After twenty years on a spaceship whose mission is to destroy unstable planets the crew have all gone pleasantly mad, have taken on a pet alien and now have to contend with a malfunctioning intellectual bomb. A superb low budget debut from Carpenter and still one of his best movies - he combines suspense and humour to excellent effect. Brilliant! find out more...

The classic science-fiction film that brought us Robbie The Robot. When a space cruiser is sent to investigate the silence from a planet inhabited by scientists, the crew find all but two of the inhabitants, Professor Morbius and his bewitchingly innocent daughter, have died. Morbius has made a discovery and he has no intention of sharing it (or his daughter!) with anyone. Classy kitsch. find out more...

"Stingray Sam is not a hero / But he does do the things that folks don't do that need to be done / He's got a bravery inside / That will not let him run away..." So goes the theme song to McAbee's bewitching second feature. The film plays like a homage to a 1950's that didn't exist, a riff on all the genres made famous by that decade. Consisting of six 'episodes' (each one narrated by a jubilant David Hyde Pierce) the film follows the eponymous Stingray Sam and his sidekick The Quasar Kid as the find out more...

What to say about The American Astronaut... It's a heady cocktail of DIY science-fiction, lo-fi musical, transatlantic surrealism and good old fashioned nice-guy comedy. The action revolves around Sam Curtis, a mercenary of the Han Solo school, and his increasingly colourful mission. It begins with the delivery of a cat to a small outer-belt asteroid saloon where he meets his former dance partner, and interplanetary fruit thief, the Blueberry Pirate. Peril comes in the form of nemesis Professor find out more...