The Top 100 Classic Sci-Fi Films Ranked & Where to Watch Them
Everybody has their futuristic favorites, but which films really rank as the top classics of 20th century sci-fi? We polled our staff and took a crack at a tally from 1-100, going as far back as 1902 (and up to 1999). Think you know where your favorite will land? Set your phasers to high as we blast off to the top 100 films of classic sci-fi.
Rob Edelstein, Damian Holbrook, Ryan A. Berenz, Jeff Pfeiffer, Zhanna Slor and Barb Oates were all contributing writers.
Top 100 Sci-Fi Movies
July/August 2024
Everybody has their futuristic favorites, but which films really rank as the top classics of 20th century sci-fi?
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Roger Corman’s drive-in movie classic — a film he loved so much he refused calls to remake it — finds scientists battling giant radiation-belted crabs. You will hear their claws clicking in your sleep! Costarring Russell Johnson of Gilligan’s Island fame.
71%
4.9
Where To Stream
An allegory for the immigrant experience, this comedic sci-fi film funded almost entirely by writer/director John Sayles himself follows a mute alien in the body of an African American (portrayed by Joe Morton) who is being chased by space bounty hunters upon his arrival in Harlem.
89%
6.7
Where To Stream
This movie is exactly what the title says it is: Aliens invade Earth in the shape of creepy-looking clowns, then prey upon the residents of a small town who have a hard time taking them seriously. Armed with an ice cream truck, a small group of teens attempts to save their town in the most 1980s way possible.
77%
6.2
Where To Stream
The Running Man
Arnold Schwarzenegger goes undefeated in this satirical action flick as a wrongly convicted prisoner who’s forced into brutal gladiatorial combat for a popular TV game show. Edgar Wright is directing a remake starring Glen Powell.
66%
6.6
Where To Stream
A meteor shower that leaves most of the population blind and a species of tall aggressive plants, which turn out to be aliens, preying on humans attempt to wipe out humanity in this odd mix of sci-fi horror tropes.
78%
6.1
Where To Stream
Phase IV
Desert ants wage war on the human species in this unique sci-fi thriller that will perhaps leave you too frightened to ever have a picnic again.
53%
6.4
Where To Stream
The first ’50s sci-fi movie to show its aliens in color, this creepy classic follows a kid who cannot get any adult to believe that he saw Martians land near his home. The film effectively captures the feel of a nightmare as paranoia escalates and many adults become “changed,” and its ambience is enhanced by a still-stunning visual design.
88%
6.2
Where To Stream
The Blob
Watch it wiggle, see it jiggle! Steve McQueen battles the scariest Jell-O mold ever in this classic about an ever-expanding alien organism that invades a small Pennsylvania town after crashing to Earth. Fun fact: One of the filming locations, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, hosts “Blobfest” every summer.
68%
6.3
Where To Stream
Enemy Mine
Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr. square off as human vs. alien enemies who later become friends after being trapped on a remote planet together in this timeless story of how war can also bring people (and extraterrestrials) together.
59%
6.8
Where To Stream
Things to Come
One of many H.G. Wells book-to-film adaptations, this early sci-fi classic features an alternative history in which a war started in 1940 goes on for decades until society has broken down into small, disparate communities. After a plague wipes out most of the remaining population, a great reconstruction of civilization into underground cities ensues, until another war threatens to break out.
91%
6.6
Where To Stream
Akira
In this Japanese anime classic, childhood friends Tetsuo and Kaneda encounter a military operation in a dark and dangerous future Tokyo 31 years post nuclear destruction. When Tetsuo is captured and subjected to experiments that make him a powerful psychic, the city is threatened with destruction once more.
91%
8
Where To Stream
Cocoon
Retirement home residents find the fountain of youth when aliens who lived on Atlantis come back to rescue some of their buddies. The film won two Oscars, but its legacy might be the Wilford Brimley/Cocoon meme: Brimley was only 49 when he filmed his senior citizen role.
76%
6.7
Where To Stream
They Live
Come for the weirdness of unlikely leading man “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, stay for the clever way John Carpenter uses sci-fi to skewer capitalism. The wrestling star plays a drifter who discovers that aliens are not just posing as humans, but also using subliminal messages to manipulate mankind for their master plan.
86%
7.2
Where To Stream
eXistenZ
This David Cronenberg thriller blurs fantasy and reality as a virtual reality game designer (Jennifer Jason Leigh) finds herself on the run from assassins while playing one of her games, assisted by a young bodyguard (Jude Law).
74%
6.8
Where To Stream
Videodrome
Trippy, gory and definitely dark, David Cronenberg’s cult fave about a TV exec (James Woods) drawn into a nightmare world of sex, murder and possible mind control features some of the most out-there visuals and a seductively sinister turn by rocker Debbie Harry.
83%
7.2
Where To Stream
Repo Man
Alex Cox’s first feature film, about a frustrated punk rocker turned repo agent (played by Emilio Estevez), is a cult classic in the vein of SLC Punk (with a great soundtrack to boot). Its glowing trunk was inspired by the 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly, which was also behind the mysterious briefcase in Pulp Fiction.
98%
6.9
Where To Stream
Face/Off
Director John Woo’s pairing of John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, and the plot’s face swaps (that’s where the sci-fi comes in), provided a ridiculously fun, unpredictable showdown that questioned just exactly who you were rooting for.
92%
7.3
Where To Stream
Marooned
The nightmarish sense of impending doom and hoped-for heroics made this film — which came out not long after Apollo 11 landed on the moon — a hit. Three astronauts (Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman and James Franciscus) are slowly running out of oxygen and need a miracle to survive.
86%
5.9
Where To Stream
Before Doctor Who, Bernard Quatermass was British TV’s first sci-fi hero, protecting Earth from alien forces in 1950s serials that were adapted into three feature films from Hammer Films, famed for its horror productions. This third movie (released in America as Five Million Years to Earth) effectively mixes sci-fi with good old Hammer horror as Quatermass (Andrew Keir) investigates strange goings-on after an ancient artifact is unearthed in London.
