The Lord of the Rings has wonder, sorrow, scale, friendship, terror, myth, and one of the greatest cinematic payoffs of all time. So to say only three trilogies are more fun is not saying they are better in some blunt, childish scoreboard way or in the exact same sense that LOTR is great. It is saying they deliver a purer, more repeatable kind of joy. So let’s have that out of the way.

This list is about trilogies that you can throw one on at midnight, catch five minutes, and accidentally lose the next two hours without resentment. The kind where your body already knows the rhythm before your mind has even sat down. That is the key distinction. The Lord of the Rings is majestic fun. It asks for reverence too. These three ask for delight with less ceremony and yet hook even more strongly for less attention — in the sense that I didn’t have to stay on my toes to make sure I don’t skip a beat of Middle Earth’s lore.

3

‘Rush Hour Trilogy’ (1998–2007)

Image via New Line Cinema

The Rush Hour trilogy is fun in the most old-fashioned and durable way possible: two completely different energies crash together and the movies never get tired of that crash because Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker never stop finding new angles inside it. That is the miracle. A lot of buddy trilogies survive one great first pairing and then start thinning out. Rush Hour keeps generating pleasure because Lee (Jackie Chan) and Carter (Chris Tucker) are not just opposites on paper. They annoy each other at different frequencies. Carter performs life at top volume. Lee lives with control, speed, embarrassment, quiet competence. Every scene becomes about one man overselling reality while the other has to physically and emotionally correct the room.

And what makes the trilogy more than just “funny action with chemistry” is how beautifully it understands rhythm. Jackie’s fight choreography always gives the movies real lift, because his action is never only violence. It is wit through movement. Embarrassment through movement. Improvisation through movement. Then Tucker turns verbal panic into its own action form. So the trilogy ends up playing like a duet between body comedy and mouth comedy. Even when the plots get dumber, and they absolutely do, the movies still know what people actually showed up for: the escalating intimacy of two men who will complain about each other forever and still ruin anyone who tries to separate them. That is trilogy pleasure at a very pure level.

2

‘The Naked Gun Trilogy’ (1988–1994)

Image via Paramount Pictures

Some trilogies are fun because you love the characters. Some are fun because you love the world. The Naked Gun trilogy is fun because it attacks the very idea of composure. These movies do not merely tell jokes. They wage war on cinematic dignity itself. Every serious line, every police-procedural beat, every romantic gesture, every threat, every visual frame is treated like an opportunity for sabotage. And the reason the trilogy holds together so beautifully is Leslie Nielsen. Without him, these movies would just be aggressively written spoof machines. With him, they become something close to comic architecture.

Frank Drebin (Nielsen) is one of the funniest screen creations of his era because he is not in on the joke. That is the whole engine. He moves through disaster with complete confidence, and the writing keeps weaponizing that confidence against reality. He misunderstands space, tone, evidence, conversation, seduction, danger, all of it, yet never loses the solemn self-belief of a man absolutely certain he is the most capable person in the room. That lets the trilogy do something special. It can keep repeating the same deeper comic idea, Frank is catastrophically unfit for the seriousness surrounding him, without ever feeling repetitive, because the exact form of collapse keeps changing. The pleasure becomes cumulative. You are laughing at the ongoing fact that this man continues to exist at all. That is rewatchable joy on an almost chemical level that gives you more quick fun than any LOTR movie manages.

1

‘Back to the Future Trilogy’ (1985–1990)

Image via Universal Pictures

This one takes the top spot because the Back to the Future trilogy does something almost nobody else has ever managed: it makes plot feel like play. These movies are so tightly built, so mechanically elegant, so obsessed with setups, payoffs, mirrored choices, alternate outcomes, inherited personality, and time-bending consequence, and yet they never feel like homework. And they’re brilliant family watches too. They feel like exhilaration. That is an outrageous achievement.

Look, most trilogies either get more mythic and heavier as they expand, or looser and sloppier. Back to the Future somehow gets broader and more intricate while staying feather-light on the surface. And that surface lightness hides real emotional intelligence. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) keeps being forced to see his family as human beings rather than fixed roles. George McFly (Crispin Glover) is not just a dad but because of time travel, a young coward who might become brave. Lorraine Baines McFly (Lea Thompson) is a teenager full of desire, confusion, and possibility. Then there’s Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) who’s a great ecstatic sad man, somebody who genuinely believes history is touchable and then keeps paying emotional prices for touching it. What makes the trilogy more fun than almost anything else is that it keeps turning complicated cause-and-effect plotting into something that feels like a child being told that the universe is made of gears and sparks and maybe, just maybe, you can still outrun disaster if you move fast enough and care hard enough. It is not only clever. It is delicious. That is why it wins.

Trying to single out the best and most critically acclaimed war movies of all time is likely to lead to some conflict, with the inevitability of disagreements (of a potentially fiery nature) sort of inadvertently demonstrating why movies about such conflicts keep being made. People don’t stop fighting each other, and disagreements seem to be just a part of human nature, and disagreements done on a large and violent enough scale end up being wars.

So, you won’t likely agree that all the following deserve to be here, and maybe you would’ve preferred to see Oppenheimer (highly acclaimed, objectively so) or more than one David Lean movie, but that’s just how it is. These movies are here because they were particularly well-reviewed, drew in large audiences, won lots of awards for their respective year of release, or maybe even all of the above. They’re some of the most universally acclaimed war movies of all time, and as close to “objectively good” as you can imagine for this particular genre.

8

‘Paths of Glory’ (1957)

Image via United Artists

The first movie Stanley Kubrick made that was pretty much perfect was Paths of Glory, and it says something about how legendary a director he was that various films of his post-1957 were arguably even better. He went back to the war genre a few times, too, with Full Metal Jacket and Barry Lyndon (if the latter counts) also being phenomenal, but Paths of Glory is something special, and arguably the definitive World War I film, too.

It covers the aftermath of a failed offensive, with three soldiers being made scapegoats and put on trial, which leads to a commanding officer desperately defending them in a court-martial where their lives are on the line. For the opening, a more expected and frequently depicted war-related brutality is shown, but then after the battle sequence is over, there’s still a kind of violence and a battle with life and death stakes, just in a courtroom now. The idea of war being violent toward its participants even when they’re not in active combat was, of course, memorably explored further in Full Metal Jacket, mostly with the scenes in the first half that deal with boot camp training.

