Event Horizon and Prometheus.Alien and Aliens for sure.District 9,Blade Runner,Escape from New York,The Thing 82,Matrix and Terminator.

1) Star Wars Episode IV
2) Aliens
3) Forbidden Planet
4) Sunshine
5) Serenity
6) Interstellar
7) District 9
8) Planet of the Apes(60s version)
9) 2001
10) Close Encounters

Is Mad Max sci-fi? I'm replacing Terminator with Fifth Element, Inception with Dune, Mad Max with Matrix, A Clockwork Orange with Interstellar. No particular order. I would easily put T2 over Terminator on any list.

My Dune pick will be unpopular, but I just love it. Lynch took too much shit for that film. In my mind sci-fi is mostly space films which wouldn't include Jurasic Park and I believe Comic Book movies are fantasy, so No Guardians of the Galaxy.

2001 was a great film, but honestly, I fell asleep watching it the first four times. It is pretty boring to be honest.

This is only top 10 and Event Horizon definitely deservers to be in the top 50.

Sci-Fi is my favorite genre.

Here we go...

Forbidden Planet
War of the Worlds (original)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (original)
Dark City
The Thing (82)
Alien
The Black Hole
Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers
Predator
Star Trek - Wrath of Kahn

Honorable mentions:

The Time Machine, The Omega Man, Plant of the Apes (original), The Thing (52), Pitch Black

Event Horizon pisses me off every time I see it. There is a great movie in there, and they fucked it up big time.

What was it? I guess a lot of it has to do with what age you saw a movie the first time. Besides Alien/Aliens that was the first movie to give me the creeps when young.

I completely fogot about Abyss, top 10 is hard, but Abyss would be close even though not outer space, but deep below the ocean.

1. Escape From New York
2. The Thing (1982)
3. Beyond the Black Rainbow
4. The Terminator (yes gritty 1 over polished 2.)
5. They Live
6. Videodrome
7. The Road Warrior
8. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
9. The Fly (1986)
10. Lifeforce

Honorable mentions:

Robocop
Predator
Total Recall
Hardware
Alien
Blade Runner
Akira

I left zombie movies out because that's primarily horror to me. Wanted to say Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure but that's mostly comedy to me.

I was 25 I think? The first half of the film is great...then it just dissolves into a Hellraiser wannabe vomit pile. The director was Paul Anderson, so we should be grateful for even a half decent film as he is such a hack.

Abyss was a great movie, as was it's sister film....can't remember the name but it started Peter Weller from RoboCop.

I was SO into film back in those years...mostly Sci-Fi..I went to conventions, film festivals, etc... - the horror genre lost me with the Scream/I Know what you did last summer films.

Did you ever see any of the Cube films? There were pretty good for indie films.

Leviathan

Nice list. The Road Warrior stands out among all the other Mad Max films, it is perfect. Just watched it a few months ago, and the last scene of Mel fading out with the voice over was so well done.

I like the 78 Invasion too, not as much as the original but it's good as well. The Fly is pretty too. Easily Croneberg's best film, or best commercial one.

That's it. Thanks! Not as good as Abyss, but entertaining and fun.

Ex Machina is pretty good...

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is just eerie and effective. I dig it. I like Videodrome over the Fly but it's still great and has such a slow cascade of gloom to it cause you know hes pretty much doomed.

7 thru 10 and the mentions are pretty much coin flips. Throw Escape from the Bronx and Class of 1999 in there too. Weird Italian stuff like Robowar and Shocking Dark also. Anything with cyborgs, post apocalyptic and dystopia, really.

1. Contact
2. The Matrix
3. Blade Runner
4. 2001: A Space Odyessy
5. Alien
6. Inception
7. The Empire Strikes Back
8. The Terminator
9. WALL-E
10. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

In no particular order.

Pitch Black
Star Wars - the real one
T2
Logan's Run
The Time Machine
Powder
The Fly
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Predator
They Live

I could go on and on....

