1001 SFF movies you must see before you die

[Vladd67]

Wasn't Them the giant ant film with Joan Collins?

 

[Happy Joe]

Yep! Giant ants... not certain about Joan Collins.

Heres another;
Thief of Baghdad 1940 (B&W); definitely fantasy giant flying genie, magic lamp, giant cave spider (thought these had gone extinct until LOTR ROTK).

Enjoy!

 

[Lenny]

On the Sci-Fi front (because I've been watching a lot of it recently):

I second Alien/Aliens and Logan's Run (which I watched yesterday - brilliant!).

Event Horizon is daft, but has some very nice Sci-Fi aspects to it, and the horror is amusing. Reminded me of Solaris, slightly.

Currently watching Contact, and it's keeping me entertained for the time-being.

A stranger to the Firefly universe, I watched Serenity yesterday, but my disability didn't stop me from enjoying it immensely.

Gilliam's Brazil is a fantastic vision of a dystopian future filled with ducts.

And two more to add to the mix, which I don't think have been suggested yet: the recent films Moon and District 9. Moon is a brilliant return to the slow SF of the 1970s and keeps you thinking right to the end, and District 9 is a wonderfully thought-provoking aliens-on-earth spectacle.

 

[Rothgar]

A stranger to the Firefly universe, I watched Serenity yesterday, but my disability didn't stop me from enjoying it immensely.

Most definitely catch Firefly when you have a chance, you'll enjoy Serenity twice as much when you learn the history of the characters.

 

[clovis-man]

I would have to approach this list in chronological order, i.e., when I first saw them.

War of the Worlds - 1953, the George Pal version. In "updating" the Wells tale, Pal created a tangible alien menace. Never mind how primitive the special effects were by today's standards. It was a true classic among the many films of that era.

Forbidden Planet - 1956. I stayed in the theater all afternoon and watched it three or four times. A space opera take on Shakespeare's Tempest, the story and the film "magic" (including some Disney help with the monster) were special. An adventurous techno musical score added to the feeling that you were really in the future.

2001, A Space Odyssey - 1968. Arguably Kubrick's greatest achievement, his quest for realism in portraying a mind-bending screen scenario was unlike anything ever put on the screen to that point. The tale of humankind's encounter with a vast and inscrutible alien intelligence is one for the ages. Full credit, of course, to Arthur C. Clarke, whose short story, "The Sentinel", was the inspiration.

Star Wars - 1977. After the cynicism of the 1960s and early 1970s, this movie was a breath of fresh air. With a heroic score by John Williams to underpin the tale, the early CGI effects were magical for those of us who had never seen anything like it. And the story was epic.

I would be hard pressed to name any other SF films that had such impact on the genre. There are many that I like, e.g., Things To Come (1936),When Worlds Collide, This Island Earth, The Thing From Another World (1951), The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), It Came From Outer Space, Bladerunner, The Fifth Element and many more, including the LOTR trilogy. But none of them represents the ground-breaking impact of the first four IMHO.



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[Rodders]

Considering the feedback we've been getting, i guess we should add Avatar to this list.

 

[blacknorth]

A few of my personal favourites and some recommends -

Solaris - original. Yum.

Village of the Damned (1960) - easily.

The Night Caller (1965) - effective little low-budget English movie with a great cast kicking the material upstairs.

Quatermass And The Pit (1967) - the best of Nigel Kneale's epic series.

Fahrenheit 451 (1966) - Trauffaut's film of Bradbury's novel is simply beautiful and is helped a lot by Oskar Werner and his dispute with the director, the actor going so far as to cut his hair during filming to mess with the chronology.

Also we shouldn't forget that many Soviet and East European sf films are at last finding their way into the West, mainly because of the interweb. Some of these are stunning. If you get a chance over the holidays, check out these uploads at youtube:


YouTube - Pilot Pirx's Test (English subtitles). Part 1/9.

Test Pilot Pirxa - A major corporation produces human-like robots; however, the public opinion, the media and the trade unions oppose it. A decision is made to conduct an experiment. An experienced pilot is to fly a spaceship to Saturn and launch two artificial satellites from there. The crew will be made up of androids, and the commander must evaluate the work of his unusual team.


YouTube - The Planet of Storms (English subtitles). Part 1/8.

The Planet of Storms - On a planet Venus goes joint Soviet-American expedition on three spaceships. One of the ships perishes at collision with a meteorite. The remained crews make decision to make landing on Venus and left on an orbit only one person for support of communication with the Earth.


YouTube - To the Stars by Hard Ways (English subtitles). Part 1/2 (1/7).

To The Stars By Hard Ways - XXIII century. A reconnaissance starship discovers a dead alien spaceship of unknown origin in deep space. The crew are found to be humanoid bodies, made by an advanced cloning process. One humanoid woman appears to be alive but has memory loss and is brought back to Earth. Scientist Sergei Lebedev settles her in his own house and names her Neeya. Some time later, Neeya finds out that she has supernatural abilities...


YouTube - Nine Days of One Year (English subtitles). Part 1 of 10.

Nine Days of One Year - Two young nuclear scientists, the possessed experimentator Gusev and the skeptical theoretician-physicist Kulikov, are old friends, both in love with the same girl, Lyolia. In the course of his scientific experiments, Gusev gets a possibly fatal dose of radiation...


