X the Unknown

A young solicitor, administering the will of a recently dead old lady, is drawn into a sinister web of events centring on her abandoned house.

Nothing is quite as scary as puberty in this exuberant feminist pre-teen body horror from first time Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu.

Like Ghostwatch reimagined as a cheesy 1970s chat show, this deviously clever found-footage horror has scares to spare.

In Charlotte Colbert’s strikingly gothic film, an ageing actor recovering from a mastectomy taps into a mysterious power at a remote Scottish retreat.

Bringing a whole new meaning to the term ‘period film’, Andrew Cumming’s Palaeolithic horror movie is a true original.

Australian filmmaking brothers Danny and Michael Philippou’s feature film debut nods to their background as viral-video sensations.

An alien Scarlett Johansson prowls the streets of Glasgow in Jonathan Glazer’s astonishing, mind-bending mixture of existential sci-fi and inner-city realism.

Nicolas Roeg’s cult sci-fi stars David Bowie as an alien attempting to amass a fortune to save his home planet, but unable to escape his decadent earthly lifestyle.

Gareth Edwards reimagined the monster movie with his highly impressive DIY sci-fi, in which an indie romance blossoms amid the trailing tentacles of an alien invasion.

Jeff Nichols, the acclaimed chronicler of American delirium, presents an imaginative sci-fi about an otherworldly child pursued by the FBI and a shadowy cult.

Sam J. Jones stars as the quintessential comic strip hero, out to save the Earth from Ming the Merciless, in Mike Hodges’ visually ravishing sci-fi.

Doomed tenement residents are saved by the ‘Fix-Its’, small alien spacecraft that repair their battered apartments, in this much-loved family sci-fi.

Roy Ward Baker directs John Mills and Joan Greenwood in this mystery noir about an amnesiac implicated in the murder of a young woman.

Austerity noir: Ealing's downbeat but compelling East End thriller.

Deeply moving mining drama that provided the legendary American singer/actor Paul Robeson with his best British film role.

Alastair Sim is in splendid form as a staid, slightly seedy solicitor in this cheerfully patriotic war-time espionage comedy.

H.G. Wells' chilling vision of the future, which imagines the 20th Century as a near-endless war and struggle against tyranny, remains a key milestone in British science fiction.

Sleepwalking into submerged depths of memory, a mother’s dream and a daughter’s beckoning, this fascinating film tenderly untangles the knots of the past.

Oscar-winning director Asif Kapadia's unsettling drama-documentary delivers a powerful commentary on the state of the world today… and tomorrow.

A striking portrait of an artist deserving of greater recognition, directed by Mark Cousins (A Story of Film).

Johan Grimonprez’s involving film essay, anchored by the rhythm of American jazz, reveals disturbing truths about the decolonial struggle between global political powers.

This powerful documentary from a Palestinian-Israeli collective might be one of the most important films of this year.

Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy delivers a stunning performance as a coal merchant who discovers horrific secrets about his local convent.