TopMovies

How TopMovies looks

TopMovies keeps the look of the site whose name it carries: a pale grey page, a white header with the name and the search box, and a dark menu bar whose lower corners are rounded. Under the menu runs a row of rounded buttons, grey for the categories, with one red, one blue and one orange button standing out, for the superheroes, the newest films and the top rated. The films are shown as white cards in five columns, each a tall poster with the title and year on a single line beneath.

The first group on the home page, Most popular, shows the fifteen films with the most votes from viewers. Latest movies follows, then rows for fantasy, science fiction and family films, the help pages and this guide. On a telephone the cards stand two abreast and the menu folds into a button.

What PG-13 means

Since the selection rests on ratings, a word about them is useful. The American board gives G to films suitable for everyone, PG to those where parents may wish to keep younger children company, and PG-13 to those containing material that may be unsuitable under thirteen. The PG-13 rating was invented in 1984, after parents complained that two adventure films of that summer were too frightening for a plain PG, and it has become the home of the big adventure film ever since.

In an adventure, PG-13 usually means action: chases, sword fights, collapsing buildings, creatures with large teeth. The fighting is energetic and the heroes come through it. Films from before 1984 with a PG rating can be a little stronger than a PG of today, which is why each title was checked individually. For a household with children under ten, the Family category, with 86 films, and the Family help page are the place to begin, and every title page describes the story plainly so that parents can judge for themselves.

Adventure

The Adventure category is the largest, with 134 films, and the Adventure help page offers a route through it. Romancing the Stone, from 1984, is the model of the modern adventure comedy. Joan Wilder, played by Kathleen Turner, writes romantic adventure novels in a small flat in New York with a cat for company. When her sister is held to ransom in Colombia for a treasure map, she flies south in high heels, takes the wrong bus, and finds herself in the jungle with a scruffy fortune hunter, played by Michael Douglas, and the kind of adventure she has only ever typed. Danny DeVito pursues them in a very small car. The director, Robert Zemeckis, made his name with it, and the three stars returned in The Jewel of the Nile.

The Rocketeer, from 1991, is set in Los Angeles in 1938. A young stunt pilot finds a rocket pack hidden in his aeroplane, straps it on, and becomes a flying hero in a finned helmet, pursued by gangsters, federal agents and a film star with a secret. It is a loving tribute to the serials of the 1930s, handsome to look at and suitable for almost any age. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, from 2004, pays the same tribute in another way: its actors were filmed against blank screens and every skyscraper, airship and giant robot was painted in afterwards, a method that was new then and is now common.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E., from 2015, directed by Guy Ritchie, takes a television series of the 1960s and gives it wit and style. In 1963, an American agent with expensive tastes and a Russian agent with a short temper, played by Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, are ordered to work together, much against their will, with a German mechanic played by Alicia Vikander. The clothes, cars and music of the period are a pleasure in themselves, and the film has one of the highest ratings in the catalogue.

Adventure on the largest scale is represented by Godzilla, from 2014, in which the great creature rises from the Pacific to restore the balance of nature; Rampage, with Dwayne Johnson as the keeper and friend of a gorilla that begins to grow; 2012, which destroys most of the planet and saves a family; Tomb Raider, from 2018, in which a young Lara Croft, played by Alicia Vikander, follows her missing father's trail to an island off Japan; and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life, the two earlier films with Angelina Jolie.

Treasure hunts

The Treasure hunts category gathers 24 films with a map at the centre, and the Treasure hunts help page lists them. The oldest hero of the kind is Allan Quatermain, the hunter of the Victorian novels, who appears in King Solomon's Mines, from 1985, and Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, with Richard Chamberlain and a young Sharon Stone. Sahara, from 2005, sends two cheerful treasure hunters up an African river after a lost ironclad ship. Congo sends an expedition, and a gorilla who talks in sign language, to a lost city guarded by apes.

