The IMDb Top 250 Project

Back in 2004 I decided to finally get on with something I've meant to do for many years: to watch and review all of the films listed in the Top 250 at the Internet Movie Database, from The Godfather at the top to Judgment at Nuremberg at the bottom.

After all, I've always thought of myself as a film fan. I've watched films for as long as I can remember, a lot of films and a wide variety of them too. I knew a lot about them and the people who made them. Even as a youth I bought film magazines, albeit generally specialist ones, and scouted for VHS bargains at flea markets and video rental stores; once DVDs came out I started buying them the way some people buy food. I've also been following the invaluable resource that is IMDb ever since I could download the entire thing from a friend's university account onto fourteen floppy disks.

So I'm a film fan. Yet I could never get past the fact that I hadn't seen three out of every five of the movies on the IMDb Top 250 list, a list that contains what are supposed to be the greatest films ever made. How could that be? Well the one and only reason was unavoidable: maybe I wasn't the expert I thought I was. Maybe I merely knew a lot about a little and there was a lot more out there about which I knew nothing at all. That was certainly backed up when I did some analysis. I had huge gaps, glaring gaps that suggested that I was really more of a cinematic novice than an experienced viewer, merely one with a few areas of expertise.

Partly that's because rather than seeing the latest Oscar winner, it's always been far more likely that I'd be watching a cult movie, an obscure movie or a really bad movie. If life was really good, it would satisfy all three of those descriptions at once. I'd delved quite a way into genres with cryptic names like kaiju, giallo or anime. I had something of a background with Hammer horrors, spaghetti westerns and Hong Kong bullet ballets; fifties sci-fi B-movies, seventies exploitation flicks and all the offbeat stuff that Alex Cox chose to air on Moviedrome on BBC2. You could say that I shared a lot of my taste with industry luminaries like Jonathan Ross or Quentin Tarantino. The big difference is that they've seen the famous stuff too.

To the best of my memory, I hadn't seen a single film by Akira Kurosawa or Ingmar Bergman, Frank Capra or Preston Sturges, D W Griffith or Sidney Lumet. While I knew who they were by sight, I'd never seen Gable or Garbo in a movie, let alone Garfield or Gilbert, Gardner or Gish. Other recognisable names I'd only seen in a single film, people like Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Jack Lemmon, Bette Davis and Woody Allen. That can't be good. I even remembered back to a trip to Universal Studios in Florida where I thoroughly enjoyed an exhibit dedicated to the work of Alfred Hitchcock, without recognising most of what was on show. When I counted up what I'd seen of his work I could only get to four and one of them was an obscurity.

So in 2004 I began working through the whole IMDb Top 250, watching the films, reading up on them and reviewing them, with vague aims of publishing the results in book form as a travelogue through the history of cinema by someone who thought he was an expert but quickly found that he wasn't. However the list could only ever be a starting point, albeit a solid one, and I had to track sideways to the actors and filmmakers I discovered, learning more about them and about cinema in general through experiencing their work. That decision led to a minor blog on my main website and then to this far more substantial blog and a couple of million words. It also led to a journey I thought might take a couple of years taking no less than seven instead. Here are the results, posted five reviews a week through 2010 and with subsequent followup to address the changes since I began.

I hope your journey is as fascinating, as enjoyable and as eye opening as mine.

This Week's Five Reviews (Week 19: 19 May 2010)
#	Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
69	Modern Times	1936	6	6	Charlie Chaplin	IMDB
95	The Seventh Seal	1957	7	7	Ingmar Bergman	IMDB
109	Run Lola Run	1998	7	6	Tom Tykwer	IMDB
191	Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror	1922	6	6	F W Murnau	IMDB
214	Rain Man	1988	6	6	Barry Levinson	IMDB

Here's the static list I've worked from as I grabbed it in late 2004, with links to my reviews, IMDb pages and ratings from my better half and I. I'll post five more every Wednesday night through the year. I'll follow up in 2011 with films that charted after I grabbed this list.

Here's a link to the current IMDb Top 250 List, which is an everchanging thing.

