Z
1969
***
A politician is assassinated but the corrupt establishment try to pretend that it was a car accident.
Pacey political thriller based on real events; after 40 years it may not have quite the power it once did, but there's still much to admire, including the snappy editing.
Dir: Costa-Gavras
Stars: Yves Montand, Irene Papas, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jacques Perrin
ZAPPED!
1982
0
A high school pupil uses his telekinetic powers to tear girls' clothes off at the prom.
Tawdry comedy expressly designed to appeal to moist-palmed teenage boys.
Dir: Robert J Rosenthal
Stars: Scott Baio, Willie Aames, Robert Mandan
ZAPPERS BLADE OF VENGEANCE
1974
0
A female private eye thwarts a murderous swordsman.
A slight improvement on Big Zapper (qv) but not exactly good; the duelling sequences are particularly dull. There's no on-screen apostrophe in the title.
Dir: Lindsay Shonteff
Stars: Linda Marlowe, Alan Lake, Jason Kemp
ZARDOZ
1974
0
In the far future, a warrior infiltrates a land of quiet intellectuals.
Good-looking but laughably pretentious sci-fi which lasts far too long.
Dir: John Boorman
Stars: Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, John Alderton
A ZED & TWO NOUGHTS
1985
0
Two men examine life after both their wives die in a car crash.
High-brow fantasy whose pretensions become intolerable.
Dir: Peter Greenaway
Stars: Andrea Ferreol, Eric Deacon, Frances Barber, Joss Ackland
ZELIG
1983
***
The life of a human chameleon.
Fiendishly clever, unique fantasia in which the stars play alongside Hitler, Roosevelt and so on.
Dir: Woody Allen
Stars: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, John Buckwater
ZENOBIA
1939
*
A small-town doctor can't lose the elephant he has treated.
Hardy without Laurel - but Ollie copes well with a different sort of performance in a film very different from one of theirs, a mild, pleasant comic drama with a message of goodwill.
Dir: Gordon Douglas
Stars: Oliver Hardy, Harry Langdon, Jean Parker
ZERO HOUR!
1957
*
A flight in bad weather is struck by food poisoning.
Air melodrama whose chief point of interest now is to see where Airplane got many of its ideas from.
Dir: Hall Bartlett
Stars: Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Sterling Hayden
ZERO POPULATION GROWTH
1972
0
In the future, having children is illegal - but one couple break the law.
Undramatic sci-fi devoid of humour. The 'pollution-induced fog' attempts to cover up the low budget.
Dir: Michael Campus
Stars: Oliver Reed, Geraldine Chaplin, Don Gordon
ZETA ONE
1969
0
A race of female aliens is in need of human male specimens.
Soft core sci-fi with a couple of famous faces; it could not have been made at any other time or in any other place. Awful but incredible.
Dir: Michael Court
Stars: James Robertson Justice, Charles Hawtrey, Valerie Leon, Yutte Stensgaard, Rita Webb
ZIDANE - A 21ST CENTURY PORTRAIT
2006
*
Documentary in which Real Madrid's Zidane is followed by 17 cameras during the course of one 90-minute match.
It's difficult to see who this arty experiment might appeal to; after a while the most avid football fan (particularly the most avid football fan) or devotee of quirky cinema might check to see what's on the other side.
Dir: Douglas Gordon, Philippe Parreno
Stars: Zinedine Zidane
ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS
1982
*
Documentary charting Bowie's last performance with his Spiders in 1972.
A great concert, but the behind-the-scenes stuff is a bit vacuous and the picture quality poor.
Dir: D A Pennebaker
Stars: David Bowie
ZIZEK!
2005
0
Documentary featuring the thoughts of a Slovenian Marxist philosopher.
An exhausting and unsympathetic low-budget film with a subject that barely appears worthy of laudatory treatment.
Dir: Astra Taylor
Stars: Slavoj Zizek
ZODIAC
2007
**
A newspaper cartoonist obsessively seeks the identity of the Zodiac killer, who is terrorising San Francisco in the 1960s and '70s.
