by William Moon

NOTE: This article originally ran on scifigangstas.com in July 2021

Well, why not? I should note that this list is just my opinion, and the larger Sci-Fi Gangstas team reserves the right to their own views on the subject (possibly we may hear those views at some point in the future). With movies returning to theaters and the Hollywood machine cranking back up (hopefully for good, but let’s just keep our fingers crossed), this felt like a good time to look backward and really dig into this genre’s history before the merry-go-round starts spinning again. I’d seen the bulk of the movies I considered for inclusion before I decided to do this, but the project also pushed me to see a whole slew of films I probably would never have made the time for otherwise, which ended up being a lot of fun. Several of those movies surprised me and ended up making the cut, and even the ones that didn’t were still generally rewarding viewing. So, basically, this isn’t just an exercise in self-indulgence, self-indulgent though it may be.

Science fiction is a vast genre with a variety of definitions. Full disclosure – the hardest part about writing this list was defining what would and wouldn’t count for it. I originally intended to include pretty much anything that could pass for sci-fi, but in the end, if only for my sanity’s sake, some lines had to be drawn. The biggest one was the general exclusion of comic book movies, which has been a fairly consistent rule in many of the other sci-fi lists I’ve run across. For pedantic reasons, it’s because the sci-fi characters share universes with characters drawn from other genres like fantasy and noir. For practical reasons, it’s because the comic book genre has really become an animal all its own, and I don’t really want to have to explain why I don’t have, like, 15 MCU movies on here. (Note – films adapted from comic strips and sci-fi magazines are allowed, which is an arbitrary distinction I know, but like I said, lines had to be drawn.)

Otherwise, movies were considered on a case-by-case basis (with the caveat that this includes theatrical releases only, at least up until the pandemic era inclusion of streaming films, and that films had to be at least an hour long, which ruled out two wonderful short films, Georges Méliès’ timeless 1902 classic A Trip to the Moon and Chris Marker’s excellent La Jetée, which would go on to be the basis for both the film and TV series versions of 12 Monkeys). Genre-straddling movies were mostly allowed in, and the end result is what I hope will read to you as a very diverse group of films, with big Hollywood blockbusters, microbudget indies, silent films, horror films, international films, comedies, musicals, children’s movies, midnight movies, and probably a few other subgenres that I can’t recall at the moment all being included. Paring down to 100 was quite difficult, and owing to that, we’ll start with the ones that just missed.

Honorable Mention

Here are the 30 movies that just missed the list. They’re presented in chronological release order.

• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931, dir: Rouben Mamoulian) – Fredric March’s performance in the title roles won him the Best Actor Oscar, the first ever given out for either a sci-fi or a horror film and which is exceedingly rare to this day. The single-take transformations were a marvel at the time, and Rouben Mamoulian was cagey about how they were achieved until shortly before his death. (Also the pronunciation of Jekyll as “JEE-kull” is apparently correct. Who knew?)

• The Invisible Man (1933, dir: James Whale) – in between genre-redefining Frankenstein films, James Whale collaborated with the great Claude Rains on this early H.G. Wells adaptation. Rains is, duh, barely seen, but he makes quite an impression as the surprisingly ruthless title character.

• The Thing from Another World (1951, dir: Christian Nyby) – an early ’50s B-movie classic, Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks’ loose adaptation of John Campbell’s Who Goes There? inspired many, particularly John Carpenter, who would more faithfully adapt the story in 1982. That’s Gunsmoke‘s James Arness as the monster, and this won’t be his only B-movie to show up on the list.

• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954, dir: Richard Fleischer) – though Kirk Douglas was the main attraction, it’s James Mason’s very James Mason-y performance as Captain Nemo that dominates Walt Disney’s take on the Jules Verne classic. That and the squid attack, of course. A remake has been languishing in development hell for an eternity now, but fingers crossed that somebody finally takes the (prodigious) risk and gets it made.

• The Quatermass Xperiment (1955, dir: Val Guest) – Hammer Studios’ theatrical take on the acclaimed BBC miniseries, this film’s success pivoted the studio towards sci-fi and horror, which would prove very fruitful. Between the various miniseries and films, the Quatermass franchise was a major influence on no less than Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, and John Carpenter, among others.

• The Curse of Frankenstein (1957, dir: Terence Fisher) – Hammer Studios would strike further gold with this riff on Mary Shelley’s genre-birthing novel, teaming up horror icons Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee for the first time and establishing a gothic formula the studio would ride for years to come.