Cutthroat Island, from 1995, gives Geena Davis the captaincy of a pirate ship and a third of a map. Six Days Seven Nights strands a magazine editor and a gruff pilot, played by Anne Heche and Harrison Ford, on a deserted island. The Librarian: Quest for the Spear and The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines follow a bookish hero with twenty-two degrees who guards the world's magical objects. Fountain of Youth, from 2025, reunites a brother and sister on a chase through museums and pyramids, and A Far Off Place, Robinson Crusoe and Captain Ron, a comedy about a family, a sailing boat and a very relaxed skipper, complete the shelf.

Fantasy

The Fantasy category holds 102 films, and the Fantasy help page divides them into fairy tales and flights of imagination. Legend, from 1985, directed by Ridley Scott, is a fairy tale of the purest kind: a forest boy, a princess, the last unicorns and a Lord of Darkness with horns a yard long, played by Tim Curry under some of the most remarkable make-up ever applied. The forest was built indoors, leaf by leaf, and the film glows. Dragonslayer, from 1981, about a sorcerer's apprentice sent to deal with the last dragon, has a creature that many still think the finest dragon on film.

Newer fairy tales include Jack the Giant Slayer, a spirited retelling of the beanstalk story; The Sorcerer's Apprentice, in which a physics student in New York is chosen by a thousand-year-old wizard; Damsel, from 2024, in which a princess, played by Millie Bobby Brown, discovers what her wedding is really for and rescues herself; The Secret of Moonacre; Snow White; and Come Away, which imagines Alice and Peter Pan as brother and sister before their adventures began.

The films of imagination are stranger and often more rewarding. A Monster Calls, from 2016, is about a boy of twelve whose mother is very ill, and the ancient tree that walks to his window at seven minutes past midnight to tell him three stories. It is a film about honesty and grief, beautifully drawn and acted, with the highest rating among the fantasies, and it is best watched together with children of ten and over. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, by Terry Gilliam, is a travelling show with a magic mirror; its star, Heath Ledger, died during the filming, and three friends, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, played his part in the scenes beyond the mirror so that it could be finished.

MirrorMask, designed by the artist Dave McKean from a story by Neil Gaiman, Hogfather, from the novel by Terry Pratchett, The Portable Door, The Indian in the Cupboard, in which a toy figure comes to life in a boy's bedroom, Erik the Viking and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote are others for viewers who like to be surprised.

Swords and sorcery

The Swords and sorcery category holds 80 films of knights, gods, wizards and warriors, and the Swords and sorcery help page sorts them. The Greek myths supply Clash of the Titans, from 2010, in which Perseus sets out against the Kraken, its sequel Wrath of the Titans, and The Legend of Hercules; the myths of the Nile supply Gods of Egypt. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has a dagger that turns time back by a minute, and The Forbidden Kingdom, from 2008, sends an American teenager into the China of legend and brought Jackie Chan and Jet Li together on screen for the first time.

The Scorpion King, from 2002, gave Dwayne Johnson his first leading part, as a desert warrior in the age before the pyramids, and four further adventures follow under the same name. The Dragonheart series, about the bond between a dragon and a human, is represented by DragonHeart: A New Beginning, Dragonheart 3: The Sorcerer's Curse, Dragonheart: Battle for the Heartfire and Dragonheart: Vengeance. Warcraft, The Last Airbender, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God, Mythica: A Quest for Heroes and Masters of the Universe all began as games, toys or cartoons.

The age of chivalry has its own corner: Robin Hood, from 2010, with Russell Crowe; Princess of Thieves, in which the outlaw's daughter takes up the bow; Prince Valiant; George and the Dragon; The Musketeer and The Return of the Musketeers; and Camelot, from 1967, the musical of King Arthur, Guenevere and Lancelot, the oldest film in the catalogue.

