Science fiction, at its best, uses the impossible to say something true about the present: who we are, where we're headed, what we stand to lose. From the operatic scope of The Empire Strikes Back to the knotted time-logic of Inception, the genre rewards directors bold enough to think as well as spectacle. See what Macca made of it all below.
Rating: 2.5★
There are certain franchises that define a particular moment in Hollywood history, and the Transformers series is a fairly clear example of what blockbuster filmmaking looked like in the mid-2000s. The property itself began life as a line of Hasbro toys in the early 1980s, quickly followed by a
Rating: 4.0★
By the early 1930s, Universal Pictures had established itself as the home of the monster movie, and the studio was moving at quite a pace. Frankenstein had arrived in 1931, setting a template for prestige horror that mixed scientific hubris with genuine pathos, and the studio wasted little time in
Rating: 3.0★
On the 5th of November 1975, a group of forestry workers drove back into Snowflake, Arizona, with a story that the local sheriff and a fair portion of the American public found very hard to swallow. They claimed that their colleague, Travis Walton, had been struck by a beam of
Rating: 2.0★
There is a particular kind of sequel that arrives not out of creative necessity but out of commercial instinct, a follow-up built on the ruins of someone else's success and dressed up to look like continuation. Futureworld (1976) is that kind of film. Michael Crichton's
Rating: 3.5★
There is a particular pleasure in revisiting a film that arrived quietly, did modest business, and then spent the following fifty years proving itself right. Westworld, released in 1973, is exactly that kind of film. Written and directed by Michael Crichton, it imagines a sprawling luxury resort called Delos where
Rating: 2.5★
When Disney announced that The Mandalorian would be making the leap from Disney+ to the big screen, the reaction was roughly split between cautious optimism and weary scepticism. The series had been a genuine bright spot in the post-Rise of Skywalker wilderness, winning over audiences with its stripped-back,
Rating: 2.0★
H.P. Lovecraft spent much of his life being ignored, misunderstood, or quietly horrified by the modern world, which makes it fitting that his work has spent the decades since his death being adapted, reinterpreted, and gleefully mangled by filmmakers who clearly adore the source material even when they'
1950s
Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) arrived at a strange crossroads in American cinema: too modest to be a prestige picture, too unsettling to be a forgettable B-movie. Adapted from Jack Finney’s serialised novel The Body Snatchers and shot at Allied Artists on a budget
1970s
René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet (1973) is one of those films that doesn’t really fit anywhere: too cerebral for kids, too odd for animation festivals, too steeped in European political theory for the Saturday-morning slot, and too visually fearless to ignore. A 72-minute French–Czech co-production
Genre Horror
★★½ — Nightmare City (1980)
Genre Horror
★★★ — The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
Genre Science Fiction
★★ — Invaders from Mars (1953)
Film images and data courtesy of TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.
The best new reviews, a buried gem with where to watch it, and where the every-country challenge is up to. Free, no spam.
Subscribe free