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TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Gravity’ (2013)
The idea of being lost in space has never been portrayed in such a realistic and frightening way as director Alfonso Cuarón’s agoraphobic nightmare. Sandra Bullock may get top billing as an astronaut struggling to survive a deadly meteor shower while coming to terms with her own all-to-human inadequacies, but the movie’s real star is its villain: the absolute, all-encompassing nothingness of space. Thanks to dizzying CGI and Bullock’s 90-minute panic attack, Gravity is horror as much as sci-fi, because sometimes there is nothing scarier than being alone with your thoughts — and a finite amount of oxygen. —KG
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘They Live’ (1988)
It’s a new morning in America, and new-in-town transient Roddy Piper smells a rat when he sees the LAPD hassling the community organizers of a homeless encampment. Once he slips on a pair of specialized sunglasses, however, he’s able to see what’s really going on — and brother, it ain’t pretty. John Carpenter’s merciless satire of ’80s consumerism and don’t-worry-be-happy infotainment suggests that behind every bit of media is a subliminal message: Be passive. Marry and reproduce. Buy things. Watch TV. Buy more things. It may be best known for its primo tough-guy dialogue (“I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass…and I’m all out of bubblegum”), its six-minute fistfight scene between Piper and Keith David, and inspiring Shepard Fairey’s “Obey” street art. But the film’s ability to lock in to how the powers that be (even if said powers are aliens) use endless distraction to keep the public docile is what makes it feel so unsettling. “It’s not science-fiction,” Carpenter has said when asked about They Live. “It’s a documentary.” —DF
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Back to the Future’ (1985)
Yes, the 1985 blockbuster is a comedy first and foremost, with a premise — What if you traveled back in time, and your mom wanted to have sex with you? — that’s still hard to believe ever got made. And without the charisma and comic timing of Michael J. Fox as confused teen Marty McFly, the aggressive oddness of Christopher Lloyd’s Doc Brown, the unapologetic lust of Lea Thompson’s Lorraine, and the… whatever it is that Crispin Glover is doing as George, none of it would work. Yet Bob Gale and director Robert Zemeckis’ script is Swiss watch tight in its plotting and how it deals with the complications of having a DeLorean that can go backwards and forwards in time whenever it hits 88 mph. It imprinted itself so deeply on the public consciousness that other movies about time travel, like Avengers: Endgame, feature characters whose primary knowledge of the subject comes from Doc Brown. —AS
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Videodrome’ (1983)
“We live in over-stimulated times,” Nicki Brand (Debbie Harry) explains early in David Cronenberg’s cult hit. Case in point: TV station CEO Max Renn (James Woods) is scouring the airwaves when he happens to stumble across something that shocks even him: a pirate signal of indeterminate origin, featuring “just torture and murder. No plot, no characters. It’s very realistic.” The longer he attempts to track down the source and exploit it, the more Renn is drawn into both a shady underground conspiracy and the darkest recesses of his own mind, resulting in a quintessentially Cronenbergian mixture of unnerving imagery and disturbing body horror. It’s a curdled version of a science fiction premise that summons up all the sweaty nihilism and worst-case scenarios of the era, smearing them all over the screen for 89 relentlessly bleak minutes. “We’re entering savage new times,” Renn’s buddy tells him — and boy, did he ever get that right. Just wait until you see the 21st century. —JB
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘The Terminator’ (1984)
James Cameron’s ambitions would become more grandiose in later years, but there remains something jewel-like perfect about his second feature, a stripped-down action-thriller about a robot assassin who goes back in time to kill the woman (Linda Hamilton) who will give birth to the future leader of the human uprising. Bodybuilder-turned-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger talked his way into the role of the titular android, his unsmiling demeanor and intimidating physique ideal for portraying an unstoppable killing machine. But it was Cameron’s genius for pacing, tension, and smart, crowd-pleasing entertainment that made this one of the most innovative and influential sci-fi films of the 1980s. By the director’s subsequent blockbuster standards, The Terminator is practically a low-budget arthouse offering. But he never made a bigger bang with such modest means. —TG
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Wall-E’ (2008)
For the first twenty minutes of Pixar’s 2008 triumph, not a single word is spoken. We merely see a tiny, lonely robot scouring a broken, polluted Earth hundreds of years after the last humans fled into the stars. He’s the last functioning machine on the planet, tasked with the impossible job of compacting trillions of tons of garbage. Everything changes when he comes into contact a tiny plant, an extraterrestrial robot named EVE that makes his robot heart flutter, and obese, immobile humans on a distant starship. It’s a beautiful story about the power of love, and the horrid future we’re creating for our decedents if we don’t radically change our ways. —AG
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Inception’ (2010)
Christopher Nolan has long been praised (and derided) for his immersive and subversive cinematic puzzles, but this may be his greatest brain-teaser provocation. Leonardo DiCaprio is a thief who specializes in entering men’s subconscious as they sleep, designs dreams to lull them further, and then steals their ideas for the benefit of his mysterious corporate clients. The premise nods at Nolan’s audience-pleasing talent and serves as a MacGuffin for the real drama: DiCaprio’s repressed memories of his late wife Marion Cotillard, which threaten to upend his manipulation of high-value target Cillian Murphy. The thrilling set pieces include an iconic, gravity-defying battle between Joseph Gordon-Levitt and several of Murphy’s bodyguards that has seemingly influenced every superhero film since. But Nolan leaves just enough space in Inception to explore how fantasies of violent heroism often distract from what really matters in our lives. —MR
