Comics Movies
Comics and movies both blossomed in the cultural landscape of the 20th Century. And as they flowered they cross-pollinated one another with their brightest blooms and their most effective arrangements. The digital revolution has opened many doors to the previously unfilmable, leading to an explosion in the number of comic book adaptations.
For many people 'comics movies' mean gaudy titans in tights pounding the snot out of one another. However, if you remove the properties of the two big American companies (DC and Marvel), a broader spectrum of the fantastic and mundane is revealed.
Presenting for your selection, a cornucopia of pocket universes born of ink, transformed into light. For Superheroes peruse the DC and Marvel sub-headings under Comics Movies, stage left.
Pictured: Marv (Mickey Rourke) takes a moment to collect his thoughts in 2005's "Sin City" - cinema's most faithful comic book adaptation to date.
Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance (1974)
7.7/10
Director: Toshiya Fujita
Starring: Meiko Kaji, Yoshio Harada, Kazuko Yoshiyuki
Imprisoned and sentenced to hang for the murders she committed to avenge her family, Yuki is given a reprieve by the mysterious Kikui, a secret govern... Read more
Crows: Episode 0 (2007)
7.4/10
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Shun Oguri, Kyosuke Yabe, Meisa Kuroki, Takayuki Yamada, Sansei Shiomi, Kenichi...
Suzuran Boys' High has a rep as the toughest educational institution in town, and when skinny gangster's son, Genji, arrives he plans to prove to his... Read more
Wanted ( Blu-ray ) (2008)
6.7/10
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Starring: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann,...
James McAvoy is your average, down-trodden office drone whose uneventful life is about to become more eventful than he could have imagined. After disc... Read more
The Losers (2010)
6.4/10
Director: Sylvain White
Starring: Jason Patric, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Columbu...
An explosive action tale of betrayal and revenge, 'The Losers' centers around the members of an elite Special Forces unit sent to the Bolivian jungle... Read more
The Phantom (1996)
4.9/10
Director: Simon Wincer
Starring: Billy Zane, Kristy Swanson, Treat Williams
That masked, purple-clad defender of the jungle leaps from the comic's pages to the screen with this adventure saga. Billy Zane stars as 'The Ghost Wh... Read more
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)
7.1/10
Director: Angela Robinson
Starring: Oliver Platt, Connie Britton, Bella Heathcote, Rebecca Hall, Luke Evans
If behind every great man is a great woman, then Harvard psychologist and inventor Dr. William Moulton Marston has the good fortune of having two -- h... Read more
Venom (Blu-Ray) (2018)
7/10
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Michelle Williams, Stan Lee, Woody Harrelson, Tom Hardy, Riz Ahmed, Reid Scott,...
Journalist Eddie Brock is trying to take down Carlton Drake, the notorious and brilliant founder of the Life Foundation. While investigating one of Dr... Read more
Popeye: All New Cartoons (1996)
5.2/10
Starring: Popeye
All new Popeye features a whole boatload of action adventures. With all your favourite characters. Includes the cartoons: 'Popeye's Roots', 'Come Back... Read more
American Splendor (2003)
7.5/10
Director: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis, James Urbaniak, Judah Friedlander, Harvey Pekar
"From off the streets of Cleveland" comes the acclaimed filming of Ohio file clerk/jazz buff/crank Harvey Pekar's underground comic book chronicle of... Read more
Eko Eko Azarak II: Birth of the Wizard (1996)
Director: Shimako Sato
Starring: Kimika Yoshino, Wataru Shihodo, Chieko Shiratori, Akira Otani, Eisei Amamoto, Ak...
In this prequel to the first film an evil spirit has massacred a village of witches and wizards in ancient Japan. Skip to present day and an archaeol... Read more