88%
7
Where To Stream
A modern Renaissance man who is a brain surgeon as well as a rock musician must stop some alien invaders from the eighth dimension from taking over Earth in this sci-fi comedy starring John Lithgow and Peter Weller.
66%
6.2
Where To Stream
Altered States
You’ll never look at psychoactive drugs, sleep tanks or William Hurt the same after taking in this at-times surreal sci-fright about a Nobel Prize candidate who discovers the terrifying, primordial side effects of mind-expanding substances. Features one of the most iconic transformations onscreen ever.
85%
6.9
Where To Stream
This outstanding creature feature introduced the Gill-Man as the last of the classic Universal monsters, a half-man/half-fish “living fossil” discovered deep in the Amazon. Stuntman Ricou Browning does especially incredible work wearing the Gill-Man suit during the famed underwater scenes, while the action and chills are punctuated by Hans J. Salter’s memorably bombastic musical score.
80%
6.9
Where To Stream
The 1931 film version of the oft-adapted gothic novella by Robert Louis Stevenson examining the duality of human nature stars Fredric March as both title characters and resulted in March’s first Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
91%
7.6
Where To Stream
The Time Machine
Oscar-winning special effects highlight this fun adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel that helped solidify time travel as a science fiction trope. Directed by fantasy film master George Pal, the movie stars Rod Taylor as the inventor of a time-travel device that whisks him from his year of 1900 through a war-ravaged 20th century and into a far-off era where humans are enslaved by subterranean mutants. Alan Young and Yvette Mimieux costar.
76%
7.5
Where To Stream
Zombies, a comet that kills off most of the world’s population, strong female leads with strong female hair, and a pretty bizarre shootout at a shopping mall full of stock boys turned overnight villains — what more can you ask of a 1980s end-of-the-world B-film?
79%
6.3
Where To Stream
The Truman Show
“We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.” And Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) certainly did, unaware he was living in a fake world with fake friends, with his life broadcast in soap style to the nation 24/7 in this social satire.
94%
8.2
Where To Stream
Gattaca
Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law starred in this story of a future society in which naturally conceived people lack the privileges of the bioengineered upper caste. Hawke met Thurman while working on this film, and they were married from 1998-2005.
82%
7.7
Where To Stream
Barbarella
Based on a French comic strip character, the futuristic, sultry space ranger Barbarella (Jane Fonda) battles skimpy outfits, flesh-eating robots, evil children, sex pills and a crazed queen who threatens the galaxy. It was Fonda’s opening striptease scene, however, that made this film iconic. A reboot starring Sydney Sweeney is planned.
74%
5.9
Where To Stream
Silent Running
Douglas Trumbull’s somber, offbeat directorial debut features a dystopian future where all forests and plant life on Earth have become extinct, and the only plant species left are preserved in domes attached to spaceships. After all the crews are ordered to destroy their domes, resident botanist Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) refuses to follow command, fleeing across the galaxy with the help of three robots, killing anyone who gets in his way.
71%
6.6
Where To Stream
THX 1138
A few years before his Star Wars brought sci-fi fun back to movie theaters amid a trend of bleak dystopian films, George Lucas created a compelling dystopian classic of his own with this extension of a student film he made, set in a future where citizens are controlled by stormtrooper-like android police and the mandatory use of emotion-suppressing drugs.
86%
6.6
Where To Stream
Galaxy Quest
Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman are former stars of a space adventure TV series who must help actual aliens defeat an evil overlord named Sarris in this satirical sci-fi comedy that was clearly an homage to Star Trek.Convention-goers and superfans are enlisted to help in their mission, and by the end, the actors defeat the enemy and even get a sequel series to reprise their roles and rejuvenate their careers — everybody wins! Even Trekkies and Star Trek actors loved the film, which became a cult classic.
90%
7.4
Where To Stream
The perennial midnight favorite may be campy good fun, but it’s also the tuneful interplanetary saga of what happens when alien scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) attempts to bring his buff creature Rocky to life. In the meantime, let’s do the Time Warp again! It’s just a jump to the left!
79%
7.4
Where To Stream
Time After Time
John Leslie Stevenson, aka Jack the Ripper (David Warner), enters H.G. Wells’ (Malcolm McDowell) time machine in 1893 and heads to 1979 San Francisco, with Wells in hot pursuit. It’s a mighty clever yarn, with the added joy of watching costars McDowell and Mary Steenburgen fall in love during filming.
88%
7.1
Where To Stream
Superman
Before superheroes were gritty and complicated, Christopher Reeve made audiences believe a man (of steel) could fly — and be fun — in Richard Donner’s triumphant epic costarring Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor and Marlon Brando as filmdom’s most expensive cameo, Jor-El.
94%
7.4
Where To Stream
Dune
It cost close to $40 million to make, had shabby special effects, a messy script, a rock star (Sting), Patrick Stewart and Kyle MacLachlan, but moviegoers will also forever remember that crazy galaxy of spice trade (melange anyone?), oddball sandworms and a more epic franchise film to follow.
44%
6.3
Where To Stream
Mad Max
It’s the collapse of civilization set “A few years from now …” thanks to overly sympathetic courts releasing criminals. Mel Gibson goes on a tour de force vengeance spree as Mad Max, which still to this day makes us question how that world got to that place.
89%
6.8
Where To Stream
Just as H.G. Wells’ 1897 novel made the concept of invisibility into a popular sci-fi trope, so this classic film adaptation set a standard for movies of its type, thanks to special effects that still look fantastic. Claude Rains conveys the menace of this Universal monster through a wonderful performance achieved mostly by using his voice and while physically wrapped from head to toe.
94%
7.6
Where To Stream
Men in Black
Fun performances by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as members of the secretive title organization that monitors alien activity on Earth; fantastic CGI and practical effects; and effectively economic storytelling that keeps things moving and the film’s runtime to well under two hours — these combine to make this one of the most enjoyable sci-fi summer blockbusters ever.
