No film here is good or bad. It is only like something.

1996 · Crime

A car salesman short of money hires two men to kidnap his own wife, and the plan goes wrong immediately. A very pregnant small-town police chief works it out at her own pace.

• RealisticClearly realistic

2016 · Thriller

A woman wakes from a car crash in a locked underground bunker, where the man who put her there says the air outside will kill her. Nearly all of it is three people in a few small rooms.

• IntimateStrongly intimate

2013 · Drama

A free Black musician living in New York in 1841 is drugged, kidnapped and sold to a plantation in Louisiana. It moves slowly and stays with the worst of it rather than cutting away.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• RealisticStrongly realistic

1998 · Comedy

A very relaxed man in Los Angeles is mistaken for a millionaire with the same name, and would like a new rug. What follows is a kidnapping plot he keeps wandering out of.

Sits near the middle on every axis.

2006 · Action

A young man from a forest village is taken captive in a raid and marched to a Mayan city, and then he runs. Most of the film is a chase through the jungle, very violent, in Mayan with subtitles.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• Plot-drivenStrongly plot-driven
• FastClearly fast
• SimpleClearly simple

2022 · Horror

A woman arrives late at night at the house she has rented in a rundown part of Detroit and finds a stranger already staying there. The first stretch is two polite people working out what to do, and it does not stay polite.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• IntimateClearly intimate
• Plot-drivenClearly plot-driven

2019 · Horror

The boy from the Overlook Hotel is now a drinker in his forties working at a hospice, when a girl with the same gift starts writing to him about the people who hunt children like her. Long, and slow to get going.

• FantasticClearly fantastic

2007 · Crime

A London midwife has the diary of a girl who died in childbirth translated, and it points her at a Russian family who run more than a restaurant. Quiet and slow, then suddenly not, more than once.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• HeavyClearly heavy

2024 · Action

A girl is stolen from a green, hidden place and grows up among the warlords of the wasteland, working her way back toward home. Told in chapters over many years, with long stretches of vehicles chasing each other.

• EpicStrongly epic
• HeavyClearly heavy

2018 · Comedy

A couple who take their weekly game night seriously turn up for a murder-mystery party thrown by his brother, and the fake kidnapping goes wrong. It runs fast and is played for laughs throughout.

• FastClearly fast

2007 · Mystery

Two private investigators from a working-class Boston neighbourhood are hired to look for a missing four-year-old in the places the police cannot reach. A detective story that keeps turning into an argument about what is right.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• HeavyStrongly heavy

2024 · Horror

Two young missionaries knock on the door of a polite man who says he is interested in their church, and he keeps them talking. Almost all of it is three people in one house, arguing about belief.

• IntimateStrongly intimate
• HeavyStrongly heavy

2008 · Action

A billionaire who sells weapons is taken prisoner in Afghanistan and builds himself a way out, then keeps building once he gets home. Light on its feet, with as much workshop as fighting.

Sits near the middle on every axis.

2003 · Mystery

Three men who grew up on the same Boston street are pulled back together when one man's daughter is found dead and another is the detective on the case. Heavy and slow, and mostly about the three of them.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• HeavyStrongly heavy

2003 · Thriller

A man is locked in one room for fifteen years without being told why, then let out with a few days to find whoever did it. Violent and strange, and it moves like something is chasing it.

• HeavyStrongly heavy

2003 · Adventure

A blacksmith's apprentice teams up with a pirate who has lost his ship to get the governor's daughter back from a crew that cannot be killed. Big, silly, and full of sword fights.

• FantasticClearly fantastic

2013 · Thriller

Two little girls vanish from a street on Thanksgiving, and while a detective works the case one of the fathers decides the police are moving too slowly. Long, dark and rainy, and it gets ugly.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• RealisticStrongly realistic

2015 · Drama

A woman and her five-year-old son live in a single locked room, which is the only world he has ever known. Told from the boy's side of it, in a small space with two people.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• HeavyStrongly heavy
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• IntimateStrongly intimate

2022 · Action

Two men in 1920s India, one working for the British and one hunting for a girl taken from his village, become close friends without knowing who the other is. Three hours of dancing, fighting and no physics at all.

• EpicStrongly epic
• FastStrongly fast
• FantasticStrongly fantastic
• Plot-drivenClearly plot-driven

2016 · Horror

A man with many personalities takes three teenage girls and locks them in a room underground, and they have to work out which of him they are talking to. Mostly a few rooms, one actor playing most of it.

• IntimateClearly intimate

2011 · Thriller

A plastic surgeon works alone at his country estate on a new kind of skin, watching the woman he keeps locked upstairs on a screen. Cold and controlled, and it jumps back in time about halfway.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• IntimateClearly intimate

2018 · Thriller

A hired man who finds missing girls, and carries a hammer to work, is sent after a senator's daughter. Eighty-five minutes, barely any dialogue, and it looks away from the violence as often as at it.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• RealisticClearly realistic
• IntimateClearly intimate
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven