Best films on Disney Plus UK (for grown-ups)

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It’s not all Marvel and animated fairytales. Here’s our pick of the best films you can watch now on Disney Plus UK:

The output of Marvel, Lucasfilm and the Mouse House’s own library of films and TV shows are Disney Plus’s big selling point. But the streaming service also features a large collection of other films that have nothing to do with its major franchises – many of them movies Disney now owns after acquiring other Hollywood studios.

With this in mind, here’s our list of the best films on Disney Plus that aren’t Iron Man, Star Wars, Frozen or anything of that ilk. Encompassing just about every genre, there’s sure to be something to suit your taste if you’re struggling to decide what to watch this evening.

We’ll also keep this list updated as titles shuffle off and new ones are added. So here goes: Film Stories’ pick of the best films on Disney Plus UK (for grown-ups)…

28 Weeks Later

With work underway on a new series of follow-ups to Danny Boyle’s 2002 horror hit, 28 Days Later, why not catch up with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 2007 sequel? Still a hit on its release, it’s one of those films that wasn’t quite as attention-grabbing as its predecessor (which changed zombie movies forever, let’s face it) but if anything, it’s aged remarkably well. It has a superb cast, including a pre-Avengers Jeremy Renner, Robert Carlyle, Imogen Poots and Rose Byrne, and its depiction of a United Kingdom struggling to fend off an evolving Rage virus (which turns its victims into slathering, gnashing ghouls) is even more blood curdling to watch in 2024 than it was before a certain pandemic unfolded in the real world.

Alien

The best space horror film ever made? Almost certainly – and at the very least, the most influential. Time has been unusually kind to Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi masterpiece, partly because it remains a visual high point for production design – both for the titular monster and the cavernous ship that becomes its hunting ground – but also because its story is so ruthlessly uncomplicated. The cast, which includes Sigourney Weaver, Yaphet Kotto, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Ian Holm and John Hurt (poor guy…) are uniformly excellent. It’s the film that launched a multi-million dollar franchise (all of which are also on Disney+), but 45 years on, Alien remains unmatched.

Alita: Battle Angel

For years, James Cameron was going to direct this adaptation of Yukito Kishiro’s cyberpunk manga, Gunnm, but in the end he handed the gig over to Robert Rodriguez. The latter filmmaker’s better known for his low-budget action and horror output, but he brings his homemade enthusiasm to this coming-of-age story about a young cyborg, Alita (Rosa Salazar), and her adventures in a trash-strewn future. Too few people saw this one in cinemas; at least its presence on Disney Plus will allow more people to sample its mix of cutting-edge CG visuals and surprisingly humane storytelling.

All Of Us Strangers

Maybe it’s just us, but there’s a hint of Powell and Pressburger’s lushness to All Of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh’s singularly moving story about two lonely gay lovers who meet in a near-deserted London block of flats. Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal are terrific as the leads, Adam and Harry respectively, and as the story moves between the present and the 1980s, teasing out the story of Adam’s childhood, the narrative sneaks up on you with a truly powerful conclusion.

Another Earth

Director Mike Cahill, who co-wrote with star Brit Marling, has never made another film quite as good as this 2011 sci-fi drama. A young woman named Rhoda (Marling) is beset by guilt following an incident years earlier; the discovery of a second planet, seemingly identical to our own, provides her with what might be a chance of redemption. It’s a quiet film, full of introversion and melancholy, but it’s also beautifully acted (William Mapother is superb) and delicately made by Cahill on a tiny budget of about $100,000.

The Banshees Of Inisherin

Its raft of Oscar nominations means you’ve probably at least heard of this one already, but if you haven’t, then do give The Banshees Of Inisherin a watch. Writer-director Martin McDonagh refines the wordplay and bracing cynicism of his earlier work, including In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (see later), to deliver what for this writer is his most thoughtful, intelligent film yet. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are both charming as the two deeply flawed men at the centre of the story, and through them, McDonagh uses their petty differences to tell a much bigger, profound story about relationships and human nature. Barry Keoghan also deserves a mention for his performance; his utterance of the line “Well, there goes that dream” is somehow both funny and profoundly sad. The same could be said of the film as a whole, in fact.

