The BEST Science Fiction Movies Ever Made

[freqflyer]

I'm really curious about this one. I love science fiction as a genre across all media, but I also note a disturbing tendency of many movies to either have great ideas but be poorly executed due to lack of budget, or huge budgets with completely crap ideas.

Because so few really GOOD science fiction movies have been made (at least in my opinion), I am really curious about what excellent Sci Fi movies the Criticker community can recommend.

My personal top 10:

Blade Runner
Children of Men
A Clockwork Orange
Robocop
12 Monkeys
The Matrix
The Thing
Aliens
Scanners
Threads

Any other good suggestions out there?

[biblioklept]

Have you seen La jetee? 12 Monkeys was based on it. The former is a more comprehensive and less distracted exploration of memory and desire in my opinion.

Also, have you seen Gilliam's Brazil?

I would recommend Stalker but it doesn't seem up your alley.

[paulofilmo]

http://www.criticker.com/?fl&view=all&f ... 6zf1970zop

But I think you've seen most of them.

I haven't seen Moon, so I don't know whether it's sufficiently Sci-fi with a gun.
People seem to like Dark City.

After that, it's a case of getting used to anime:

http://www.criticker.com/film/Memories
http://www.criticker.com/film/Akira/
http://www.criticker.com/film/Ghost_in_the_Shell/
http://www.criticker.com/film/Ghost_in_the_Shell_2

I don't watch nearly enough of either, but I find sci-fi and animation the easiest genres for escapism.
Put them both together in one film and I'm practically in the quantum flux of mind-bending 侘寂.

[b4con]

I think that there are a ton of movies that have good ideas and a good budget but do not create a good movie. Sometimes the ideas are dumbed down in the process, but that's just a result and not the root of the problem by any means. Gamer and Surrogates are two that really exemplify this in my opinion.

http://www.criticker.com/?fl&view=oth&u ... filter=gy5

[freqflyer]

@___

Thanks for the recommends!


Actually, yeah, I did see La Jetee, now that you mention it... I found it to be really bizarre (in a good way!)... although I must admit I got a bit bored with the minimalism of the whole thing.

Re: Stalker. Yeah, I saw that too. It was also bizarre, also minimalist.

What I wish they'd do (they being the people who make movies that don't suck) is mine the Philip K. Dick canon. Blade Runner came from there, as did Total Recall (I liked it but wouldn't consider it top ten material), Minority Report (which I thought was a real waste of a good idea), and A Scanner Darkly (which I thought to be a bit 'gimmicky' with the rotoscoped animation and took away from the basic plot).

But imagine, if you will, a cinematic rendition of 'Ubik,' directed by David Lynch, or 'The Man in the High Castle.'

Either of those could be excellent movies in the right hands.

@paulofilmo -- I checked out 'The Girl Who Could Leap Through Time' and was totally surprised by how easy it was to get over the whole prejudice against anime that I have built up over the years. Thanks for the ideas, I'll check some of them out.

[biblioklept]

"Actually, yeah, I did see La Jetee, now that you mention it... I found it to be really bizarre (in a good way!)... although I must admit I got a bit bored with the minimalism of the whole thing.

Re: Stalker. Yeah, I saw that too. It was also bizarre, also minimalist."

I would perhaps argue against this. Neither film employs a intentionally minimalist style, with Stalker the more obvious stand out. Saturated with philosophical mullings and various spiritual concepts, Stalker does not aim to be simple at all. La jetee on the other hand, while it does employ a minimalist aesthetic, it is a neurotic meditation on memory and longing that is far from smiplicity in my opinion. For minimalist, one might perhaps points to Ozu, Hou or Tsai, which deal with complex concepts too, but nevertheless possess simple stories meant to contrast with their social and cultural boundaries, and heavily explore moods.

But haha nevertheless, I have nothing more to contribute.

Edit: Now that I think about it, have you seen Dead Ringers or Crash? Not really futuristic but somewhat sci-fi in the non-realist sense.

[omgfridge]

2001: A Space Odyssey

Make sure you have seen it.

[freqflyer]

I would perhaps argue against this. Neither film employs a intentionally minimalist style, with Stalker the more obvious stand out. Saturated with philosophical mullings and various spiritual concepts, Stalker does not aim to be simple at all. La jetee on the other hand, while it does employ a minimalist aesthetic, it is a neurotic meditation on memory and longing that is far from smiplicity in my opinion. For minimalist, one might perhaps points to Ozu, Hou or Tsai, which deal with complex concepts too, but nevertheless possess simple stories meant to contrast with their social and cultural boundaries, and heavily explore moods.

What? Neither film employs an intentionally minimalist style? I'm sorry, sir/ma'am, but I would have to respectfully disagree with you here. I think the issue arises from your (perhaps unwitting) conflation of 'simplicity' and 'minimalism.' To my mind, (and correct me if I'm wrong), a minimalist aesthetic attempts to present a story (complex or simple) in terms of as few props, effects, or characters as possible given the framework of the narrative. Given this understanding of minimalism, 'La Jetee' is clearly minimalist. Hell, it's composed of a bunch of black and white still shots (with one exception)! Also given this understanding, 'Stalker' is minimalist, because we see no cinematic representations of what it might be like to experience the wishes that the zone grants. When the story is stripped away, most of the movie is just three guys traipsing through the woods.

However, I never said either of these movies were 'simple.' Far from it. Both 'La Jetee' and 'Stalker' deal with mindbendingly complex issues-- the first with the inherently complex idea of time travel and the paradoxes it gives rise to, and the latter with the internal complexities of human desire, remorse, and the effect of the supernatural on our lives. But, contra what you said in your response, I would assert most emphatically that both of these movies DO employ, in a VERY self conscious fashion, an 'intentionally minimalist style.' I'm sure part of the reason for this is budget limitations-- it is hard to make a decent sci-fi flick on a limited budget, so filmmakers must rely on ingenuity and cinematic conceits (such as the use of still shots or the extensive use of 'low budget' exterior shots in a forest) to convey a complex story minimalistically. So, no, I don't agree with your claim that 'neither film employs an intentionally minimalist style.'

Another movie, quite similar in its minimalism given the complexity of its underlying narrative is 'Primer,' an often underrated and overlooked sci-fi movie made only recently.

By the way, thanks for your recommendations of Ozu, Hou, and Tsai. From some preliminary googling, I presume they're all filmmakers? What would you recommend as a representative film by each that I could be introduced to their work with?

Cheers,

[MmzHrrdb]

By the way, thanks for your recommendations of Ozu, Hou, and Tsai. From some preliminary googling, I presume they're all filmmakers? What would you recommend as a representative film by each that I could be introduced to their work with?

Ozu: Tokyo Story
Hou: Good Men, Good Women
Tsai: What Time Is It There?

[greenman]

metropolis