Science fiction

The Science fiction category holds 70 films, and the Science fiction help page arranges them by idea. Time travel comes first. The Time Machine, from 2002, follows an inventor of the 1890s eight hundred thousand years into the future; its director, Simon Wells, is the great-grandson of H. G. Wells, who wrote the novel. Somewhere in Time, from 1980, is a romance: a playwright, played by Christopher Reeve, falls in love with a photograph of an actress of 1912 and wills himself back to meet her at a grand hotel on a lake. Peggy Sue Got Married sends a woman of forty-three back to her last year at school with everything she now knows, and Timeline, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, Press Play and Before I Fall play other games with the clock.

The future is imagined in Ghost in the Shell, with its city of holograms; Atlas, in which an analyst who distrusts thinking machines must rely on one; The Pod Generation, a gentle satire about parenthood by appointment; Uglies; The Darkest Minds; IO; and After Earth. 65 reverses the idea and lands a space pilot on Earth in the age of the dinosaurs. Jumper, Hancock and Stealth give extraordinary powers to people and machines of the present.

The Space and time category, with 57 films, and the Space and time help page add the robots and the visitors. Short Circuit 2 brings the curious robot Johnny Five to the big city. Electric Dreams, from 1984, is a love triangle between a man, a woman and a home computer. Battle Beyond the Stars retells a famous story of seven hired defenders among the planets, The Ice Pirates and Wing Commander are space adventures of the lighter sort, and Star Trek: Section 31 and the two Doctor Who films continue two long-running sagas.

Jules, from 2023, is the most charming visitor film in years: a small flying saucer lands in the flower bed of an elderly man in a quiet town, played by Ben Kingsley, who reports it at the council meeting and is believed by nobody; he and two neighbours look after the silent traveller themselves. The Astronaut Farmer, about a rancher building a rocket in his barn, Space Oddity, Moonshot and Project: ALF share its good nature.

Superheroes

The Superheroes category holds 21 films, and the Superheroes help page begins with the first and greatest of them. Superman II, from 1980, is widely thought the best of the films with Christopher Reeve. Three criminals from Krypton, freed from their prison in space, arrive on Earth with all of Superman's powers at the very moment he has chosen to give his up for love of Lois Lane.

The film has two versions, both in the catalogue: the one shown in cinemas, and Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, assembled in 2006 from the scenes shot by the original director before he left the production. Comparing them is a lesson in how films are made. Superman III, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Supergirl, with Helen Slater as his cousin, complete the family.

The heroes of the Marvel comics appear in several forms. Hulk, from 2003, directed by Ang Lee, is a thoughtful, unusual film that splits the screen into panels like a comic page. The Incredible Hulk Returns comes from the much-loved television series, and Captain America, from 1990, is an early attempt at the hero. Daredevil, Elektra, Fantastic Four and Madame Web are later, and four short films, Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant, Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter, Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King and Team Thor: Part 2, are small comic pieces made for admirers of the larger series.

Among the newer heroes, Blue Beetle, from 2023, is the warmest. Jaime Reyes, just home from university, is chosen by an ancient scarab that wraps him in armour, and his whole family, grandmother included, comes along on the adventure. Shazam! Fury of the Gods continues the story of a boy who becomes a grown hero by saying a word. Hancock, with Will Smith, asks what would happen if a superhero were bad-tempered and unpopular. Mystery Men, The Meteor Man, Thunder Force, The Phantom, Max Steel, Power Rangers and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie fill out the shelf.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, from 2010, has the highest rating among the most popular films on TopMovies, and it stands quite alone. Scott is twenty-two, plays bass in a band in Toronto and falls for Ramona Flowers, a delivery girl with brightly dyed hair. To go out with her he must defeat her seven former partners, one by one, in duels that follow the rules of a video game: opponents burst into coins, scores float in the air, and sound effects are written across the screen.

The director, Edgar Wright, edited the film to the rhythm of its music, so that doors, footsteps and glances all land on the beat, and the young cast went on to become some of the best-known actors of their generation. Under the fireworks it is a story about growing up enough to deserve someone. It suits teenagers and adults, and rewards a second viewing more than almost any film here.