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Boys Don’t Cry

A hard-hitting and genuinely heart-breaking drama starring Hilary Swank as true-life Nebraskan transgender man Brandon Teena, Boys Don’t Cry is a difficult yet rewarding watch. Swank rightly earned an Oscar for her performance, and filmmaker Kimberly Peirce’s film remains just as important 25 years later, given the discrimination and violence the transgender community still faces in 2024.

Broken Arrow

There’s a reasonable argument that action maestro John Woo’s Hollywood output never quite matched his work in Hong Kong. And while Broken Arrow is certainly no The Killer or Hard Boiled, it’s still a hugely entertaining and knowingly silly thriller, with game performances from Christian Slater as a young air force captain and John Travolta as his superior, who one day decides to run off with some missiles. The action’s entertaining and creative in that classic John Woo way, and there’s a welcome line of humour missing from his US cinema debut, Hard Target. All together, now: “Do not shoot the nuclear weapons!”

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Previously better known for her comedic work, Melissa McCarthy puts in a career-best performance as Lee Israel, a struggling, broke New York writer who takes to forging letters written by the deceased and famous in order to make some fast cash. It’s a witty film that deals with heavy subjects with a lightness of touch – full marks to director Marielle Heller and co-writers Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty – and is a terrific showcase for its actors. It’s a real treat to see Richard E Grant get such a major role; he was born to play Lee’s haughty, shambolic best friend, Jack Hock.

The Creator

Seven years after he made Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, British filmmaker Gareth Edwards returned with a more personal sci-fi thriller. Set in 2070, The Creator weaves a future world where sentient robots are outlawed in the US, but find a safe haven in South East Asia; John David Washington plays a wounded soldier with his own reasons for distrusting AI machines, but he’s forced to question his prejudices when he’s paired with a young ‘Synth’ named Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles). While it’s true that it’s easy to see a number of influences in The Creator, it’s still stunningly realised on a moderate budget, and the leads are charming to watch.

The Devil Wears Prada

Not just an acid-tongued dressing down of the fashion industry, almost 20 years on from its release The Devil Wears Prada serves as a surprisingly nostalgic look at a magazine culture on the brink of an historic downturn. Meryl Streep’s turn as fashion mag titan Miranda Priestly has become perhaps her most famous role for a reason, and Anne Hathaway is perfectly cast as the journalistic dormouse turned corporate ladder-climber, Andrea Sachs. Alongside superb supporting turns from Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, they strut the publishing catwalk like gods among mortals – a deliciously entertaining nest of vipers lent new poignancy knowing the power they’re scrambling over is disappearing before their eyes.

Die Hard

One of the most influential action thrillers ever made, 1988’s Die Hard turned Bruce Willis into a true movie star, and gave us one of the best villains thanks to the late Alan Rickman’s coolly urbane performance. Directed by John McTiernan, Die Hard has aged so well partly because, much like the 2020s, 1980s cinema was packed with heroes who could wade into an action scene and emerge without a scratch. Willis’s New York cop John McClane is the opposite of that – a brave yet ordinary guy who takes on a building full of terrorists single-handed and is shot, battered and doused in flames in the process. Again, there are sequels on Disney Plus; the original is still by far the best.

Ed Wood

The life of the ambitious yet singularly untalented 1950s/60s filmmaker Ed Wood is brought to life with real tenderness by Tim Burton. A black-and-white comedy drama about a cult figure who passed most people by, Burton’s biopic was a risky undertaking, and Ed Wood wasn’t a hit on its release in 1994. Financial matters aside, it’s an absolute classic: Johnny Depp is terrific in the title role, as is Martin Landau as the embittered old Hollywood legend, Bela Lugosi. Scenes from Wood’s own film are lovingly re-created, and there’s the general feel that Burton is having the time of his life telling the story of one of America’s most hapless directors.

