• Top 10 Science Fiction Movies of All Time

  

  Written by Zeromage 27 Comments
  Last Updated:: October 30, 2008

  Are you tired of the same old Top Ten Sci-Fi movie lists that have 2001: Space Odyssey listed at number 1, and then leave off all of the Star Trek movies? Well so are we. We think 2001 sucks and decided to make our own list of the best science fiction movies ever, other critics opinions be damned. What’s so great about 2001 anyway? It puts me to sleep every time I try to watch it.  The movie had some cool special effects for its time, but only if you could keep your eyes open long enough to actually see them. They’re spaced out between a long meandering story where the most exciting thing that happens is a some monkeys going wild and a strange acid trip in outer space. And what the hell is going on during the last half hour of that movie anyway? Needless to say you won’t find any artsy movies like that on our list. Just the greats. Anyway, here’s our list. If you don’t like it, go check out Ebert’s.

  10. ET

  What’s the first thing you think of when you see Reese’s Pieces (ooh, a piece of candy!)? Or when your ancient grandfather points his shaky finger at something he’s cranky about (ouch)? How great was it when you first heard a pint-sized Drew Barrymore utter the words “penisbreath?” This movie made every boy (and probably girl) from my generation ride their bikes (ah, memories of my awesome starwars huffy) off of home made ramps imagining cruising weightlessly across the moon. Aside from this awesomeness, the movie als taught us not to fear aliens, lessons about racism, that feds should be hated (a point reinforced years later when my freaker friends had their towers confiscated, shutting down our BBS), and that sometimes your parents aren’t perfect. In short, E.T. is awesome. A collector’s edition of ET dressed up in a sundress greets you as you walk into my house.

  9. Blade Runner

  I don’t think I can say that I’ve ever been disappointed by a Harrison Ford movie. Okay, maybe Hollywood Homicide. That was pretty bad. And then there was the new Indiana Jones movie. Let me back track…its my fookin’ blog….really I can do anything I want! While the aforementioned movies might have been bad, most of the Harrison movies that came out before the 2000’s were great, and Blade Runner is obviously no exception. This movie is a true classic, based on the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep” by none other than Philip K. Dick himself. Much like science fiction books at the time, Blade Runner was the classic thinking man’s movie. It attempted to tackle the big questions that science fiction authors, like Isaac Asimov, have grappled with for a long time. It was a huge movie that asked questions like “What are the implications of building intelligent machines?” and “What does it mean to really be human?” Combine this with awesome special effects and a compelling story, and you have the makings of one of the best science fiction movies ever made.

  8. Aliens

  Unlike in mainstream movies, oftentimes in science fiction a sequel will surpass its predcessor. Empire Strikes Back is clearly a better movie than A New Hope, Wrath of Khan was better than Star Trek the Motion Picture, and Aliens continues that trend as it was a much better movie than Alien. As Weaver stated in an interview: “Aliens made the first Alien look like a cucumber sandwich.” Although I’m not sure what her problem is with cucumbers, I have to agree. Aliens was definitely a much better movie than the first one (not taking anything away from the first movie), so much so that it makes our top 10 science fiction movies of all time list. The story this time around takes place nearly sixty years after the conclusion of Alien, Ellen Ripley and Jonesy the cat are still quite happily sleeping away in their cryo-freeze compartment aboard the shuttle after having sent the first alien out the airlock. The film opens with a salvage crew opening up the shuttle and finding her and the cat. After she’s awoken, she learns that she’s been floating around for fifty seven years and the company she works for isn’t very sympathetic to her cause, basically blackballing her. Unbeknownst to her, the “company” sends someone out to investigate her story and not too long thereafter nobody from the planetoid is heard from again. This of course prompts the company to send the space marines and Ripley as an advisor to find out what happened to the terraformers, and what follows from there is one of the best and most intense Sci-Fi action thrillers to have ever been made.

