I am happy to see Solaris on that list

Dune was a visual tour de force that has not been surpassed in some ways. But it mutilated some of the most basic tenents of Herbert's universe, in particular the concept of the superiority of the human over the machine. This is most notable with the "wierding modules", technology with amplified the power of the vice to destructive levels. Also the assumption of god-like powers at the end of the film was not explainable within the frame of the story.

Not in order

Metropolis
2010 - no not a typo lol
Forbidden Planet
Matrix
Star Wars
Blade Runner
War of The Worlds 1953
The Thing (Either version)
Alien
Quiet Earth (really obscure New Zealand film, not sure of it's international releases.)

No order, save the first:

2001: A Space Odyssey: Not just the greatest scifi film of all time, or even the greatest film of all time, but I would even go as far as to say one of the greatest works of art of all time.

The Ripley trilogy: I don't count the fourth film in the Alien franchise, as it technically deals with a separate character to Ripley, but the first three Alien films together (particularly with the fully restored assembly cut of Alien3) make up the single greatest tragedy in the history of science fiction.

Star Wars/The Empire Strikes Back: None of the other four Star Wars films possessed either the mythic power of the first or the artistic quality of the second.

The Terminator: Strangely, I would say that this is one of the most philsophically challenging of scifi films, possibly the most after 2001. Yes, it rips shamelessly off La Jetee, but where that film was ponderous, The Terminator is multilayered, weaving into its action/horror frame meditations on the nature of fate and free will, the mythic basis of Freudian psychology, and even Nietzsche's fatalist conception of Greek tragedy. It is also the single most terrifying vision of the future ever put to film.

Blade Runner: Plot holes and inconsistencies aside (how is it that people are crammed together in 100-story tower blocks if the world is underpopulated?) the look and vision of this film is probably the most accurate view of where we're going ever shot.

The War of the Worlds/Forbidden Planet: The two greatest 50s B movies ever made, these movies have a colour and a retro-futurist beauty that modern, squarish concrete "futuristic" styles can't hope to equal. Plus they both do justice to their classic source material, even while they veer wildy from their sources in most respects.

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It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

There was a nice touch I hadn't noticed the first couple of times I'd seen the movie: at one point, there's a german sheppard tied up. Reese unconciously offers his fingers to the dog to sniff to prove he's not a terminator before entering the... store(?), just like he would have in the future.

And a bit later, Reese goes on alert when he hears the dog start barking. Which was cool, 'cause the dog actually did start barking at the terminator's passing.

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- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Permit me to point out that "Forbidden Planet" was not a B movie. It was a big budget (for the time) production by a major studio (MGM) and featured special effects that were the current state of the art.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/07/103029.php

http://www.answers.com/topic/forbidden-planet

Dave Mitsky

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De gustibus non est disputandum.
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Well, the same is true of "War of the Worlds". But both of those movies were very much in the spirit of the scifi of the era, including "The Blob", "Creature From the Black Lagoon" and "Earth vs. The Flying Saucers." Lovely garish colours, closeups of girls screaming, monotonous robots, and, of course, short skirts.

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It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

Others not previously mentioned: Oldies: Invasion of the Body Snatchers/ Them/ Godzilla Modern: Total Recall/ Mad Max/ The Stand

I wouldn't drop the original solyaris, not only was it Russia's own 2001-Space Odyssey but the film contained some wonderful acting, special fx and sound. Tarkovsky's original sci-fi classic was based on a wonderful Polish book and he made the first half of the movie long and boring but that was to put off the USSR's propaganda police, the film was such a daring movie with some hidden philosophical and religious messages at the heart of the communist era

I liked the new mini-series version better, aside from having more time to dig into the material, the casting was much improved.

Ian McNeice looked like he had a ball playing Vladimir Harkonnen (the old movie's Harkonnens were disgustingly one-dimensional, complete waste of Sting and Brad Dourif), and I personally liked the much expanded role of Irulan.

Sorry, but I don't agree. To compare "The Blob" with "Forbidden Planet" is ludicrous, IMHO. "Forbidden Planet" was far too intellectual for its own good and was not a box office hit as a result. Almost all 1950s movies were overdone in terms of color in order to compete with black and white television. Of course, there are a great many cultural differences between 1950s American WASP society (look at the names of the crew of the C57D sometime) and today's multicultural, PC world.

You're saying that Robby was monotonous?

B picture
n.
A movie produced on a low budget, originally made to accompany the main feature in a double billing. Also called B movie.

http://www.answers.com/B%20movie

Dave Mitsky

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Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I'm thinking he meant "monotone"

War Of The Worlds was far from a low budget effort. It came in at just shy of a million dollars for the production, which in 1953 was Paramont's most expensive film of the year.

Just like later day films like ID4 - War Of The Worlds was deisgned as a special effects tour-de-force. Sadly with the passing of time those effects have become primitive exposing the real weakness in the film, its lack of plot or acting.

Which is one of the reasons when any list of science fiction films is made, it should always take into account the passage of time, and the context in which it is created.

Hm. I didn't know you could use "monotone" as an adjective. I looked it up and apparently you can use "monotonic", which I like, since it doesn't cause confusion.

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It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

It's part of the interesting flexibility of english, nouns can become verbs, verbs can become adjectives, things are slippery and fun.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

I'd change the list a little (but putting it in no particular order)

Blade Runner Star Wars II: Wrath of Khan. I didn't really like Blade Runner. Maybe I saw the wrong version or something but it didn't really leave much of an impression on me. Wrath of Khan, by contrast, was not just a really good movie but had an excellent exploration of the character of Kirk.
2001
Star Wars/ESB
Alien/Aliens. As long as sequels can be listed I think Aliens should be up there. It's a great sequel, because it builds up on things established in the first movie without just repeating it. Plus it's got some of the best dialogue ever in a science fiction movie.
Solaris
Terminator/T2
The Day the Earth Stood Still I have to admit I've never actually seen this. Still I'll keep it on cause it's, like, a classic.
War of the Worlds Forbidden Planet. War of the Worlds was, once you get down to it, a pretty bad movie. It had at best one or two memorable scenes. I found it relied too much to special effects, that look pretty dumb now. Also this might just be me, but I was intensly disappointed not to see tripods.
The Matrix
Close Encounters Serenity. Close Encounters? Ich. Serenity was a great movie: great characters, great dialogue, great ploting and it looked great on what was, essentially, Revenge of the Sith's budget of coffee.

Edit: I should mention that when I was making the list I hadn't seen Solaris or Forbidden Planet. Having seen the later, I'm sorry I left it on.

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For some reason I never saw Blade Runner until a couple weeks ago. I watched the Director's Cut, sort of liked it but got annoyed by the sun glaring on my monitor. I watched it again a few days later and I was like "wow, now I get it!

Yeah, but I can understand why many people would find it too methodical, distant, depressing, vague, and so on, to really like it.

And of course, I think "The Island Earth" should be at least No. 10 on any list of "Top 10".

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"Insignificant molehill sometimes more important than conspicuous mountain." - Charlie Chan

Well, five out of six ain't bad!

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