Face/Off

Another Hollywood action flick from John Woo, this one’s a must-watch not just for the action (check out that flying speedboat) but of course because of its two leads, John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. Simply having the two sparking off one another in a movie would have been enough; but then there’s its outlandish face-swapping concept, which means we get to watch Cage doing outlandish impressions of Travolta and vice versa. This, coupled with Woo’s trademark two-fisted, slow-motion gun battles, makes Face/Off a corking night’s entertainment.

The Favourite

Before Yorgos Lanthimos startled everyone with his saucy reimagining of Frankenstein, Poor Things (see later entry), the Greek director made what is still his most accessible film, The Favourite. A comedy drama about the eccentric Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and her furtive relationships with younger women, it almost reads like a parody of the usual period pieces that set Oscar voters’ hearts aflutter. Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz are terrific as the women vying for Queen Anne’s favour, and while this is a more restrained Lanthimos, it’s still Lanthimos, so go in expecting the wonderfully unexpected. And numerous rabbits.

Fight Club

David Fincher’s adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same name is a product of the late 1990s, but its story of disaffected young men raging against their own irrelevance by punching each other in dingy basements still feels vital 25 years later. Edward Norton plays the classic unreliable narrator; Brad Pitt’s the mysterious stranger who gives his character licence to head off on his strange, violent odyssey. Helena Bonham Carter arguably steals the show as the wayward Marla Singer – a character who probably deserved a film of her own.

Fish Tank

Andrea Arnold writes and directs this low-key British drama with empathy, and Katie Jarvis is perfectly cast as Mia, an East Londoner navigating her way through her teenage years. Michael Fassbender is also on form as the handsome yet (very) unseemly Connor. Between them, Arnold and her actors forge a powerful, truthful drama.

The Fly

One of the best remakes of all time, David Cronenberg’s 1986 film is multiple things at once: gross-out shocker, with gooey mutation effects by Chris Walas; an effective sci-fi monster movie; and a moving relationship drama, with the love affair between Geena Davis’s journalist and Jeff Golblum’s scientist gradually torn apart by the latter’s accidental misuse of an experimental matter transporter. One of Cronenberg’s most mainstream films, The Fly also ranks highly among his best. Just make sure you’ve finished eating any snacks before watching its final hour or so. We’ll never look at a ring donut in quite the same way again.

Le Mans ‘66 (aka Ford V Ferrari)

You can almost smell the engine oil and brake dust in James Mangold’s biopic about racers Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles’ attempt to win the Le Mans 24 hours race. But while Mangold’s camera lingers adoringly on all those 1960s racing cars, you don’t have to be a petrolhead to appreciate Ford Vs Ferrari; really, it’s about two very different people who happen to share the same automotive obsession. Matt Damon’s Shelby is the kind of robust all-American who, to quote Abe Simpson, you could set your watch to; Christian Bale’s Miles is a wildcard Brit whose volatility wins him few friends but makes him a demon behind the wheel.

The French Connection

One of director William Friedkin’s most celebrated films, crime thriller The French Connection needs little introduction. It’s perhaps best known these days for its car chase sequence – in which Friedkin wrapped himself up in a mattress, sat in the back of a vehicle and screamed at the stunt driver to go faster – but its more low-key moments are just as thrilling. It’s a character piece about two beat-up cops, played by Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, and the sometimes disturbing lengths they’ll go to in order to smash an international drug racket. Like a true documentarian, Friedkin’s camera doesn’t judge his deeply flawed protagonist – he hangs back and lets their violent story speak for itself.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Alongside Fantastic Mr Fox (also on Disney Plus, and also brilliant), The Grand Budapest Hotel is the Wes Anderson film for people who don’t like Wes Anderson films. His clockwork-wedding-cake style gels with the subject matter – the escapades of the hotel’s eccentric concierge (Ralph Fiennes) and a young lobby boy (Tony Revolori) escaping a fascist regime in a fictionalised corner of 1930s Europe – perhaps more cleanly than it’s done before or since. Packed with humour, heart and astonishingly beautiful to boot, it’s also since become known as one of Anderson’s best films to date. If you’ve had your curiosity piqued by certain TikTok trends, or have ever thought the filmmaker isn’t for you, stick this one in your virtual disc drive.