  7. Terminator 2

  Terminator 2: Judgement Day was the follow up to Terminator, and once again it starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, although this time he plays a replica of the original Terminator model T-800 which dominated the first movie. Although the story is unimaginative, this is one of those movies that didn’t really need a groundbreaking story to be good. In a future, war-ravaged Los Angeles, human rebels led by an adult John Connor do battle with silvery, skeletal robots. Two “intelligent machines” have been dispatched to the past, one to protect the young Connor, the other to kill him. On late 20th-century Earth, the young John Connor finds himself pursued by two androids. The machine sent to kill him (T-1000) is a newer model than the one sent to save him (which is the T-800), and its one of the best movie villains of all time. It takes on the appearance of a young policeman – the first human it dispatches after arriving on Earth. This “bad” Terminator sent by the machines is far more sophisticated than Arnold’s T-800, constructed from liquid steel so that it can adopt the appearance of anyone or anything it comes in contact with. The film is more or less the same as its predecessor, except that this time around the effects are more spectacular. The script’s good-natured wit is undercut by the sentimentality of Arnold’s Terminator becoming a caring cyborg, and although he is the nominal star of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the show is stolen by the extraordinary ground-breaking special effects, particularly the “morphing” in which the liquid metal T-1000 transforms itself into a multitude of organic and inorganic forms.

  6. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

  Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a Stephen Spielberg classic, is more than worthy of it’s weight in alien gold as one of Old-Wizard’s top 10 Sci-Fi classics. Taking place in a time when McDonalds had only served 24 billion, Close Encounters is one of the rare movies whose storyline centers around a benevolent alien/human association. Unlike most sci-fi movies of its time, the agenda of the alien visitors in Close Encounters didn’t involve the mass destruction of humans or the desire to take over the planet. Instead it seemed like all that these intergalactic guests wanted to do was say “hello”, play a few tunes, give back the hundreds of abductees they borrowed and ..well…maybe take Richard Dreyfus back to outer space with them as a souvenir; but who cares, they didn’t destroy any humans or blow up the Earth. It was the least we could do. Although one must question the intelligence of a species which traveled thousands of light years through the vastness of space, plucked a squadron of torpedo bombers out of the sky only to drop them into the Mexican desert 30 years later, disappeared a freighter from the middle of the ocean and proceeded to drop it in into the Gobi desert in Mongolia, sang to an entire population of remote town in India and implanted images of Devil’s tower in Wyoming into a bunch of random humans only to kidnap Richard Dreyfus.

  5. Back to the Future Part 2

  When asked what the best movie of the Back to the Future Trilogy is, most fans will answer “Part 1″. After all, Part 2 is nothing but a rehash of the first movie, and Part 3 barely had any time traveling. What these people fail to realize is just how unique the second installment of the Back to the Future Trilogy really is. As the movie was originally conceived, it would have been nothing more than a simple rehash of the the first movie, as old Biff was originally going to bring the sports almanac back to 1965 to give it to his younger self. But then the movie’s writers stumbled upon a brilliant idea: have the old Biff deliver the almanac back to the same day in 1955 that the first movie took place. This idea was simply genius, and turned what could have been an average sequel into a great movie. In what other movie sequel do you literally go back to the original movie during the new one?The eighties were a magic time for movie making, and Back to the Future Part 2 was made at a time when special effects were created to advance a story, as opposed to today where the story is written in order to facilitate more and more outrageous special effects. But that’s not to say the movie didn’t have great special effects. Anyone who saw this movie when it first came out who says they didn’t want a hover board is simply lying. Another great thing about eighties movies is that they didn’t have to make any scientific sense. Can you really imagine a movie being made today where the heroes travel back in time in a De Lorean? This is what made the eighties so great in terms of both movies and video games. In Timeline, for instance we are bored with all the endless scientific techno-babble which aims at making time travel seem plausible to a “modern” audience. The seemingly endless trend of making movies more and more realistic has robbed modern audiences of the sense of fantasy and whimsy which older audiences still remember and look back upon with a sense of nostalgia. Perhaps if we had known what movie making would be like in the future, we wouldn’t have wanted to go there so bad.