91%
7.3
Where To Stream
Westworld
“Boy, do we have a vacation for you!” Michael Crichton wrote and directed this thriller about robots running amok at the Delos resort for adults. Yul Brynner was a dead-eye as the Gunslinger android.
84%
6.9
Where To Stream
Them!
The first “big bug” monster movie of the ’50s is also the best, featuring ants transformed into gigantic monsters by A-bomb testing in the New Mexico desert. The filmmakers wisely don’t show “Them!” right away, instead creating an eerie ambience with sounds like the creepy howling of a sandstorm and the chilling trills signaling the ants are nearby.
93%
7.2
Where To Stream
Defending against spiders when you’re the size of a spool of thread was oh-so-fun to see, and brilliantly captured as a normal guy (played by Grant Williams) eventually shrunk to nonexistence. Warning: Sunbathing and radioactive pesticides don’t mix.
83%
7.6
Where To Stream
Director Luc Besson pulled out all the stops for this sensory extravaganza set in the 23rd century. Bruce Willis plays former commando Korben Dallas, who gets forced into another mission after supreme being Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) crashes through the roof of his flying taxi. Leeloo holds the key to defeating the “great evil” and its henchman, Zorg (Gary Oldman).
71%
7.6
Where To Stream
Soylent Green
Spoiler alert: Soylent Green is made out of people! In this film, set in 2022, New York City has become a polluted, overcrowded hive for the unemployed, underfed masses. The murder of a Soylent Corporation board member leads Detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) to a shocking discovery. Edward G. Robinson, in his final film role, plays scholar Sol Roth.
70%
7
Where To Stream
“Enemy? We did it to ourselves.” The societal turmoil at the time between the U.S., the Soviet Union and China, as well as biological warfare advancements, made this fictional tale, based on Michael Crichton’s novel, all the more chilling. When a satellite crashes to Earth with lethal microbes from outer space killing all but two people in a small town, scientists race to stop the virus’ spread. The outcome: a truly startling conclusion.
67%
7.2
Where To Stream
Starman
This charming romantic sci-fi drama was directed by John Carpenter, who had helmed the gruesome sci-fi horror classic The Thing two years earlier, and who shows his deftness at switching tones with this PG-rated tale. Jeff Bridges gives a terrific, Best Actor Oscar-nominated alien-trying-to-act-human-but-not-quite-perfecting-it performance as a noncorporeal being who comes to Earth and takes the form of a young widow’s (Karen Allen) late husband, seeking her help in returning to his world. There is some action with pursuing government agents, but the real draw is the interaction between Bridges and Allen.
86%
7
Where To Stream
Strange Days
Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett and Juliette Lewis starred in this thought-provoking film set in the waning days of 1999. A “playback” device allows users to record/share their memories directly from their brains, which has led to a black market for illicit and disturbing experiences. Though the film’s ’90s aesthetic looks dated, its commentary on racial and social justice remains relevant.
68%
7.2
Where To Stream
From its famous opening title sequence accompanied by Dimitri Tiomkin’s ominous score to its final warning to “Keep watching the skies,” this Howard Hawks production is a sci-fi/horror classic. The film is not as close to its source material, the novella “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, as John Carpenter’s superb 1982 remake was; the alien threat is not a shape-shifter here but is still menacingly portrayed by James Arness. Director Christian Nyby creates suspense with the claustrophobic conditions surrounding the military and scientific personnel trapped with the Thing at an Arctic base, and some moments can still surprise. — Jeff Pfeiffer
7.1
Where To Stream
Director Paul Verhoeven turned Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 novel about a future interplanetary war between humans and giant bugs into an effects-heavy, ultraviolent movie that critics blasted for celebrating fascism and militarism. It has since developed a cult following and been reevaluated as satirizing the ideas it was originally decried as promoting. It also reminds us to check on Casper Van Dien’s whereabouts.
72%
7.3
Where To Stream
David Bowie (in his first starring role) and Rip Torn lead this British film about an alien who crash-lands on Earth looking for a way to bring water back to his planet, which is suffering from a drought. Using the advanced technology of his home planet, Thomas Newton (Bowie) invents many gadgets and acquires tremendous wealth (as well as many bad habits) before attempting to return. However, after his identity is exposed by a former college professor (Torn), he is forced to undergo government experiments in captivity. The cult classic is considered one of director Nicolas Roeg’s best films.
80%
6.6
Where To Stream
It was Leonard Nimoy’s second turn at directing (in terms of Star Trek films) and had the most absurd plot, but in a good way, as it righted all the wrongs of 1984’s The Search for Spock. In the franchise’s most lighthearted entry to date, the Enterprise crew returns to Earth (San Francisco) to address species extinction (humpback whales). Best line: “Him? He’s harmless,” Kirk playfully says of Spock. “Back in the ’60s, he was part of the free speech movement at Berkeley. I think he did a little too much LDS.”
82%
7.3
Where To Stream
Forbidden Planet
This classic was Oscar-nominated for its visual effects (which brought to life, among other things, the iconic Robby the Robot), but it should also have been nominated for its groundbreaking, all-electronic musical score. And while its plot may have been loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the film also had its own influence, as its ideas and style would be reverse-engineered into other cinematic space voyages. Leslie Nielsen plays a commander who brings his spaceship crew to the green-skied world that is home to Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), his daughter (Anne Francis) … and a mysterious terror.
96%
7.5
Where To Stream
Scanners
Body-horror maven David Cronenberg serves up the scares and social commentary when a shadowy megacorp sets out to weaponize psychics with telepathic powers. As the leader of an underground ring determined to exterminate his fellow scanners and the bioengineers who created them, Michael Ironside makes for one of sci-fi’s greatest antiheroes who, in the film’s most iconic moment, reveals to the world how truly mind-blowing his abilities can be.