7

‘The Human Condition’ (1959–1961)

Image via Shochiku

Just as you can sort of count The Lord of the Rings as one massive movie, owing to how it was helmed as a huge production and unfolds rather seamlessly if you watch all the parts relatively close together, so too can you argue The Human Condition is one massive movie… admittedly split into – and released in – parts. If you’re able to dedicate 10 hours in one day to just watching it, it’s certainly rewarding to do so, albeit it’s quite physically and emotionally exhausting to accomplish such a feat.

See, The Human Condition holds up as one of the most brutal and honest movies about war ever made, following a conscientious objector and pacifist being slowly made to take part in the Second World War more and more, as things go on. Each movie deals with a different stage of the overall conflict (a prelude to war, being in the thick of it, and surviving the aftermath, in effect), but you get a whole devastating story told across the entire thing, when it’s treated as one immense – and difficult to top, quality-wise – project/story.

6

‘Saving Private Ryan’ (1998)

Image via DreamWorks Pictures

It would feel a little strange to call Saving Private Ryan an outright crowd-pleaser, because parts of it are horrifying and sad, yet it’s crowd-pleasing by war movie standards because it does offer quite a lot of catharsis and moments of unambiguous heroism. It’s about a rescue mission to track down the titular Private Ryan, and the sacrifices made by a group of soldiers tasked with finding this one man, who’s purportedly behind enemy lines.

Whether you want to count the beach landing sequence as an opening scene or not, either way, it is one of the best-remembered sequences from any war movie pretty much ever made, and the similarly dramatic final combat set piece also leaves an impact. Saving Private Ryan is also very well-paced for something that’s as long as it is, and it’s earned a great deal of praise/acclaim on account of being so difficult to find fault with on a technical front.

5

‘Napoleon’ (1927)

Image via Gaumont

Quite comfortably the oldest movie here, Napoleon (1927) definitely shouldn’t be mixed up with Napoleon (2023), though they’re unsurprisingly about the same figure. Napoleon Bonaparte is at the center of both biographical movies, but the 1927 version is noteworthy for really just being about his early life and some of his first successes as a military leader… but not a whole portrait of his life, as director Abel Gance originally wanted Napoleon (1927) to start a series.

It wasn’t to be, but there’s still a huge amount to be impressed by, even if one might argue Napoleon (1927) technically feels incomplete. Still, as Napoleon (2023) showed, there are disadvantages to getting one man’s whole chaotic life crammed into just a single movie. Also, with the earlier Napoleon, it’s so remarkably ahead of its time with how it’s shot, staged, and edited, so if you’re interested in the history of cinema and how some of the all-time great silent movies evolved cinematic language, Napoleon (1927) is a must-watch (don’t let the length turn you off).

4

‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ (2006)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

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More of a fantasy movie, admittedly, but Pan’s Labyrinth makes the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War quite important for its overall narrative. There’s an imaginative young girl who’s made to live with an awful stepfather, with him treating her and her mother poorly while guerrilla warfare continues in the war’s aftermath, thanks to resistance fighters against the Armed Police Corps (said Corps being what the stepfather works for).

So, she retreats into a darkly fantastical world, and carries out a series of quests for the chance of bringing both her mother and soon-to-be-born baby brother into a better (and fantastical) world. Pan’s Labyrinth succeeds surprisingly well at being a fantasy and war hybrid, genre-wise, and it’s also the kind of film that feels like its own distinct (not to mention exceedingly admirable) thing.

3

‘Schindler’s List’ (1993)

Image via Universal Pictures

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There was already a Steven Spielberg movie mentioned earlier, but Schindler’s List is a very different sort of war film, even if, like Saving Private Ryan, it was focused on World War II and came out in the 1990s. There’s less by way of combat showcased in Schindler’s List, since the focus is on the Holocaust, which took place during World War II, and there’s more of a true story being retold here (Saving Private Ryan did famously depict some conflict that actually happened, but the main characters were fictitious).

It’s a long and ambitious film, so difficult to summarize entirely with just a sentence or two, but most of Schindler’s List is about how Oskar Schindler used a personal fortune to save more than 1000 Jewish lives from being sent to concentration camps. That act of heroism is celebrated while the overwhelming nature of the Holocaust in every other regard is still acknowledged, and depicted in a way where you feel the overwhelmingly awful enormity of it all. As a tonal balancing act (and judged just about any other way, really), Schindler’s List is remarkable.

2

‘Apocalypse Now’ (1979)

You feel like you’re in a nightmare pretty much straight away, with Apocalypse Now, though things do inevitably get more horrific as the whole film marches on into darker territory, literally and figuratively. It takes place during the Vietnam War, and the main character is a disillusioned captain who’s assigned with tracking down – and then killing – a rogue Green Beret Colonel.

That might sound like the set-up for some kind of wartime adventure movie, but everything here is bleak and sometimes even a little surreal, so there’s very little fun or catharsis to be found in Apocalypse Now, but that’s by design. It’s extremely effective as an anti-war epic, and of all the acclaimed and well-recognized (by either nominations or wins) Vietnam War movies at the Academy Awards, Apocalypse Now might well be the very best.

1

‘Lawrence of Arabia’ (1962)

Image via Columbia Pictures

Lawrence of Arabia is the kind of beyond-untouchable masterpiece where you can, if you’re feeling brave, argue it isn’t the best thing of all time, but a lot is going for it to make it worthy of being considered if not the best thing of all time (of all the things ever), then maybe the best movie of all time. It’s got it all, with a memorable character arc, a lot to say about war and the human condition, plenty of spectacle, and an overall interesting story that’s told well – and rather effortlessly – over a lengthy runtime.

You do need almost four hours to watch Lawrence of Arabia, and then further chunks of the same amount of time if you want to revisit the film and appreciate it even further, but it’s worth all that time and energy. It’s about as good as epic war movies get, and the copious amount of praise hurled at this movie ever since 1962 has all been exceptionally well-earned.

