What are your favorite Sci-Fi movies of all time?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
In the following order:
The 10 minutes showing the liftoff in Apollo 13 are my favorite minutes in any movie in part because of a brief mention of a part that my family worked on. But that isn’t sci-fi.
Marooned is mostly forgotten, but the director of Gravity mentioned it was his favorite growing up.
Not sure it’s exactly Sci Fi (more like Dystopian Future), but if you haven’t seen “Snowpiercer” please do.
Maybe the director’s cut of Blade Runner?
But the most watchable/fun might be the Star Trek re-boot.
There are more, like all of the original Star Trek movies.
Blade Runner with Dark City a close second.
I’m old, so my three favorites are:
Great picks! I limited myself to four or yours would have been on the list as well.
None. I hate sci-fi.
So why even comment?
Good point.
Bladerunner by a mile.
The Thing the original and John Carpenter’s remake. Alien, The Mist, Cloverfield
Ghost in the Shell movies, NOT the TV series
OMIgawd, I forgot ‘Serenity’!!
Although I very much enjoyed the American version, the Russian version is my favorite of the two.
What about television? Can we talk TV also?
My TV list:
the ones i keep coming back to and have seen more times than is probably healthy:
the terminator
robocop
the matrix
the thing
alien
total recall
“the ones i keep coming back to”
You’ll be baaaack!
Off the top of my head:
Not necessarily in that order. And I’m sure I’ve forgotten some good ones.
The Fifth Element
Five Million Years to Earth (UK title: Quatermass and the Pit)
Aliens
Moon
(checks DVD collection to see what hasn’t been mentioned yet…)
District 9
Iron Giant
The Fly (Cronenberg’s, not the original)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original, not the 70s or 90s version)
Them!
Inception
Wall-E
Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I’ll stop now
Points for Buckaroo Banzai.
No love for Ice Pirates?
Serenity.
Primer
Great picks . I need to add 2 Spielberg flicks :
Close Encounters
War of the Worlds
(Good aliens! Bad aliens!)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Birth Of A Nation
Followed closely by:
Reagan
and
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
AG
P.S. The Lincoln movie is closer to non-fiction than are other two. Take that as you will.
In fact, take it as you must.
But there’s science in all three.
Crowd control science.
Media science.
Sociopolitical control science.
The real “oldest profession.”
Bet on it.
I could probably list a lot more, but I’ll restrict myself to 20, in no particular order: Children of Men; Dark City; A.I.: Artificial Intelligence; E.T.: The Extra-Terrestral; District 9; Stalker (Tarkovsky); Moon; Blade Runner; La Jetee (and Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys); The Stepford Wives; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; Invasion of the Body Snatchers (both the Siegel and Kaufman versions); The Day the Earth Stood Still; Metropolis; Bride of Frankenstein; Gravity; The Andromeda Strain; Aliens. And, for good measure, a bit of sci-fi levity: Sleeper; Men in Black; Back to the Future.
Blade Runner
2001
Them
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Moon
Not mentioned yet, but for sure on my top 10, is the second best movie based on PK Dick: Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly.
Logan’s Run
The Day the Earth Stood Still – the original
Invasion of the Body Snatchers – the original
2001
Red Planet
Fahrenheit 451
A Boy and His Dog
Avatar
Soylent Green
The Lathe of Heaven
I Robot
Serenity
Lots more – I’m pretty easily entertained in the sci-fi/fantasy dept.
Over at esquire dot com blogs, there is a list up of 100 “best” SF films.
Just FYI.