Gone Girl

David Fincher isn’t a director known for letting off much steam, but after tackling some particularly brutal subject matter in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, his 2014 thriller finds the multi-take auteur doing just that. A brilliantly twisty and perfectly-constructed mystery is supported by a razor-sharp script and a cast clearly having more fun than a Fincher production usually (allegedly) allows, Gone Girl doesn’t have the dripping sarcasm of Fight Club or clinical fury of The Social Network – but it’s a bloody good time at the movies, nonetheless.

Good Morning Vietnam

Part-military comedy and part-anti-Vietnam drama, Barry Levinson’s 1987 tale of a radio DJ sent to cheer up the troops in Saigon gave Robin Williams the part he was born to play. The late comic improvised his way through almost all the film’s radio broadcasts in his signature high-octane style, contributing to a completely unique look at one of the most-filmed conflicts in American history.

Gosford Park

A spiritual predecessor to hit TV series Downton Abbey (both written by Julian Fellowes), Gosford Park was a late-career success for director Robert Altman. More formal and controlled than much of his earlier, improv-heavy work, it’s a drily funny murder mystery set in the upstairs-downstairs bustle of a British country estate between the world wars. Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas and Charles Dance are among the toffs; Kelly Macdonald, Clive Owen and, unusually, Helen Mirren (she’s played queens quite a number of times) are some of those playing ordinary folk.

Heat

We can thank the cinema gods that Michael Mann’s 1989 TV movie LA Takedown, didn’t lead to a full series as originally planned. Otherwise, we never would have had Heat, the director’s 1995 crime epic. Now regarded as a classic of the genre, it hardly needs selling here: Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are, respectively, the cop and the robber whose commitment to their jobs drives the film like a V8 engine. Studded around them are a set of characters whose personalities leap off the screen, no matter how small their role is in the unfolding plot; look, there’s William Fichtner as a particularly dodgy businessman; there goes Xander Berkeley as Pacino’s wife’s hapless one night stand. It’s all ridiculously brilliant. That other movies have liberally borrowed from Mann’s thriller has done little to blunt its steely edge.

Hidden Figures

Some of the most fascinating stories can be found in the niches behind history’s famous names. Most will be familiar with Neil Armstrong and the other crew members that took Apollo 11 to the Moon in 1969, but what about the people back on Earth who helped put them there? Director and co-writer Theodore Melfi’s 2016 drama tells the true story of Katherine Goble, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan – three African American women whose mathematical genius helped the United States win the space race. Melfi brings lightness to a potentially dry historical piece, and Taraji P Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae are all terrific as the leading trio. Kevin Costner’s in here somewhere as well.

The Insider

A fact-based film about corruption in the tobacco industry might not sound particularly exciting, but Michael Mann directs The Insider like a conspiracy thriller. Russell Crowe plays real-life whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, whose decision to break his silence about the potentially deadly actions of cigarette firm Brown & Williamson upends his life to a potentially dangerous degree. Unlike Heat (see above), The Insider wasn’t a hit in 1999; for this writer, it’s nevertheless among the best films in Mann’s long career.