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Lawrence of Arabia

Release Date

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December 11, 1962

Runtime

228 minutes

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Director

David Lean

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Robert Bolt, Michael Wilson

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Real Housewives of Rhode Island star Jo-Ellen Tiberi had some “hesitation” when it came to discussing her childhood on the show.

“It’s extremely private to me,” Jo-Ellen told Us Weekly exclusively ahead of the Sunday, May 10, episode of RHORI. “My past is what’s shaped me and who I am today. I’m not embarrassed of it. It’s just not something I typically would publicize for the world.”

Jo-Ellen felt like discussing what happened during her teenage years on camera would help viewers to understand her more.

“It is heavy. This is not something that, I feel like, Bravo has ever really touched on when you’re talking about homelessness, or if you’re talking about suicide, or if you’re talking about depression, being sent away,” she explained. “Those are really heavy topics. This is my real life.”

She continued, “It’s a hard topic to talk about.”

Jo-Ellen noted that she was “shocked” when she started receiving messages from viewers who “understand” what she’s experiencing with her mother.

“I feel good that I let it out there. I’m showing that if I got through it, so can you,” she said. “If anything comes from this, it’s that people can see it’s OK [and] things will get better.”

During Sunday’s RHORI episode, Jo-Ellen got emotional as she opened up to costar Alicia Carmody about her experiences in three different behavioral programs as a teenager .

“What did I do that was so bad that you put me in places with rapists, with murderers, with people that stab people, with, like, convicts,” Jo-Ellen wondered, adding that “99 percent of the people there were court ordered.”

In a confessional, Jo-Ellen explained that her mom was the “opposite” of a maternal figure while she was growing up.

“My mom tells me that she sent me to these places because she didn’t know what to do or how to control me,” Jo-Ellen added. “I wasn’t an out of control kid. I was a straight-A student. Her biggest problem with me was I had big boobs and boys liked me. She felt that I was promiscuous, even when I wasn’t doing anything.”

Related: RHORI’s Jo-Ellen Says Rulla Owes Her an Apology Over Affair Rumors

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This week on Getting Real With the Housewives, The Real Housewives of Rhode Island star Jo-Ellen Tiberi thinks Rulla Nehme Pontarelli owes her an apology after she allegedly received video proof of her husband Brian Pontarelli’s affair. “He’s caught beyond red-handed, it’s irrefutable proof,” Jo-Ellen exclusively tells Us Weekly of the alleged video. “Some of […]

The first time Jo-Ellen was “sent away,” she went to a drug rehab in the seventh grade, but she had “never” done drugs. She was sent home after one week. The second place was “really rough,” but Jo-Ellen said the third — when she was in ninth grade — was “the worst.”

“My mom ended up giving partial custody to the state because her insurance stopped paying and she had me there for a little over a year,” she said. “It was really not normal and not a good place.”

Jo-Ellen said her mom called it “a boarding school,” which it was not. She left the facility after the state tried to take “100 percent control” of Jo-Ellen.

“I really try to block all of this out because it was a really bad time in my life. I was suicidal,” she said. “Many times for me, death was better than living with her. It hurts a lot to have no one that loves you growing up.”

While speaking with Us, Jo-Ellen revealed she’s “trying to improve” her relationship with her mom.

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“My mom’s very, very proud of me. She’s very excited for what’s happened,” Jo-Ellen shared. “It’s a work in progress.”

New episodes of The Real Housewives of Rhode Island premiere via Bravo on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET and stream via Peacock the next day.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.

To say that Marvel’s first crossover movie, The Avengers, changed everything is perhaps the understatement of the century. While Iron Man may have been the official birth of the MCU, 2012’s The Avengers proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Marvel Studios’ then-experimental approach to a shared cinematic universe was a monumental success. Of course, the movie’s record-shattering box office run inspired several more movies, though the film’s direct follow-up, Avengers: Age of Ultron, is widely considered the weakest chapter of the crossover series. Thankfully, that would not be the case whatsoever with the next two Avengers films.

The MCU’s “Infinity Saga” entered its closing chapters with the aptly titled Avengers: Infinity War, which united almost every single major character in the MCU to combat the otherworldly threat of the Mad Titan, Thanos (Josh Brolin). The shocking of events of that film led to the direct follow-up of Avengers: Endgame, which officially brought the Infinity Saga to a close in spectacular fashion. The two-part result was two of the most financially successful movies of all time, with Infinity War currently being the 7th highest-grossing movie of all time at $2 billion and Endgame being the 2nd highest-grossing movie ever made at $2.7 billion, falling just short of James Cameron‘s original Avatar movie.

Now, seven years later, in clear anticipation for the fifth Avengers movie releasing at the end of 2026, both Infinity War and Endgame are surging on Disney+. Both movies made a sudden return to the Top 10 charts on the House of Mouse’s chief streaming platform this past week. They share their spot with Sam Raimi‘s horror sleeper hit Send Help, Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway‘s original Devil Wears Prada movie, and George Lucas‘ divisive Star Wars cult classic, The Phantom Menace.

‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Is Just Months Away

The Devil Wears Prada and The Phantom Menace are more than likely trending thanks to their respective franchises’ new movies The Devil Wears Prada 2 and The Mandalorian and Grogu, and that’s likely why Infinity War and Endgame are surging as well. Come December 18 (the same date as Dune: Part Three), Avengers: Doomsday will be released to the masses, which will have the Avengers, the X-Men, and more of Marvel’s mightiest heroes as they team-up to battle the fearsome Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.). And the story won’t end there, as the Multiverse Saga will reach its own conclusion with Doomsday‘s direct follow-up, Avengers: Secret Wars.

Avengers: Doomsday premieres in theaters on December 18, with all four previous Avengers films streaming now on Disney+. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

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Release Date

December 18, 2026

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Stephen McFeely, Michael Waldron, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee

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One will be hard-pressed to find a sitcom that captures the ups and downs of the early 2000s quite like Malcolm in the Middle. Without a doubt the best and most iconic sitcom of that era, the series consistently relished in its depiction of an average suburban American family who is truly anything but. Not only is it still gut-bustingly hilarious and surprisingly heartfelt from start to finish, but it also helped launch the careers of mainstay stars like Big Fat Liar star Frankie Muniz and Breaking Bad icon Bryan Cranston.