Action

The Action category holds 117 films, most of them shared with the categories already described. A group of action comedies about spies and partners belongs here in particular. Spies Like Us, from 1985, sends two hopeless trainees, Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd, across Asia as decoys for the real agents. This Means War sets two agents, best friends, to compete for the same woman with all the equipment of their trade. Back in Action, from 2025, brings two retired agents, now suburban parents, out of hiding, to the amazement of their children.

The Union, Ghosted, The Man from Toronto, The Bounty Hunter, The In-Laws, Barely Lethal, about a teenage agent who would prefer an ordinary school, and both newer films of Charlie's Angels are built on the same pleasant formula of mismatched partners and far-flung locations. From the 1980s come Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, whose hero is trained by an elderly Korean master to dodge bullets and run on wet cement, Cloak & Dagger, in which a boy's imaginary spy friend turns out to be useful, and Smokey and the Bandit II and Any Which Way You Can, two cheerful sequels of the open road. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, Bulletproof Monk, The Quest, The Warriors Gate and Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins are for admirers of the martial arts, and Tracers for admirers of running across rooftops.

Comedy and wishes

The Comedy category holds 113 films, and the Comedy help page picks out the best. A favourite kind is the comedy of the wish, in which one impossible thing is allowed and everything else is ordinary. In Vice Versa and Like Father Like Son a father and son exchange bodies. In Multiplicity an overworked builder has himself copied, and then the copies have themselves copied. In Mr. Destiny a man learns how his life would have gone if he had hit the ball. In Little a domineering executive wakes as her thirteen-year-old self, and in Mack & Rita a woman of thirty wakes at seventy and finds it suits her.

Defending Your Life, from 1991, written and directed by Albert Brooks, is the wittiest of them. A man who has just died arrives in a pleasant city where the newly departed stay in hotels, eat as much as they like and attend a hearing at which scenes from their lives are shown on a screen, to decide whether they were brave enough to move on. He falls in love with a woman, played by Meryl Streep, whose life was evidently much braver than his. All of Me, in which Steve Martin shares his body with the spirit of a rich woman, Chances Are, Michael, with John Travolta as an angel who likes pie, Drop Dead Fred, Blithe Spirit, from 2020, Genie and Darby and the Dead are relations of it.

Other comedies stand alone. The Hudsucker Proxy, by the Coen brothers, is a fable of big business in the style of the 1940s, with the invention of the hula hoop at its centre. L.A. Story is Steve Martin's affectionate picture of his city, where a motorway sign gives advice on love. Toys, with Robin Williams, is set in a toy factory of extraordinary design. Junior has Arnold Schwarzenegger as a scientist who tries his own experiment. The Gods Must Be Crazy II, made in southern Africa, follows a bushman of the Kalahari searching for his children. Thelma, from 2024, gave the ninety-three-year-old June Squibb her first leading part, as a grandmother who is tricked on the telephone and sets off across Los Angeles on a borrowed mobility scooter to get her money back; and Hundreds of Beavers, made for very little money in the snow of Wisconsin, is a wordless slapstick film in the manner of the silent comedians, with every animal played by a person in a costume.

Family

The Family category holds 86 films for younger viewers, and the Family help page sorts them by age. The Mighty Ducks, from 1992, is about a hard-driving lawyer ordered to coach the worst children's ice-hockey team in Minnesota, who learns to enjoy the game again; D3: The Mighty Ducks follows the team to school. Annie, from 1982, directed by John Huston, is the musical of the red-haired orphan and the millionaire. The Indian in the Cupboard, Cloak & Dagger, The Sleepover, in which four children discover that their mother has an unexpected past, Home Team and Airborne are for children of eight to twelve.

The classic books for the young are well served. The Adventures of Huck Finn, from 1993, has the young Elijah Wood on a raft on the Mississippi; Tom and Huck and the musical Tom Sawyer tell the companion story; The Prince and the Pauper, from 1977, has two boys exchange places at the court of the Tudors; Nicholas Nickleby, from 2002, is a spirited film of the novel by Dickens; and A Christmas Carol, from 1999, has Patrick Stewart as Scrooge. I Am David, about a boy travelling alone across Europe, and The Water Man, about a boy who goes looking for a legend to help his mother, are thoughtful films for older children.