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Godzilla’ (1954)
It’s a testament to just how great the original kaiju film is that a) it’s inspired a seemingly endless string of sequels, reboots, imitators, and remakes in both Japan and across the globe and b) it’s still incredibly effective despite the (sometimes inspired) silliness of most of the films that followed. A World War II veteran, director Ishirō Honda had focused on war films and dramas when he accepted an assignment to make a giant monster movie. With special effects master Eiji Tsuburaya, Honda turned images of a skyscraper-tall lizard attacking Tokyo into a rousing sci-fi thriller that also worked as a metaphor for havoc wrought by the Atomic Age. From the still-chilling moment that the big guy emerges from behind a hill, a whole subgenre was born. —KP
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Forbidden Planet’ (1956)
Take Shakespeare’s The Tempest, reset its tale on the distant planet of Altair-4, cast the future star of The Naked Gun as a he-man hero, then add in a near-lethal dose of Freudian neurosis and one of the most famous robots in film history. Voila! You have Fred M. Wilcox’s incredibly inspirational science fiction adventure, one of the few “prestige” studio-released genre films of the 1950s. The high-falutin’ psychological aspects and high-budget production design — a rarity for S.F. films of that era, which were usually aimed at the 14-and-under crowd — did give this story of an interstellar crew looking for a lost colony of explorers a certain respectability among those who’d never usually be caught dead watching films with rockets, ‘bots and a beast drawn by an out-on-loan Disney’s special-effects animation department. Yet it’s still very much the sort of science fiction movie that thrilled fans of outer space derring-do, especially once young Leslie Nielsen begins making eyes at Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon’s Dr. Morbius sicks the Id Monster on folks and Robbie the Robot starts dropping computer science. Not to mention that the movie’s soundtrack is also an all-time banger. —DF
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Her’ (2013)
Who among us could not fall in love with Scarlett Johansson’s sultry voice and breezy demeanor as portrayed in Her – even if she is just a computer operating system? Spike Jonze’s post-postmodern love story reeks of all the hallmarks of every other sappy love story – infatuation, inadequacy, infidelity – and that’s what makes it so engaging. Joaquin Phoenix’s character falls in love with his PDA in such an endearing, all-too-human way that it feels real (and portentous), but it’s the way he tries to overcome all the odds of his impossible love affair work that makes the film heartrending. Even if she is just an operating system. —KG
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Aliens’ (1986)
James Cameron’s sequel to Ridley Scott’s game-changing sci-fi/horror hybrid juices it up for the muscleman ‘80s, injecting tough-talking space Marines, heavy firepower, and Bill Paxton dispensing surfer-inflected catchphrases into an action-packed rescue mission to the corporate space colony where it all began. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is, of course, reluctantly along for the ride, though definitely not out of her depth, here or ever — as she proves early on, she can operate heavy machinery and hunt “bugs” with the best of them. The movie not only turns Ripley a more nuanced version of someone who can handle herself under pressure (and gives Weaver a showcase to do some of her best work to boot), it also flips the script on the decade’s he-man action-hero ideal, making her the ultimate mama bear to scrappy survivor Newt (Carrie Henn). And it set the bar for future franchises by proving that not all sequels were destined to be merely rinse-repeat retreads of the original. —KR
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (1956)
Is Don Siegel’s sci-fi/horror classic anti-McCarthy, anti-communist or a sneakily apolitical film that merely seems like an allegory. That’s the Rorschach test that has always teased critics with this ’50s sci-fi movie, but there’s no denying that the dread-soaked, paranoid aura marks it as a Red Scare thriller, reflecting a period of intense division and groupthink. With black-and-white photography that alternates between newsreel authenticity and bursts of noir expressionism, the film aligns itself closely with a small-town doctor (Kevin McCarthy) who uncovers an alien conspiracy to replace his community with sinister alien duplicates. Naturally, he has trouble convincing anyone to believe him. The dead-eyed “pod people” would become a metaphor for conformity for decades, and there would be no Alien without those gooey, blooming pods. —ST
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Akira’ (1988)
The Kind of Blue of anime cinema — the one unquestionable masterwork that everybody needs to experience, even if the genre leaves them cold — Katsuhiro Otomo’s stunner redefined the parameters of what dystopian storytelling could accomplish. Working from his own manga series, Otomo introduces us to best friends Shōtarō and Tetsuo, who reside in lawless Neo-Tokyo. After a freak accident, Tetsuo is suddenly imbued with dangerous psychic powers that could destroy the city, forcing Shōtarō to fight his friend to prevent doomsday. Other anime had been strikingly violent or shockingly bleak, but never before had a film been so emotionally overwhelming while delivering the full-throttled adrenaline rush and dark vision that this action-thriller provided. The ferocious power unleashed by Akira has permeated the culture in the ensuing decades. We still haven’t recovered from the blast. —TG
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘La Jetée’ (1962)
Time is circular, memory is a trick and love is the only truth in Chris Marker’s uncanny jewel, a 28-minute immersion in apocalypse, hope, and, inevitably, tragedy. The basis for Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys (as well as music videos by David Bowie and Sigue Sigue Sputnik), Marker’s vision is nonetheless singular in film history, a montage of black-and-white stills interrupted by one moving image that sends chills down the spine no matter how many times you see it. The premise — a man journeys through time to aid a world destroyed by nuclear war — is standard sci-fi. The execution, the sheer romanticism, and the mind-frying, back-to-square-one climax, however? That’s the stuff that dreams are made of. —CV
Starfish have no brains.