Rating System
1 - Abysmal | 2 - Bad | 3 - Poor | 4 - OK | 5 - Good | 6 - Excellent | 7 - Classic

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The IMDb Top 250 List (late 2004)
#	Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
1	The Godfather	1972			Francis Ford Coppola	IMDb
2	The Shawshank Redemption	1994			Frank Darabont	IMDb
3	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	2003			Peter Jackson	IMDb
4	The Godfather: Part II	1974			Francis Ford Coppola	IMDb
5	The Seven Samurai	1954	7	7	Akira Kurosawa	IMDb
6	Schindler's List	1993			Steven Spielberg	IMDb
7	Casablanca	1942	7	7	Michael Curtiz	IMDB
8	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	2002			Peter Jackson	IMDb
9	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	2001			Peter Jackson	IMDb
10	Star Wars	1977			George Lucas	IMDb
11	Citizen Kane	1941	7	7	Orson Welles	IMDB
12	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	1975			Milos Forman	IMDb
13	The Empire Strikes Back	1980			Irvin Kershner	IMDb
14	Rear Window	1954	7	7	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDB
15	Dr Strangelove	1964			Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
16	Pulp Fiction	1994			Quentin Tarantino	IMDb
17	Raiders of the Lost Ark	1981			Steven Spielberg	IMDb
18	The Usual Suspects	1995	6	6	Bryan Singer	IMDB
19	Memento	2000	7	7	Christopher Nolan	IMDb
20	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly	1966			Sergio Leone	IMDb
21	12 Angry Men	1957	7	7	Sidney Lumet	IMDB
22	North By Northwest	1959	6	6	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
23	City of God	2002			Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund	IMDb
24	Lawrence of Arabia	1962			David Lean	IMDb
25	Psycho	1960	7	7	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDB
26	Amélie	2001	7	7	Jean-Pierre Jeunet	IMDb
27	It's a Wonderful Life	1946			Frank Capra	IMDb
28	The Silence of the Lambs	1991			Jonathan Demme	IMDb
29	Goodfellas	1990			Martin Scorsese	IMDb
30	American Beauty	1999			Sam Mendes	IMDb
31	Sunset Boulevard	1950	7	7	Billy Wilder	IMDb
32	Once Upon a Time in the West	1968	7	7	Sergio Leone	IMDB
33	Vertigo	1958	7	7	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
34	The Matrix	1999			Andy & Larry Wachowski	IMDb
35	To Kill a Mockingbird	1962	7	7	Robert Mulligan	IMDB
36	Apocalypse Now	1979			Francis Ford Coppola	IMDb
37	The Pianist	2002			Roman Polanski	IMDb
38	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind	2004			Michel Gondry	IMDb
39	The Third Man	1949	7	7	Carol Reed	IMDB
40	Paths of Glory	1957	7	7	Stanley Kubrick	IMDB
41	Fight Club	1999			David Fincher	IMDb
42	Taxi Driver	1976	6	6	Martin Scorsese	IMDb
43	Spirited Away	2001			Hayao Miyazaki	IMDb
44	Some Like It Hot	1959	7	7	Billy Wilder	IMDB
45	Double Indemnity	1944	7	7	Billy Wilder	IMDB
46	Das Boot	1981	7	7	Wolfgang Petersen	IMDB
47	Singin' in the Rain	1952	7	7	Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen	IMDB
48	Chinatown	1974	7	6	Roman Polanski	IMDb
49	LA Confidential	1997	7	7	Curtis Hanson	IMDB
50	M	1931	7	7	Fritz Lang	IMDB
51	Requiem for a Dream	2000	7	7	Darren Aronofsky	IMDB
52	The Bridge on the River Kwai	1957			David Lean	IMDb
53	The Maltese Falcon	1941	7	7	John Huston	IMDB
54	All About Eve	1950			Joseph L Mankiewicz	IMDb
55	Se7en	1995			David Fincher	IMDb