The King Of Comedy

With the blockbuster success of Joker, which borrows from Scorsese’s stand-up thriller heavily, one of the legendary director’s lesser-seen works found itself exposed to a whole new audience. Thankfully, it’s still completely brilliant. Robert De Niro has probably never bettered his perfectly-judged turn as wannabe comedian-turned kidnapper Rupert Pupkin, and a gut-punch ending tops off a stinging cautionary tale about media and celebrity which has only grown more relevant with age. The King Of Comedy tops a lot of Scorsese best-of lists for a reason.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark

All the Indiana Jones movies are on Disney+, as you might expect, but the 1981 film that kicked off the franchise has to be our pick of the crop. Harrison Ford fully embraces the darker aspects of his character as well as his charm, which is probably why Indy is still one of the great big-screen heroes over 40 years later. Steven Spielberg, smarting from the unexpected failure of his WWII-era comedy, 1941, directed Raiders at an aggressive rate, and his drive soaks through into the finished film. From beginning to end, it’s a delirious, almost flawless thrillride.

JFK

JFK, now on Disney Plus — Kevin Costner in JFK. Credit: Warner Bros.

Considering so much of JFK is about Kevin Costner sitting in offices or park benches, talking in hushed tones about conspiracy theories, Oliver Stone’s three-hour-plus drama about a purported cover up of John F Kennedy’s assassination rushes along at an engrossing clip. Maybe it’s because Oliver Stone directs the piece with such conviction; or maybe it’s because every character is played so well by its starry cast that it’s always fascinating to see where the investigation – carried out by Costner’s New Orleans DA Jim Garrison – will head next.

Podcast: JFK (1991) and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

LA Confidential

LA Confidential isn’t shy about flaunting its Chinatown roots, but Curtis Hanson’s tinseltown thriller ends up offering something rather different. Slick, sexy, and uncompromisingly gory in places, its web of film-noir plotting and all-star cast mark it out as a more popcorn-friendly addition to the long canon of Christmas thrillers taking place in the shadow of the Hollywood sign, but never shies away from some hard truths and skulduggery in the process.

The Last Duel

Somewhat overshadowed on its release by the twin misfortunes of House Of Gucci and its own press tour, Ridley Scott’s medieval Rashomon never seemed to get the wider recognition it deserved. The brutal subject matter – the story of the last judicial duel in France, fought between a man accused of sexual assault and his victim’s husband – might put you off, but with a smart script, committed performances and one of the most brilliantly tense final action sequences of any film in recent years, Scott’s finest film of 2021 is finally getting its due on Disney+. As long as you can tolerate Matt Damon’s mullet, of course.

Life Of Pi

Yann Martel’s best-selling novel becomes a visual extravaganza for versatile director Ang Lee, and his handling of the story smartly treads the line between the whimsical – it’s largely about a boy who winds up stranded in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of CGI animals – and bracing real-world harshness. Irrfan Khan in particular is superb as the adult Pi, who recounts his encounters at sea when he was a teenager. Just look at his expression as he delivers the film’s closing lines. Unforgettable.

Man On Fire

For this writer, the best of Denzel Washington’s collaborations with the late director Tony Scott, Man On Fire is an appropriately searing revenge thriller. Reclusive author AJ Quinnell’s novel was adapted once before in 1980, but Scott’s 2004 version (written by Brian Helgeland) is by far the best. Washington plays John Creasy, an world-weary bodyguard who’s taught to enjoy life again by the youngster under his charge, Lupita (a sparky Dakota Fanning). When Lupita is kidnapped, Creasy understandably goes ballistic, and Mexico City soon turns into a battle zone.

The Martian

Based on Andy Weir’s similarly ingenious novel of the same name, The Martian, at first, seemed like an odd source material for Ridley Scott to tackle. The filmmaker best-known for bleak, dystopian sci-fi and the odd historical epic or two is hardly a natural fit for a feel-good, disco-fuelled rescue movie celebrating the best of human ingenuity. When botanist/astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is separated from his crew in a Martian dust storm, his devastated comrades are forced to leave the red planet without him. Fending for himself with nothing but his botany powers to save him, Watney has only one option: “science the shit out of this”, while NASA tries to figure out how to get him home. Inspirational, hilarious and surprisingly scientifically accurate, The Martian will have you cheering from your living room.

Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World

Russell Crowe’s fighting round the world in Master And Commander. Credit: 20th Century Studios.

Coming in for a gentle ribbing in recent years for its unapologetically “dad movie” status, Peter Weir’s love letter to Napoleonic seafaring is a stoic and unexpectedly moving ode to male friendship disguised as an historical epic. Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany make for a captivating on-screen duo, and the film’s realistic approach to all the different ropes that make up a big boat have a charming, almost hypnotic quality. When it needs to get loud, too, it gets loud, as the seafarers exchange cannonballs in some of the most thrilling naval combat ever put to screen. The oceans are now battlefields, indeed.

Melancholia

Arguably the best of Lars von Trier’s depression trilogy, 2011’s Melancholia (following 2009’s Antichrist and emerging ahead of 2013’s Nymphomaniac), is also the more accessible of them. Though this is von Trier we’re talking about, so that’s not really saying much. At any rate, Kirsten Dunst delivers a first-rate performance as Justine, a depressive young woman whose marriage roughly coincides with Earth’s collision with a rogue planet (the Melancholia of the title). It’s a rich, imaginative allegory of what it means to live with mental illness – and live around people with mental illness – though von Trier also finds moments of joy among the despair. Udo Kier, for example, is an absolute riot as an angry wedding planner.

Nightmare Alley

Combining Guillermo Del Toro’s eye for the monstrous and the uncanny with the trappings of classic film noir, this is a remake of the 1947 thriller done right. Achingly beautiful to look at and with atmosphere positively dripping from every frame, this is the kind of seductive adult thriller they, you guessed it, just don’t make anymore. An excellent title, too.

No One Will Save You

Barely released in US cinemas, No One Will Save You was sneaked onto Disney Plus (and Hulu in the US) with barely a whisper in September 2023. If you haven’t seen writer-director Brian Duffield’s sci-fi horror, then be sure to give it a go – and don’t read too much about it beforehand. For one thing, it’s a superb showcase for Kaitlyn Dever, a solitary young woman who experiences something otherworldly in her late mother’s old house. Told almost entirely without dialogue, this is the low-budget Duel and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind mashup we never knew we wanted.

Nomadland

Before she was snapped up by the toothsome Marvel Cinematic Universe machine, filmmaker Chloé Zhao made this sublimely naturalistic drama in 2020. It’s a low-key mood piece, really, with Frances McDormand brilliantly inhabiting the role of Fern, a middle-aged woman who shrugs off the trappings of domestic life and trundles off in her van on a trip across America. The sort of road trip film we used to see more of in the 70s and 80s, Zhao’s take on the genre is refreshingly handmade and seemingly real.

The Omen

Time has blunted the shock value of The Omen’s horror moments somewhat, but Richard Donner’s chiller is still absorbing and highly atmospheric. Its premise is now so well known that it’s easy to forget there was a time when audiences didn’t necessarily know anything about Damien, the little boy adopted by Gregory Peck’s square-jawed US diplomat. Even armed with this knowledge, though, The Omen remains unusually tense; it’s certainly better paced and directed than its sequels, also on Disney Plus; one entry we would recommend, though, is the 2024 prequel The First Omen, also on the service.

Once Upon A Time In America

The story goes that Leone turned down The Godfather so that he could shoot his own New York gangster flick (a spiritual – if far-from-literal – sequel to his own Once Upon A Time in The West) only for Warner Bros to take umbridge to its four-hour running time. The studio drastically pulled apart Leone’s cut, which had been rapturously received in Europe, and eventually release it as a two-hour movie in the US, wrecking the open-for-interpretation, dreamlike quality of Leone’s vision along the way. It would be the last film he directed before his death in 1990, aged 60. Thankfully, the version currently on Disney Plus is the original version, with its era hopping narrative that follows Robert De Niro’s ‘Noodles’ as it switches between his rise in 1920’s bootlegging culture of prohibition New York and the 1960s, when he returns to the site of the events that scarred his life.