The youngest have Follow That Bird and The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, with the puppets of a famous children's street; Muppets Haunted Mansion; and Baby Geniuses. Films first made for the Disney Channel and similar networks, Life-Size, in which a doll comes to life, Smart House, Wish Upon a Star, Invisible Sister, Geek Charming, Under the Sea: A Descendants Story, My Date with the President's Daughter and Monster High 2, are safe choices for a sleepover, as are Teen Witch and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. For Christmas there are The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and A Biltmore Christmas.

Romance

The Romance category holds 41 films, and the Romance help page lists them. Nearly all of them add a fantastic element to a love story. Splash, from 1984, directed by Ron Howard, made stars of Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah: a young man in New York falls in love with a woman who has learned English in an afternoon from the television sets in a department store, and who is, when wet, a mermaid. Somewhere in Time has been described. Every Day is about a girl who falls in love with a soul that wakes each morning in a different body. Meet Cute gives a woman a time machine and a single perfect evening to repeat.

Peggy Sue Got Married, Chances Are, Electric Dreams, Xanadu, a roller-skating musical of 1980 with Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly, Happiness for Beginners, Girl Haunts Boy and The Perfect Man are other gentle choices, and Man of La Mancha and Cats are for lovers of stage musicals.

Before 1990

The Before 1990 category holds 44 films, and the Before 1990 help page introduces them. Most date from the 1980s, the age of the video shop, when a family would choose a cassette on Friday and return it on Monday. The adventure films of that decade were made with models, puppets, painted backgrounds and real stunts, and they have a solidity that children notice at once: the dragon of Dragonslayer, the forest of Legend, the flying scenes of Superman II, achieved with wires and enormous patience.

The shelf includes Romancing the Stone, The Jewel of the Nile, Splash, Supergirl, Masters of the Universe, Electric Dreams, The Ice Pirates, King Solomon's Mines, Spies Like Us, Peggy Sue Got Married, Project X, in which a young airman befriends the chimpanzees of a research station, Short Circuit 2, Vice Versa, Erik the Viking and Teen Witch. Five older films stand at the head of it: Camelot, Monte Carlo or Bust!, a comedy of a great motor rally in the 1920s, Man of La Mancha, Tom Sawyer and The People That Time Forgot.

Year by year

Five categories arrange the catalogue by date, and the Year by year help page describes them. The 1990s holds 46 films: The Rocketeer, Defending Your Life, The Mighty Ducks, The Hudsucker Proxy, Congo, The Indian in the Cupboard, Multiplicity, The Phantom, Six Days Seven Nights and Mystery Men. The 2000s also holds 46, the first decade in which computers could paint whole worlds: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Scorpion King, The Time Machine, Hulk, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Sahara, MirrorMask, The Forbidden Kingdom, Hancock, Jumper and 2012.

The 2010s is the largest shelf, with 52: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Robin Hood, Jack the Giant Slayer, Godzilla, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., A Monster Calls, Warcraft, Ghost in the Shell, Tomb Raider and Rampage. The 2020s holds 46, among them Thunder Force, The Man from Toronto, Blue Beetle, Jules, Damsel, Atlas, Thelma, Fountain of Youth and Back in Action, and the Latest movies group on the home page shows the newest of all.

The Top rated category gathers the 59 films rated 6.5 or more out of ten by viewers around the world. A word of advice goes with it: adventure films are rated more severely than dramas, because they are watched by so many people with different tastes, and a rating of six for a film of this kind promises a perfectly enjoyable evening.

Faces you will meet again

Certain actors appear again and again in the catalogue. Christopher Reeve, who is in five films, was Superman for a generation, and showed in Somewhere in Time what a fine romantic actor he was as well. Ben Kingsley, also in five, can be a wizard, a king or a lonely pensioner with equal conviction. Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas were the adventure couple of the 1980s. Angelina Jolie created Lara Croft on screen, and Alicia Vikander took up both that part and the mechanic of The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

Gerard Butler leads four films, among them Gods of Egypt and Timeline. Dwayne Johnson moved from The Scorpion King to Rampage over sixteen years. Robin Williams is the heart of Toys and of Jack, about a boy who grows four times as fast as his classmates. Albert Brooks wrote, directed and starred in Defending Your Life and The Muse, and Steve Martin in All of Me and L.A. Story is at his most inventive. Among directors, Terry Gilliam and his colleague Terry Jones, both once of a famous British comedy troupe, Ridley Scott, Robert Zemeckis, Ron Howard, Guy Ritchie and Francis Ford Coppola are all represented by two films or more.

Series, and where to begin them

Adventure films breed sequels, and the catalogue holds parts of many series, sometimes with gaps where an earlier or later chapter is listed in another guide. It helps to know that nearly all of them can be enjoyed on their own. The Superman films of the 1980s are best begun with Superman II, which retells the hero's origin in its opening minutes. The two films about Joan Wilder run in order, Romancing the Stone and then The Jewel of the Nile. Allan Quatermain's two adventures, the two Librarian films and the two Titans films each make a pleasant double bill.

The Scorpion King series can be watched in any order, since each film is a separate legend, and the same is true of the Dragonheart films, which are set generations apart. The Mighty Ducks should come before D3: The Mighty Ducks. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, Short Circuit 2, Smokey and the Bandit II, The Gods Must Be Crazy II, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned are second chapters that explain themselves as they go, and the page of each one says in a sentence what came before.

Around the world

One reward of the adventure film is travel, and a household can plan its viewing like a journey. Africa is the setting of Sahara, Congo, King Solomon's Mines, I Dreamed of Africa, A Far Off Place, in which two teenagers cross the Kalahari on foot with a young bushman as their guide, and The Gods Must Be Crazy II. South America appears in Romancing the Stone, Egypt in The Jewel of the Nile and Gods of Egypt, China in The Forbidden Kingdom and The Warriors Gate, and Japan in Tomb Raider and Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins.

Europe supplies the castles: Rome and the Italian coast in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., medieval France in Timeline, England in Robin Hood and The Secret of Moonacre, and a rally from five starting points to the Riviera in Monte Carlo or Bust!. The islands of the Pacific and the Caribbean are the playground of Six Days Seven Nights, Cutthroat Island, Captain Ron and Robinson Crusoe. And the cities of North America are transformed: Toronto into a video game, Los Angeles into a place of flying men and talking road signs, and New York into the home of a mermaid, a wizard and a man of steel.

Choosing by mood

Categories are one way to choose; mood is another. For pure excitement, pick Rampage, Godzilla or 2012, and turn the sound up. For wit, pick The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Hudsucker Proxy or Defending Your Life. For wonder, pick Legend, MirrorMask or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. For a good cry, pick A Monster Calls or Somewhere in Time; for comfort, Jules, Splash or The Astronaut Farmer; and for sheer silliness, Hundreds of Beavers, Mystery Men or Spies Like Us.

How the wonders are made

Children who enjoy these films often want to know how the impossible things were done, and the catalogue is a history of the answer. In Camelot and the films of the 1970s, castles were built full size on studio lots and crowds were real. In the 1980s, creatures were puppets worked by teams of operators, spaceships were models a few feet long filmed against blue screens, and landscapes were painted on glass; the dragon of Dragonslayer was the first creature moved by a computer-controlled rod, a method invented for it.

The 1990s brought pictures generated by computer, used at first for a few seconds at a time. By the time of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow a whole film could be made on an empty stage, and by Warcraft and Rampage the leading characters themselves were digital, their movements recorded from actors wearing suits covered in markers. The gorilla of Rampage and the tree of A Monster Calls were both played by people. Some of the best recent films mix old and new: Damsel built real caves for its heroine to climb, and Hundreds of Beavers used costumes, snow and a home computer.