56	Monty Python and the Holy Grail	1975			Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones	IMDb
57	Rashomon	1950			Akira Kurosawa	IMDb
58	Saving Private Ryan	1998			Steven Spielberg	IMDb
59	Raging Bull	1980			Martin Scorsese	IMDb
60	Alien	1979			Ridley Scott	IMDb
61	American History X	1998			Tony Kaye	IMDb
62	The Wizard of Oz	1939	7	7	Victor Fleming	IMDB
63	Kill Bill: Vol 1	2003			Quentin Tarantino	IMDb
64	Léon	1994			Luc Besson	IMDb
65	The Manchurian Candidate	1962			John Frankenheimer	IMDb
66	Mr Smith Goes to Washington	1939			Frank Capra	IMDb
67	The Sting	1973	7	7	George Roy Hill	IMDB
68	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre	1948	7	7	John Huston	IMDB
69	Modern Times	1936	6	6	Charlie Chaplin	IMDB
70	Touch of Evil	1958	7	6	Orson Welles	IMDB
71	Reservoir Dogs	1992	7	7	Quentin Tarantino	IMDB
72	Life is Beautiful	1997			Roberto Benigni	IMDb
73	2001: A Space Odyssey	1968			Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
74	A Clockwork Orange	1971	7	7	Stanley Kubrick	IMDB
75	Finding Nemo	2003			Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich	IMDb
76	Ran	1985			Akira Kurosawa	IMDb
77	The Great Escape	1963			John Sturges	IMDb
78	On the Waterfront	1954			Elia Kazan	IMDb
79	Amadeus	1984			Milos Forman	IMDb
80	Annie Hall	1977	7	6	Woody Allen	IMDB
81	The Apartment	1960	7	6	Billy Wilder	IMDB
82	Jaws	1975	7	7	Steven Spielberg	IMDB
83	Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon	2000			Ang Lee	IMDb
84	High Noon	1952	7	7	Fred Zinnemann	IMDB
85	Braveheart	1995			Mel Gibson	IMDb
86	Metropolis	1927			Fritz Lang	IMDb
87	Aliens	1986			James Cameron	IMDb
88	Fargo	1996	7	7	Joel Coen	IMDB
89	The Shining	1980			Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
90	Strangers on a Train	1951	7	7	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDB
91	City Lights	1931	7	7	Charles Chaplin	IMDB
92	Donnie Darko	2001	6	6	Richard Kelly	IMDb
93	The General	1927			Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman	IMDb
94	Blade Runner	1982	7	7	Ridley Scott	IMDB
95	The Seventh Seal	1957	7	7	Ingmar Bergman	IMDB
96	The Sixth Sense	1999			M Night Shayamalan	IMDb
97	The Great Dictator	1940	7	7	Charles Chaplin	IMDB
98	Duck Soup	1933	6	5	Leo McCarey	IMDB
99	Cinema Paradiso	1988			Giuseppe Tornatore	IMDb
100	Princess Mononoke	1997			Hayao Miyazaki	IMDb
101	The Princess Bride	1987	6	7	Rob Reiner	IMDb
102	Full Metal Jacket	1987			Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
103	Notorious	1946	7	7	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
104	The Bicycle Thief	1948			Vittorio De Sica	IMDb
105	Rebecca	1940	7	7	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDB
106	The Best Years of Our Lives	1946	7	7	William Wyler	IMDB
107	Yojimbo	1961	7	7	Akira Kurosawa	IMDB
108	The Big Sleep	1945	7	7	Howard Hawks	IMDB
109	Run Lola Run	1998	7	6	Tom Tykwer	IMDB
110	Terminator 2: Judgment Day	1991			James Cameron	IMDb
111	Toy Story 2	1999			Ash Brannon, John Lasseter & Lee Unkrich	IMDb
112	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid	1969			George Roy Hill	IMDb
113	It Happened One Night	1934	7	7	Frank Capra	IMDB
114	Patton	1970			Franklin J Schaffner	IMDb
115	Forrest Gump	1994			Robert Zemeckis	IMDb
116	The Graduate	1967			Mike Nichols	IMDb
