Your top 5 sci-fi movies (and why)

[Zaukrie]

Galaxy Quest is a movie I'll watch over and over, so it's in my top ten....

 

[Zaukrie]

I doubt back to the future is on any list, but another fun movie with time travel...

 

[Greg K]

Galaxy Quest is a movie I'll watch over and over, so it's in my top ten....

I doubt back to the future is on any list, but another fun movie with time travel...

Both of these are great movies!

 

[payn]

I doubt back to the future is on any list, but another fun movie with time travel...

Honorable mention from me.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Rather than give a reason for each, I think the same reasons can apply blanket wide for all . I understand a lot of this has to do with nostalgia and how old I was when I was exposed to them (I don't think anyone would objectively say they are the best). But I found all of them extremely enjoyable and made my mind go off on imaginative tangents.

In no particular order:

1. Aliens
2. The Black Hole
3. Last Starfighter
4. Terminator
5. Empire Strikes Back

Because I can't just do a top 5, some others that are interchangeable:
Enemy Mine
Escape from New York
Predator
Inception
The Matrix
John Carpenter's The Thing

 

[Parmandur]

So, in my brain, for "best sci-fi film", I can’t bring myself to consider fantastical Space Opera stuff as fully "sci-fi" in the classic sense of speculative fiction, much as I love it myself, so this is more of a list of harder speculative fiction films:

1. Jurassic Park - in my mind the greatest balance of artistic cinematic quality, entertainment factor, and speculative fiction. Sequela are garbage in all 3 dimensions, but that doesn't detract from the original.

2. 2001: A Space Odyssey - the hardest of hard sci-fi, the artist of cinematic artworks...kind of slow, though, and no dinosaurs eating people.

3. Alien - a pretty classic science fiction story told with cinematic artistry and real human investment in the characters.

4. Bladerunner - an absolutely beautiful puzzle box of a movie.

5. Minority Report - probably one of the greatest works of detailed futuristic ever done on film, even up there with Bladerunner, and a real classic ethical puzzle of speculative fiction.

 

[Parmandur]

4. Arrival. Genuinely alien aliens are hard to show. This film manages it, alongside great acting of characters trying to deal with very difficult first contact and global pressures to do different things about it.

Ooooooh. Honorable mention for me here, too.

 

[Tonguez]

Of those not ranked, without thinking about what else, Godzilla Minus One? Is that sci fi?

I asked the same question re Godzilla and King Kong

Id say Kong isnt - theres no science in that monster, its pure pulp fantasy but the atomic radiation warning in Godzilla pushes it to yes.

 

[Parmandur]

I asked the same question re Godzilla and King Kong

Id say Kong isnt - theres no science in that monster, its pure pulp fantasy but the atomic radiation warning in Godzilla pushes it to yes.

Godzilla is a storm deity: fantasy film.

 

[Muad'dib Pendragon]

Blade Runner - what does it mean to be 'human', slavery, false hope as advertising, economic & social stratification
A Clockwork Orange - do the ends justify the means in operant conditioning, freedom vs determinism
Gattaca - do the ends justify the means in genetic manipulation, self-sacrifice
Interstellar - depletion of finite planetary resources, change-in-direction of societal norms
Contact - differences between strongly-held belief vs faith, fear of the unknown & extremist response

I forgot about Gattaca. Exceptional story!