• Quatermass and the Pit (1967, dir: Roy Ward Baker) – probably the most ambitious and satisfying story in the Quatermass series, this pared-down adaptation of Nigel Kneale’s third BBC miniseries keeps most of the best parts and casts a more appropriate actor in the title role. And after a mildly sluggish first two acts, the finale is a doozy.

• Planet of the Apes (1968, dir: Franklin J. Schaffner) – the first entry in a series that now spans half a century, this movie is a lot weirder than you probably remember, with a particularly bonkers lead performance from Charlton Heston. Over-the-top was pretty much his default setting anyway, but this was over-the-top even by his own standards.

• Dark Star (1974, dir: John Carpenter) – John Carpenter’s microbudget debut, this is the movie that dares pass a spray-painted beach ball off as an alien. It “succeeds”. But its extremely indie status isn’t the only thing that sets this loopy flick apart from the rest of its director’s celebrated filmography.

• The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976, dir: Nicolas Roeg) – David Bowie was near the apex of his otherworldliness around the time of this film’s release, but his offbeat lead performance is but one element in Nicolas Roeg’s bizarre, sexual sci-fi trip. Also Rip Torn is here, and we’ve never, as a society, truly appreciated just how intensely weird that guy was.

• Mad Max (1979, dir: George Miller) – this hyperviolent car chase thriller launched an unlikely franchise and the careers of both its director and star (for better or worse in that last case). Later entries would refine and amp up the balletic chaos on display here, with the late Hugh Keays-Byrne (who plays the sadistic Toecutter here) eventually returning as an entirely different lead villain in Mad Max: Fury Road over 35 years later.

• Repo Man (1984, dir: Alex Cox) – sci-fi punk was a thing in the ’80s (both on film and in the music itself), and Alex Cox’s directorial debut is a wonderfully weird riff on pretty much everything about Reagan’s America, with a fresh-faced Emilio Estevez in the lead and character actor icon Harry Dean Stanton alongside him.

• Dune (1984, dir: David Lynch) – the end result of over a decade of aborted attempts to film the likely unfilmable (though we’ll see how Denis Villeneuve fares later this year), David Lynch does some David Lynch things to Frank Herbert’s dense epic. Decades on, no one’s quite sure if he should’ve done more Lynch things or less, but the largely baffling results are rewarding in their own very unique way.

• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986, dir: Leonard Nimoy) – an unexpected box office powerhouse, Star Trek IV accomplished a lot – it closed off the unofficial trilogy that began with Star Trek II, it reinvigorated interest in the franchise and thus paved the way for more TV shows, and it was also legitimately funny, an area where Trek has often struggled mightily.

• Spaceballs (1987, dir: Mel Brooks) – speaking of funny, Spaceballs isn’t quite on par with Mel Brooks’ classics, but it’s still quite enjoyable, with inspired gags including ludicrous speed, the movie within a movie, and the insanity that breaks out in the climax. Also Bill Pullman’s never gotten enough credit for his comic timing.

• Strange Days (1995, dir: Kathryn Bigelow) – co-written and produced by James Cameron and directed by Kathryn Bigelow (a pair who’d already been married and divorced by this point), Strange Days tanked at the box office, but stands now as an intriguing example of mid to late-’90s sci-fi, which was often about identity and pre-millennial unease. While Bigelow has gone on to become an Oscar-winner, this film and the ’80s horror Western Near Dark may be the most interesting movies she’s yet made.

• Event Horizon (1997, dir: Paul W.S. Anderson) – one of the grimmest movies included in this list, Event Horizon plays as a cross between Alien and Hellraiser. What recommends it most are Paul W.S. Anderson’s steady direction (he’s a schlockmaster, but a reliable schlockmaster) and an overqualified cast led by Laurence Fishburne and a supremely creepy Sam Neill, an actor who always elevates anything he’s in.

• Dark City (1998, dir: Alex Proyas) – probably the very definition of the term “neo-noir”, Dark City looks really cool, features the guy who wrote The Rocky Horror Picture Show as its main villain (?!), and in some ways was The Matrix before The Matrix, just with less super slow motion. Hey, speaking of…

• The Matrix (1999, dir: Lana Wachowski/Lilly Wachowski) – time (and its own sequels) may not have been terribly kind to this film, but the original Matrix stills occupies quite a large space in our pop culture even now, with some of its then-revolutionary action staging techniques still in use, plus its role in bringing together the main drivers behind multiple modern action series, particularly John Wick.