Because of that almost incomparable legacy, fans were overjoyed to hear that Disney and Hulu would be bringing the series back in the form of a four-part revival, reuniting almost the entire cast after 20 years. The result debuted on April 10 with Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair, which has Malcom (Muniz), now a father and a successful business owner, trying his best to avoid his family despite his parents’, Lois (Jane Kaczmarek) and Hal (Cranston), wedding anniversary. Even though there was some dubious backlash from a vocal minority who accused the series of being “woke,” the revival was not only well-received by both fans and critics alike, but it’s also still dominating streaming conversations.

In the past week, across both Disney+ and Hulu, Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair is became among the top five shows on the streaming platforms. An impressive feat considering the four-episode revival debuted exactly one month ago and is still posting big ratings, even overtaking regular streaming chart toppers like ABC‘s mega-hit crime series, High Potential. The series is also holding its own against several notable newcomers, such as the second season of Marvel’s own revival Daredevil: Born Again, the Star Wars villain spin-off Maul – Shadow Lord, and the Handmaid’s Tale sequel series The Testaments.

Is ‘Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair’ Getting a Season 2?

One would think that with the clear ongoing success of the series, Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair would be a shoe in for a Season 2 renewal, but that may not be the case. Speaking to Collider’s Steve Weintraub on the possibility of more, both Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek made it clear that the revival was not made with the intention of being a “stepping stone” to another season. That being said, Cranston also implied that if the new show was well-received enough and creator Linwood Boomer has a compelling idea for more, he may consider another stint as Hal.

Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair is streaming now on Disney+ and Hulu. Stay tuned to Collider for more streaming updates.

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2026 – 2026-00-00

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Hulu

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Ken Kwapis

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Alan J. Higgins, Gary Murphy, Matthew Carlson

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There is a special heartbreak reserved for horror movies that should have become permanent fixtures of the genre conversation and somehow did not. Not the truly obscure ones that never got a chance. I mean the ones that did land on people, the ones that made somebody stare at the hallway a little differently, or made night feel more acoustically dangerous, or left one image lodged in the brain for years, and still somehow slipped into that awful category of “you’ve seen that?”

Horror has this problem more than almost any genre. The canon gets sticky. The same titles keep circulating. Meanwhile a second lineage, stranger, sadder, more diseased, more dream-rotted, keeps pulsing underneath it. And the beautiful thing is that these films are not leftovers. They are not “good for what they are.” They are actually great. These ten all deserve far more love than they usually get, and the higher you go on the list, the more serious the robbery starts to feel.

10

‘Dead & Buried’ (1981)

Image via AVCO Embassy Pictures

I have such affection for Dead & Buried because it understands that small-town horror should never be cozy. The town should not feel quirky. It should feel off. It should feel like everybody has agreed to keep smiling one beat too long. That is exactly the movie’s strength. It begins almost like a murder mystery dipped in rot, with corpses, strange behavior, and a sheriff trying to understand why the people around him seem locked inside some awful local ritual. The film keeps withholding just enough that your brain starts doing the sick work for it. Something is wrong with the town. Something is wrong with death itself. Something is wrong with the way people keep looking at each other.

And then it just gets meaner. That is what I admire about it. It does not spend all its time playing coy with its own nastiness. Once it starts revealing what kind of nightmare it is, the movie turns into this grotesque little masterpiece of embalmed Americana, a place where normalcy has become taxidermy. The gore matters, yes. The effects matter. But the real reason it sticks is atmosphere. That stiff, smiling, funeral-home atmosphere. You can practically smell varnish and seawater on it. A lot of forgotten horror films are worth checking out. Dead & Buried is better than that. It is a proper sickness.

9

‘The Sentinel’ (1977)

Image via Universal Pictures

I have a lot of affection for The Sentinel because it is one of those horror films that seems to exist under a curse of tonal instability, and somehow that makes it more upsetting instead of less. On paper, it sounds like familiar apartment-horror territory: a model (Cristina Raines) moves into a Brooklyn brownstone, the building is full of strange tenants, and reality starts decaying around her. Fine. But the film is so aggressively, almost recklessly bizarre in its escalation that it stops feeling like a haunted-building movie and starts feeling like Catholic panic breaking through the walls.

That is the key to it. The movie does not want you comfortable. It does not want to glide you through one clean register of fear. It wants you spiritually harassed. The visions, the grotesques, the old-world damnation imagery, the sense that the apartment is not simply haunted but cosmologically placed, all of that gives it a nasty grandeur that a lot of more polished horror never finds. carries the film with exactly the right fragile alarm, and the whole thing builds toward a theological reveal so huge and blunt that you either laugh nervously or feel a genuine chill. I do both. Every time.

8

‘Messiah of Evil’ (1973)

Image via Flair Communications

This is one of the purest nightmare films on the list. Not plot-heavy nightmare. Not “dream logic” in the lazy, critic-buzzword sense. I mean actual nightmare texture. Messiah of Evil drifts into its coastal California town like it is wandering into a place already abandoned by normal human meaning. A woman arrives looking for her missing father, and almost immediately the movie starts surrounding her with faded murals, hollow spaces, eerie locals, and that magnificent, terrible feeling that whatever happened here did not end when it happened. It soaked into the environment.

What makes the film so haunting is that it does not rush to solidify itself. It lets dread spread through architecture and color and silence. The famous set pieces, especially the supermarket and theater sequences, are among the most genuinely oneiric scenes in 1970s horror. They do not rely on noise. They rely on the deep wrongness of being watched by people who do not feel fully alive anymore. And then beneath all that, there is this strange sadness to the movie, almost an end-of-the-world fatigue. Messiah of Evil feels like society has already died and only habit is still walking around in a human shape. That is horror I will always worship.

7

‘The Changeling’ (1980)

Image via Pan-Canadian Film Distributors

There are haunted-house movies that throw things at the walls and scream until something sticks. Then there is The Changeling, which knows that grief is already a haunting before the ghost does anything. That is why it works so beautifully. John Russell (George C. Scott) is not just sad but hollowed. The film understands that bereavement makes silence louder.