117	The Deer Hunter	1978			Michael Cimino	IMDb
118	Kill Bill: Vol 2	2004			Quentin Tarantino	IMDb
119	Glory	1989			Ed Zwick	IMDb
120	Manhattan	1979			Woody Allen	IMDb
121	Cool Hand Luke	1967			Stuart Rosenberg	IMDb
122	Dogville	2003			Lars Von Trier	IMDb
123	The Philadelphia Story	1940	7	7	George Cukor	IMDB
124	Once Upon a Time in America	1984			Sergio Leone	IMDb
125	Mystic River	2003			Clint Eastwood	IMDb
126	The African Queen	1951			John Huston	IMDb
127	Unforgiven	1992			Clint Eastwood	IMDb
128	The Searchers	1956			John Ford	IMDb
129	Ben-Hur	1959			William Wyler	IMDb
130	The Elephant Man	1980			David Lynch	IMDb
131	Return of the Jedi	1983			Richard Marquand	IMDb
132	The Green Mile	1999			Frank Darabont	IMDb
133	Bringing Up Baby	1938	7	7	Howard Hawks	IMDB
134	Stalag 17	1953	7	7	Billy Wilder	IMDB
135	Talk to Her	2002			Pedro Almodovar	IMDb
136	The Grapes of Wrath	1940			John Ford	IMDb
137	Shrek	2001			Aron Warner	IMDb
138	Smultronstallet	1957			Ingmar Bergman	IMDb
139	Life's a Bitch	2000			Alejandro González Iñárritu	IMDb
140	Lost in Translation	2003			Sofia Coppola	IMDb
141	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	1989			Steven Spielberg	IMDb
142	The Night of the Hunter	1955	7	7	Charles Laughton	IMDB
143	Back to the Future	1985			Robert Zemeckis	IMDb
144	Arsenic and Old Lace	1944	7	7	Frank Capra	IMDb
145	The Straight Story	1999	7	7	David Lynch	IMDB
146	A Christmas Story	1983	6	6	Bob Clark	IMDB
147	Platoon	1986			Oliver Stone	IMDb
148	Gone With the Wind	1939	6	6	Victor Fleming	IMDb
149	The Wild Bunch	1969			Sam Peckinpah	IMDb
150	The Hustler	1961	7	7	Robert Rossen	IMDB
151	The Gold Rush	1925			Charles Chaplin	IMDb
152	All Quiet on the Western Front	1930	6	6	Lewis Milestone	IMDB
153	Young Frankenstein	1974			Mel Brooks	IMDb
154	The Adventures of Robin Hood	1938	7	7	Michael Curtiz & William Keighley	IMDB
155	His Girl Friday	1940			Howard Hawks	IMDb
156	Die Hard	1988			John McTiernan	IMDb
157	Battleship Potemkin	1925			Sergei Eisenstein	IMDb
158	Hero	2002	7	7	Zhang Yimou	IMDB
159	Life of Brian	1979			Terry Jones	IMDb
160	The 400 Blows	1959			Francois Truffaut	IMDb
161	Monsters, Inc	2001			Peter Docter, David Silverman & Lee Unkrich	IMDb
162	The Grand Illusion	1937			Jean Renoir	IMDb
163	Spartacus	1960			Stanley Kubrick	IMDb
164	Witness for the Prosecution	1957			Billy Wilder	IMDb
165	The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance	1962	7	7	John Ford	IMDB
166	Charade	1963			Stanley Donen	IMDb
167	The Celebration	1998			Thomas Vinterberg	IMDb
168	Gladiator	2000			Ridley Scott	IMDb
169	Roman Holiday	1953	6	6	William Wyler	IMDB
170	Sling Blade	1996			Billy Bob Thornton	IMDb
171	Grave of the Fireflies	1988			Isao Takahata	IMDb
172	Magnolia	1999			Paul Thomas Anderson	IMDb
173	The Day the Earth Stood Still	1951	7	7	Robert Wise	IMDB
174	The Conversation	1974			Francis Ford Coppola	IMDb
175	Ed Wood	1994			Tim Burton	IMDb
176	A Streetcar Named Desire	1951			Elia Kazan	IMDb
177	Toy Story	1995			John Lasseter	IMDb
178	The Killing	1956	7	7	Stanley Kubrick	IMDB
179	To Be or Not to Be	1942			Ernst Lubitsch	IMDb
180	Almost Famous	2000			Cameron Crowe	IMDb
181	A Night at the Opera	1935	6	6	Sam Wood	IMDB
182	All the President's Men	1976			Alan J Pakula	IMDb
183	Brazil	1985	7	7	Terry Gilliam	IMDB