68%
6.7
Where To Stream
One of the seminal giant monster movies of the early Atomic Age, and an influence on Godzilla, this enjoyable creature feature expands Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Fog Horn” into a tale of a dinosaur awakened from its Arctic hibernation by atomic testing and eventually causing chaos in New York City. The production was the first time SFX legend Ray Harryhausen used his “Dynamation” stop-motion technique; his animations lend the “Rhedosaurus” both a terrible ferocity and some of the pathos found in Bradbury’s tale, as the beast rampages alone through an unfamiliar world.
91%
6.6
Where To Stream
Tron
Jeff Bridges played a software engineer who got zapped into cyberspace and joined other programs to battle the evil Master Control Program (and stick it to his thieving boss in the real world). The film used backlit animation and early CGI to create a digital universe far ahead of its time. With speeding Light Cycles, hovering Recognizers, and the unmistakable neon glow of blue and red circuits, Tron introduced moviegoers into an imaginative new virtual reality.
73%
6.7
Where To Stream
The Abyss
Director James Cameron went deep with this thriller starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Michael Biehn. A mission to secure a sunken U.S. nuclear submarine results in the discovery of “non-terrestrial intelligence” at the ocean floor. The film’s CGI water animation helped it win an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. A special edition release in 1993 filled up some big holes in the story.
88%
7.5
Where To Stream
John Carpenter’s futuristic nightmare unleashes Kurt Russell at his badass best as Snake Plissken, an eye-patched federal prisoner offered a full pardon if he can rescue the stranded president of the United States from a Big Apple turned penal colony. Between the synthetic score and the Manhattan-as-a-maze atmosphere, this one stands out as a stylish departure from the low-fi frights of Carpenter’s previous hit, Halloween.
88%
7.1
Where To Stream
12 Monkeys
Bruce Willis time-travels from a dystopian future to the 1990s to stop a man-made virus from devastating the population in Terry Gilliam’s visionary thriller that remains as fascinating today as it was 30 years ago. In addition to its eerie pre-COVID representation of a nascent pandemic, the film paints a haunting forecast of an environment-ravaged path for the planet and features an Oscar-nominated turn by Brad Pitt as a troubled extremist who triggers the catastrophe.
88%
8
Where To Stream
A time machine phone booth is just what metalheads Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) needed to pass their high school history class and become “The Great Ones” of the future’s utopian society. With George Carlin as time-travel expert Rufus, the entertaining film was filled with delightful social-science platitudes (Socrates rocks!) and a universal message of “be excellent to each other.” Sequels and two TV spinoffs followed. Party on, dudes!
60%
6.9
Where To Stream
Fantastic Voyage
During a time when plenty of sci-fi movies dealt with outer space, this wildly imaginative and exciting film took viewers on a mission into the inner space of the human body. When a blood clot puts a scientist behind a new miniaturization process into a coma, a team of medical and military personnel (Raquel Welch, Donald Pleasence, William Redfield and Arthur Kennedy) must use the technology to shrink themselves and a submarine down to microbic size, travel inside his body and destroy the clot. Standing against them are not only a saboteur, but also the body’s natural defenses. — Jeff Pfeiffer
92%
6.8
Where To Stream
Dark City
Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland and Jennifer Connelly star in this too-often-overlooked neo-noir from director Alex Proyas. An alien species known as Strangers implant memories and switch identities of their human lab rats in an inescapable maze of a city that never sees daylight. Be sure to see the 2008 director’s cut, which offers much more depth than the original theatrical release.
76%
7.6
Where To Stream
Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury’s tale of an authoritarian society in which books are confiscated and burned, and their owners arrested, received this worthy screen adaptation directed by French film icon François Truffaut. Oskar Werner plays Montag, a fireman who takes an interest in a young woman named Clarisse (Julie Christie, who also portrays Montag’s wife Linda) and gets a sudden desire to read the material he’s supposed to incinerate.
81%
7.2
Where To Stream
Predator
The year before he made Bruce Willis an action star with Die Hard, director John McTiernan killed it with this franchise-igniting actioner with Arnold Schwarzenegger leading an elite military team against vicious aliens in the Central American rainforest. The titular terrors’ ability to camouflage themselves led to some wickedly clever visual effects, and their overall design by Stan Winston (with inspiration from James Cameron!) remains one of filmdom’s most recognizable (and bone-chilling) creature creations.
80%
7.8
Where To Stream
The Iron Giant
Part Gigantor, part E.T. and all heart, director Brad Bird’s animated tale of a 9-year-old boy who befriends a 50-foot robot in Cold War-era America is something incredibly special indeed. Featuring the voices of Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr. and, in a stellar turn, Vin Diesel as the title character, the film plays the time’s paranoia about all things alien against the gentle and misunderstood creature, whose peaceful motives only a child can understand.
96%
8.1
Where To Stream
Logan’s Run
Thirty is the new dead! Michael York and Jenny Agutter dodge the wildest population-control plot ever in this campy yet intriguing adventure set in a future where residents of a domed city who are over the age of 29 are unknowingly offed in a religious ceremony to preserve the world’s dwindling resources. And that is not the only secret our heroes will stumble upon on their attempted escape.
60%
6.8
Where To Stream
Brazil
In director Terry Gilliam’s dystopian future world, a simple government office worker (Jonathan Pryce) is caught in a 1984-esque conundrum that puts him at odds with a crazy host of bureaucratic forces beyond his control. Fortunately, he has literally found the woman of his dreams (Kim Greist) and an unlikely heroic ally (a terrific Robert De Niro) who somehow save him at every worst turn. And that’s just a small part of the elaborate, imaginative nuttiness abounding in what is among the darkest of sci-fi comedies.
