Michael Crichton's bestselling novel was both a high-tech thriller and source of controversy with its hot-button plot about a man's charge of sexual harassment against a female colleague and former lover. The movie, directed by Barry Levinson, turned these issues into a prurient thriller dressed up in glossy production values, virtual reality computer graphics and steamy sex between Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. Having cornered the market on roles for men whose brains are located south of their waistline, Douglas is well cast as the computer-industry guy who loses a plush promotion to the opportunistic Moore, and he's perfected the expression of paranoid panic. If you don't think about it too much, this is one of those films that can draw you into its manipulative web and really grab your attention. Disclosure is more entertaining than thought provoking (because the filmmakers basically danced around the story's potential controversy), but there's enough star power and visual glitz to make this an enjoyable ride. -Jeff Shannon.

Sophisticated to a point, this well-executed wolf-man tale works due to its clever setting and enormous star power. We all know Jack Nicholson can go nuts but the script makes his character aware of his changes, sometimes for the better, early on. The setting, a publishing house in the middle of a takeover, gives the characters dramatic life before the horror elements kicks in. A senior editor about to get the boot, Nicholson's character becomes a new man after being bitten by a wolf. He takes on challenges at work, lives a more robust life and attracts a new love. But will his new-found energy consume him? Director Mike Nicholson keeps the action alive in the first half but the film peters out at the end with cheap theatrics and the overuse of slow motion. Michelle Pfeiffer has little to do as simply the love interest with a grittier than average personality. Better is James Spader as a smarmy colleague. Nicholson is in fine form, relying on his keen gift to spark interest (a twitch of the head, a look in the eyes), instead of heavy doses of movie make-up. Giuseppe Rotunno's sweeping camerawork sets the mood quite well. [+]

Oliver Stone's bloody satire on media obsession with violence, Natural Born Killers stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as a white trash couple who embark on a nationwide killing spree. Their exploits are followed by Robert Downey Jr, who makes a TV programme showcasing America's maniacs and they become cult heroes among the young in particular. They are captured but escape from prison, following scenes of mass carnage. Originally scripted by Quentin Tarantino, Natural Born Killers is highly stylised, with MTV-style, fast-cut editing, grainy black-and-white film stock and metaphorical images of dead animals. The film's most successful experiment is to convey Mallory's dysfunctional family life in a 1960s sitcom parody, with the appalling events accompanied by canned laughter. Overall, though, for all that it flings at you, Natural Born Killers fails to touch or move the viewer. It feels like it was conceived in a fit of heavy metal hysteria. Tarantino was unhappy with the final film. No wonder, in True Romance he far more successfully excites our sympathy for a runaway couple who have no option but to kill. Mickey and Mallory, meanwhile, murder gratuitously, gleefully and motivelessly. [+]

If you're a fan of brooding comic-book anti-heroes, got a nihilistic jolt from The Crow (1994) and share director Alex Proyas's highly developed preoccupation for style over substance, you might be tempted to call Dark City an instant classic of visual imagination. It's one of those films that exists in a world purely of its own making, setting its own rules and playing by them fairly, so that even its derivative elements (and there are quite a few) acquire their own specific uniqueness. Before long, however, the film becomes interesting only as a triumph of production design. And while that's certainly enough to grab your attention (Blade Runner is considered a classic, after all), it's painfully clear that Dark City has precious little heart and soul. One-dimensional characters are no match for the film's abundance of retro-futuristic style, so it's best to admire the latter on its own splendidly cinematic terms. Trivia buffs will be interested to know that the film's 50-plussets (partially inspired by German expressionism) were built at the Fox Film Studios in Sydney, Australia, home base of director Alex Proyas and producer Andrew Mason. The underground world depicted in the film required the largest indoor set ever built in Australia. -Jeff Shannon.

You can take this 1992 thriller one of two ways: it's either a highly suspenseful movie about an unfortunate young woman's psychological breakdown, or it's a glossy slasher movie starring two of Hollywood's best young actresses. Or maybe it's both at the same time-or perhaps it's the clever and well-acted thriller for its first hour before resorting to the routine shocks of a cheap horror flick. However you look at it, there's no denying that this is a dynamite showcase for Jennifer Jason Leigh as the flatmate from hell who becomes the bane of Bridget Fonda's existence. First she picks up Fonda's mannerisms, then starts to borrow her wardrobe, cuts her hair to resemble Fonda's, and even "borrows" her roommate's boyfriend for a deceitful night of lovemaking. By that point Fonda's totally freaking out (wouldn't you?), and, well, that's when the whole thing gets a little too silly. Still, this is a nifty little shocker, and director Barbet Schroeder brings more intelligence and style to the material than it really deserves. Add that to the fine performances by the battling roommates and you've got a movie that will make you think twice before inviting total strangers to live with you. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