So when he moves into that giant old house, the supernatural elements feel like pressure. A noise. A ball. A space in the house that starts to feel occupied by memory that is not his. And because the movie is patient, every revelation lands harder. The séance is an excellent ghost. The wheelchair. The attic. The tape recorder. That incredible sense that the house is not merely inhabited by an angry spirit but by a buried crime demanding narrative completion. What I love most is that the film never loses the sorrow underneath the mystery. This is not fun haunting. It is a bereaved man being forced into contact with another trapped pain, another life wronged and unfinished. That overlap gives the horror a human ache a lot of ghost stories never find. People remember The Changeling if they know horror, sure. They still do not talk about it enough.

6

‘Pin’ (1988)

Image via New World Pictures

Pin is one of those movies I almost do not want to summarize too cleanly, because its power comes from how queasy and psychologically intimate it feels. It is nominally about a brother and sister, a doctor father, emotional damage, and a medical dummy named Pin that becomes a vessel for projection, control, repression, and psychic fracture. But saying that out loud does not really explain the movie’s sickness. Pin is about what happens when childhood loneliness and sexual confusion and parental coldness never get metabolized into anything healthy. They just keep sitting there, mutating in private.

What makes it so great is how little it needs to do to feel unbearable. The dummy is horrible, obviously, but not because the movie treats it like a simple horror object. Pin becomes horrible because of the emotional vacancy around him, because of what people need him to hold. That is what makes the film so much more upsetting than standard killer-doll nonsense. It is not really about the object. It is about the people using that object to survive, dominate, deny, and split themselves. There is something humiliatingly intimate about Pin.

5

‘The Reflecting Skin’ (1990)

Image via Miramax Films

This is one of the strangest films on the list and maybe the hardest to pitch to someone who wants neat genre lines. It is horror, yes, though horror refracted through childhood perception so intensely that the whole world starts looking mythic and diseased at once. The Reflecting Skin follows Seth (Jeremy Cooper) who lives in this vast, sun-blasted rural landscape that ought to feel open and innocent, and instead it feels poisoned.

Vampires are whispered about. Adults are broken in half by private despair. Violence enters the world in ways the child mind can sense before it can understand. The result is a movie where dread and innocence are fused so tightly you can barely separate them. And that is why it is great. It gives you spiritual damage. It comes with sickness, sexual terror, wartime trauma, and death. It is forgotten because it is too uncanny to file easily. That is exactly why fans should find it.

4

‘Session 9’ (2001)

Image via USA Films

This is one of the best examples of a horror movie understanding that place can do half the writing for you if you let it. The abandoned Danvers State Hospital in Session 9 is the movie’s nervous system. Every corridor, every flaked wall, every shaft of dead light feels like it has already heard something it should not have. Then the film puts inside that space a crew of asbestos cleaners, working-class men with financial pressure, emotional strain, ego friction, and just enough unresolved pain to give the building something to feed on. That is all it needs.

And the beauty of Session 9 is how uncertain the possession really is. Is the place haunted? Is one mind cracking under preexisting damage? Is evil something in the tapes, in the architecture, in the history, in the air? The answer is less important than the atmosphere of narrowing psychological space. The session tapes themselves are masterful, not because they overexplain, but because they make identity feel divisible in a way that echoes what the whole film is doing. I love how dry and underplayed the movie is. It never begs for your nerves. It lets dread crystallize slowly until that final note lands, and when it lands, it lands like a whisper from the pit.

3

‘Pontypool’ (2008)

Image Via Maple Pictures

I will defend Pontypool forever because it takes a premise that sounds almost like a joke and turns it into one of the freshest horror films of the 2000s. A virus spreads through language. Not saliva. Not scratches. Language. That is an extraordinary horror idea because language is already intimate. It enters the mouth, the ear, the brain. It is how we organize reality, how we reassure each other, how we control panic. So when Pontypool starts suggesting that speech itself might become the vector of collapse, the movie becomes terrifying in a way that bypasses ordinary zombie mechanics entirely.

And then it has the intelligence to set most of the story inside a radio station. That is genius. You are trapped with voices, reports, static, half-confirmed details, fragments of public breakdown, and one man, Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie), who has made a career out of language-as-performance and suddenly has to face language as plague. Stephen McHattie is phenomenal in this, giving the movie its cracked, skeptical, old-radio soul. What I love most is that Pontypool never loses its eerie wit. It is not humorless. It is intellectually playful right up until the point it becomes spiritually hideous. That combination is rare. Horror this smart usually gets too pleased with itself. Pontypool stays hungry.

2

‘Noroi: The Curse’ (2005)

Image via Cathay-Keris Films.

Found-footage horror has so many dead zones in it now that people forget how powerful it can be when the form is actually used as excavation instead of gimmick. Noroi: The Curse gets it. It does not just pretend to be real. It understands that the true pleasure of investigative horror is accumulation. A psychic here. A missing person there. A TV appearance that suddenly feels wrong. Old rituals. Buried names. Strange sounds. A child. A documentary structure that keeps telling you this all belonged to one man’s final work and that you are watching the pieces after the fact. The film builds dread the way some stories build weather. Quietly, then all at once.

What makes Noroi: The Curse one of the greatest forgotten horror movies is that it thinks so much bigger than its surface. It begins like localized weirdness and keeps widening until it feels as if the whole contemporary media landscape has become a delivery system for ancient malice. That is not easy to do. Most found-footage horror shrinks the world. Noroi: The Curse expands it.

1

‘Lake Mungo’ (2008)

Image via Arclight Films

This is #1 because Lake Mungo does something almost no horror movie manages: it makes grief and haunting indistinguishable without cheapening either one. A teenage girl dies. Her family mourns. Strange images emerge. A documentary framework begins assembling memory, testimony, footage, speculation. That sounds simple enough. But the film’s genius is that it never lets the question “Is there really a ghost?” replace the much sadder, more frightening question “How well did we ever know the person we lost?” That is where the movie starts cutting deep.

And once it gets there, it never lets go. The interviews, the fake-documentary restraint, the incremental revelations about Alice’s (Talia Zucker) interior life, the sense that her family is grieving one version of her while another version remains hidden in the dark, that is what makes the film devastating. Then there is the image. The image. One of the most frightening and heartbreaking things in 21st-century horror, not because it jumps at you, but because it feels like time itself has become unbearable. Lake Mungo understands that the dead can terrify us not just because they return, but because they may have gone toward their own ending alone, carrying knowledge we were nowhere near ready to see. That is profound horror. That is partially why it belongs at number one.