98%
7.8
Where To Stream
Death rays, meteorites and a Martian-led warship launch a full-on invasion of Earth in producer George Pal’s Americanized take on H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel. It’s pure pandemonium as all human retaliation proves futile. While this first film adaptation (to date there are over 10) deviated considerably from the book, its Oscar-winning visuals and culturally significant narrative influenced many films to follow. In the end, it’s God and bacteria that saved the world — a true sci-fi escape into reality! — Barb Oates
90%
7
Where To Stream
Total Recall
“Get your ass to Mars!” Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers unforgettable lines (“Consider that a divorce!”) and incredible action in this unpredictably wild classic. Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) takes a virtual trip to Mars via a memory implant, but wakes up to discover he’s not who he thinks he is. A real trip to Mars results in Quaid joining a band of mutants — including three-boobed Mary and tummy telepath Kuato — to overthrow the oppressive Governor Cohaagen (Ronny Cox).
82%
7.5
Where To Stream
RoboCop
Paul Verhoeven’s film remains an influential classic because it works on a variety of levels. It can be enjoyed as an ultraviolent action movie even as it satirizes that form, as well as American culture in general — especially advertising and the increasing corporatization/privatization of public services like law enforcement. As brutal as the violence and satire can be, there is also a humanity that lies beneath the film’s surface, just as there is beneath the mechanical exterior of ex-cop Murphy. Peter Weller brilliantly embodies that character, who is turned into RoboCop and slowly comes to remember, and struggles to retain elements of, the man he once was even as he kicks ass as the ultimate crime-fighting machine.
92%
7.6
Where To Stream
When we were kids, did we really understand what was going on in this hybrid classic? The production itself was a thing out of science fiction: Take a 1954 Japanese film called Gojira, lose some of the plot elements, film Raymond Burr as a U.S. reporter named Steve Martin and intercut him with body doubles that sorta resembled the Gojira cast as if he was always in the first movie. However you slice it, it worked, and this was how American audiences came to love that fire-breathing titan of terror — a fascination that is still going strong, despite the huge reptile’s “death” from this movie’s fabled Oxygen Destroyer.
6.3
Where To Stream
Don’t fall asleep! And we didn’t after seeing those giant seed pods that hatched replicated people in ooey-gooey grossness. The paranoia was real as people in San Francisco realized their family and friends looked, sounded and remembered the same, but were emotionless. A curly-haired Donald Sutherland starred in this chilling remake of the 1956 film opposite Brooke Adams. That final scene with that horrifying high-pitched scream — look out!
93%
7.4
Where To Stream
A group of six astronomers builds a vessel to take them to the moon in this silent French short from the beginning of the 20th century. Loosely based on a story by Jules Verne, the film’s plot can mostly be summed up by its title, as it follows these unlikely astronauts as they get shot out of a large cannon into space, then encounter strange creatures and giant mushrooms on Earth’s only natural satellite.
100%
8.1
Where To Stream
Independence Day
Forget phoning home! The ETs in this mega-disaster classic want to speed-dial us out of existence, and it’s up to Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum (who is all over this list!) to save our hides. On top of giving us some of the greatest destructions of beloved monuments since the original Planet of the Apes, ID delivers adrenalized dogfights, a global invasion that leaves the planet at the mercy of spindly telepathic aliens, and Bill Pullman as the kind of president we actually believe when he rallies the world to not go quietly into the night and not vanish without a fight. Today, we celebrate THIS Independence Day!
68%
7
Where To Stream
Stalker
Don’t be fooled by the title. In this film by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, one of cinema’s all-time greats, the “stalker” (Alexander Kaidanovsky) is a professional guide, illegally escorting two clients — a writer and a professor — into the “Zone,” a strange land where the rules of real life don’t apply, and a “Room” awaits that, if found, can grant you your most fervent wish. But what is a person’s biggest wish, and do we really even know? This is a complex, philosophical, extraordinary and patient film that truly leaves the viewer changed, wondering about his or her own motivations in life.
100%
8.1
Where To Stream
Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) motors through the barrens of postapocalyptic Australia in George Miller’s superb sequel to Mad Max (1979). This time, Max joins forces with the settlers of an oil refinery to fend off a band of marauders — led by the metal-masked and musclebound Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) — who’ve come to pillage the “precious juice.” It’s a full-throttle, supercharged masterwork of a movie fueled by testosterone and the will to survive in a lawless, brutal landscape.
93%
7.6
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The Fly
Leave it to David Cronenberg to turn a campy 1958 creature feature about science gone wrong into a critically acclaimed tribute to body horror. The Canadian auteur behind Scanners and Videodrome went all-out to explore quirky scientist Seth Brundle’s (Jeff Goldblum) horrifying transformation after a house fly slips into one of the two high-tech pods he’s invented for teleportation. Merged with the bug’s DNA, Seth slowly devolves into a super-powerful yet grotesquely inhuman hybrid, much to the horror of his reporter girlfriend (played by Goldblum’s then real-life love, Geena Davis). If you’re expecting a happy ending, be afraid. Be very afraid. — Damian Holbrook
93%
7.6
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Let’s face it: Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a clunker, a wooden, plodding film that gave too little time to the original series’ stars. Three years later, this stellar entry came along and, with Enterprise-like determination, saved the franchise. Everything about it clicked: The classic cast had plenty to do, an unremittingly buff Ricardo Montalban returned as the understandably wrathful title character, the plot involving the Genesis project giving dead planets life gave us hope for the future, and the final scenes, with Kirk (William Shatner) watching Spock (Leonard Nimoy) die a true hero’s death, were incredibly moving.
87%
7.7
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One of the great unsung gems of the ’80s, this delightful yarn capitalized on the era’s love for video games, Star Wars and all things computer-generated. Lance Guest plays Alex Rogan, a brainy teen bored with his trailer-park life who, after beating an arcade game called Starfighter, is abducted by an alien to help lead his race’s rebellion against an evil empire (sound familiar?). Back on Earth, Alex is replaced by an android doppelgänger with no idea how to act normal, resulting in a rollicking mix of fish-out-of-orbit comedy, high-stakes sci-fi action and an inspiring message about the heroism of helping others.