Yeah, the first Cube was pretty cool. I didn't know they followed up. With Event Horizon, I like the Hellraiser aspect, as I wa not into the classic horror genre at the time and never saw it.

Am I the only 1984 Dune fan?

I'm watch Looper now, as earlier today I saw to top 50 Sci-fi film lists and marked those I've never seen. I guess I'm too busy on Pinside because I'm not following well.

No, you're not.....but it's not Top 10 material.

Now the new Denis Villenuve version has enticing potential....

My wife re-reads Dune about once a year, and says the trailer looks way more faithful to the book (aside from gender-swapping Dr. Kynes).

Later,
EV

OMG, don't like Bruce Wilis with side hair. Just that one thing makes is show his age.

I really hope the two movie plan like the recent IT works. Goddam, I don't need another Dark Tower or Eragon F up.

Agreed.

Hmm....Just realized that my #1 and #3 are those rare instances where the movie is BETTER than the book...

Later,
EV

I think Pitch Black is one of the best sci fi movies I've ever seen. It's not only a cool movie, it's a cool LOOKING movie, the way it's filmed and the use of colored filters etc.

It's the first movie I ever saw Vin Diesel in, and it was like, who the fuck is THIS guy??

Spoiler alert: I like that it's not a "happy" ending...the kids die, the female leads die, everybody dies - the only ones to escape are the convicted murderer (Diesel) and 2 others.

Pitch Black was good and I saw that one in the theater. I haven't thought about it since. I don't think it would be in top 100. However, now I need to pull out the old dvd and watch again. Thanks for the reminder.

The Cube movies were good.Forgot about those.

The first Cube is the best one (aren't they all), but the 2 sequels are decent enough. Check it out, they actually explain a bit more of what is going on.

I like Dune - I thought they did the best they could with it with the time they had. My biggest issue was I didn't care for the source material that much but the acting and cinematography was top notch. It got way too much criticism, but my guess was that fans of the book didn't think it was enough but the critics thought it was too much, and it was sunk.

I just watched it two days ago. The only thing that holds it back is the characterization...too edgy, too anti-hero....I get the Vin Diesel role but it was too much over the top. My favorite things about is, as you stated, is the filters they used and the shots of the planet with the rings on the horizon.

Funny thing is, Dune is considered one of the best Sci-fi books ever written, so hard to do in 2 hrs. I never thought a Dark Tower movie would be easy, and they properly f'd that up. David Lynch actually had a really cool vision even though Sci-fi wasn't his thing. The casting was F'ng stellar.

I know...I've tried several times and I just can't get into it. As I get older, I am leaning more into older gothic tales and the old Weird Tales pulps, but that's another thread topic.

An often overlooked film is DARK CITY that came out in the 90's, about the same time as The Matrix. Matrix gets all the fanboy and critic praise, but Dark City is the best Sci-Fil film that came out in the 90's. It's perfect in every way...story, script, effects, acting, mood...it is Proyas's best work.

Love sci fi

Wrath of khan
Chronicles of riddick
Inception
Running man
The hidden ( great movie)
The one ( jet li)
Interstellar
Terminator
Robocop
Terminator 2
Last star fighter

Tried to throw out some
That hadn’t been mentioned. Lots of good ones in the forum topic

Forgot edge of tomorrow and oblivion

I’ve watched those 10x

1) They Live
2) Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure/Bogus Adventure
3) T2
4) Robocop
5) Total Recall
6) Runaway
7) Dark City
8) Cyborg
9) Hardware
10) Starchaser the Legend of Orin

Here are many of my favorites

On the lighter side:
Starship Troopers
Mars Attacks
Men In Black
Idiocracy
Back to the Future
Guardians of the Galaxy
Coneheads

Other more serious ones I like:
Knowing
Arrival
The Arrival
Close Excounters
Ad Astra
Upgrade
Ex Machina
Tron (both movies)
Independence Day
I Robot
The 6th Day
Minority Report
Total Recall
I Am Legend / The Omega Man
Oblivion
Edge of Tomorrow
The Island
In Time
Source Code
Looper
Replicas
Cowboys vs. Aliens
Alien vs. Predator
Starman

Sorry that my list exceeds 10 (I did leave several off that were already mentioned - The Matrix is my #1).