184	Three Colours: Red	1994			Krystof Krystofski	IMDb
185	The Insider	1999			Michael Mann	IMDb
186	Big Fish	2003	7	7	Tim Burton	IMDB
187	21 Grams	2003			Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu	IMDb
188	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	2003	7	7	Gore Verbinski	IMDB
189	Shadow of a Doubt	1943	6	6	Alfred Hitchcock	IMDB
190	Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?	1966			Mike Nichols	IMDb
191	Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror	1922	6	6	F W Murnau	IMDB
192	Gandhi	1982			Richard Attenborough	IMDb
193	Ikiru	1952			Akira Kurosawa	IMDb
194	Harvey	1950	7	7	Henry Koster	IMDb
195	Being John Malkovich	1999			Spike Jonze	IMDb
196	Stand By Me	1986	6	7	Rob Reiner	IMDB
197	The Exorcist	1973			William Friedkin	IMDb
198	Dog Day Afternoon	1975			Sidney Lumet	IMDb
199	Twelve Monkeys	1995			Terry Gilliam	IMDb
200	Mulholland Dr	2001			David Lynch	IMDb
201	In America	2002			Jim Sheridan	IMDb
202	The Terminator	1984			James Cameron	IMDb
203	Trainspotting	1996	7	6	Danny Boyle	IMDB
204	Groundhog Day	1993			Harold Ramis	IMDb
205	The Passion of Joan of Arc	1928	7	7	Carl Theodor Dreyer	IMDb
206	The Lion in Winter	1968			Anthony Harvey	IMDb
207	Miller's Crossing	1990	4	5	Joel Coen	IMDB
208	This is Spinal Tap	1984	7	7	Rob Reiner	IMDB
209	La Strada	1954	7	7	Federico Fellini	IMDB
210	Laura	1944			Otto Preminger	IMDb
211	The Right Stuff	1983			Philip Kaufman	IMDb
212	8½	1963			Federico Fellini	IMDb
213	King Kong	1933	7	7	Merion C Cooper & Ernest B Schoedsack	IMDB
214	Rain Man	1988	6	6	Barry Levinson	IMDB
215	Whale Rider	2002			Niki Caro	IMDb
216	Adaptation	2002			Spike Jonze	IMDb
217	Network	1976	7	7	Sidney Lumet	IMDB
218	Bonnie and Clyde	1967	5	6	Arthur Penn	IMDB
219	Midnight Cowboy	1969	6	6	John Schlesinger	IMDB
220	The 39 Steps	1935			Alfred Hitchcock	IMDb
221	Snatch	2000			Guy Ritchie	IMDb
222	The Big Lebowski	1998			Joel Coen	IMDb
223	Stagecoach	1939			John Ford	IMDb
224	Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels	1998	7	7	Guy Ritchie	IMDB
225	Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans	1927			F W Murnau	IMDb
226	X2	2003			Bryan Singer	IMDb
227	The Thin Man	1934	7	7	W S Van Dyke	IMDB
228	Rio Bravo	1959			Howard Hawks	IMDb
229	In the Heat of the Night	1967	7	7	Norman Jewison	IMDB
230	The Untouchables	1987			Brian De Palma	IMDb
231	Bride of Frankenstein	1935	7	7	James Whale	IMDB
232	The Others	2001			Alejandro Amenabar	IMDb
233	The Killer	1989			John Woo	IMDb
234	Planet of the Apes	1968			Franklin J Schaffner	IMDb
235	Persona	1966			Ingmar Bergman	IMDb
236	Fanny and Alexander	1982			Ingmar La Cava	IMDb
237	Sullivan's Travels	1941	7	6	Preston Sturges	IMDB
238	Kind Hearts and Coronets	1949	7	7	Robert Hamer	IMDB
239	The Station Agent	2003			Thomas McCarthy	IMDb
240	Red River	1948	7	7	Howard Hawks	IMDB
241	Being There	1979			Hal Ashby	IMDb
242	Children of Paradise	1945			Marcel Carne	IMDb
243	Beauty and the Beast	1991			Kirk Wise & Gary Trousdale	IMDb
244	Spider-Man 2	2004	7	7	Sam Raimi	IMDB
245	Heat	1995			Michael Mann	IMDb
246	Traffic	2000			Steven Soderbergh	IMDb
247	Minority Report	2002			Steven Spielberg	IMDb
248	Good Will Hunting	1997			Gus Van Sant	IMDb
249	Sleuth	1972			Joseph L Mankiewicz	IMDb
250	Judgment at Nuremberg	1961			Stanley Kramer	IMDb

