Those kids of the TV generation, bred on the old sci-fi serials that inspired Lucas to write Star Wars, really came to the fore in the 1980s thanks to the successes seen by Lucas and Spielberg in the late 1970s. The two Godfather’s of the blockbuster continued to be at the forefront of family-orientated science-fiction with “Empire Strikes Back” and “E.T.”, while those inspired by their method like Zemeckis, Dante, and Robbins took us on more adventurous journeys into the fantastical. For the fantasy and science-fiction genres, there are few periods in film history better than the 1980s. Children, with their love of adventure and fairytale, had never had it so good.

Rightly or wrongly I look back at the last decade of horror films as one that gave us nothing new. We retread old ground, often with poor remakes or as they became known during the period – the re-imagining. Instead of western audiences enjoying new and interesting tales from the East – a craze that started in the late 1990s with the likes of Hideo Nakata’s 1998 chiller “Ring” or Takashi Miike’s 1999 film “Audition” – we had American producers nicking the stories and replaying them for English-speaking audiences with pretty Californian teenagers.

Hollywood decided to remake not only the best horror films it could find in the east but also its own classics. Added gore, 3D, silly titles, worthless sequels, and vacuous characters were the order of the day. So, to discover the best in horror cinema during the 2000s, audiences had to look elsewhere – to Europe, South America, and Australia. There were some gems to be found in the States, but many of the most unique and frightening horror experiences were to be found elsewhere.

Throughout the decade we were wowed by fantasy, thrilled by action, and frightened by horror, all the while being annoyed by remakes and endless sequels. We had everything turned on its head with numerous twist endings and welcomed new and old Superheroes. New directors entered the scene (Christopher Nolan) and others were finally recognised by mainstream audiences (Peter Jackson, Alexander Payne), while older pros continued to make great movies (Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg).

2001 produced a fair few horror films – largely due to the craze in imports and remakes of films from the east. But 2001 also saw the start of one of the finest fantasy trilogies ever made – Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.

2002 saw Peter Jackson tackle the difficult second album with the release of Lord of the Rings part two “The Two Towers”. It was epic in scale, glorious in detail, and densely plotted. It also featured probably the finest battle sequence of the entire trilogy but yet it is widely considered the weakest of the three films.

Jackson’s film wasn’t the only ‘Number 2’ of a franchise to be released in 2002 – far from it. Harry Potter was also tackling part deux with an overlong and over-plotted sequel…

I’ve heard Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund’s 2004 Oscar-nominated film to be likened to Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction”. Yet, I’d hazard a guess this is more a marketing ploy to pigeonhole the film into a more saleable product. It is like saying Antonia Bird’s drama “Priest” is like “The Exorcist”. They both feature members of the church questioning their own faith after all, but the two films couldn’t be more dissimilar. Granted, “ City of God” and “Pulp Fiction” share the depiction of crime and a time-switching, non-linear narrative, but there is little ironic humour to find in Meirelles and Lund’s uncompromising film. “City Of God” isn’t interested in stylised characters that overplay the merits of the metric system or theatrical violence and pop-culture references, it cuts far closer to the bone than that.

2003 saw some huge sequels released such as the concluding part of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, two new “Matrix” films, “Terminator 3”, “X-Men 2”, and “Bad Boys 2”, while other franchises were just getting started such as “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Kill Bill”. It was a good year for the sequel too – all the ones mentioned fared superbly at the box office with the “Matrix” films taking a combined $1.2 billion worldwide, while Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” took that amount all by itself.