Embark on a cinematic journey with Top 10 Sci-Fi Movies of All Time. Explore futuristic worlds, mind-bending plots, and unforgettable adventures –
Top 10 Sci-Fi Movies
The Matrix
The Matrix is a teen’s fantasy. There’s action, combat, cutting-edge special effects, deadly robots, malevolent authority people, an overarching pseudo-conspiracy theory, and, most amazingly, an ineloquent social misfit who eventually transforms into a flying kung fu Jesus. What is lacking? Skin-tight PVC catsuits for girls? Nope, The Matrix contains those as well. The directors single-handedly reinvigorated an entire genre by cherry-picking as many key ingredients from action films as they could (the us-versus-the-machines mentality from The Terminator, the wire work from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the star from Johnny Mnemonic) and shooting it through with a timely dose of pre-millennial unease. Arnold Schwarzenegger began to appear uncomfortably fatigued as he charged past hordes of impotent goons. Fans desired more with The Matrix, and they wanted to see themselves on screen.
Alien
Alien is a perfect storm of creativity, with a screenplay by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, cinematography by Derek Vanlint, a haunting score by Jerry Goldsmith, micro effects by Brian Johnson, and a cast that includes Sigourney Weaver, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, and John Hurt. The most apparent and groundbreaking effort on this film was, of course, in the design department. O’Bannon had previously worked on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ill-fated Dune adaptation (a project that also eluded Ridley Scott). He had recruited an outstanding team of artists for that, which he reassembled for Alien, including Moebius from the Métal Hurlant magazine, Ron Cobb from Star Wars, and Swiss artist HR Giger. Years ago, Giger had a terrible nightmare in which a lavatory and its associated pipes appeared.
Metropolis
Although many sci-fi films followed, none have had the long-lasting, seemingly self-regenerating attraction of Fritz Lang’s silent classic – maybe because, following its Berlin premiere in 1927, no authoritative version of it has ever been established. Metropolis, which originally ran for two hours and 33 minutes, has since become a mobile feast, with new scenes and scores – Giorgio Moroder published a ridiculed, color-tinted synth version in 1984 – keeping Lang’s epic relevant.
2001: A space Odyssey
Few would have anticipated that over half a century later, 2001: A Space Odyssey would still be celebrated. Few would have predicted even a brief period of glory. There were 241 walkouts at its premiere, including Rock Hudson, who asked, “Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?” Even its champions were perplexed. “Somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring,” the New York Times observed; “Superb photography major asset to confusing, long-unfolding plot,” Newsday concluded. But, as its creators revealed, this was the aim. “If you understand 2001 completely, we failed,” said Arthur C Clarke, whose 1948 story The Sentinel inspired Stanley Kubrick (Clarke’s novelisation predated the film). We wanted to raise a lot more money.
Blade Runner
After completing a science-fiction picture, most directors select something a little more grounded for their following project. Following the success of Alien, Ridley Scott ventured into something even more stylized and visually complex. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is based on the novel by Philip K Dick. Blade Runner, which takes its title from William S Burroughs, depicts a detective named Rick Deckard
(Harrison Ford) as he hunts down a bunch of replicants. These synthetic humans, which are nearly indistinguishable from the genuine thing, have escaped from one of the “off-world” colonies and returned to Earth. Deckard’s objective is to “retire” them, but the reason for their return is intriguingly emotional: they want to live their own lives, as is their right.
Solaris
In an attempt to find a popular cinematic topic, Andrei Tarkovsky began work on an adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s philosophical science-fiction novel in 1968. Following the customary back-and-forth with the Soviet authorities over the plot, what emerged was a space film unlike anything seen before or since. Solaristics, the study of an outlying star system with strange impacts on human psychology, was proposed in Lem’s novel. Tarkovsky developed this concept into a hallucinatory probe of faith, memory, and the transformative power of love.
ET : The Extra Terrestrial
Following 1977’s Close Encounters (see no. 8), filmmaker Steven Spielberg flipped the alien encounter premise, wondering what aliens would make of us rather than what we would make of them. As a result, this 1982 blockbuster outperformed even the original Star Wars
and got nine Academy Award nominations (winning four), an unprecedented feat for a picture with such overt sci-fi elements. Despite its genre trappings, ET blended its fantasy content with an Academy-pleasing dosage of pathos, as seen in Elliott’s (Henry Thomas) home life, a lonely 10-year-old whose parents are divorcing. Little time is spent explaining where the film’s ET originated from or how he ended up being left behind. Instead, Spielberg concentrates on the film’s unlikely-buddy plot; the middle section.
Stars Wars
With its opening picture, the original Star Wars (forget this Episode IV: A New Hope subtitle bullshit) sets its cards on the table: a massive, evil-looking spaceship chasing down a far smaller craft. Like the remainder of the film, you could watch it without the sound and still
understand what was going on. The classic concepts handed down through the ages have made this picture endure because of the integrity of the plot. It may be dressed up with robots, spaceships, and trash compactors, but it’s the age-old hero journey – George Lucas has stated that he consciously based his screenplay on Joseph Campbell’s comparative mythology study The Hero With a Thousand Faces.
Close encounters on the third kind
After the 1950s flood of raygun-wielding creature pictures, Steven Spielberg revived and revitalized the alien-invasion genre. He envisioned alien encounter as a gateway to fresh information, new experiences, and a higher awareness in his dazzling 1977 special-effects spectacle.
Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), the film’s suburbia hero, is both an everyman and a prophet, a family man haunted by sounds – the film’s famous five-note whale call – and images of a rock formation in Wyoming, much to the terror of his wife and children. Spielberg dabbles
with thriller cliches, but this is ultimately a cozy ride, buoyed by an evangelical enthusiasm about Neary’s fixation, while the encounter itself plays out like an intellectual version of the rapture, in which only genuine believers are taken.
Terminator 2
For James Cameron’s first big sci-fi action movie, a $7 million outlay yielded remarkable profits of almost $70 million, spawning a three-sequel series, a strong directorial career, and making robotic, former iron-pumping Teuton Arnold Schwarzenegger an improbable 80s
hero. A time-travel thriller with a closed-circuit-in-time mechanism inspired by Chris Marker’s La Jetée, the film’s more cerebral themes – man versus machine, grey matter versus computer, past versus present versus future – are cleverly pondered alongside some of the most visceral and exciting action sequences ever filmed. And the monster, unstoppable and ruthlessly murderous, can absorb other people’s voices and, later (in the sequel), even their outward fleshly look, allowing it to take on the form of LAPD cops, step-moms, pet pets, and
who knows what else.