One Hour Photo

Director Mark Romanek really should make more movies. To date, he only has three features to his name – 1985’s Static and the heartbreaking Never Let Me Go (based on the Katsuhiro Ishigiro novel) and this simmering character study from 2002. About a photo technician who becomes obsessed with a local family whose images he develops and pores over, it’s a further reminder of how brilliant the late Robin Williams was when placed in non-comedic roles.

Planet Of The Apes

The 1968 classic that started it all. Yes, all the sequels are on Disney Plus, but do go back and check out the original if you haven’t already; superbly made and wittily written, it gives Charlton Heston one of his signature roles, features some delicate supporting performances from Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter beneath their heavy ape makeup, and one of the most famous closing shots in sci-fi history.

Poor Things

Yorgos Lanthimos has pulled off a remarkable feat by making a series of cool, insanely profitable and straight-up bizarre films, and his adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel might be the weirdest of the bunch. Starring Emma Stone in an Oscar-winning turn as a reincarnated woman discovering herself through sex, astonishing costumes, set design and cinematography paint a luscious fantasy landscape we could get lost in for days.

Predator

Among the most quotable action films of its era, 1987’s Predator is also among the best of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s post-Conan/Terminator star vehicles. The Austrian Oak is among the beefy mercenaries who encounter an alien big game hunter in a steamy jungle one day, and much gore and bullet-strewn mayhem ensues. The title creature, designed by Stan Winston, is obviously iconic, and the cast – Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham and more besides – is great value. Predator’s true asset, perhaps, is director John McTiernan, whose taut direction and knowing humour makes what could have been another sub-Alien B-movie a true genre classic. The sequels and spin-offs are also on Disney Plus if you want more Predator; we’d suggest sticking to the underrated Predator 2 and Dan Trachtenberg’s excellent Prey (2022), though.

Ready Or Not

Weddings are generally awful, but the one poor Grace (Samara Weaving) has to suffer through involves something much worse than a limp buffet or an interminable best man’s speech. To say much more would spoil the surprise; it’s sufficient to say, perhaps, that directors Matt Bettinielli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet’s film goes to some truly dark places, and actually has more on its mind than most recent shockers of its type.

Read more: Ready Or Not review

Rushmore

Wes Anderson followed his breakthrough debut Bottle Rocket with this captivating comedy drama, loosely based on co-writer (and regular Anderson actor) Owen Wilson’s own childhood. Jason Schwartzman plays Max Fischer, the son of a hairdresser who cuts an unusual figure at a prestigious school full of rich kids, but finds unlikely allies in a gloomy local businessman (Bill Murray) and one of his teachers (Olivia Williams) on whom he not-so-secretly has a crush. Somewhat more naturalistic than Anderson’s later films, the director expresses his love of stagecraft in Fischer’s spectacularly unlikely school plays. We’d dearly love to see the full production of the precocious teenager’s Serpico.

The Rock

Before Michael Bay got all caught up in those Hasbro transforming robots, he made some pretty dang good 1990s thrillers. The Rock is this author’s favourite, not least because it pairs Sean Connery’s retired, formerly incarcerated MI6 agent (clearly an elder Bond) with Nicolas Cage, here at the height of his multiplex action hero career. Bay’s usual swooping camera moves are in evidence but less distracting than in his later output, and Ed Harris has fun in the clearly absurd role of General Francis X Hummel, a former war hero who’s decided to take over Alcatraz Island and threaten his own country with deadly chemical weapons. Also memorable is the early scene where Cage manages to over-act while opening a jiffy bag.

Sideways

Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church go on a wine-tasting road trip through the Santa Ynez Valley. If that doesn’t sell this charming little film to you, perhaps knowing that it’s directed by Alexander Payne – who Giamatti recently reunited with in The Holdovers – will. Low stakes, beautiful human drama with lots of lovely-looking wine bars. What more could you ask for?