2001
Alien
Star Wars
Star Trek IV
Aliens
Day the earth stood still (early one)
Fantastic Voyage
Oblivion
War of the Worlds (early one)
Close Encounters of the third kind

Science Fiction movies are my favorite.Hard to pick just 10

Star Wars is as much Fantasy as it is Sci Fi. "Ooo mystical force powers and Leia floating though space without a suit" Bah!

Blade Runner
Arrival
Moon
Sunshine
Oblivion (way under-rated IMHO)
2001
District 9
Red Planet
Alien
Jurassic Park

I see a lot of people liked Oblivion.I loved it.You are right.Way under rated.

Awesome thread...looking through these lists I have a lot of stuff to watch. I've seen and loved most of the big name stuff, but there is a lot I have missed. I grew up on Star Trek and Star Wars. Always leaned a little more to the Trek side. I really enjoy all of the movies in both franchises, even the crappy ones. Same with the Alien franchise, Matrix, etc. Then again, I'm pretty easy to please with movies. I like a slow burn, smart movie, but I also really enjoy turning my brain off and watching stuff blow up. I'm not that picky in general. Even through I'm a huge original Star Trek fan and even really enjoy the first movie, I absolutely love the reboots, if that tells you anything, LOL.

Most of my recommendations are well covered above. I'm a little surprised to not see Back to the Future on here, or Ready Player One. Or are they generally considered more fantasy?

Love Abyss! But that reminds me...why in the blue hell do we still not have a decent release of that movie? No Blu-Ray at all, much less 4k. And even the DVD is terrible and never even had an anamorphic release as far as I remember. Ugg!

Huge props to Methos mentioning the Cube movies. Awesome movies, especially the first, but the sequels do not suck.

Surprised not to see Fifth Element mentioned more here. That would have made a great pinball machine. Same with Pitch Black/Riddick series. Fun stuff.

What about Titan AE? Been awhile since I saw it, but I remember really enjoying it. Animated though...not sure if that changes opinions.

The pinball machine got me to watch Demolition Man...which was surprisingly good. Johnny M did the same...but that was not surprisingly good, LOL. The newer Dredd movie was awesome, but again probably leans more fantasy than Sci-Fi? Fine line there.

How about Cowboys vs. Aliens? Not that great of a movie, but interesting concept.

Also, I'm not sure I'd put "Replicas" (Keanu Reeves) in the sci-fi genre, but I liked it.

If you enjoyed Primer, I highly recommend a 2014 film called Predestination.

The Abyss is one of my all time favorite films, but you have to watch the director's cut. It changes the ending and makes it a much more cohesive story overall. I've never understood why there isn't a Blu-ray of it. I've seen the theatrical release on cable in HD, but to my knowledge there is no HD version of the director's cut available anywhere.

Cool thread.
I’m going to think about this for a few days before I post what I think my 10 top probably are.

Would also be interesting to hear about some films that are more obscure (even if they don’t make your to 10) so that I could check them out. Sort of like honorable mentions.

A thread like this on gritty westerns would be equally cool.

Ahh come on...I can't believe 'The Green Slime' hasn't made the list or at least been given an honourable mention!

Wait, what?...aside from the slimey space aliens, wacky special effects and the must have self martyred moron scientist, there's mini skirts and bee hive hairdos aplenty, the surprisingly awesome Steppenwolfesque theme song and then there's that 'visionary' dance sequence.

[Note: Been playing a lot of Transporter the Rescue lately.]

Green Slime dances (resized).jpg

Green Slime minis (resized).jpg

Green Slime poster (resized).jpg

the-green-slime-are-here-promo (resized).jpg

10 Ad Astra
9 Wrath of Khan
8 Starman
7 Prometheus
6 Superman 2
6 Donnie Darko
5 Planet of the Apes
4 Escape from New York
3 Terminator
2 Alien(s)
1 2001