76%
6.7
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Talk about sticking the landing! The Rebel Alliance brought the O.G. Star Wars trilogy to an explosive, twisty close, but before they get to party with the Ewoks, our heroes have some work to do. Save carbon-frozen Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt and Boba Fett. Finish Luke’s Jedi training on Dagobah. Race across the forest planet of Endor on speeder bikes. Reveal Leia’s true family ties. And of course, mount one of the greatest land-and-air battles ever seen in the galaxy far, far away that will crush both Darth Vader and the Empire once and for all. Or at least until The Force Awakens.
83%
8.3
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Ghostbusters
Is Dr. Venkman (Bill Murray) really a scientist? He better be, as humanity is in his hands, along with his fellow ousted university parapsychology professors Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) in this cultural phenomenon. The trio teams up as the Ghostbusters battle a moldy Sumerian god, gobs of slime and that Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (well, he later became a friendly). Between some laughs are plenty of ultra-dimensional horrors and spectacular special effects, but never does the trio stop thinking; after all, nonthinkers will be dismissed. And thinking is what superior sci-fi is all about.
95%
7.8
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There’s nothing quite like stopping at the Korova Milkbar for a glass of milk-plus before hitting the town with the droogs for a bit of the old ultraviolence. Stanley Kubrick’s surreal tale of a morally decaying England in the not-too-distant future is the disturbingly quirky odyssey of sadistic hooligan Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell). While serving a prison sentence for murder, Alex undergoes the Ludovico Technique, an experimental treatment that makes him physically ill at the thought of committing a violent act. Once released, however, Alex finds himself unable to function in society or defend himself when his past victims seek payback. The film remains a profound study of the state’s power to socially engineer its citizens, the ethics of punitive vs. rehabilitative justice and the nature of free will.
87%
8.3
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Contact
In this deeply insightful adaptation of Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, Jodie Foster stars as Dr. Ellie Arroway, an atheist working at the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) program in Puerto Rico who discovers a signal from a star named Vega. As the nations race to decode the message — which reveals plans for a machine that may allow for interstellar travel to the star — Ellie must deal with governmental bureaucrats, a philosopher (Matthew McConaughey) unsettled by her personal beliefs and religious terrorists hellbent on derailing this globally anticipated mission. And while the film at first appears to be a big-budget popcorn thriller about possible alien lifeforms, it slowly transforms into a meditation on grief, what it means to be human and how far we are willing to go — inwardly and otherwise — on faith alone.
68%
7.5
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Credit costars Boris Karloff (as the Monster) and Colin Clive (as Dr. Frankenstein) and, in the end, Elsa Lanchester (as the world’s best hisser), along with director James Whale’s masterfully gothic filmmaking for this film’s rep as a horror classic. But the idea of creating life from dead tissue is steeped in sci-fi plot lore, and it’s never been done quite as well as it was here.
Yes, Frankenstein in 1931 established the storyline and sent chills through the spine, but the sequel — which beautifully begins with a separate flashback scene of Mary Shelley (also Lanchester) schooling husband Percy Shelley and friend Lord Byron about the moral center of her novel Frankenstein — adds greater dimension, pathos and a next level of science with the intelligence of the creature. “We belong dead,” he declares sadly at the end, bringing about his own destruction and that of his would-be bride, in a film that truly made reanimation a tool of Hollywood.
98%
7.8
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Metropolis
Based on a 1925 novel of the same name, this German silent film is widely recognized as one of the first ever science fiction films, forging a path for all future flicks of the genre. A clear influencer of later iconic films like Star Wars, The Matrix and Blade Runner, it features a potentially Soviet-inspired utopian society that is run by mistreated workers who toil under the city. When the privileged son (Gustav Fröhlich) of the city’s ruler (Alfred Abel) discovers what is happening, he befriends a rebellious teacher named Maria (Brigitte Helm) and becomes fixated on improving the plight of the working class, which puts him at odds with his authoritative father.
Director Fritz Lang was later appalled to learn Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels were big fans of the film; the duo even offered Lang a job making Nazi propaganda films, despite his Jewish roots. Lang fled to Paris the same night.
97%
8.3
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The Thing
The same year Blade Runner’s Harrison Ford ran around a wet L.A. chasing robots that looked like humans, Kurt Russell was trudging through Antarctica after an alien that could assume any form. And much like Blade Runner’s cop Deckard, Russell’s chopper pilot MacReady had the benefit of a director — in this case Halloween guru John Carpenter — who knew how to deliberately misdirect us before dropping twists we never saw coming. It also took years for viewers to come around to appreciate The Thing’s genius and grisly special effects, it having initially tanked at the box office. Now, this tale of an icy, remote research station terrorized by a parasitic lifeform is seen as an atmospheric classic with shades of Hitchcock’s Lifeboat that lets the dread pile up like a steady snowfall before MacReady and his men realize the chilling truth about what they are dealing with.
85%
8.2
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Robert Wise directed this early Cold War sci-fi classic, one of the 1950s’ most mature and thought-provoking movies of its type. The story finds an alien named Klaatu (Michael Rennie) and his robot, Gort (Lock Martin), landing on Earth to warn the planet’s inhabitants to abandon their atomic weapons and aggression, and live peacefully with the other residents of the cosmos, or be destroyed. Along with introducing one of sci-fi’s most memorable robot commands — “Klaatu barada nikto” — the film was groundbreaking and influential in a couple of ways. Its theme positioned humanity, not some invading aliens, as the greater threat to the universe, while composer Bernard Herrmann’s musical score featured one of the earliest cinematic uses of the theremin; that eerie-sounding instrument would soon become an almost-overused and clichéd staple in other films of the spacey or spooky variety.
95%
7.7
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The Terminator
Our global concerns about artificial intelligence predate this James Cameron fright-fest, but when an AI resembles a seven-time Mr. Olympia bodybuilding champion, the stakes tend to feel a little higher. Chalk that up to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s breakout performance as the title cybernetic being. He’s been sent into the past to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who will one day give birth to John Connor, leader of the future revolution an insidious dystopian corporation is trying to squelch before it begins.
Some of the effects leave a great deal to be desired (the T2 effects seven years later will be otherworldly), but the story has plenty of top-shelf sci-fi action, as Sarah looks to escape alongside a fellow human sent back from 2029 to 1984 — soldier Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), who’s fated to play an outsized part in the propagation of the human race. Also worth noting: When the Terminator says, “I’ll be back,” it’s best to believe him.
100%
8.1
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Jurassic Park
Almost two decades after terrifying a generation away from the beach with 1975’s Jaws, Steven Spielberg ruined another vacation spot with this theme-park-from-hell masterpiece! Filled with cutting-edge visual effects, dashes of Spielberg’s patented childlike wonder and then, halfway through, genuine scares, this franchise-launching epic adapted Michael Crichton’s bestselling novel about a Disneyland for bio-engineered dinosaurs into a heart-stopping thrill ride powered by a runaway T. rex, vicious velociraptors and all sorts of other prehistoric threats. As the humans running for their lives — following a computer hack that knocks out the power and unleashes the beasts from prehistoric days — Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Samuel L. Jackson make for an iconic cast, but let’s be real: It’s the all-too-realistic fake dinosaurs that keep us coming back.
91%
8.2
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Solaris
This rare cinematic gem from the Soviet Union was directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and based on Polish author Stanisław Lem’s 1961 novel. Tarkovsky sought to make a cerebral, introspective style of sci-fi that focused more on the characters’ emotional states than on the wonders of technology. A psychologist, Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis), is sent to a space station orbiting the planet Solaris to study reports of strange phenomena and visions experienced by the crew. There, Kelvin himself begins seeing things, including the manifestation of his wife who had died by suicide 10 years earlier. The film’s slow pace and attention to atmosphere over action may not suit all sci-fi fans, but Tarkovsky demonstrated that the genre can travel light years into the depths of the human heart and soul.
92%
7.9
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There are still about 5,000 DeLorean automobiles running out in the world, but only Hollywood could make one with a flux capacitor capable of racing into the past. Leave it to cowriter/director Robert Zemeckis to retrofit H.G. Wells’ Time Machine story in this wildly inventive, comic tale of Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), who accidentally drives back in time to 1955 and threatens to interrupt the high school romance of his beautiful mom (Lea Thompson) and nerdy dad (Crispin Glover). Will Marty convince the younger version of scientist “Doc” Brown (Christopher Lloyd) to help out, and then get his invention back up to speed?
With its ton of charm and incredibly clever 1950s and ’80s cultural references (Hey, Marty McFly invented rock ’n’ roll!), you almost lose the fact that you’re in a plot rich in science fiction. And that’s fine; few rides are this enjoyable. — Rob Edelstein
93%
8.5
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The Matrix
Moviegoers swallowed the red pill and saw something extraordinary in this cyberpunk cinematic masterpiece from the Wachowskis. Neo (Keanu Reeves), Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss) shot it out with Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) in the digital reality simulation of the Matrix. Along with intense gun battles and sleek martial arts choreography, The Matrix introduced “bullet time” slo-mo special effects, a distinctive techno-noir aesthetic (the iconic green digital code rain) and an immersive universe within the man vs. machine dystopia genre. It’s been 25 years since the film entered our collective consciousness, and real-life advances in tech and AI have us counting down the days until the machines plug us all into pods of nutrient goo.
83%
8.7
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Alien
Give extra points to Ridley Scott’s jump scare-filled corker for having one of the most memorable taglines ever: “In space, no one can hear you scream.” In movie theaters, of course, the shrieks were deafening, as a distress signal interrupts the space tug Nostromo’s routine flight back to Earth, and the crew takes a mysterious face-hugging creature onboard after it attaches itself to crewman Kane (John Hurt). After the alien detaches (secretly leaving an incubating embryo behind), Kane is fine … until that infamous lunch scene that will put you off your food.
The birthed alien is now free to roam about the cabin, killing at will until our hero — Ripley (Sigourney Weaver in her breakthrough role) — discovers the ugly twist in the story and finds the means to dispatch it. Also of note: Like in Jaws, you really don’t get a full glimpse of the monster until the very end … and it’s worth the icky wait.
98%
8.5
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The best way to describe this film’s influence is to speak about beginnings and endings. First, the Planet of the Apes franchise is up to 10 films (the latest, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, came out May 10, 2024), two TV series and more. That all started with this film (loosely based on Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel) in which a trio of astronauts discover a world where apes have evolved into intelligent, speaking creatures and humans are mute. (The honorary Oscar-winning prosthetic makeup was truly remarkable.) The astronauts have traveled some 2,000 years into the future, and Taylor (Charlton Heston) shocks the apes with his abilities — and the danger he appears to pose.
All the action here leads to one of the most startling endings ever, originally concocted by co-screenwriter/Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling. After escaping from the apes, Taylor enters the Forbidden Zone and discovers a half-buried, destroyed Statue of Liberty. “Oh my God,” he declares in horror, “I’m back; I’m home. … You blew it up!” — Rob Edelstein
87%
8
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This Best Picture Oscar-nominated sci-fi/fantasy from Best Director nominee Steven Spielberg became an instant blockbuster upon its theatrical debut, surpassing Star Wars to become, at the time, the highest-grossing film in history (it’s still in the top 30 among the highest-grossing U.S. releases ever). The charming, exciting and emotional tale about a boy (Henry Thomas) who befriends a stranded alien and helps him find a way back home while avoiding government agents and scientists won plenty of hearts and four Academy Awards, including ones for its visual effects that brought E.T. to life, and its stirring musical score by John Williams. Thanks to Melissa Mathison’s Oscar-nominated screenplay, and Spielberg’s ability to elicit wonderful performances from his child stars — including Robert MacNaughton and a 6-year-old Drew Barrymore along with Thomas — E.T. has endured as a classic whose magic not even an infamous Atari 2600 video game adaptation nor an ill-advised 20th anniversary “special edition” release of the film could tarnish. — Jeff Pfeiffer
99%
7.9
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Film composer John Williams has won five Oscars, but he may be just as well known in pop culture for the five-note musical phrase from this monumental sci-fi classic, used by scientists to communicate with an alien spaceship.