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Lake Mungo

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Release Date

January 29, 2010

Director

Joel Anderson

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Writers

Joel Anderson

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Tom Brady took a savage public swipe at Kevin Hart — in the name of comedy.

During Netflix’s The Roast of Kevin Hart, which streamed live on the platform on Sunday, May 10, Brady, 48, appeared on stage to throw a brutal jab at Hart, 46.

“All right, this won’t take long, because, as you guys know, I’m a busy man,” the NFL legend told the crowd, per a report by Variety. “But I do have a few words for you before I return to my affairs in Las Vegas. Oh, wait, I’m talking about affairs in Las Vegas. Was that off? Not supposed to talk about affairs in Vegas? I think I broke another rule. F*** it. I talked about it.”

Brady, who had been roasted by Hart during his own Netflix special in May 2024, referenced Hart’s 2017 cheating scandal which involved the actor betraying his then-pregnant wife, Eniko Parrish, during a trip to Las Vegas. Although Hart initially denied reports of infidelity, he owned up to it two months after the news broke. (Hart and Parrish share two children, son Kenzo, 8, and daughter Kaori, 5. Hart is also father to daughter Heaven, 21, and son Hendrix, 18, both of whom he shares with ex-wife Torei Hart.)

Prior to Brady’s arrival on Sunday’s stage, Hart warned viewers about the retired quarterback’s upcoming words. “I’m gonna tell you right now, it’s gonna be way better than the Brady roast,” Hart said, per the outlet. “The reason why is because I’m not a bitch. Tom is a bitch. Tom sat there the whole time with the f***ing white man’s face…He was a f***ing bitch. I ain’t no bitch. You bring whatever it is that you got. I could give two f***s. You go and say what you want to say. Say it. I don’t give a s***. At the end of the day, I’m Kevin Hart. I’m the man.”

Hart revealed in a 2021 interview with Romper that he had told his children about his mistakes. “You have to talk to your kids about it because it’s going to come out,” the actor said at the time. “Some of them are cool about it and some of them are not, depending on the situation. You have to understand the different personalities and manage them correctly.”

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News of Hart’s actions in Las Vegas originally came to light when an alleged extortionist claimed to have obtained a “sexually provocative” video of the actor. He acknowledged his Las Vegas affair in a public apology video shared via Instagram in September 2017.

“I made a bad error in judgement and I put myself in a bad environment where only bad things can happen and they did,” Hart said in the video. “And in doing that, I know that I’m going to hurt the people closest to me, who I’ve talked to and apologized to — that would be my wife and kids.”

Parrish, 41, later addressed the scandal in detail in the docuseries Kevin Hart: Don’t Fk This Up. “This was a bad one. This was major,” she told Netflix’s cameras in 2019. “Nine years and I think looking forward, it’ll be better. I believe in second chances. I’m all about forgiveness, and you only get two times. Three strikes you’re out, you’re out of here. So, as long as he behaves, we’re good.”

Blake Lively’s chaotic legal battle with Justin Baldoni may finally be cooling down, but the actress is still finding herself at the center of headlines. 

Just days after settling the explosive lawsuit tied to “It Ends With Us,” Lively received a very public show of support from husband Ryan Reynolds. 

The actor used Mother’s Day to praise his wife as “fearless” while sharing intimate family moments online, signaling that despite months of controversy, the Hollywood couple is still presenting a united front as they move into their next chapter.

Ryan Reynolds made it clear that he is standing firmly beside Blake Lively after one of the toughest periods of her career. 

The “Deadpool” star shared a touching Mother’s Day tribute on his Instagram Stories featuring two candid photos of the couple together.

In one image, the pair smiled in matching yellow ponchos while posing in front of what appeared to be Niagara Falls. 

Another showed them relaxing outdoors in blue chairs, with Reynolds wearing sunglasses while Lively kept cozy in a blue sweater and brown sweatpants.

Alongside the photos, Reynolds wrote, “I appreciate this mother beyond measure. She is kind. She is fearless. She’s the absolute love of my life – and to our four little kids, she’s the life of their love.”

Lively later reposted the tribute to her own Stories and sweetly replied, “I happen to be pretty fond of you too.”

Lively Shares Tribute To The Women In Her Family

While Reynolds celebrated his wife, Blake Lively also used the holiday to honor the mothers in her own life. 

The “Gossip Girl” actress posted a heartfelt message dedicated to her mother, Elaine Lively, alongside a solo photograph.

“Happy Mother’s Day to the woman who chooses joy, every day, no matter what,” Lively wrote. She continued, “The strength and defiance in that is something I’ll always appreciate, especially the older I get. She makes every day special for everyone around her. Especially her babies and grandbabies.”

The actress also praised her mother’s creativity and optimism, writing, “She isn’t just beautiful, she creates beauty, with her hands, her stories, her playfulness, her creativity, her incredible ingenuity and her love.”

Lively later uploaded a second image featuring both Elaine and her mother-in-law Tammy Stewart together. “These two queens are my mamas,” she wrote, adding, “I couldn’t be luckier to have them. And as my mama has always said, ‘the best part is, I know it.’”

Blake Lively Returned To The Met Gala After Settlement Bombshell

The Mother’s Day posts arrived less than a week after Blake Lively shocked fans with her appearance at the Met Gala. 

The Hollywood star attended fashion’s biggest night just hours after news broke that she and Baldoni had settled their bitter legal fight tied to “It Ends With Us.”

Lively walked the red carpet solo while wearing a dramatic archival Atelier Versace gown. During an interview, she admitted she was feeling shy and wished her four children could have joined her at the event.

The settlement came only weeks before the planned May 18 trial and after a judge reportedly “gutted” key portions of her 2024 sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit.

Although Lively received no financial payout from Baldoni, she is still pursuing legal fees connected to his failed $400 million countersuit.

Her attorney, Sigrid McCawley, later told Entertainment Tonight that the actress was “moving on with her life” and said her Met Gala appearance was proof that she was “standing up and not being silenced.”

“We wouldn’t want any woman in that position to be silenced. They should be out living their life,” McCawley explained.

