Mystery
The Lincoln Lawyer
(2011)
John Romano (screenplay), Michael Connelly (novel)
1 nomination.
Mick Haller is a defense lawyer who works out of his Lincoln. When a wealthy Realtor is accused of assaulting a prostitute, Haller is asked to defend him. The man claims that the woman is trying to get some money out of him. But when Haller looks at the evidence against him, he learns that this case might be linked to an old case of his.
The Long Good Friday
(1980)
Barrie Keeffe
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 2 wins & 1 nomination.
Harold, a prosperous English gangster, is about to close a lucrative new deal when bombs start showing up in very inconvenient places. A mysterious syndicate is trying to muscle in on his action, and Harold wants to know who they are. He finds out soon enough, and bloody mayhem ensues.
The Nines
(2007)
John August
2 nominations.
Gary, an actor who plays a cop on television, uses too much lighter fluid when he burns his ex-girlfriend's things, then he drinks and drives, uses crack, and crashes his car. He sobers up in jail and is placed under house arrest and the watchful eye of a publicist, the cheery and tough-minded Margaret. She moves him into the empty house of a writer who's away in Canada on a shoot. Gary meets Sarah, an attractive and seemingly-willing neighbor. His friendship with Margaret blooms and strange things happen: he finds notes he doesn't remember writing, he hears noises, and he seems to bump into himself in the kitchen. Two remaining chapters reveal what's going on.
The Ninth Gate
(1999)
Arturo Pérez-Reverte, John Brownjohn, Enrique Urbizu
2 wins & 5 nominations
In New York, the money-driven dealer Dean Corso is a rare-books expert and partner of Bernie, who owns a bookstore. He is contacted by the renowned collector of books about the devil Boris Balkan, who has just acquired the rare The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows from the collector Andrew Telfer, to verify whether his book is authentic or a forgery. Balkan explains that the book was written by the writer Aristide Torchia, in 1666, with Lucifer and he was burned at the stake with his entire work. There are only three exemplars of The Nine Gates and in accordance with the legend, its nine engravings form a riddle to conjure the devil. The skeptical Corso accepts the assignment and has to fly to Sintra, Portugal, and Paris, France, to contact the owners Victor Fargas and Baroness Kessler and find the genuine exemplar for Balkan. Meanwhile, he asks Bernie to hide the rare book. Before traveling to Europe, the widow Liana Telfer wants to retrieve the book and has sex with Corso, but he does not accept her offer. When Corso returns to Bernie's bookstore, he finds his friend murdered in the same position of an engraving. Corso travels to Toledo, Spain, to meet the Ceniza twin brothers and learn more about The Nine Gates. During his journey in Europe, Corso is pursued by Liana and her bodyguard, who belong to the sect The Order of the Silver Serpents, and is protected by a mysterious Girl with supernatural powers. Meanwhile, the owners of the two other exemplars of The Nine Gates are murdered. Corso becomes obsessed with the book and discloses the truth about it.
The Number 23
(2007)
Fernley Phillips
5 nominations.
Walter Sparrow becomes obsessed with a novel that he believes was written about him. As his obsession increases, more and more similarities seem to arise.
The Nun
(2018)
Gary Dauberman, James Wan
2 wins & 1 nomination
When a young nun at a cloistered abbey in Romania takes her own life, a priest with a haunted past and a novitiate on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate. Together they uncover the order's unholy secret. Risking not only their lives but their faith and their very souls, they confront a malevolent force in the form of the same demonic nun that first terrorized audiences in 'The Conjuring 2,' as the abbey becomes a horrific battleground between the living and the damned.
The Omen
(1976)
David Seltzer
Won 1 Oscar. Another 3 wins & 8 nominations.
Mysterious deaths surround an American ambassador. Could the child that he is raising actually be the anti-christ? The devil's own son?
The Omen
(2006)
David Seltzer
1 win & 6 nominations.
A remake of the 1976 horror classic The Omen (1976), an American official realizes that his young son may literally be the devil incarnate.
The Orphanage
(2007)
Sergio G. Sánchez (screenplay)
32 wins & 39 nominations.
Laura, a former orphan, raises her adopted son Simón together with her husband Carlos in an old house and former orphanage where she was raised. While at the orphanage Simón tells Laura that he has five invisible friends which she believes are a product of his active imagination. Laura decides to reopen the orphanage to cater for disabled children and throws a party. During the party Simón tries to persuade Laura to go and take a look at his friends cabin but she's too busy. Later on she sees a mysterious masked boy and realizes that Simón has also disappeared. Laura feels the presence of other people in the house and months later Laura invites a team of parapsychologists to try to unravel the mystery.
The Prestige
(2006)
Jonathan Nolan (screenplay), Christopher Nolan (screenplay), Christopher Priest (novel)
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 6 wins & 28 nominations.
Two stage magicians engage in competitive one-upmanship in an attempt to create the ultimate stage illusion.
The Raven
(2012)
Hannah Shakespeare, Ben Livingston
4 nominations.
When a madman begins committing horrific murders inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's works, a young Baltimore detective joins forces with Poe to stop him from making his stories a reality.
