1y ago

Must watch classic SciFi movies?

So far this year I have watched Metropolis and Zardoz for the first time. What are some other must see SciFi movies?

62 comments

Some that I'm not seeing here much yet:
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, War of the Worlds, Minority Report, Gattaca, Heavy Metal, Repo Man, Starship Troopers, The Fifth Element, Tron, Tron Legacy, Independence Day, Idiocracy, Predator, Star Trek (2009), Escape From New York, Galaxy Quest, Total Recall, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, E.T., Wall-E, Jurassic Park (1993), District 9, Robocop, Children of Men, Inception, and the Back To The Future trilogy,
- You mention Star Trek, but TOS movies are the classic and superior Trek movies.
  
  I like them all. I own almost all of them...maybe all...not sure...

I will contribute one. The Last Starfighter. One of the first movies with actual CG. I recommend checking it out.

Forbidden Planet, Logan's Run, Death Race 2000, The Day the Earth Stood Still, ...
What's your cutoff for "classic"? Are we talking about the classic film era, or anything older than 25 years?
- All great picks. Forbidden Planet trips me out because young Leslie Nielsen, as a dashing leading man, in a non-comedy role is just wild to see heh. The plot is fun and the effects actually hold up really well for the age.
- Great picks. I'm not too concerned with the timing. Even more recent, soon to be classics, are fair game.
  
  Well in that case:
  The Matrix
  Dark City
  Pi
  Confluence
  Predestination
  Primer
  Brazil
  Time Bandits
  Gremlins
  They Live!
  Escape from NY/LA
  Big Trouble in Little China
  The Fifth Element
  12 Monkeys
  Six String Samurai
  Robocop
  Total Recall
  Terminator & Terminator 2
  Event Horizon
  Stargate
  Johnny Mnemonic
  Soldier
  The Truman Show
  Mars Attacks!
  Demolition Man
  Starship Troopers
  Tank Girl
  Cube
  Species
  Men in Black
  Iron Sky
  Robot Jox
  ... and many more!
- Love the campiness of Death Race 2000

If you can handle subtitles Tarkovsky's 1972 version of Solaris is brilliant.
- The modern version with George Clooney actually isn't half bad either.
  
  I like them both. I've read the book and they take different tracks but they're both good.
  
  "Yeah... 'bout that..."
- And it's free to watch on YouTube now. As are Tarkovsky's other movies

Here are some classic SF going back a bit further than most of the comments co far.
1970s
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Westworld (1973)
Silent Running (1972)
Logan's Run (1976) - Overpopulation (the end)
Mad Max (1979)
Capricorn One (1977) - The movie that started the moonlanding was fake conspiracy.
Soylent Green (1973) - Overpopulation (the start)
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) - AI taking over the world.
The Andromeda Strain (1971) - Pandemic
Rollerball (1975)
Sleeper (1973)
Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)
1960s
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Fantastic Voyage (1966)
The Time Machine (1960)
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969)
1950s
The War of the Worlds (1953)
When Worlds Collide (1951)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Forbidden Planet (1956)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) again bit I prefer the 70s remake.,
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) The first so bad it is good movie.
On the Beach (1959)
Destination Moon (1950)
- Some of my favorites on here. Plan 9 is great to watch back to back with Ed Wood.
  1953 War of the Worlds was one of my favorite movies as a kid. Those ships were super cool. FX hold up really well.
  Barbarella is over the top, but still fun to watch... and credited with the band Duran Duran getting it's name. :)
  1960 Time Machine was another one of my absolute favs as a kid... best Time Machine adaptation IMHO.

Also, if you count 20 year old movies as classic, I’d add Bicentennial man and Artificial intelligence, haven’t seen these mentioned yet.
- Depends on how many onions you needed cut...

A lot of great ones out there but my personal favs probably are Brazil, 12 Monkeys, Fifth Element, Event Horizon, Blade Runner in the “earnest” category, then Tokyo Gore Police, Johnny Mnemonic, Starship Troopers, Tetsuo, Total Recall, RoboCop in the campy/wild/fun category.

I noticed a lack of Anime. If I may:
Ghost in the Shell (the entire collection if you have the time)
Macross: Do You Remember Love?
Akira
Galaxy Express 999
Captain Harlock
Battle Angel Alita
Serial Experiments Lain (Series)
BubbleGum Crisis Tokyo 2040 (Series)
Red Baron (Series)
Saber Marionette (Any, but J is a series that hits maturity in the second half with aplomb)
Neon Genesis Evangelion (Series)
Cowboy Bebop (Series)
The Big O (Series)
Roujin Z
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Iria: Zeiram the Animation
Steamboy
Paprika
And more I can’t think of right now.
- If you're gonna do ghost in the shell, I'd also recommend Appleseed.
  Akira was one of the first "adult" anime that I watched back in the day. Good stuff, ending is unfortunate. I would have loved if they just made all the books into a series of movies. The animation and soundtrack are amazing though. For Katsuhiro Otomo I'd also recommend Memories.

Time Crimes (2007)
9 (2009)
Pandorum (2009)

One of my favorites that seems to get overlooked a lot lately is Contact.
- "The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space."
  One of my favorite movies.

I guess most of the famous classics are going to be listed anyway, so to add something that most people probably haven’t seen, I suggest batteries not included. It’s nothing grandiose (more like a family-friendly flick, I feel like it’s in the same category as Flubber or Short Circuit), but it’s really sweet, light-hearted and enjoyable.
- You know what movie nobody has mentioned yet? E.T.

Golden Age (70s & 80s): Blade Runner, 2001, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, Wrath of Khan, Undiscovered Country, E.T., Brazil, Lynch's Dune, Back to the Future, The Thing, They Live, Akira, Buckaroo Banzai, The Abyss
90s Renaissance: Total Recall, 12 Monkeys, Contact, Fifth Element, Starship Troopers, Galaxy Quest, Truman Show, Dark City, The Matrix, Gattaca, π, Strange Days, T2, First Contact, Event Horizon, Jurassic Park
- Some great picks. I always introduce people to Buckaroo Banzai if they haven't seen it. Love that end theme. :)
  I just rewatched several Dune movies. IDK if you've seen the latest release with Clement. It's a decent watch, enough so that I'll watch part 2 when it comes out. I love the sci-fi mini-series though.. "Frank Herbert's Dune" and "Children of Dune" they did.

Gonna just list the ones that really jumped out to me:
Event Horizon; Bladerunner & Bladerunner 2049; Pacific Rim; Johnny Mnemonic; Stalker; Solaris (1972); Robocop; Starship Troopers; Dredd; Tetsuo the Iron Man; Crimes of the Future; Pandorum; Fifth Element; Southland Tales

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

I didn’t see it on anyone’s list so far but I would recommend The Andromeda Strain (the original).

Dark City, 2001 a space Odyssey, 2010 the year we make contact, enter the void

Star Wars Ep 4
Star Trek 4
The Thing (1982)
Aliens
Terminator 2
- I'll add Alien and Terminator 1 to that list. Whether you consider the first or second better in either franchise, there's no denying all four are excellent movies
  
  Honestly, going back and rewatching them, all the Alien movies are pretty decent. 1 and 2 are the top tier though. The only thing I don't forgive is the intro premise to 3 which I won't list for spoiler reasons.
  It's a shame they never made any more Terminator movies after T2. T2 was so excellent. .and it was the last. Definitely. Take my word for it.
  
  I just watched the original Alien the other day. I had forgotten how similar they made the ship from Prometheus to the ship in Alien. Wasted opportunity.
- Star Trek 2-3-4 is the second best sci-fi trilogy starting with the word "Star".

Fantastic Planet

"The Quiet Earth" definitely worth watching.

My all time fav is The Thing https://letterboxd.com/film/the-thing/
It's more mystery than sci-fi I'd say.
Firefly (Is it old enough to be a classic?) is a must watch IMO.
It's more fantasy, but it has a lot of sci-fi elements (IMO): Angel’s Egg https://letterboxd.com/film/angels-egg/
Apparently, I don't know if true, it was an inspiration for some Fromsoft games like Dark Souls. It does have a quite dark and meditative mood.

Ghostbusters!

@MooseGas Fantastic Planet is an old classic French animated flick that's quite interesting.

Arrival
The Martian
Interstellar
2001
Bladerunner (& 2049)
Sunshine
Ex Machina

Kind of surprised I didn't see anyone mention Flash Gordon, from the early 80s. It's not a great movie, but it's highly entertaining and Queen did the soundtrack.

Lol at Zardoz being on anyone's "must see" list.
- Haha I never said it was must see. I watched it last weekend and I'm looking for some ideas for this weekend.
  Edit. I guess I implied it was must see by saying "other must see movies". My apologies.

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