Grown-up thriller concentrating on the tortuous and inefficient investigations - the scary bits are kept to a minimum but highly effective when they occur. Long and tangled but stylishly put together, if you don't enjoy the story you can at least enjoy the carefully recreated period detail.
Dir: David Fincher
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr, Anthony Edwards, Chloe Sevigny, Brian Cox
ZOLTAN, HOUND OF DRACULA
1977
0
Soldiers accidentally unleash the canine servant of Dracula.
Low budget, low excitement horror.
Dir: Albert Band
Stars: Michael Pataki, Jan Shutan, Libby Chase
ZOMBIE AND THE GHOST TRAIN
1991
0
A man drifts in and out of a rock band but prefers to drink his life away.
Underwritten and inconsequential drama with no surprises, a sort of Finnish Bukowski, without the tang.
Dir: Mika Kaurismaki
Stars: Silu Seppala, Marjo Leinonen, Matti Pellonpaa
ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH
1980
0
Reporters and army men battle an ever growing band of zombies in the jungle.
Gloriously trashy horror flick which lacks power and sense but isn’t short of randomly inserted stock footage of African wildlife.
Dir: Bruno Mattei
Stars: Frank Garfield, Robert O’Neil, Margit Evelyn Newton
ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS
1980
*
A woman traces her father's disappearance to a zombie-infested island.
Formulaic zombie movie which, although better and more sanely shot than many Fulci films, doesn't deserve its lofty reputation that was partly earned by its eight-year British video ban. The air of doom and occasional highly memorable set-pieces (the shark vs the zombie! The splinter in the eyeball!) do lift it out of the mire, though, even if dull stretches and bland characters drag it back down.
Dir: Lucio Fulci
Stars: Ian McCulloch, Tisa Farrow, Richard Johnson
ZOMBIE LAKE
1981
0
A lake full of Nazi zombies spells doom for various bathers.
A wonderfully terrible film which has had its ‘qualities’ picked over by bad movie fans: the spare, disconnected dialogue; the half washed off zombie make-up; the fact that a little girl loves a soggy undead Nazi; that it’s not sure whether it’s set in the Fifties or the Eighties; the extras who can barely take events seriously, and much more. Also brazenly sexual at times, it’s a brightly shot slice of lunacy that will likely attract more converts over the years.
Dir: Jean Rollin (as JA Laser)
Stars: Howard Vernon, Pierre Escourrou, Nadine Pascal
ZOMBIELAND
2009
*
After America has been overrun by zombies, a nerdy student joins forces with a gun-toting nutcase to trek across the country.
Lively horror comic a little uncertain in tone but preferable to most other modern zombie movies; a negative view would be to say it’s very simplistic and possibly sponsored by Twinkies, but a more positive one that it’s slickly produced and snappily scripted.
Dir: Ruben Fleischer
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin, Bill Murray
ZONE TROOPERS
1985
0
During World War Two, aliens arrive on Earth to help some American soldiers.
A mix of sci-fi and war movie in which the cheapness really shows through.
Dir: Danny Bilson
Stars: Tim Thomerson, Timothy Van Patten, Art LaFleur
ZORRO’S FIGHTING LEGION
1940 (serial)
0
Zorro fights for the independence of Mexico.
Rather boring serial with lively music. Some episodes are two strung together.
Dir: John English, William Witney
Stars: Reed Hadley, Sheila Darcy, William Carson
ZULU
1964
***
In 1879, British soldiers fight a seemingly un-winnable battle against Zulus.
Memorable war film complemented by excellent performances and exciting action.
Dir: Cy Endfield
Stars: Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Michael Caine, James Booth, Nigel Green
ZULU DAWN
1979
*
The story of the British defeat at the hands of Zulus at Rourke's Drift in 1876.
Although this compares unfavourably with its predecessor, thanks to its long build-up and less than clear battle scenes, this is a decent, competent war film with a distinguished cast.
Dir: Douglas Hickox
Stars: Burt Lancaster, Denholm Elliott, Peter O'Toole, John Mills, Simon Ward, Nigel Davenport, Ronald Lacey, Freddie Jones
