Top 25 Sci-Fi movies/tv (1982-present)

[HeavenShallBurn]

Iron Giant is, at its root, a tale about how people react to change in the form of a technology they don't understand or control.

Star Wars, at its root, is a tale about wizards vying for supremacy.

Umbran hit it on the head.

Sci-Fi requires that the core of the story be driven by the implications of the technology involved. Iron Giant for all its whimsy is archetypal sci-fi, it's a story of how changes induced by a poorly understood or controlled technology cause people to react to it. The story is the technology and the reaction to it. In Quantum leap the "technology" is simply a placeholder plot-device to drive an episodic comedy-drama. Star-Wars, Star Trek, are like WH40K in that they are science fantasy. Star Wars is about the dynastic struggles of groups of wizards with magical swords that just happen to also fly around in space via underdeveloped plot-device tech. Star Trek is a classic exploration/sea voyage tale using space travel with "technology" as plot device but not a central part of the setting or story. Heroes is not sci-fi at all, its fantasy of the superhero subgenre. Children of Men is not a sci-fi, it's a horror-drama. Back to the Future after consideration I'll admit deserves the title sci-fi, whether is deserves a place on the list is debatable but it's sci-fi even if my first inclination is not to grant it that due to the deus ex nature of the technological plot device. Throwing Lost and X-Files in together, they aren't really sci-fi. X-Files dealt very little with technology and its implications, and as much with the supernatural and occult as with its signature alien conspiracy that everyone remembers. Lost is not even marginally sci-fi, it's a drama and the events of the plot do not revolve around technology or questiones derived from it at all. In fact the events would be far more easily interpreted as magical in nature than being derived from any sort of technology. E.T despite the alien is not sci-fi, what exactly to classify it as is difficult but I'd put it under drama. Brazil isn't sci-fi, like 1984 or Brave New World it's nature is political commentary the technology is merely an enabler for the social structure whose existence is the central element of the story.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Sci-Fi requires that the core of the story be driven by the implications of the technology involved. [...] Star Trek is a classic exploration/sea voyage tale using space travel with "technology" as plot device but not a central part of the setting or story.

Iffy on this one. Stripped down to its core premise, you're probably right. But as a television series, there were plenty of episodes which planted it quite squarely in the hard science fiction column. And I also think there's plenty of "soft" science fiction episodes, which examine possible futures subjected to changes in social, psychological or political norms. Therefore, "Brave New World" and "Children of Men" are also most definitely science fiction. Of course, many movies and television episodes mingle the two to some degree, and I personally think the genre is best when it explores both the "hard" and "soft" themes.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Sci-Fi requires that the core of the story be driven by the implications of the technology involved.

Not really. Science fiction is equally well defined as any kind of story that has advanced or otherwise special technology as part of the setting and/or plot. Whether the technology drives the plot or not is mostly irrelevant. At the very least, that is the definition that I see most widely used.

The problem with saying that Star Wars is not science fiction because it draws its origins from fairy-tales, or that Star Trek draws inspiration from exploration, is that you are falsely claiming that something can only fall into a single genre. Star Wars is both a fairy-tale and science fiction. The science fiction elements make it as different from classic fairy-tales as the fairy-tale elements make it different from classic science fiction. The same can be said for Star Trek.

Is Bladerunner any less of a science fiction story because it is a Film Noir-style detective story that happens to be based in a futuristic setting? Is the Iron Giant any less of a science fiction story because it is a story of a boy encountering a wondrous new friend (which is its own genre, easily)? I say that they are not, and the same logic applies to any thing on that list.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Blade Runner is on the list, it's just not number one. Which is fine by me; I always found it overrated. The scenes with Rutger Hauer were excellent, but the rest of it left me rather cold. (I know I'll probably be lynched for this, but that's the way I feel about it.)

I couldn't get into Blade Runner. Haven't tried to watch it since that one time where I was wondering what was going on and all...

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Indeed, that was one of the big things I liked about Back to the Future. He leaves the present in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall and knocks over one of the two trees when he exits in the '50's. When he goes back to the present, it's to the parking lot of Lone Pine Mall.

Not to mention his parents now well off and more confident (especially his dad!) and Biff now a "lowly" car detailer than being his dad's boss (and an ass). Brother works in an office and not at a fast food joint; sister allowed to have boys call her instead of being forbidden to do so. Mother probably no longer drinks herself into oblivion and also no longer wears stale fashions from the 70s.

 

[Jeysie]

I couldn't get into Blade Runner. Haven't tried to watch it since that one time where I was wondering what was going on and all...

Good, I'm glad I'm not the only one. My impression of the whole thing was that, while a few of the individual scenes were good, the movie as a whole felt confusingly edited together with poor cohesion *between* said scenes. Point A and Point B might have been interesting, but I was pretty lost as to how they were connected for the most part.

Peace & Luv, Liz

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Dark City should have been on the list. Wasn't it awarded Best Sci Fi movie by some sci-fi group in the year it came out as well?

Children of Men: Well, there was only one aspect of it that left an impression. The long, long single edit at the end of the film. To me, that still doesn't make it a great movie. But that the movie totally inverted the story that it was based on left me with strong ill-will towards the director/producers.

 

[Tetsubo]

The Matrix (the movie, singular) was one of the best movies at all at its time IMHO, definitely belongs into the Top10 there.

Bye
Thanee

The Matrix was a decent film, if not terribly original nor logical.

But better than Blade Runner? Not in a hundred billion years...

 

[Tetsubo]

Iron Giant is, at its root, a tale about how people react to change in the form of a technology they don't understand or control.

Star Wars, at its root, is a tale about wizards vying for supremacy.

I always saw both as redemption stories. The idea that a Gun no longer wishes to be a Gun and the Hero reclaiming the Light for humanity...

 

[DonTadow]

Responding to the original OG: I love buffy the vampire slayer but it is by no means sci-fi. i think we make hte mistake of lumping fantasy with scifi and they obviously didn't do that on this list.

I do love the fact that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is on the list. It is pure scifi and its the best kind. The kind where the scifi is used as a device to tell a meaningful story not a device to show special effects. It is the best movie I"ve seen in the last 5 years as far as overall movies.

I'm not surprised. These lists are picked by non fanboys whom slowly pass the genre and pick and choose little cult stuff here and there.

Any good list has Dark City and 12 Monkeys. I just don't think animated shows should be included in these lists.