  4. Planet of the Apes

  Planet of the Apes was a groundbreaking movie that illustrates just how bad it would suck to crash your spaceship on a future earth, only to discover it’s now governed by a class system of monochromatically dressed talking apes with a penchant for hunting, caging and conducting torturous scientific experiments on lowly mute humans before killing them. There’s nothing worse than breaking down on the wrong side of time and utopia. But all monkey business aside, this movie is a true Sci-Fi classic complete with social commentary, caged romance amongst humans and one of the most renowned surprise movie endings in history. And how great was Nova? Possibly the perfect girl, she’s a hot, scantily clad, mute woman who will follow you around anywhere you go and do anything you want. She’s every science fiction nerd’s wet dream. And although it can always be slightly disconcerting to observe a couple of chimpanzee scientists as they discuss the finer points of human castration, it’s well worth the watch and well deserving of it’s placement on the Old-Wizard best Sci-Fi movie list.

  3. Strek Trek: Wrath of Khan

  KHAAAN!!!! Undoubtedly the greatest Star Trek movie ever made, Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan is top-notch filming making. It has heroic characters, a nasty villain and a sweeping adventure that is both engaging and entertaining. Wrath of Khan is a sequel to the “Space Seed” episode from the original 1967 show, in which Kirk had banished the evil Khan to the edge of the universe. Now Khan is back and looking for revenge, via a device capable of reversing creation dubbed “Project Genesis”. Project Genesis is a device that reorganizes molecular matter on a sub-atomic level, turning barren environments into life-sustaining ones. Described by Spock as “life from lifelessness,” it was perfectly named after the first book of the Bible. To put it in the words of Dr. McCoy, “According to myth, the Earth was created in 6 days. Now, watch out. Here comes Genesis. We’ll do it for you in 6 minutes.” Of course, when used on an inhabited planet, it has the opposite effect, and thus our villain wants nothing more than to get his hands on it. In the process we get one of the best ship to ship battles in science fiction history when the USS Enterprise, commanded by none other than Captain James T. Kirk takes on Khan in the stolen Federation vessel the USS Reliant. Not only is the story great, but the special effects are also well-done. In this age of CGI it is refreshing to see the ingenuity and creativity of old-style model effects being used so effectively. In short, this is a great movie, and the best science fiction movie without “Star Wars” in its title, which leads us to our number two movie of all time…

  2. Star Wars: A New Hope

  This comes with a few stipulations; first it only applies before the creation of the new movies, which effectively ruined an otherwise perfect creation. To this day I can’t watch any of the old Star Wars movies because of them, why George Lucas would choose to make those travesties is beyond my comprehension. Was it money? I doubt that, he has a ranch and lots of money from merchandising the old movies. It couldn’t be fame, I mean who doesn’t know George Lucas? I was perfectly happy with the three movies just as they were, the special effects were just bad enough to be absolutely amazing. All those new fancy computer graphics really took the personality right out of the new movies. Phantom might as well have been a cartoon it was so cheesy. Now I know what you’re saying, what about Natalie Portman and Samuel L. Jackson? I agree. I love both them, each in very different ways, but they, being great actors, are actually a testament to how terrible the movies are. Even they can’t save the train wreck that is the prequel trilogy. So before the release of the prequels this was a great movie. Now its just a reminder of what was…

  1. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

  “No, there is another.” With these words, spoken by Yoda to Obi Wan immediately after sending Luke off on a death mission and telling him to sacrifice his friends for the sake of their cause, I was transformed into something new. Why would Yoda, a good guy in my 8 year old mind, tell Luke to let the other good guys die? Was Lando a good guy? My boys were just ambushed by the Empire in Bespin! Was Boba Fett bad, or just trying to do the job he was hired to do? It seemed as if no one was all good, and no one was all bad. Even Luke had much anger in him, much to learn he still has as he throws away the rest of his training…at least we know Vader is definitely all bad. For the first time in my young life there was a gray area. Before Empire there were good guys and bad guys. Friends and enemies. Autobots and Decepticons. Professor X and Magneto.  You get the point. Now there was something new, people were more complicated. I started to like Han more than Luke because of his relative badness. I went through the awkwardness of puberty for 20 years, but when we learned that Luke was Vader’s son, I knew it had taken me 2 hours to become a man. I went into the kitchen and gave my dad a hug, and then I checked to see if his arm was mechanical.