YouTube - Letters from a Dead Man (English subtitles). Part 1/8.

Letters From A Dead Man - The world after the nuclear apocalypse. Pale light of the scenery of total destruction. The surviving humans vegetate in wet cellars under the nuclear winter...

 

[gully_foyle]

Robocop - Few people make the Shakespeare link with Verhoeven's retelling of the Hamlet tale as the ghost of Alex Murphy pushes his cyborg persona down the path of violent vengeance. The big clue is the last words uttered to Alex Murphy "Goodnight sweet prince". When I first saw this movie in the late 80s it absolutely blew my mind. The story was Shakespearean tragedy, the script was sharp and funny, the violence unrestrained yet not unrelenting, the baddies just plain cruel and the robot effects (i.e. ED209) were wonderful.

 

[thepaladin]

Robocop is a pretty good movie. I think it suffers from it's "sequels".

 

[clovis-man]

Heres another;
Thief of Baghdad 1940 (B&W); definitely fantasy giant flying genie, magic lamp, giant cave spider (thought these had gone extinct until LOTR ROTK).

A very enjoyable (and dare I say "classic") film from Zoltan and Alexander Korda. Featuring Sabu in the title role, it was a technicolor delight with a wonderful score by Miklos Rozsa. Conrad Veidt was featured in the best villain role he's had (even better than Casablanca). June Duprez and John Justin were appropriately romantic and diminutive British character actor, Mary Morris, was convincing as Halima (Note the towering head-gear she wore that made her seem more normal in stature). And not to be forgotten is the role of the Djinn as played by Rex Ingram.

A fabulous movie.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Too many of the films that came to mind immediately have already been mentioned, so I'll just second those, before I mention a couple that no one else has listed yet.

So an enthusiastic second to:

These are among my favorite movies of any genre:
Quatermass and the Pit (when I saw it, it was called 5 Million Years to Earth)
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Galaxy Quest

And then there are:
Invaders From Mars (original), although I like the American ending better than the UK ending
Metropolis
Silent Running
War of the Worlds (original)
When Worlds Collide
Star Wars (the original three films only)
LotR

As for my contributions:

Science-fiction: The Blob (original), which is not great film-making, but it's fun, it touches all the right bases. And it has Steve McQueen in it.

Fantasy: Field of Dreams. Yes, they sold it as a baseball movie. And it is that. But it is even more than that a fantasy film, and a very, very good one. I think it gets short shrift as a fantasy because it takes place in the present, more or less in the real world, and it has sports in it.

 

[Happy Joe]

There may be higher forces at work here; on reviewing my lists yesterday I was wondering about the availability of the old Quateremass movies (classics, IMO).

I did come up with another giant spider movie (I'm not really hung up on these, honest); Tarantula; starring Leo G. Carroll of "Topper" fame.

Let us not forget the various Jules Verne adaptations; 20,000 leagues... Mysterious Island, and the late 50s/early 60s Journey to the Center of the Earth; not greats, but entertaining.
Then there are the various H. G. Wells stories; Invisible man, Island or Dr Moreau, The First Men in the moon.

Enjoy!

(Edit); I almost forgot; The Three Stooges in Orbit...

 

[Rodders]

Althought it's always considered a Horror movie, i always thought that John Carpenters "the Thing" had enough Sci-Fi elements to make it in to the top SF movies ever.

 

[Lenny]

I film I got today on Blu-ray was Total Recall. I've heard of it, but never knew it was considered a real classic. What are the thoughts of others - is it good enough to merit being called a classic, and one you must see before you pop your clogs?

 

[Rodders]

Total Recall. I'd say that qualified as a classic. Paul Verghoeven was brilliant in the day.

The PKD story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" was better though. A Truly great ending.

 

[littlemissattitude]

I film I got today on Blu-ray was Total Recall. I've heard of it, but never knew it was considered a real classic. What are the thoughts of others - is it good enough to merit being called a classic, and one you must see before you pop your clogs?

It must have something going for it. I can watch it despite the presence of Arnold S....no way I'm going to tackle spelling his last name; how sad is it that I can't even spell the name of the Governor or my own state?

But, yes, I think it probably qualifies for the list here.

 

[thepaladin]

Another one I forgot, the critics hated it but I think it's one of those movies that says a lot without speaking much (especially since the star only says 79 words in the whole film):
Soldier

 

[clovis-man]

Another one I forgot, the critics hated it but I think it's one of those movies that says a lot without speaking much (especially since the star only says 79 words in the whole film):
Soldier

The one with Kurt Russell. I do think it was underrated.

 

[reiver33]

Yeah, I liked 'Soldier' - but then I like 'Escape From New York' as well...

Oh, and the following;

Event Horizon
Pitch Black
Bladerunner
Star Wars (the original)
Alien/Aliens
The Thing ('Man is the warmest place to hide')

 

[Happy Joe]

Soldier; a favorite of mine...

How about some of the cutesy flicks;
Batteries Not Included,
Short Circuit (1 and 2)
Gremlins,
Toy Soldiers
more recently; WALLE

Not greats but enjoyable...

Enjoy!