Lively Faces Fresh Attacks From Baldoni’s Lawyer

Even after the settlement, the public war between both camps has continued. Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, recently claimed that Blake Lively settled because she was too “scared” to testify in court.

“Part of the reason Blake settled is because she was scared to take the witness stand at trial. She did not want to face cross examination by anyone because that would require her to tell the truth,” Freedman told TMZ.

The lawyer also argued that a trial would have “exposed her lies” and claimed the actress “ended up with nothing” in the deal.

Meanwhile, McCawley defended her client and insisted Lively plans to continue “exposing the digital retaliation campaign here that was weaponized against her.”

The attorney also described the actress as “incredibly brave” for speaking out. “She’s going to continue to pave that path of being really bold and brave in this moment,” McCawley added.

Blake Lively’s Legal Fallout Still Pulls Reynolds Into The Spotlight

Even though Lively and Baldoni have officially settled their courtroom battle, the fallout surrounding the case is still unfolding publicly. 

Much of the attention has now shifted toward how deeply Reynolds became involved in the dispute behind the scenes.

During the legal war, Baldoni accused Reynolds of “swearing” and “berating him in an aggressive tirade” during a tense 2023 meeting held at the couple’s New York penthouse. 

According to Baldoni’s claims, Reynolds attended the meeting as Lively’s “representative” while concerns about the set of “It Ends With Us” were being discussed.

The drama only intensified when unsealed text messages from the case allegedly showed Reynolds referring to Baldoni as “dumb-dumb” during private exchanges tied to the feud.

At the same time, Lively has continued trying to move forward publicly with her appearance at the Met Gala and her Mother’s Day family tributes.

Meanwhile, Baldoni has also started reappearing publicly following the settlement announcement. The filmmaker was recently photographed smiling and holding hands with his wife, Emily, during an outing in Nashville. 

Reports say he is now focused on “moving forward” with his wife and two children after the exhausting legal battle.

Michael B. Jordan has consistently surprised his fans with his incredible career choices. From playing a menacing villain with Killmonger in Black Panther, to a fearless hero with Adonis Creed in the Creed franchise, playing dual roles in Sinners that bagged him an Oscar, to directing and producing several projects, the actor is on a roll, and fans can’t wait to see what he brings next.

As compelling an actor he is, Jordan shines even brighter in diverse roles in front and behind the camera. His partnership with fan-favorite director Ryan Coogler has given us some amazing films, like Black Panther, Sinners, and Creed, the Rocky spin-off. Coogler helmed the first feature and took the mega task of introducing Adonis (Jordan) as he tracks down a retired Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) in Philadelphia to ask for training. The movie was a big hit thanks to many nostalgic elements, Stallone’s Oscar-nominated performance, and a brilliant story. Grossing $173 million worldwide on a $40 million budget, Creed received widespread acclaim from critics who praised Coogler’s direction, the screenplay, and acting performances. Its success was followed up with Creed II, which takes Adonis’ story forward in a compelling way.

Adonis faces off against Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), the son of Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), who was responsible for the death of Adonis’ father, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), some thirty-three years earlier. Co-written by Juel Taylor and Stallone and directed by Steven Caple Jr., the movie was an even bigger success, earning $214 million at the box office on a $50 million budget. The 83% Rotten Tomatoes-rated movie is universally loved for its fight sequences, strong character development, and was criticized for plot predictability, but it’s a great watch.

Creed III marked Jordan’s directorial debut and a compelling one at that. We follow Adonis as he faces a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy, Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors), who is eager to prove that he deserves his shot in the ring. Co-written by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin, the movie packs some serious gut punches and proves a worthy addition to the Creed universe. Like its predecessors, the film was a box office success, grossing over $276 million worldwide. It further earned an 89% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the audience giving it an even higher 95%.

The ‘Creed’ Franchise is Knocking Out the Competition on Streaming

Creed II and Creed III have taken over their free-streaming home, Tubi’s, top 10 charts, according to FlixPatrol. Creed II is at #2 spot right behind chart topper The Beach House, while Creed III stands at #4 spot behind A Madea Family Funeral among other films. If you want to check out the films, this seems to be the right time when they are available on a free streamer.

Stay tuned to Collider for more such updates.

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Release Date

March 3, 2023

Runtime

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116 minutes

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Science fiction is among the most celebrated genres in cinema. It encompasses everything from profound, ambitious explorations of space travel to smaller, more intimate depictions of futures in varying degrees of unrest. Sci-fi is still thriving in cinema, perhaps now more than ever, with the recent releases of movies like Project Hail Mary proving that the genre is experiencing what is likely its best period to date.

Twenty years ago, however, the landscape was much more different. That’s not to say that sci-fi movies didn’t exist or that they weren’t recognized, but it is fair to say that they were a lot less appreciated, perhaps even dismissed as “genre fare.” However, a few of these twenty-year-old movies have aged beautifully and are now considered genuine masterpieces of the genre. Here, we take a look at the sci-fi movies from 2006 that are outright perfect, becoming incredible representatives of their home genre.

‘Southland Tales’

Image via Universal Studios

Richard Kelly followed his 2001 cult classic Donnie Darko with an even bigger deep cut: the dystopian black comedy thriller Southland Tales. Set in 2008, in a United States under the threat of nuclear attack, the film follows several stories, including a movie star (Dwayne Johnson) planning his next movie with the help of a porn star (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who herself is attempting to launch a reality TV show.

Southland Tales was quite misunderstood upon release — in fact, it remains misunderstood and underrated. The film juggles several complex ideas, offering scathing criticisms of the industrial military complex and the entertainment industry. However, its approach is decidedly abstract, to the point where many might dismiss it as too artsy or outright pretentious. Yet, there’s a genuine allure to the film’s chaos; it has something to say, but it doesn’t figure out how to say it. Yet, its attempts still result in an engaging and fascinating movie, one that throws the audience directly into the mayhem and never concerns itself with making sense of it.

‘Idiocracy’

Image via 20th Century Studios

Idiocracy is a movie that not many paid attention to when it came out, but which has become so relevant in the decades since that it seems outright prophetic. Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph play a librarian and a prostitute who undergo a government procedure that puts them in cryosleep for five hundred years. Upon awakening, they discover that society has regressed to the point where they are now the smartest people in the world.