The Thing
(2011)
Eric Heisserer, John W. Campbell Jr. (short story "Who Goes There?")
4 nominations.
Paleontologist Kate Lloyd is invited by Dr. Sandor Halvorson to join his team who have found something extraordinary. Deep below the Arctic ice, they have found an alien spacecraft that has been there for perhaps 100,000 years. Not far from where the craft landed, they find the remains of the occupant. It's cut out of the ice and taken back to their camp but as the ice melts, the creature reanimates and not only begins to attack them but manages to infect them, with team members devolving into the alien creature.
The Vanishing
(1988)
Tim Krabbé (novel), Tim Krabbé (screenplay), George Sluizer (adaptation)
7 wins & 5 nominations.
Rex and Saskia are on holiday, a young couple in love. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia disappears. Rex dedicates the next three years trying to find her. Then he receives some postcards from her abductor, who promises to reveal what has happened to Saskia. The abductor, Raymond Lemorne, is a chilling character to whom Rex is drawn by his intense desire to learn the truth behind his lovers disappearance. The truth is more sinister than he dared imagine.
The Wicker Man
(1973)
Anthony Shaffer (screenplay)
1 win & 6 nominations.
A police sergeant is sent to a Scottish island village in search of a missing girl whom the townsfolk claim never existed. Stranger still are the rites that take place there.
Three Colors: Blue
(1993)
Krzysztof Kieslowski (scenario), Krzysztof Piesiewicz (scenario), Agnieszka Holland (scenario collaborator), Edward Zebrowski (scenario collaborator), Slawomir Idziak (scenario collaborator)
Nominated for 3 Golden Globes. Another 19 wins & 9 nominations.
The first part of Kieslowski's trilogy on France's national motto: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. 'Blue' is the story of Julie who loses her husband, an acclaimed composer and her young daughter in a car accident. The film's theme of liberty is manifested in Julie's attempt to start life anew, free of personal commitments, belongings, grief or love. She intends to numb herself by withdrawing from the world and living completely independently, anonymously and in solitude in the Parisian metropolis. Despite her intentions, people from her former and present life intrude with their own needs. However, the reality created by the people who need and care about her, a surprising discovery and the music around which the film revolves heal Julie and draws her back to the land of the living.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
(2011)
Bridget O'Connor (screenplay), Peter Straughan (screenplay), John le Carré (novel)
Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 34 wins & 86 nominations.
In the early 1970s during the Cold War, the head of British Intelligence, Control, resigns after an operation in Budapest, Hungary goes badly wrong. It transpires that Control believed one of four senior figures in the service was in fact a Russian agent - a mole - and the Hungary operation was an attempt to identify which of them it was. Smiley had been forced into retirement by the departure of Control, but is asked by a senior government figure to investigate a story told to him by a rogue agent, Ricky Tarr, that there was a mole. Smiley considers that the failure of the Hungary operation and the continuing success of Operation Witchcraft (an apparent source of significant Soviet intelligence) confirms this, and takes up the task of finding him.
Total Recall
(2012)
Kurt Wimmer (screenplay), Mark Bomback (screenplay), Ronald Shusett (screen story by), Dan O'Bannon (screen story by), Jon Povill (screen story by)
1 win & 5 nominations.
A factory worker, Douglas Quaid, begins to suspect that he is a spy after visiting Rekall - a company that provides its clients with implanted fake memories of a life they would like to have led - goes wrong and he finds himself on the run.
Trance
(2013)
Joe Ahearne (screenplay), John Hodge (screenplay), Joe Ahearne (story)
3 wins & 3 nominations.
A fine art auctioneer mixed up with a gang joins forces with a hypnotherapist to recover a lost painting. As boundaries between desire, reality and hypnotic suggestion begin to blur the stakes rise faster than anyone could have anticipated.
Transcendence
(2014)
Jack Paglen
3 wins & 5 nominations.
Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is the foremost researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence, working to create a sentient machine that combines the collective intelligence of everything ever known with the full range of human emotions. His highly controversial experiments have made him famous, but they have also made him the prime target of anti-technology extremists who will do whatever it takes to stop him. However, in their attempt to destroy Will, they inadvertently become the catalyst for him to succeed-to be a participant in his own transcendence. For his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) and best friend Max Waters (Paul Bettany), both fellow researchers, the question is not if they can...but if they should. Their worst fears are realized as Will's thirst for knowledge evolves into a seemingly omnipresent quest for power, to what end is unknown. The only thing that is becoming terrifyingly clear is there may be no way to stop him.
Transsiberian
(2008)
Brad Anderson, Will Conroy
2 wins & 11 nominations.
Americans abroad. Roy and Jessie finished a volunteer stint in China. He loves trains, so they go home via the Trans-Siberia Express. There are strains in the relationship, including her past. They meet Carlos, a Spaniard, traveling with Abby, a young American. Carlos keeps close to Jessie, and when Roy is left behind and waits a day for the next train so he can catch up, Jessie and Carlos take a trip into the dead of winter to photograph a ruined church. Carlos may be running drugs, so, later, when Roy catches up and introduces Jessie to his new pal, an English speaking Russian narcotics detective, he's the last person Jessie wants to see. Will the Siberian desolation be their undoing?