The plot is as old as the genre itself — humans encountering UFOs. But with the story told through the eyes of increasingly agitated and perennially curious regular guy Roy Neary (a perfectly cast Richard Dreyfuss), it takes on a greater resonance, suggesting Roy could be you or me. Disturbing his family with mountain-making histrionics (using, at one point, mashed potatoes), Roy finds himself led to the Devils Tower in Wyoming he’s been visualizing, where contact is eventually made. That’s when Roy himself becomes part of the most incredible foreign exchange program in the universe. This is a true Steven Spielberg gem.
94%
7.6
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The movie Star Wars famously created the franchise in 1977; however, this middle film in the original Star Wars trilogy is acknowledged for widening the canon’s dark, full story. With The Empire Strikes Back, we learn that all of Star Wars is essentially about a bunch of characters with incredibly complicated daddy issues.
Sci-fi-wise, the Force is put on beautiful display as we meet Jedi Master Yoda, who schools Luke Skywalker in theory and practice even as Luke struggles between learning his craft and saving his friends Han and Leia from the continued deadly threat of Darth Vader. But the beauty of Empire is how it leaves you hanging after two great lines of dialogue. Han is frozen in carbonite by Darth Vader after Leia tells him she loves him (“I know,” he famously replies). And of course, there is that stunning reveal by Darth to Luke during their lightsaber battle: “I am your father.” — Rob Edelstein
95%
8.7
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Well … he said he’d be back! In a great sequel that came out even better than a terrific original (see No. 3 Aliens for another example), Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to the past, this time, shockingly, to protect both the teen set to one day become the dystopian future’s great leader (Edward Furlong) and his buffed-out mom (Linda Hamilton) from a menacing machine (Robert Patrick) who is a more refined and deadly cyborg model than Ah-nold.
What makes this female-empowerment classic such a standout — and the second James Cameron film in the Top 5 of our sci-fi list? First, the beautifully fluid plot uses the different Terminator models to showcase how the future revolution evolves, and why keeping the young John Connor alive is the key to everything. And second, this film has unparalleled Oscar-winning special effects that, more than three decades later, remain eye-popping. Robert Patrick’s T-1000 absorbing bullets and extending his metallic arm like a sword are unforgettable.
91%
8.6
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Star Wars
A long time ago (47 years now), this granddaddy of the most important sci-fi franchise in film history premiered as one beautifully satisfying epic adventure. Writer/director George Lucas wanted to make something that looked like a Flash Gordon-esque serial; he did that while also creating an instantly re-re-rewatchable movie, changing the culture in its space fuel wake.
The incredible special effects needed to make this gave birth to the industry-defining company Industrial Light & Magic. But the star is still the story, which borrowed concepts from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Young Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) searches for Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), a Jedi Master of the Force that guides all beings. Luke, with space cowboy Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and sidekick Chewbacca at his side — and guided by the film’s real hero, droid R2-D2 — helps Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) out of one heck of a space jam, generated by the Death Star and the dark Sith Lord, Darth Vader. It’s terrific fun.
93%
8.6
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Aliens
Two angry moms with a horrific amount of unfinished business? No, it’s not your last family Thanksgiving; it’s James Cameron’s toweringly tense, violent and shocking sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien. In the film that truly set Sigourney Weaver up for action hero stardom, she’s back as Ripley, who, waking up after 57 years in stasis, agrees to go back to the scene of the facehugger attack, only to discover that the corporation in charge has lied to her about their intentions, which are to recover the killers for use as bioweapons despite their destruction of a space colony.
But the crux of the tale is, Ripley has discovered a young girl from the destroyed colony, nicknaming her Newt, and their bond grows strong while Ripley battles the monster. At one point, she destroys all the alien eggs, enraging the queen and setting up the astounding finale. Also of note: Lance Henriksen’s terrific portrayal as the android Bishop. —Rob Edelstein
98%
8.4
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Blade Runner
A slow burn in more ways than one, Ridley Scott’s neo-noir adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? takes time to get going and took several years (plus multiple directors’ cuts) for fans to embrace its brilliance. Set in a rain-soaked, tech-drenched dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, the film stars Harrison Ford in a melancholic tour de force as Deckard, a grizzled cop tasked with “retiring” rogue replicants created by the space-colonizing Tyrell Corporation. But as these cyborgs — including “pleasure model” Pris (Daryl Hannah), her lover, Roy Batty (a brutally villainous Rutger Hauer), and Deckard’s own paramour, Rachael (Sean Young) — lead him through a serpentine mystery, it becomes clear that nobody is as they seem … especially the ones who seem the most human.
88%
8.1
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Director Stanley Kubrick’s ambition was to create “the proverbial ‘really good’ science fiction movie.” Instead, he made the form’s true masterwork. Inspired by an Arthur C. Clarke story and featuring Oscar-winning special effects that still hold up, the film is astonishing, baffling, grand in its plot about a strange space mission to Jupiter and famously mind-blowing — in other words, perfect science fiction.
In so many set pieces, it soars unforgettably. The opening with prehistoric tribes reacting to a strange monolith as “Also sprach Zarathustra” pounds through the soundtrack, the zero gravity effects and rotating sets, the wily computer HAL with its own programmed purpose in mind being dismantled by the astronaut Dave (Keir Dullea) as it sings “Daisy,” and Dave’s hallucination-like flight through the Star Gate’s shooting lights. Then, finally, that crazy ending, with Dave discovering older and then reborn versions of himself, clueing us all in to a new, more sublime universe. What does it all mean? Who knows! But it is truly stunning.
92%
8.3
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Do you agree with our ranking? What did we get wrong and what did we miss completely? Let us know in the comments!