Mike Judge‘s film satirizes society’s path to progress, commenting on the rise of anti-intellectualism and absurd, seemingly endless consumerism. Sharp and surprisingly insightful, the film has a lot to say about the pernicious relationship between politics and the media, and how superficiality can only lead to something far darker. This cult classic remains perfect, largely because it seems so hauntingly precise in its observations — for example, the presidential plot is no longer as funny as it was because it now uncomfortably hits too close to home. Today, we might be constantly asking ourselves, “Have we actually reached peak idiocracy?” but the awful truth is that we can always go beyond it.

‘The Girl Who Leapt Through Time’

Image via Kadokawa Herald Pictures

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A loose sequel to the 1967 eponymous novel, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is among the best anime movies of the 2000s. The plot sees teenager Makoto Konno learning to travel in time, thanks to her aunt Kazuko Yoshiyama (the protagonist of the original novel). Makoto uses her newfound abilities to pursue selfish gains, soon realizing her actions have far broader consequences that go beyond just herself.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time deftly balances several genres, mainly science fiction and coming-of-age, with a healthy dose of romance to boot. The visuals are simply spectacular, capturing a carefree, warm atmosphere that makes everything seem strangely wholesome; it’s like watching a child learn how to ride a bike, except it’s a teenage girl literally manipulating time. The core of the story is a classic tale of self-discovery and growth, but the execution makes this anime movie far more special. There’s also a 1983 live-action adaptation, but the anime version is slightly more striking.

‘A Skanner Darkly’

Image via Warner Bros.

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Richard Linklater‘s A Scanner Darkly is among the most singular animated movies of the 2000s — indeed, of all time. Keanu Reeves stars as Bob Arctor, a narcotics officer living in a future where the United States is undergoing a drug-addiction pandemic. While wooing drug dealer Donna (Winona Ryder) in an effort to identify her supplier, Bob is also tasked with spying on his neighbors. Deep undercover, Bob himself develops an addiction.

Based on the novel by Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly is a trippy experience brought to life through rotoscoping, a technique where animators manually trace over the original footage, frame by frame, thus achieving a distinct visual approach. The film looks like a literal comic book brought to life, a deliberate choice that only enhances the themes of addiction, paranoia, and the loss of self. Like other Linklater movies, A Scanner Darkly has a lot to say; the dialogue cracks, and the conversations feel both surreal and heavy with meaning. What exactly that meaning is remains unclear, as the film is far more concerned with posing questions than straight-up answering them.

‘The Host’

Bong Joon Ho‘s movies usually offer a heavy dose of social commentary, be it anti-capitalist sentiment, class struggle, or institutional incompetence. All of those are perfectly showcased in his 2006 monster flick, The Host. The plot centers on intellectually disabled food stand vendor Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho), whose daughter is kidnapped by a mysterious amphibious monster terrorizing the Han River in Seoul.

Here, Bong pulls no punches, presenting a bleak vision of the United States as uncaring and warmongering, to the point where the film flirts with anti-American sentiment. Like many of his other movies, The Host offers strong commentary on the sheer incompetence of the institutions meant to protect and enhance society, and how the ultimate prize is often paid by those less fortunate. Humanity’s relationship with the environment, another favorite of Bong, is also heavily featured here, but the movie still offers all the monster carnage one would expect from a genre flick. The result is a creature feature that is as effective as it is bittersweet and even chilling.

‘The Prestige’

Image via Warner Bros.

Christopher Nolan has mastered many genres, from thriller to mystery and crime drama. However, sci-fi is where he often thrives, and perhaps his most underappreciated entry into the genre is 2006’s The Prestige. An intriguing mix of genres, the film stars Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as rival magicians in Victorian London. As the two try to surpass the other, they embark on an increasingly dark and desperate quest that will ultimately cost them far more than they expected.

For most of its runtime, The Prestige is a psychological thriller laced with hints of a revenge story. It’s not until the halfway point that the sci-fi elements arrive, courtesy of a hypnotizing David Bowie as legendary inventor Nikola Tesla. Yet, Nolan uses science fiction to explore the darkest corners of the human psyche, the unrelenting thirst to surpass another, no matter the cost. Yet, The Prestige is as much about showmanship as it is about vengeance, presenting itself under the same structure as the magic tricks at the center of the narrative.

‘Paprika’

Image via Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan

Arguably the trippiest and most challenging sci-fi movie of the 2000s, Paprika is a stellar exploration of dreams and the last film made by the genius Satoshi Kon. The narrative centers on Dr. Atsuko Chiba, a scientist who moonlights as the dream detective Paprika. When a device she’s been working on is stolen by a so-called “dream terrorist,” Atsuko jumps into action as both herself and as Paprika.

Paprika operates under a singular set of rules. In fact, if you watch it and can’t make much sense of it, fear not, because that’s partly by design. Perhaps thanks to its nature as an exploration of dreams, and perhaps because of Kon’s desire to push the audience to the edge of lofic, Paprika is a famously daunting experience. It’s visually, mentally, and emotionally exhausting, a journey through the subconscious that is half dream, half nightmare. It might also probably, kinda, sorta, most likely influenced Nolan’s Inception; he’s never officially addressed it, but the similarities are… striking. You be the judge.

‘Children of Men’

Image via Universal Pictures

What would happen to the world if people stopped having children? Such is the premise for Alfonso Cuarón‘s dystopian action thriller Children of Men, arguably his magnum opus, give or take a Roma. Clive Owen stars as Theo, a disillusioned bureaucrat tasked by his ex-wife, Julian (Julianne Moore), to escort Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), the first pregnant woman in two decades. Facing incredible danger, Theo will have to rise to the challenge.

Children of Men is a curious beast. The sci-fi elements are subtler, but the film still deals with a near-future where civilization has outright collapsed under the weight of mounting desperation provoked by infertility. It’s quite incredible how accurately the film predicted the near future, with asylum seekers seeking asylum in the United Kingdom, leading to their imprisonment, deportation, and even execution. Watching Children of Men in 2026 is an uncomfortable experience, as it’s difficult not to draw similarities with the current socio-political landscape. The film is a true masterpiece of the 21st century, and a confirmation of Cuarón’s prowess as an auteur of singular vision.