27 Comments

1. #1 Jay says:
   March 12th, 2010 at 8:29 pm

   Nice list.
2. #2 Furry Apple the Pear Tree says:
   March 12th, 2010 at 7:17 pm

   In response to Close Encounters: I think I’m gonna have to agree with the aliens that Richard Dryfus is a good catch. I mean, I’d travel thousands of light years throughout time and space to kidnap him. Afterall, Richard Dryfus might look like an annoying doofus to the naked untrained eye, but he’ll kill you.
3. #3 Bobby says:
   March 12th, 2010 at 7:51 pm

   Where’s E.T.?
4. #4 zach says:
   March 12th, 2010 at 8:18 pm

   uh… 5th element?
5. #5 Re-Nownere Man says:
   March 12th, 2010 at 4:46 am

   I think Terminator is overrated.
6. #6 Nifty Nerd says:
   March 12th, 2010 at 11:47 pm

   I don’t know that I completely agree with the list (heck, where is STINGER? I can nomiate movies I wrote, right?), but Empire Strikes Back at #1 and your assessment is absolutely dead on.

   -Mat N.
   http://www.TheNiftyNerd.com
7. #7 marty says:
   March 12th, 2010 at 4:04 pm

   u def cant out back to the future above T2 and aliens!! 12 monkeys was a nice call. but doesnt the matrix count as sci fi? the sequels were a disaster but the original is just the original
8. #8 Stanley says:
   March 12th, 2010 at 2:01 pm

   What? No “2001: A Space Odyssey”? Is it “the greatest sci-fi movies of all time” list, or the greatest of our (born after the 1970’s) time list? In any way it’s just as good, maybe even better than “planet of the apes”.
   And even though I am, as every single man my age, a big Star Wars fan, I donnot agree in the claim that Empire is the best movie of all time. Come On!
   Plus, the Matrix was just as ground breaking as any of these movies. It too deserves a mention.
9. #9 George says:
   March 12th, 2010 at 2:56 pm

   The Matrix was overrated and even more poorly acted and written than the Star Wars prequels. My only complaint is that Return of the Jedi (my personal favorite) didn’t make the cut. Otherwise, I love this list. I also hate 2001, I hate every worthless second of it. Just read the book, the movie makes no sense, has almost no music or dialouge, and even worse, it’s four hours long, it is literally slower than molasses, and even less interesting to watch. Thanks guys, I shall forever praise you for that opening remark.
10. #10 julien says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 10:11 pm

    Absolutely not agree, but here’s my top: 10. Terminator; 9. Fahrenheit 451; 8. Planet of the Apes; 7. Forbidden Planet; 6. Alphaville; 5. THX 1138; 4. Stalker; 3. Metropolis; 2. Star Wars Hexalogy; 1. 2001 a space odyssey !
11. #11 Erik says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 7:33 am

    Hey dude, where is Tarkovsky’s Solaris?… and where is 2001? Haha.
12. #12 George says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 3:38 pm

    All right, I’m going to kill this thing forever, 2001 was awful, and the only way anyone could ever enjoy it is if they were stoned while watching it. How can you justify a four hour movie with no coherence, no narrative, little music, and even less dialogue? Haven’t those people heard of narrators or editors. Holy Christ, I hate that fucking movie.
13. #13 Erik says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 6:46 pm

    If you are attuned to the basic forms of cinema, you’ll have an appreciation for 2001. Dialogue, music and narration are tied to film movements, not genres or the medium itself. What we don’t understand is often what we don’t like.

