Some of the choices and the relative rankings are..... "questionable"....


The 100 best science fiction movies of all time, according to critics

I take those lists with a grain of salt due to their obvious subjectivity but nonetheless I still read them out of curiosity to see how those lists vary from my own personal rankings.

This is my own personal top 10 in no particular order:


1. Blade Runner
2. Alien
3. Star Trek II Wrath of Khan
4. The Matrix
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey
6. The Empire Strikes Back
7. A Clockwork Orange
8. Aliens
9. Planet of the Apes (the original)
10. The Thing (the 1982 remake)


#65 makes no sense at all. The movie was never made and never released.



Oh, and Face/Off got a higher ranking than 2001: A Space Odyssey?????? Absurd.

Superhero movies in the list, so the entire list is disqualified. Superhero crap isn't sci-fi, damnit, they're fantasy.

Oh, and the fact that Arrival even made that list... entire thing needs to be tossed in the trash.

Yes and no. A lot of superhero films certainly fall under the generic "science fiction" category since so many of those superhero films involve aliens, space travel, advanced tech, etc.


However, if we are talking about HARD science-fiction then those superhero films don't count.

I don't even consider aliens, space travel and advanced tech as to what makes sci-fi, sci-fi. Fantasy can absolutely contain those elements.

What differentiates Fantasy from sci-fi is the plausibility basis the fiction is grounded on. Comic book superhero crap is absolute fantasy. A man can't fly. A girl can't lift giant boulders. Not without mechanical augmentation. I think the closest comic book stuff comes to sci-fi might be Iron Man because he does use tech to achieve his "powers."

In sci-fi, most everything should be based on scientific fundamentals of some sort, with nothing being fantastical without theoretical underpinnings that are based on one of the three major scientific systems--Physics, Biology and Chemistry, and the mechanical principles that comprise them.

I write sci-fi, so I'm immensely picky about this subject.

Hard sci-fi means anything and everything must be strongly grounded in science, with very little leeway for pushing the theoretical envelope, such as abusing string theory to the point it becomes fantasy. Middle-road sci-fi can push the envelope more, such as Star Trek and Star Wars do(though Star Wars technically is sci-fi/fantasy due to the force powers). Hard sci-fi would be 2001, Contact, The Martian, etc. Interstellar happens to be on shaky ground between the two because the film often contradicts itself, which good hard sci-fi should never do. Rocket to get into space, whereas magic space car that defies 7G world, anyone?

Threads?

oh gods that still gives me nightmares...

The Thing with Kurt Russell and Alien.

I tend to use a pretty strict definition for sci-fi, too. For example, I wouldn’t call “Serenity” a sci-fi movie, because, well, where’s the science? “But they’re in space! And they have a spaceship!” So? Airplanes fly by scientific principle, too, does that mean “Airplane!” is sci-fi? So, most of the movies on the list that I actually got to see before getting the amazon gift card redirect aren’t sci-fi by my standards.

And how about just a list of titles for those of us who don’t want to read anything else?

I don't know if it qualifies as science fiction but Children Of Men is up there for me.

Futuristic dystopias are indeed usually considered to be science fiction.

Bonus points for Michael Caine.

interesting side note. Isaac Asimov often advocated to use the term "speculative fiction" ( although i do not know if he coined the phrase ) rather than "science fiction".

it's easy to make the case that Children of Men is a "speculative work of fiction"

you know, I don't know that Threads even counts.


it's basically a projection based on facts at the time of the effects of a nuclear exchange on the UK. everything kept as realistic as possible. (and boy did it go dark compared to the US take the Day After...)

It occurs to me the Children Of Men has an underlying story, that of the search for meaning is a secular world. Nietzsche foresaw the problems of the 20th century ahead of time and predicted it by following the model of what would happen when people have to make their own values in a value-ambivalent world now that God is "dead". In the movie there are plenty of woolly-thinking spiritual types with all kinds of weird ideas, there is nihilism expressed in society, "undesirables" are treated abysmally, and of course the "savior" of the piece is a group called the fishes, a rather obvious Christian callback.

In Cuarón's original ending the girl is left just waiting in the boat, the arrival of the boat is a studio insertion to placate audiences who might not get the idea.

They rated SW: TLJ higher than either ESB or TFA. Not sure what was going on with that.

Also completely left off Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, but included movies such as Midnight Special that few watched and fewer liked.

Not sure how Threads is science fiction . . .

Despite the symbolic inclusion of Metropolis, I dislike how these lists seem to concentrate mostly on movies made the last decade or two, ignoring almost 60 other years of filmaking.

For example, Forbidden Planet was a genre-definer, was quite impactful on science fiction-film making going forward, and is still a enjoyable film today, yet is left off this list . ..

It's quite simple. The vast majority of these entertainment "top whatever" lists are written by internet bloggers in their 20's.

Yep!!

1/ Interstellar: just awesome! and based on real science, it gives a little glimpse of the sheer vastness of "the black" outside
2/ Blade Runner: Watched at least 20 times, never been cheesy to watch even in 2018
3/ 2001: still mesmerizing to watch, Stanley was a visionary!
4/ 2010: Not as cool as the first opus, but still amazing to watch, especially on a big screen
5/ Star Wars original trilogy not for the obvious lack of physics, but because it was the first well done pulp comics on film: witty dialogues, great SFX for the era...
6/ Alien: great thriller in space and awesome evil creature by Giger!
7/ Close encounter of the third kind: one of the best ever movie by spielberg, fantastic to see on big screen and THX sound!
8/ Gataca: amazing movie on the future of the species
9/ Moon: Beautiful little film, a gem in the rough
10/ Flash Gordon: Cheesy to a genius level with Queen's fantastic score!

There are only two things that make Flash Gordon watchable.

Max von Sydow’s awesome performance as Ming.

Queen’s awesome score.