Make It a Double

I've met and talked with a lot of filmmakers over the years. In and amongst those conversations, I've come to realise that the films that we generally associate them with are not necessarily the ones they would prefer to be remembered for.

That's not to say that they're not proud of the titles that made them famous and wrote their names in the annals of popular culture. Those pictures usually did well because the people who made them did memorable work, but that's never the only reason why films are successful. There are so many other reasons that they can't be counted, but often the most important one is that they were simply the right film at the right time to touch the right nerve.

Sadly, that often means that many far worthier titles are unjustly forgotten, relegated to obscurity by the sheer quantity of films that are made and the overwhelming power that is generated by the publicity departments of the major studios.

Back in 2012, at Phoenix FearCon V, I decided to start asking each name I met to select two films from their careers that they would like to see reviewed at Apocalypse Later. I left the reasons up to them. They could be their personal favourites, the ones that they feel are most unjustly neglected, those which were most memorable to make. They could merely be movies which were special to them for reasons that they may or may not wish to disclose.

The first person I asked was Tiffany Shepis, but the list has grown quickly and no doubt will continue to do so. She made her two choices quickly and surely, while I've found that many have one title ready on their tongue but have to ponder for a while on the second.

As I meet more talent and ask them to Make It a Double, I'll add their names here and link to the reviews of the films they chose. I hope you find their selections as interesting and edifying as I do.

Rating System
1 - Abysmal | 2 - Bad | 3 - Poor | 4 - OK | 5 - Good | 6 - Excellent | 7 - Classic

Michael Biehn
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Deadly Intentions	1985	5	5	Noel Black	IMDb
Rampage	1987	5	5	William Black	IMDb

Linda Blair
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Born Innocent	1974	6	6	Donald Wrye	IMDb
Roller Boogie	1979	4	4	Mark L. Lester	IMDb

Brad Dourif
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Humboldt County	2008	6	6	Darren Grodsky & Danny Jacobs	IMDb
Wise Blood	1979	6	6	John Huston	IMDb

Ken Foree
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III	1990	5	5	Jeff Burr	IMDb
Two Heads are Better Than None	2000	4	4	Michael Grossman	IMDb

Stephen Geoffreys
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Heaven Help Us	1985	5	-	Michael Dinner	IMDb
Fright Night	1985	5	-	Tom Holland	IMDb

Dan Haggerty
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan	2013	4	4	Gary Jones	IMDb
The Capture of Grizzly Adams	1982	5	5	Don Keeslar	IMDb

Sid Haig
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Little Big Top	2006	5	6	Ward Roberts	IMDb
A Dead Calling	2006	3	3	Michael Feifer	IMDb

Gunnar Hansen
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Gimme Skelter	2007	5	4	Scott Phillips	IMDb
Brutal Massacre: A Comedy	2007	5	5	Stevan Mena	IMDb

James Hong
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Blade Runner	1982	7	7	Ridley Scott	IMDb
Big Trouble in Little China	1986	7	7	John Carpenter	IMDb

Derek Mears
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
The Aggression Scale	2012	5	5	Steven C. Miller	IMDb
Compound Fracture	2013	5	-	Anthony J. Rickert-Epstein	IMDb

Adrian Paul
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
The Breed	2001	5	5	Michael Oblowitz	IMDb
Nine Miles Down	2009	6	6	Anthony Waller	IMDb

William Ragsdale
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
The Reaping	2007	5	-	Stephen Hopkins	IMDb
Fright Night Part 2	1988	5	-	Tommy Lee Wallace	IMDb

Steve Railsback
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
The Stunt Man	1980	6	6	Richard Rush	IMDb
The Assassin	1988	4	4	Jon Hess	IMDb

Tiffany Shepis
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
The Hazing	2004	5	5	Rolfe Kanefsky	IMDb
The Prometheus Project	2010	5	5	Sean Tretta	IMDb

Dee Wallace
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Love's Deadly Triangle: The Texas Cadet Murder	1997	5	5	Richard A. Colla	IMDb
Zombie Killers: Elephant's Graveyard	2014	5	5	B. Harrison Smith	IMDb

Vernon Wells
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Circuitry Man	1990	5	5	Steven Lovy	IMDb
Tru Loved	2008	5	5	Stewart Wade	IMDb

Fred Williamson
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Bucktown	1975	5	5	Arthur Marks	IMDb
That Man Bolt	1973	5	5	Henry Levin & David Lowell Rich	IMDb

That's a Wrap!

I've reviewed a lot of silent movies at Apocalypse Later and find that era the purest form of cinema. However many I've watched and reviewed, though, there are always many more that I haven't.

So, in 2023, I decided to add a new centennial project to my roster by reviewing films from 1923 on the hundredth anniversary of their original release dates.

As always, I failed to review anywhere near what I'd have liked in 2023 and especially 2024, but freeing myself up from other responsibilities, I've kept pretty much on schedule in 2025.