Director-writer M Night Shyamalan brings his distinctive, oblique approach to aliens in Signs after tackling ghosts (The Sixth Sense) and superheroes (Unbreakable). With Mel Gibson replacing Bruce Willis as the traditional Shyamalan hero-a family man traumatised by loss-and leaving urban Philadelphia for the Pennsylvania sticks, the film starts with crop circles showing up on the property Gibson shares with his ex-ballplayer brother (Joaquin Phoenix) and his two troubled pre-teen kids (pay attention-all these character quirks turn out to be important). Though the world outside is undergoing a crisis of Independence Day-sized proportions, Shyamalan limits the focus to this family, who retreat into their cellar when "intruders" arrive from lights in the sky and set out to "harvest" them. Just as Unbreakable slowly revealed itself to be Superman re-thought as an intense personal drama, this is The Birds redone as a religious drama of faith lost and perhaps regained. The tone is less certain than the earlier films-some of the laughs seem unintentional and Gibson's performance isn't quite on a level with Willis's commitment-but Shyamalan still directs the suspense and shock dramas better than anyone else. On the DVD: Signs has THX-certified Dolby Digital Surround Sound which reproduces in the home exactly as the scary sounds that creeped you out in the cinema. A selection of deleted scenes are mostly tiny, but there's a self-reflexive joke (wisely dropped but worth preserving) as Gibson wishes his dead wife were here in the crisis because she was so smart: "She always knew how movies would end. " A six-part making-of goes deeper than the usual puff-piece, including an interesting alternative to a commentary track as Shyamalan talks through a précis of clips and on-set snippets. A tradition continued from the Sixth Sense and Unbreakable DVDs is an extract from Pictures, "Night's first alien film". It's a teenage camcorder effort in which the future A-list Hollywoodian is menaced by a tiny Halloween-masked robot. [+]

Edge of Darkness (1985) took the thriller serial to a new level of ambition, addressing the rising tide of environmental awareness-in parallel with John Boorman's The Emerald Forest (also 1985)-and asking such unflinching questions as what is the price of justice, and who, ultimately, rules Britain? If this sounds too worthy, the series' triumph was to address these concerns in the form of the most nerve-shredding, intense and dangerous television adventure yet screened. This tape presents the final three episodes, Craven (Bob Peck) going way beyond the point of no return as the secrets of Northmoor lead to an emotionally shattering, unforgettable conclusion. Troy Kennedy-Martin's brilliantly constructed story here confidentially exceeds the confines of any previous TV thriller, ending as an apocalyptic epic with global implications. Kennedy-Martin had previously written for The Sweeney, and here wedded that series violent cynicism to a spiralling maelstrom of a plot which echoed both The Medusa Touch and The Ipcress File. He next teamed mix-nationality investigators in the predictable but entertaining Schwarzenegger vehicle Red Heat, while Bob Peck starred in Jurassic Park and director Martin Campbell went on to Criminal Law, Goldeneye and The Mask of Zorro. -Gary S. Dalkin Groundbreaking environmental-espionage shocker Edge of Darkness (1985) begins routinely enough but then ratchets the suspense to levels that would have turned Hitchcock green with envy. Emma Craven (Joanne Whalley in her first starring role) is a young environmental activist killed in mysterious circumstances. Emma's father Ron Craven (Bob Peck in a star-making performance) will not be silenced and, as a police detective, is uniquely positioned to pursue his own unofficial investigation. He moves from grief to a determination to find the truth, all the while advised and comforted by Emma, but is she a ghost or a manifestation of his haunted psyche? Craven digs deeper, uncovering labyrinthine conspiracy in the nuclear industry and, as the body-count rises, encounters the garrulous CIA agent Darius Jedburgh (a superb Joe Don Baker) with a mysterious agenda of his own. [+]

A violent, bold and unusual American film about a motorcycle cop (Robert Blake- tv's Baretta) who tired of cruising the highways pulling up speed freaks and issuing tickets, tries to become a detective. sadly the force is riddled with corruption and when he and his fellow state troopers get into conflict with a violent motorcycle gang things turn very ugly. A real 'sleeper hit' this film has since become a cult favourite and is deservedly one of the definitive 'Road Movies' of the 70's.

This original and hippest version of Shaft cruised onto cinema screens in 1971. John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) is an African-American private eye who has a rocky relationship with cops, an even rockier one with Harlem gangsters, and a healthy sex life. The script finds Shaft tracking down the kidnapped daughter of a black mobster, but the pleasure of the film is the sum of its attitude, Roundtree's uncompromising performance, and the thrilling, Oscar-winning score by Isaac Hayes. Director Gordon Parks (The Learning Tree) seems fond of certain detective genre cliché (e. g. , the hero walking into his low-rent office and finding a hood waiting to talk with him), but he and Roundtree make those moments their own. Shaft produced a couple of sequels, a follow-up television series, and a remake starring Samuel L Jackson, but none had the impact this movie did. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

Widely acknowledged as the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Ringo Lam's terse gangland melodrama City On Fire shows this idiosyncratic action movie director at his darkest. Chow Yun Fat plays Ku, an undercover cop buried so deeply inside the Hong Kong criminal fraternity that he no longer knows which side of the law he's supposed to be on. Infiltrating a dangerous gang of armed jewel thieves, he wins the friendship and respect of Fu, a hard-bitten gunman played with steely reserve by Danny Lee. As Ku is increasingly estranged from the police and as Fu watches his fellow gangsters cracking under the strain of pulling off their biggest heist yet, Lam paints a grim portrait of desperate men losing control of their lives. Chow Yun Fat brings a genuinely rattled quality to his performance as a lone individual living on the last of his nerves, and Lam keeps tight control over the sense of menace as Fu, who casually accepts death as an occupational hazard, warily lets Ku into his life. A mordant sense of loss and disillusionment hangs over both characters, starkly offset by the twinkling Christmas lights festooning the streets in preparation for the holiday season. sets the mood for the film's bitterest moment: a brutal metal-shredding car chase accompanied by a tinny disco version of "Joy to the World". Other highpoints include the taut three-way standoff between a dead-eyed Fu and surviving gang members as they argue at gunpoint over Ku's loyalty, a scene Tarantino later reworked in Reservoir Dogs, and the heavy ballistics of the final shootout as the police surround and close in on the thieves' warehouse hideout. [+]