11% of the world is left-handed.
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)
It took 30 years for action maestro George Miller to follow up his Beyond Thunderdome with another Mad Max … so long that he had to replace Mel Gibson with Tom Hardy as the leather-clad anti-hero. With Fury Road, the director delivers something close to a two-hour chase scene, as Max joins forces with steely warrior and slave-liberator Imperator Furiosa (a badass Charlize Theron) to rescue a group of young women from a resource-hoarding death-cult. From the unexpected character-depth to the geometry-defying high-speed standoffs, the movie is a prime example of how to balance thrilling post-apocalyptic spectacle with a sober social message. It’s sci-fi with its pedal to the metal. —NM
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Ex Machina’ (2014)
Much like its impromptu dance scene, which launched a thousand glorious GIFs, writer-director Alex Garland’s movieis hypnotic, hip – and also profoundly unsettling. This gripping thriller twists the knife on one of sci-fi’s great themes – what it means to be human – by placing mortals and androids in the same confined space and then consistently shifting our sympathies. Alicia Vikander electrifies as the seductive, seemingly subservient robot that slowly gets under the skin of the male programmers (Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac) who are under the mistaken impression that they’re studying her… and not the other way ’round. A relatively low-budget film that nonetheless walked off with the Best Visual Effects Oscar, Ex Machina is a marvel of smarts over spectacle, dissecting sexism and power dynamics with a cold-blooded efficiency worthy of its steely heroine. —TG
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Brazil’ (1985)
Universal Pictures didn’t know what to make of Terry Gilliam’s satirical science fiction and audiences at the time didn’t either, which is a common recipe for future cult status. It always feels like we’re catching up to the future that this through-the-looking-glass dystopia lays out, a terms-and-conditions tech hell where ordinary people like Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), who dream of love and flight, are reduced to cogs in a comically inefficient bureaucracy. There’s an anti-government terrorist movement to change the system, but in a world where bombings are part of the ho-hum fabric of everyday life, resistance is futile. —ST
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘Alphaville’ (1965)
Jean-Luc Godard never met a genre he didn’t love deconstructing, so it’s no surprise that, when the French auteur turned his attention to science fiction, he refused to play the tropes straight. Snagging Eddie Constantine to reprise his popular role as private detective Lemmy Caution, Godard transported him into a grim futuristic metropolis known as Alphaville, where Lemmy goes undercover to destroy an oppressive computer that rules the city. It’s likely that 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000 was inspired by Godard’s premise, but that’s hardly the only visionary cinematic work that cribbed from this thriller’s canny mixture of sci-fi and hard-boiled noir. For years after, filmmakers would study how Godard reimagined the City of Lights as a dystopian nightmare. Rarely, however, did those subsequent pictures have Alphaville’s lightness of touch or creative resourcefulness, utilizing future shock as a springboard for both endless inventiveness and dour prophecy. —TG
A healthy (non-colorblind) human eye can distinguish between 500 shades of gray.
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
Lizards can self-amputate their tails for protection. It grows back after a few months.
Los Angeles’ full name is “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula”.
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
TOP SCIFI MOVIES
‘The Fly’ (1986)
Pus-squirting, nail-shedding fingers? ? Baboons turned inside-out? Body-horror maestro David Cronenberg engineers an unlikely popcorn hit with all the grotesque trimmings of his signature flesh-obsessed tragedies — this time by remaking one of Hollywood’s corniest Atomic-Age sci-fi fright fests into a morality play involving one very icky Icarus. Introverted genius engineer Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) meets fetching science journalist Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) who coaxes him out of his shell while chronicling his attempts to invent teleportation. But accidental molecular-genetic fusion with a house fly turns him into an 180-lb rotting superbug. Beware those who dive into the plasma pool! And witness an AIDS-era romance where a mysterious incurable disease ravages a lover’s body and soul. —SG
A honeybee can fly at fifteen miles per hour.