And that means that I should be able to publish the 2025 line-up in a zine at the end of the year, but catch up with 2023 and 2024 equivalents later.

Rating System
1 - Abysmal | 2 - Bad | 3 - Poor | 4 - OK | 5 - Good | 6 - Excellent | 7 - Classic

Latest Review (15 Jan 2026)
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
The Sea Beast	1926	4	-	Millard Webb	IMDb

1923
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Anna Christie	1923	4	4	John Griffith Wray	IMDb
The Blizzard	1923	5	5	Mauritz Stiller	IMDb
Earth Spirit	1923	4	4	Leopold Jessner	IMDb
The Faithful Heart	1923	4	-	Jean Epstein	IMDb
Mist in the Valley	1923	5	5	Cecil M. Hepworth	IMDb
Our Hospitality	1923	7	6	Buster Keaton & Jack Blystone	IMDb
Safety Last!	1923	7	6	Fred Newmeyer & Sam Taylor	IMDb
Souls for Sale	1923	5	5	Rupert Hughes	IMDb
A Spectre Haunts Europe	1923	4	4	Vladimir Gardin	IMDb
The Street	1923	5	4	Karl Grune	IMDb
The Ten Commandments	1923	4	-	Cecil B. De Mille	IMDb
The Treasure	1923	5	5	G. W. Pabst	IMDb

1924
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
The Finances of the Grand Duke	1924	6	5	F. W. Murnau	IMDb
The Marriage Circle	1924	5	5	Ernst Lubitsch	IMDb
Wild Oranges	1924	4	4	King Vidor	IMDb

1925
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
The Crazy Ray	1925	5	5	René Clair	IMDb
Don Q, Son of Zorro	1925	5	-	Donald Crisp	IMDb
The Freshman	1925	6	5	Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor	IMDb
The Gold Rush	1925	7	7	Charles Chaplin	IMDb
Go West	1925	4	4	Buster Keaton	IMDb
Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life	1925	6	-	Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack	IMDb
Lady of the Night	1925	5	5	Monta Bell	IMDb
Prem Sanyas	1925	5	5	Franz Osten & Himanshu Rai	IMDb
Lights of Old Broadway	1925	5	5	Monta Bell	IMDb
Little Annie Rooney	1925	5	5	William Beaudine	IMDb
The Lost World	1925	6	6	Harry O. Hoyt	IMDb
The Rag Man	1925	5	5	Edward F. Cline	IMDb
The Monster	1925	5	5	Roland West	IMDb
The Phantom of the Moulin Rouge	1925	5	-	René Clair	IMDb
The Phantom of the Opera	1925	6	6	Rupert Julian	IMDb
The Plastic Age	1925	4	-	Wesley Ruggles	IMDb
Sally of the Sawdust	1925	5	-	D. W. Griffith	IMDb
The Salvation Hunters	1925	4	4	Josef von Sternberg	IMDb
Seven Chances	1925	5	-	Buster Keaton	IMDb
She	1925	2	-	Leander De Cordova	IMDb
Strike	1925	6	6	Sergei Eisenstein	IMDb
The Swan	1925	3	3	Dimitri Buchowetzki	IMDb
The Unholy Three	1925	6	-	Tod Browning	IMDb
Whirlpool of Fate	1925	4	-	Jean Renoir	IMDb
The Wizard of Oz	1925	5	5	Larry Semon	IMDb

1926
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
The Bride of Glomdal	1926	5	5	Carl Theodor Dreyer	IMDb
Moana	1926	4	-	Robert J. & Frances Hubbard Flaherty	IMDb
The Sea Beast	1926	4	-	Millard Webb	IMDb

Unsold Pilots

As I've explored the filmographies of many actors and directors, I've bumped into a lot of TV pilots. Some were exactly what we expect, the pilot episode of a show that was made and aired and seen. However, some weren't. They were pilot episodes ordered by a network but never aired and never greenlit to become shows.

Therefore, they've become frustrating gaps, entries in filmographies that I want to watch but which are generally unavailable. Nobody taped them off the TV because they were never aired. Only occasionally do they make it onto a DVD box set, if another pilot was made that was picked up and turned into a successful show.

I've actually reviewed one before, because The Best of Times was not only the debut of a certain Nicolas Coppola, who as Nicolas Cage was my first subject for a First Thirty zine, but also Crispin Glover. So many big names ended up in unsold pilots at some point, some quite a few.

