A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Rating: ★★★★
Sep 5, 2002Dream-Invading Boogey Man
One of the most influential horror films of the 1980s, creating a series of dream horror copycats. Before the campy, makeup effects driven sequels kicked in, Wes Craven's original creates a genuinely unearthly series of nightmare jumps

Arizona Dream (1993)

Arizona Dream (1993)
Rating: ★★½
Jan 26, 2017Occasionally Surreal Desert Happenings
This English-language debut from Emir Kusturica should have been a hit going by its cast that includes a young Johnny Depp romancing a 50+ Faye Dunaway, but is a plotless piece of improv of occasional surreal interludes

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Rating: ★★
Aug 20, 2003Surreal Drug Hallucinations/Hunter S. Thompson Adaptation
In attempting to capture the surreal, paranoiac drug haze of Hunter S. Thompson’s counter-culture classic, Terry Gilliam's adaptation becomes a rambling, self-indulgent mess of tripped-out visions that go on and on

The Ninth Gate (1999)

The Ninth Gate (1999)
Rating: ★★★
Mar 11, 2000Quest for Occult Tome
Roman Polanski makes a return to Rosemary's Baby territory in this work with Johnny Depp as a rare book collector on the trail of an occult tome. Polanski great a great sense of sinister forces surrounding Depp but the film reaches an unsatisfying ending

From Hell (2001)

From Hell (2001)
Rating: ★★
Oct 21, 2001Jack the Ripper
Disappointing attempt, based on a Alan Moore graphic novel, to depict the Jack the Ripper killings. The film feels over-produced and slides off the cliff by throwing its weight behind one of the more ludicrous and implausible Ripper theories

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Rating: ★★½
Nov 21, 2003Pirate Fantasy Swashbuckler
Enjoyably tongue-in-cheek pirate swashbuckler based on the Disney theme park that proved an enormous hit and spun off a series of sequels, as well as giving Johnny Depp one of his iconic roles

Secret Window (2004)

Secret Window (2004)
Rating: ★★★½
Apr 19, 2004Sinister Stranger/Stephen King Adaptation
Stephen King adaptation with Johnny Depp as a writer in a cabin in the woods harassed by mysterious stranger John Turturro. Screenwriter David Koepp directs a marvellously chill Turturro with lots of twisty surprises

Finding Neverland (2004)

Finding Neverland (2004)
Rating: ★★
Jan 16, 2005Peter Pan's Creator Biopic
A biopic about J.M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan. The film received much acclaim at awards season but in reality is a simplistic work that rewrites J.M. Barrie's biography in favour of a fictional story about what happened

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Rating: ★★
Sep 16, 2005Gonzo Children's Film/Fantastical Candy Factory
Tim Burton's remake of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a peculiarly lifeless confection that fails to find any of the zaniness of the original, something that one would have thought would have been Burton's forte

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
Rating: ★★½
Jul 24, 2006Pirate Fantasy Swashbuckler
The second of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Johnny Depp and all the principals are back and much of the eccentric humour is present but the action has undergone budget bloat

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Rating: ★★
Feb 3, 2008Murderous Barber Musical
Tim Burton takes on the film version of the Stephen Sondhiem musical about a murderous barber featuring Johnny Depp in the title role. Disappointingly, Burton still makes the same film he always does

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
Rating: ★★★½
Sep 7, 2010Magical Circus/Deals with the Devil
This wouldn't be a Terry Gilliam if it wasn't cursed by bad luck being affected by the death of star Heath Ledger. It's the most Gilliam-esque film in some years where Gilliam and his designers leap off into deliriously madcap surrealism

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Rating: ★★
Mar 9, 2010Alice in Wonderland Adaptation/Epic Adventure
Tim Burton takes on Lewis Carroll but Carroll gets lost beneath Burton doing his usual quirky eccentric thing and a plot that seems to want to turn Alice's adventures into a modern epic fantasy

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
Rating: ★★
May 20, 2011Pirate Fantasy Swashbuckler
The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is revived for a fifth outing. There is a new director in Rob Marshall but bar an energetic comic opening, he never does much that hits the zany heights of the previous entries

Tusk (2014)

Tusk (2014)
Rating: ★★½
Jan 19, 2015Man Surgically Transformed Into a Walrus
Really, Kevin Smith?!? A film wherein a mad lunatic transforms another man into a walrus? While you can applaud Smith's completely out there leap off into Human Centipede territory, you feel unsure whether you should be reacting in shock or laughter at the absurdity of the premise

Into the Woods (2014)

Into the Woods (2014)
Rating:
Dec 25, 2014Fairytale Parody Musical
There are some people who will regard this adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical as an instant classic; I am not one of those people. What we get is a lumbering, stagebound production that seems to lamely dip into the fairytale parody that Shrek and other films tapped far more engagingly over a decade ago

Transcendence (2014)

Transcendence (2014)
Rating: ★★
Apr 19, 2014Scientist's Mind Uploaded Into a Machine
A film that bites off some Big Ideas from the transhumanist movement – A.I., nanotechnology, and especially Mind Upload – and fails to do anything with them except for reach for hoary cliches of Frankenstein science. A film that, despite its self-importance, ends up as only a better budgeted version of The Lawnmower Man

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
Rating: ★★★
Dec 10, 2016Harry Potter Spinoff
Spinoff from the Harry Potter films – unlike those, written directly for the screen and feels more like it belongs there. The US locations open the story up, while the magic creatures and new ensemble cast prove a delight

Yoga Hosers (2016)

Yoga Hosers (2016)
Rating: ★★
Nov 26, 2016Slacker Comedy/Cloned Miniature Nazi Soldiers
Kevin Smith's follow-up to Tusk slides off the cliff somewhere between Johnny Depp's incredibly silly performance, a nemesis you can't take seriously and what largely becomes a vanity exercise in nepotism – Smith and Depp creating a vehicle to highlight their daughters

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)
Rating: ★★
Jun 4, 2016Alice in Wonderland Sequel
Sequel to the 2010 Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland. This has even less in common with Lewis Carroll's book sequel than its predecessor did – a total of two scenes. The sets and effects are just pretty eye candy

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Rating: ★★½
Sep 16, 2017Pirate Fantasy Swashbuckler
After the two last lacklustre entries, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise starts to recover where the two new directors pull off some spectacular comedy-action sequences that go a long way towards recapturing what the series used to be

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
Rating: ★★
Mar 2, 2019Harry Potter Spinoff
The first Fantastic Beasts was a welcome opening up of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter universe and offered something fresh in the series. This is a more mixed bag where it feels like it is back to business as usual for Rowling

Sherlock Gnomes (2018)

Sherlock Gnomes (2018)
Rating: ★★
Aug 4, 2019Animation/Talking Garden Gnomes Adventures
Sequel to Gnomeo & Juliet, which retold Shakespeare with garden gnomes. This for some reason adds a garden gnome Sherlock Holmes to the mix. The high speed whirring you hear is probably Arthur Conan Doyle rotating in his grave,

London Fields (2018)

London Fields (2018)
Rating: ★★
Jul 6, 2020Near Future/Femme Fatale/Precognitive Dream
Based on an acclaimed book that was at one point to be directed by David Cronenberg, this opened to a torrent of bad reviews but is not uninteresting. A near future setting, precignitive dreams and Amber Heard as a jaw-dropping femme fatale.