Science fiction is a genre that has always raised an intense sense of curiosity about our world and Space. It has given us some masterpieces of this genre.
From extra-terrestrial life forms to mutants shooting laser beams from their eyes like in X-Men, from traveling through space to humans giving babies that are half aliens like in Man in Black, science fiction has got it all covered. Even after being stigmatized as the interest of so-called nerds this genre has been capturing the hearts of different kinds of people and not just geeks. In the Hollywood industry sci-fi, from its inception till today, some movies have made an everlasting impression on viewers due to their spell-binding depiction of the futuristic world and beautiful storytelling. After doing a long survey and listening to various conversations regarding this topic with eminent personalities from science and movie backgrounds we have summed up top 10 sci-fi movies of all time and here is the list:
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
This epic sci-fi film, produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick is considered to be the pioneer of this genre, and the movies made with the same concept later are known to be inspired by this masterpiece. The source material of the film was a short story written by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s The Sentinel’. The movie has been praised highly for its accurate depiction of space travel and outstanding visual effects. The long sequence with just classical music has helped the story to roll forward splendidly. From this film, protagonist David Bowman playing the role of Keir Dullea came to be known as the ‘star child’ outside of the movie too.
- Alien (1986)
This sci-fi movie was written and directed by James Cameron. This was the second film of the Alien franchise and a sequel to the 1979 horror sci-fi movie also named Alien. Even though the first film of the franchise was a huge success; it took several years for the sequel to get developed. James Cameron got the responsibility of writing a story for the sequel due to his strong writing skills seen in The Terminator, Rambo: First Blood Part II. Although the pre-production has suffered a lot of negligence from the British crew at Pinewood Studios the result has made history in the Hollywood movie scene. The protagonist Ellen Ripley played by Sigourney Weaver has won a nomination for Best Actress for Academy Awards for this movie.
- Star Wars (1977)
This film, written and directed by George Lucas was the first film of the Star Wars film series chronologically the fourth chapter of the ‘Skywalker Saga’. The fictional characters such as Princess Leila, Luke Skywalker, and Jedi Master have become one of the most impressionable characters in the history of Hollywood sci-fi. Even though many of the crew were not confident about the film’s success as it had faced a lot of difficulties during production some had hope for its box office prospect. Initially, it was released in a few theatres but the film got surprising praise and became the highest-grossing movie until the release of ‘E.T.’ The movie has won a lot of awards including BAFTA awards, Academy Awards, and Saturn Awards among others. The movie became so popular that it had merchandise, amusement parks, toys, novels, comics, and so on.
- T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
This may be the most popular film of this genre ever made. The film was produced and directed by the legendary Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison. The story shows the journey of an extra-terrestrial being who has lost his way home and a little kid named Elliot who has taken the oath of finding a way home for his friend from outer space. Steven Spielberg mentioned that the concept for the movie came to him when he had an imaginary friend after his parents got divorced. Firstly the story was rejected by Columbia Pictures as they were ton confident about its success later it was sold for 1 million dollars to Universal Pictures. It premiered as the closing film of the Cannes Film Festival of 1982 and right from the moment of release it became a smashing hit. It became the highest-grossing movie of all time for 11 years until Spielberg’s Jurassic Park was released in 1993.
- The Matrix (1999)
Written and directed by the Wachowski sisters Lilly and Lana, this movie is an American science fiction movie that is an outstanding example of the cyberpunk subgenre as the backdrop of the movie is a dystopian, dying society where humankind is being enslaved by intelligent machines while they are trapped in a stimulating Matrix created by the machine. The story revolves around a computer programmer Thomas Anderson with the alias ‘Neo’ and his fight against these machines when he discovers the truth. This movie is the first of the Matrix film series. The fight sequences and martial arts shown in the movie were heavily influenced by Hong Kong action films. The film popularised the visual effect called ’bullet time’. It was a box office hit grossing over 460 million dollars making it the highest grossing film of the Warner Brothers film of 1999. The movie is considered one of the greatest films in the genre of science fiction and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
- The Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
This movie is an American classic science fiction directed and co-written by James Cameron. The film’s star cast including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, and Robert Patrick gained a huge fan following through this movie. This film is the second one of the Terminator series. Although the film’s pre-production went through some struggle it is still considered one of the best science fiction, action sequels ever made. The budget for production was $519-520.9 million dollars making it the most expensive film made in 1991. One other interesting characteristic of the movie is that the first usage of computer-generated main characters was done in this film. The movie has won awards like BAFTA awards, Academy Awards, Saturn Awards, and many others. Due to its huge popularity, its merchandises were launched which included video games, comic books novels, and a live-action attraction, T2-3D: Battle Across Time.
- Blade Runner (1982)
This science fiction movie was directed by Ridley Scott. The screenplay was done by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. The movie was an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ of 1968. It depicts a story of a battle between a burnt-out police officer Rick Deckard played by Harrison Ford and a group of bio-engineered synthetic humans called replicants ruled by Toy Batty played by Rutger Hauer. Even though the film was criticized for its slow-moving storyline and lack of action it has been praised for its impeccable visual effects and complexity of its theme. It is believed that Blade Runner has set the stage for the upcoming genre of cyberpunk. The music of the movie has won nominations for BAFTA and Golden Globe as the best original score.
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
This movie is also an American science fiction directed by Robert Wise. It was produced by Julian Blaustein with its screenplay written by Edmund H. North which was based on the science fiction short story ‘Farewell to the Master’ of 1940 by Harry Bates. The plot depicts the time of the Cold War during its early stages. The story revolves around a human-like creature also called humanoid that has come to earth along with a very powerful robot to give a very important message or an ultimatum to the earthlings regarding the destruction of humankind. This movie too was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for its cultural, aesthetic, and historical significance.
- Galaxy Quest (1999)
A lovely tribute to the legendary Star Wars was given by director Dean Parisot with his science fiction comedy film Galaxy Quest. A bit different from the previous movies mentioned in this list, this movie does not deal with a dark and gloomy futuristic world. Rather it deals with a group of fictional characters from the television series ‘Galaxy Quest’ who suddenly find themselves in the middle of a real intergalactic battle with real aliens who have no idea that it is a TV show. The aliens are convinced that the adventures of the cast in the show are true documentation of history. The main aim of the film is to showcase the love the director had for the Star Wars fandom. It was a parody and homage paid to the excellence of Star Wars. The fans of Star Wars have rated this movie as the 7th best movie inspired by Star Wars. In ‘Reader’s Digest’ the movie was enlisted in the list of top 100+ Funniest Movies of All Time in 2021.
- Tenet (2020)
This masterpiece was written and directed by Christopher Nolan and was produced by his wife Emma Thomas. The cast comprises some of the most famous and strong artists like John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh. The story displays the main character known as the Protagonist a former CIA agent who has been recruited by a secret society to track down objects that are travelling back in time. It is believed that the objects are traveling from the future to the present.
So, in conclusion, it can be seen that in this list we have not only incorporated the old classics of this genre but the development of science fiction is gradually growing at a marvelous rate according to the modern-age movies.