Having found a source for a whole slew of unsold pilots, I thought I'd dive into a variety for another zine. Some of them are as awful as they probably ought to be, but some are good, some are great and some are shows I absolutely wish I could watch. There are a lot of reasons why networks didn't order seasons and only one of those is quality.

My goal, as always, is variety. I'll be covering a range of genres and a range of eras, my initial thirty dating back as far as 1963 and as recently as 2020.

Rating System
1 - Abysmal | 2 - Bad | 3 - Poor | 4 - OK | 5 - Good | 6 - Excellent | 7 - Classic

Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
The Best of Times	1981	3	3	Don Mischer	IMDb
Locke & Key	2011	5	5	Mark Romanek	IMDb

Weird Wednesdays

While I never really intended it, Apocalypse Later gradually morphed from a place where I could write notes for myself to keep track of old movies to a place where I could cover the sort of films that most critics don't. That could be old movies, foreign flicks or microbudget pictures, but it's often short films or the weird and wonderful obscurities that crop up every now and again and make me grin.

I've reviewed weird films before, not least during the Cinematic Hell project I ran at Cinema Head Cheese that eventually turned into my first book, Huh? An A-Z of Why Classic American Bad Movies Were Made, but I started to focus a project around them in January, 2015.

I call it Weird Wednesdays and, as the name suggests, I post these reviews on Wednesday evenings. My goal is to take a good look at the strangest films out there, from across the spectrum of nations, ages and genres, and eventually build up a collection that's worthy of Apocalypse Later Press publishing in book form. I've included short films in this too, so while some Wednesdays will see a single review of a feature film, others will see a set of two or more reviews of short films.

Titles are listed in alphabetical order not the order in which I reviewed them, but I'm highlighting this week's review.

Rating System
1 - Abysmal | 2 - Bad | 3 - Poor | 4 - OK | 5 - Good | 6 - Excellent | 7 - Classic

Latest Review (28 Apr 2023)
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Aaaaaaaah!	2015	4	4	Steve Oram	IMDb

All Reviews
Title	Year	H	D	Director(s)	IMDb
Aaaaaaaah!	2015	4	4	Steve Oram	IMDb
Abducted by the Daleks	2005	1	1	Don Skaro	IMDb
Antfarm Dickhole	2011	3	2	Bill Zebub	IMDb
The Baron Against the Demons	2006	3	2	Ricardo Ribelles	IMDb
Billy's Dad is a Fudge-Packer!	2004	5	6	Jamie Donahue	IMDb
Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?	1969	3	-	Anthony Newley	IMDb
Chocolate Heart	2014	4	4	Harrison Atkins	IMDb
The Crippled Masters	1979	3	3	Joe Law	IMDb
The Dragon Lives Again	1977	4	4	Kei Law	IMDb
Eaten Alive! A Tasteful Revenge	1999	2	3	Gary Whitson	IMDb
The Finishing Line	1977	5	5	John Krish	IMDb
The Fireman of the Folies Bergère	1930	5	5	Unknown	IMDb
The Flying Luna Clipper	1987	4	4	Ikko Ono	IMDb
The Fuzzy Fairy Incident: A Furry Tale	2000	3	3	Charlene Dunlap	n/a
The Groper Train: Search for the Black Pearl	1984	4	4	Yojiro Takita	IMDb
If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?	1971	2	2	Ron Ormond	IMDb
In Search of the Wow Wow Wibble Woggle Wazzie Woodle Woo	1985	4	3	Barry Caillier	IMDb
Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb vs. The Monsters	1962	3	3	Roberto Rodriguez	IMDb
Marquis	1989	5	5	Henri Xhonneaux	IMDb
My Grapefruit, My Father	2004	3	3	Jeremy Feig	IMDb
One Got Fat	1963	3	3	Dale Jennings	IMDb
The Secret of Magic Island	1957	4	1	Jean Tourane	IMDb
The Sex Doll She-Bitch	2009	5	4	Jaison H Costley	IMDb
The Sperm	2007	5	5	Taweewat Wantha	IMDb
The Star Wars Holiday Special	1978	2	2	Steve Binder	IMDb
United Trash	1996	2	1	Christian Schlingensief	IMDb
Zombies vs. The Lucky Exorcist	2015	2	2	Jaguar Lim	n/a