wilson | Director: Henry King Cast: Alexander Knox, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Cedric Hardwicke | |
The Wind That Shakes the Barley – Loach mourns the loss of the Socialist Republic of Ireland in the 1920s | Director: Ken Loach Cast: Cillian Murphy, Pádraic Delaney, Liam Cunningham | |
Wings – silent WW1 flying action film and buddy movie, the first Best Picture winner: pilots love the same woman but become friends | Director: William A Wellman Stars: Clara Bow, Charles Rogers, Richard Arlen | |
The Winslow Boy – handsome, faithful Rattigan adaptation as a father works for justice for his son | Director: David Mamet Cast: Nigel Hawthorne, Jeremy Northam, Rebecca Pidgeon | |
Winter Light – a priest despairs over his lost faith in Bergman’s profound and thoughtful masterpiece | Director: Ingmar Bergman Cast: Gunnar Björnstrand, Ingrid Thulin, Max von Sydow | |
Witness – an Amish boy witnesses a murder. A detective goes undercover to protect him and falls in love with his mother | Director: Peter Weir Cast: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas | |
Witness for the Prosecution – Agatha Christie courtroom drama adaptation, with one of the best twists ever | Director: Billy Wilder Cast: Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, Tyrone Power | |
The Wolf of Wall Street – a Wall Street crook takes almost as man drugs as he steals dollars in this electric classic | Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie | |
The Wolverine – the clawed superhero searches for peace in Japan – but of course doesn’t find it | Director: James Mangold Cast: Hugh Jackman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tak Okamoto | |
The Woman in Black – a widowed solicitor explores a haunted house. Good jump horror film with a too young star | Director: James Watkins Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer | |
Woman in Gold – cosy Philomena rip off: woman and her lawyer fight for a painting stolen from her family in WW2 | Director: Simon Curtis Cast: Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Daniel Brühl | |
The Woman King – warrior women in 1820s Africa fight to protect their kingdom in a punchy action epic | Director: Gina Prince-Bythe Cast: Viola Davis, Thusu Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega | |
Women in Love – two couples struggle for love and happiness in this arty and odd DH Lawrence adaptation | Director: Ken Russell Cast: Glenda Jackson, Alan Bates, Oliver Reed, Jennie Linden | |
Women Talking – admirably well-meaning feminist drama, but it doesn’t succeed as well as it might | Director: Sarah Polley Cast: Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckely | |
Wonder Woman – Wonder Women fights an evil German General in WW1: not as revolutionary as it claims | Director: Patty Jenkins Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, David Thewlis | |
Wonder Woman 1984 – unfairly criticised sequel, in many ways more fun and engaging than the first | Director: Patty Jenkins Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristin Wiig, Pedro Pascal | |
Wonka – family-friendly film repackages Dahl in the style of Paddington. Fun but not quite distinctive enough. | Director: Paul King Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Calah Lane, Hugh Grant | |
Working Girl – a secretary has business smarts – but her ideas stolen by her female boss – in this Wall Street comedy | Director: Mike Nichols Cast: Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver | |
The World is Not Enough – Bond gets involved in mysterious threats to a pipeline – but who can he trust? | Director: Michael Apted Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle | |
The Wrong Box – old-school farce full of mistaken identity and black comedy, sometimes tries a little too hard | Director: Bryan Forbes Cast: John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine |
X
X-Men: Apocalypse – the heroes take on a super powerful mutant aiming to destroy the world (again) in a series rapidly running out of ideas | Director: Bryan Singer Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence | |
X-Men: Dark Phoenix – final flourish of the prequel films, with all ideas finally gone, though not as bad as all that | Director: Simon Kinberg Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jessica Chastain |
Y
Yankee Doodle Dandy – all-singing, all-dancing Broadway legend biopic | Director: Michael Curtiz Cast: James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston | |
You Only Live Twice – Bond goes to Japan and meets Blofield. Connery looks like he wants to be literally anywhere else | Director: Lewis Gilbert Cast: Sean Connery, Donald Pleasance, Akiko Wakabayashi | |
Young Mr Lincoln – myth-making ‘origins story’ for America’s greatest President | Director: John Ford Cast: Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver | |
The Young Victoria – affectionate costume drama on the romance between Victoria and Albert | Director: Jean-Marc Vallée Cast: Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Paul Bettany | |
Young Winston – handsome biopic covering the early years of Winston Churchill, from cradle to maiden speech at the commons | Director: Richard Attenborough Cast: Simon Ward, Robert Shaw, Anne Bancroft | |
Youth – a retired composer rebuilds relations with his daughter at a Swiss retreat for the rich and famous | Director: Paolo Sorrentino Cast: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz |
Z
Zardoz – in the future a slave hunter discovers he is the tool of the Gods. Or something. Crazy sci-fi, as bad as it sounds | Director: John Boorman Cast: Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestelman | |
Zero Dark Thirty – morally dubious Hunt for Bin Laden film, that (inadvertently?) builds a strong case for torture | Director: Kathryn Bigelow Cast: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Jennifer Ehle | |
Zodiac – three men hunt for the Zodiac Killer in Fincher’s masterful true-crime thriller about the dangers of obsession | Director: David Fincher Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jnr | |
The Zone of Interest – chilling Holocaust movie, brilliantly designed and directed, that keeps horror off screen | Director: Jonathan Glazer Cast: Christian Freidel, Sandra Hüller | |
Zorba the Greek – a Brit learns to become Greek from a larger-than-life peasant in a tonally confused film | Director: Michael Cacoyannis Cast: Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates, Irene Papas, Lila Kedrova | |
Zulu – a small group of British soldiers stand firm against overwhelming orders in this non-triumphalist Zulu war film | Director: Cy Endfield Cast: Stanley Baker, Michael Caine, Jack Hawkins |