Science
I go back to work on Friday, but I’ve been thinking a lot about science in my time and about how some of the most commonplace things, such as hurricanes, must seem like impossible imaginings to people of the past. The sci-fi genre has evolved a lot in the last century and some films that were considered far-fetched have since become science fact. The first example of science fiction came in 1902 in the form of “A Trip to the Moon”, which back then must have seemed completely absurd, but 67 years later it was no longer a vision of Georges Méliès, but is now one of the most famous moments in the history of the world. It makes me wonder what other moments from science fiction have since become fact and what moments still could.
There are a lot of subgenres to science fiction, but I’d like to highlight three of them. Aliens is one of the most common elements and they are most often malicious, but benevolent on occasion. Time travel is one of the more fantastical ideas and is the hardest one to get right and almost no film does. Robots is the element of sci-fi that seems to be headed toward reality, which is a very frightening concept. There are innumerable other types of sci-fi films: Mind Manipulation, Space Opera, Monsters, Splicing, etc.
I have selected my all-time favorite science fiction films. I have chosen the top 25, though there are dozens more that could be added. If you disagree or feel I missed something, feel free to let me know.
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – Space Opera
- Blade Runner (1982) – Robots
- Star Wars (1977) – Space Opera
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) -Aliens
- Back to the Future (1985) – Time Travel
- E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982) – Aliens
- The Martian (2015) – Space Opera
- Solaris (1972) – Space Opera
- Aliens (1986) – Aliens
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) – Time Travel/Robots
- The Matrix (1999) – Robots
- Avatar (2009) – Aliens
- Metropolis (1927) – Robots
- 12 Monkeys (1995) – Time Travel
- Arrival (2016) – Aliens
- Jurassic Park (1993) – Splicing
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) – Aliens
- Inception (2010) – Mind Manipulation
- Godzilla (1954) – Monsters
- Planet of the Apes (1968) – Time Travel
- Ex Machina (2015) – Robots
- Total Recall (1990) – Mind Manipulation
- Looper (2012) – Time Travel
- Ghostbusters (1985) – Monsters
- A Clockwork Orange (1971) – Mind Manipulation
Movies 