'Swords and Sandals' meets 'Swords and Sorcery' in this swashbuckling comic strip style version of the battle of Thermopylae, the time when 50,000 Persians were held for days by 300 Spartans at a pass into Greece. Waves of costumed Persians are slashed, gashed, chopped, spiked, speared and generally mutilated in this operatic tribute. find out more...

The Mayan Empire is at its peak, the last mighty roar before its cataclysmic fall, and there are no Central American people, however small and nomadic their tribe, that remain free of its murderous grasp. When his people are massacred and Jaguar Paw captured he, with the remnants of his tribe, begins a long and merciless journey to the Mayan capital, a place due to be his last, brief, bloody home. But the knowledge of the survival of his wife and child wills Jaguar on to become more than just an find out more...

The few remaining residents of a Canadian sorority house are celebrating the onset of Christmas vacation, but a stalk'n'slash freak is on the loose and one by one the residents get suffocated, chopped etc. Will any of them survive? Director Bob Clark's tense, effective film is a precursor, in effect the template, to the 'stalk'n'slash' films, Friday 13th, Halloween et al, that would come a half decade later. find out more...

October 1993, Mogadishu, Somalia and a force of elite American troops, under the banner of the UN, are sent into the city to abduct a warlord's henchmen. But the carefully laid plan quickly goes belly up and the soldiers are left fighting for their lives with little support and vastly out numbered. Black Hawk Down is a relentless slab of action and though based on true events, no attempt is made to explain the why or the wherefore beyond "badman" versus "goodman" and heroic stereotypes abound. A find out more...

John Dillinger and his gang go on a bank robbing spree across the midwest, but one G-Man is determined to bring him down. True gangster tale... with cojones. find out more...

Set in Johannesburg (more than a welcome change to the usual formulaic Hollywood paradigm whereby LA or New York are not only the backdrop for disaster but act too as the centre-point of planet Earth), An ominous mothership hovers above Johannesburg containing an alien race of insectoid refugees. Derogatively referred to as 'Prawns' by humans they are cordoned off in an apartheid-esque fashion and forced to live a desolate and slum-like existence in the titular District 9. While forcibly relocat find out more...

A mysterious Hollywood stuntman, mechanic and getaway driver lands himself in trouble when he helps out his neighbour.
Well, this film looks set to become one of the best of 2011. The cast gets where director Refn is coming, adjusting their performances to pitch-perfect minimalism, where even a twitched muscle can stand out. Gosling has never used his physicality better (he's not given a lot else to work with) and this movie is testament to the power of his screen presence. Even more re find out more...

When London based mid-wife Anna witnesses the death during childbirth of a young teenage mother, she resolves to find the baby's relatives. Unfortunately for all involved this unwittingly leads her into the brutal, merciless world of an Eastern European mafia, ruled with cold-hearted charm and pseudo-benevolence by restauranter Semyon, but it is the mysterious and lethal driver Nikolai, a man who will become either her saviour or her nemesis, who tantalises Anna with information. After their pre find out more...

This film, which sparked off the reactionary Rambo series, is a gem. Stallone plays a skilled jungle fighter, who finds himself a social outcast on his return from Vietnam, and makes war with the authoritarian uniformed forces whom he once represented. Both cool on action and politically PC, a must watch for those who think the Rambo character was purely a demented racist imperialist with a ridiculously accurate gun. find out more...

Perhaps Caine's defining role as the ruthless London villain in Newcastle to sort out some gang bovver. When he finds out his niece has become embroiled with some very seedy characters, his involvement becomes far deeper. A violent and slick thriller with an excellent feel for both time and location and a comment on the despair of Britain in the 1970s. find out more...