The Shape Of Water

What if The Creature From The Black Lagoon were retold as a romance? That could have been the elevator pitch for Guillermo del Toro’s 2017 genre piece, but his Oscar-winning gem is also an effective allegory for racism and intolerance. Sally Hawkins, as mute cleaner Elisa, and Doug Jones’ amphibious creature serve as the warm, humane centre around which del Toro’s dark and often cruel world revolves around (it’s set in the USA at the height of the Cold War), and in the director’s hands, it moves like an ecstatic, swooning waltz. It’s deservedly one of the filmmaker’s most celebrated works to date.

Speed

Also known as The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down, Speed is arguably the most entertaining of the post-Die Hard action thrillers that cluttered up Hollywood in the 1990s. There’s real chemistry between Keanu Reeves’ fresh-faced cop and Sandra Bullock’s reluctant bus driver, while Dennis Hopper, the maniac who attached a massive bomb to the bus’s speedometer, is evidently having a merry old time here (“Pop quiz, hot shot…”). Director Jan De Bont attempted to make lightning strike twice with 1997’s Speed 2: Cruise Control, which is also on Disney Plus but emphatically not on this list.

Stoker

When is a vampire movie not a vampire movie? When it’s Stoker, Korean maestro Park Chan-wook’s first US film. A slow-burning thriller about a young girl, India (Mia Wasikowska) and the mysterious man who may or may not be her Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), Stoker also has obvious parallels with Alfred Hitchcock’s classic, Shadow Of A Doubt. Not quite as satisfying as Chan-wook’s earlier work, such as Joint Security Area or Oldboy, Stoker is nevertheless well worth seeing for its quality performances and the director’s obsessive eye for detail. The filmmaker really does like elaborate wallpaper.

Sunshine

Director Danny Boyle’s second collaboration with screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later was the first – Garland’s novel The Beach was adapted by John Hodge) is a truly underrated sci-fi thriller. About a group of scientists dispatched to kickstart our dwindling sun using a colossal bomb, Sunshine explores the toll their long mission takes on each of them, and by extension the frailties that mark us out as a species. But it’s also a rip-roaring adventure with shades of horror, and while not everything in it works, Boyle’s film deserved far more attention than it received on release in 2002. It’s also fascinating to revisit and see a younger Cillian Murphy play a brilliant physicist – paving the way for his Oscar-winning turn in Oppenheimer. In the best possible way, Murphy’s career is seemingly littered with bombs.

The Thin Red Line

Terrence Malick returned to the editing room with so much footage that some of the best-known actors of the late 1990s, including George Clooney, were largely reduced to cameo appearances in the final cut. Others, including Bill Pullman and Mickey Rourke, were snipped out entirely. The resulting movie, released in 1998, remains an epic in every respect, spanning the theatre of war across the South Pacific in 1942, taking in numerous perspectives and clocking in at almost three hours long. It’s a reflective, poetic war film, and thanks to Hans Zimmer’s score, as captivating to listen to as it is to watch.

This Boy’s Life

Robert De Niro has made a career out of playing troubled characters, but none are quite like Dwight Hansen in This Boy’s Life – an authoritarian yet ultimately thin-skinned and pathetic stepdad to Leonardo DiCaprio’s young Tobias Wolff. Its scenes of domestic violence are disturbing yet sensitively handled by director Michael Caton-Jones, and the supporting cast – including Ellen Barkin as Tobias’ mother Caroline – is roundly excellent.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonagh’s signature brand of acerbic screenwriting and an uncharacteristically serious plot makes Three Billboards probably one of the most adult films on this list. But behind the expletive-stuffed dialogue and bleak sense of humour lies a quietly affecting story of injustice and redemption, one buoyed by a stellar performance from Frances McDormand as a Missouri woman seeking answers following the murder of her teenage daughter.

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