A pleasant exercise for a family is to watch two films of the same kind from different decades, Dragonslayer and Damsel, say, or Superman II and Blue Beetle, and to talk about which looks more real and why. The answer is less obvious than one expects.

From page and game

A great many of these films began somewhere else, and following them back to the source doubles the pleasure. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Blue Beetle, The Phantom, The Rocketeer and all the superheroes come from comics. A Monster Calls, Hogfather, The Portable Door, Every Day, Before I Fall, Uglies, The Darkest Minds, The Indian in the Cupboard and The Secret of Moonacre come from novels, many written for young readers. King Solomon's Mines, The Time Machine, Robinson Crusoe, Timeline, Congo and Sahara come from adventure novels for adults, old and new.

Tomb Raider, Warcraft, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Borderlands, Rampage and Wing Commander began as video games, and Masters of the Universe, Max Steel, Monster High 2 and the Power Rangers films as toys and television. Ghost in the Shell and Knights of the Zodiac come from Japanese comics, and The Last Airbender from an American animated series. A child who has enjoyed one of the films will often read the book with a keenness that homework seldom produces.

Finding a film

The Finding titles help page explains the several ways to find a film on TopMovies. The search box in the header accepts a title and shows matching films as you type. The rounded buttons under the menu open the categories, the A-Z page lists all 234 films alphabetically with their years, and the Movies page lists them by popularity.

Series are easiest to find by their shared word. "Superman" brings up five films, "scorpion" five, "dragonheart" four, "tomb" three, "librarian" two and "marvel" three short films. Two titles are numbers, 2012 and 65, and are filed before the letter A. Where a film has been made more than once under one name, such as Charlie's Angels or Captain America, the year on the card shows which version is listed.

What a title page shows

All film pages share one layout. They open with the poster, the title, the year, the running time and the average rating. A short account of the story follows, with the genres, the director and the leading cast, and beneath it a row of related films from the same categories. The Watch now button opens the list of official services that offer the film in the country you choose.

Adventure films are the mainstay of the official services. The large streaming services compete for them, and several of the newest titles in the catalogue were made by those services and can be seen only there; the older ones move between subscriptions and can nearly always be rented or bought in the digital shops. Soundtracks in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Spanish, French and other languages are widely offered and can be chosen in the player. Because the offers change month by month, the list on each title page is the place to look.

The Add to My List button on each page holds a film for a later evening. The list rests in the browser of your own device, with neither an account nor a password required, and it opens from the My List link in the menu bar. The My List help page describes how to remove a film and how to take the list to another device.

A first week

Here are seven evenings for a household new to the catalogue. On the first, watch Romancing the Stone. On the second, The Rocketeer, with the children. On the third, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, with the teenagers. On the fourth, Splash. On the fifth, Superman II. On the sixth, A Monster Calls, and on the seventh, The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

A second week might hold Legend, Jules, Defending Your Life, Tomb Raider, The Mighty Ducks, Blue Beetle and Thelma. For a birthday party of ten-year-olds, choose The Indian in the Cupboard or The Sleepover; for a rainy afternoon, King Solomon's Mines and its sequel; for grandparents, Somewhere in Time or Camelot; and for a household that wants to laugh, Spies Like Us or Hundreds of Beavers.

How the films were chosen

Every title on TopMovies was considered by a person before it was admitted. Its certificate was checked, its story and the notes written for parents were read, and films that rely on horror, cruelty or crude humour were passed over, however popular. The descriptions are short and plain, the years and running times are confirmed in the public film databases, and the posters are the official ones.

TopMovies is a guide. It holds neither films nor files to download; every Watch now button opens an official, licensed service, so that the many hundreds of artists whose names fill the closing credits of an adventure film are paid for their work when you watch.

Questions and answers

Questions