    and @julien, nice to see someone else is aware of Stalker
14. #14 George says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 9:37 pm

    What is their to understand in that? And just because you can find a way for it to make sense doesn’t mean it’s any good. It’s just like all those assholes who tried to justify the Matrix sequels, except here, instead of internet frat boy assholes, we have pretentious film assholes. Just read the books, those have narration, they can be understood without having to bullshit anything. Eric, what the hell are you talking about. If a movie has no music or narration or cohesion, its nothing but a series of moving pictures flashing across a screen with no purpose or meaning. You might as well just watch every movie you’ve ever seen with the sound off.

    And besides, I don’t hate Kubrick. I think he’s made some of the best films ever (Strangelove, Clockwork Orange, The Shinning, Full Metal Jacket), but their is no way that if I ever met him in the afterlife that he could justify 2001. I hate that movie, and the fact that talented people agreed to do this makes me hate it even more.
15. #15 Erik says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 5:17 pm

    Do you mean narrative? Because your use of the word narration is making little sense. A film incites meaning in multiple ways, and that “series of moving pictures flashing across a screen” is exactly what informs the cohesion of the entire movie, first and foremost.
16. #16 Hiryu says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 11:06 pm

    Awesome list. I’m glad I’m not alone in loving movies from the 80s and I’m glad I’m not alone in thinking that a lot of movies these days use story to emphasize special effects, rather than the other way around. Good job, boys. Great list and I completely agree. Although I do have a particular fondness for 2 movies not on this list; Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
17. #17 Paul G says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 11:55 am

    I’m glad to see a couple of the Star Wars movies on here. My 17 year old brother in law had never seen Star Wars up until tonight, and he loves science fiction. I showed him “A New Hope” tonight and he loved it. I can’t wait until I can show him the other Star Wars movies in the original trilogy. After that, I’ll be showing him the original Star Trek movies. I’ve already shown him the Lord of the Rings trilogy and he loved those too. Time with family spent watching timeless classics; other than gaming old school what better passtime is there?
18. #18 jimmykiss says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 10:31 am

    DUNE
19. #19 Phil says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 9:41 pm

    ok, 2001 sucked! Good list, but Star Wars episode 6 would beat episode 5. Also, wheres Predator! I can understand AVP not being on there, but Predator should!
20. #20 julien says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 10:02 pm

    @erik
    Yes I watched it in baaad conditions (recorded on a VHS, on a very little screen), I must see it again. But that film sure looks very strange, and Tarkovsky’s philosophical atmosphere blows any Hollywood post-modern mysticism.
    I didn’t see Solaris, only Soderbergh’s remake (which was pretty good). But if there was only one film by Tarkovsky worth to be seen, it would probably be Andrei Roublev.
21. #21 Zeonic Freak says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 1:08 am

    Wow, Empire is my favorite Star Wars movie as well.

    If the Rebellion was a human body, Hoth would be the butt, because the Empire raped that so hard…:)
22. #22 ubldakj says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 10:42 pm

    Could there be any doubt as to what the greatest science fiction movie of all time would be? Nope it’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that is an indesputable fact.
23. #23 scifipod says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 10:45 am

    The Empire Strikes back is my fave Starwars too, I prefer Return of the Jedi to A New Hope though. Nostalgia aside for me animation and old school effects win over CGI every time. It costs more and it shows! Blade Runner was probably the last classic scifi done the RIGHT way, still I suppose eventually CGI will catch up with old school, not yet though!
24. #24 Moviemasterkid1 says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 2:43 am

    I remember starwars the empire strikes back I watched that when I was a kid wait I still am a kid seriously I don’t know if that a problem but I’m only 12
25. #25 gidi says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 1:24 am

    I think Star Wars Attake Of The clones sould be there
26. #26 ShadowHunter says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 6:57 am

    You could have added Stargate.
27. #27 alpha john says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 9:18 pm

    what do you mean “attack of the clones”? that was one of the most overrated, plus it had a weak, weak storyline,