• Donnie Darko (2001, dir: Richard Kelly) – like The Matrix, the legacy of Donnie Darko has fluctuated over time, as one would expect from a movie that shifts between being very good and very bad as often as this one does, but its sprawling cast and wonky plot still hold a unique place in the film landscape. And the choice ’80s music cues still hit as hard as they did 20 years ago.

• Serenity (2005, dir: Joss Whedon) – still an oddity in the film world (a feature film extension of a cancelled TV show, like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, except it didn’t successfully relaunch the franchise), Serenity‘s legacy is further complicated by the shattered reputation of its once revered writer/director. On its own, it’s a fun space Western with some heavy plot beats, and I’ll just leave it at that.

• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009, dir: Phil Lord/Christopher Miller) – very loosely sci-fi and even more loosely adapted from Judi and Ron Barrett’s children’s book of the same name, this film established Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as filmmakers to watch, and they’ve gone on a great run since. Also, the movie itself is highly enjoyable. (Plus, its cast includes the incredibly mismatched quartet of Bill Hader, James Caan, Bruce Campbell, and Mr. T.)

• Inception (2010, dir: Christopher Nolan) – nestled in between billion-dollar Batman films, Christopher Nolan’s visually inventive, extremely densely plotted blockbuster has some bravura sequences (most notably Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s hallway fight scene) that stand out in one of the most exposition-heavy films of all time.

• The World’s End (2013, dir: Edgar Wright) – the third and probably weakest entry in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Cornetto trilogy, The World’s End is still a lot of fun, with Pegg and co-star Nick Frost somewhat swapping roles from the first two entries and Pierce Brosnan memorably popping up to deliver ominous exposition. Also Rosamund Pike is always welcome.

• 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016, dir: Dan Trachtenberg) – where the first Cloverfield was a largely decent, very well-marketed monster flick, this spiritual sequel (or whatever they want to call it) is a far, far better movie. Mostly a three-hander starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr. and a particularly excellent John Goodman, its presence on this list sort of spoils the main conceit of the film, but the real drama plays out between the three stars, monsters be damned.

• Annihilation (2018, dir: Alex Garland) – Scottish filmmaker Alex Garland specializes in these kinds of movies, and while Annihilation isn’t his best, it’s still a huge movie packed into a modest 115-minute running time. I’m not sure everything works, but the parts that do (the bear-monster scene, Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow’s score) really work. And the cast is strong, even while acknowledging the whitewashing controversy that accompanied the film.

• Isle of Dogs (2018, dir: Wes Anderson) – Wes Anderson’s odd stop-motion comedy generated a lot of mixed reactions when it came out, but all his usual strengths are on display here, in service of a story that’s just a bit stranger than what we’ve seen in his other films. Debates about homage vs. cultural appropriation have divided critics in the West and in Japan, but beyond that, the film is a departure for the filmmaker, but also still somehow a movie only he could make.

• Upgrade (2018, dir: Leigh Whannell) – a microbudgeted sci-fi action flick, Upgrade goes through some occasionally rough tonal shifts, but it also features a double-twist ending that reframes everything that came before it. I’m not sure it quite saves the film completely, if it even needed saving, nor is it likely to be the biggest shock you’ve ever gotten from a movie, but it does give the story it’s telling a little extra oomph in these days of ubiquitous technology.

• The Vast of Night (2019, dir: Andrew Patterson) – another microbudget, another underdog success story. The Vast of Night technically came out in 2019, but saw its profile raised considerably when Amazon Prime began streaming it just after the Covid lockdowns started the following year. The seams show from time to time, but the film does a great job of establishing its mid-century setting and giving you a feel for the place and the people, which a lot of genre films barely bother to do.

• The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021, dir: Mike Rianda/Jeff Rowe) – the most recent film on the list, this Netflix streamer has the distinct imprint of producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller on it, but feels like a personal story for its writers/directors Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe. If Upgrade was a darkly comic, small-scale take on technology’s place in modern life, this film is an overtly comic, large-scale take on the same subject, with room for plenty of family warmth as well.

The List

All right, let’s dive in. Do a few vocal exercises before we launch into number 100.

100. Flash Gordon (1980, dir: Mike Hodges)

An admittedly sentimental choice, the Dino De Laurentiis-produced Flash Gordon adaptation is occasionally baffling, often horny on main, and always cheesy. The credited screenwriter, Lorenzo Semple Jr., is the same guy who was the principal writer for the ’60s Batman TV series, and this movie plays a lot like an episode of that show mixed with a low-grade acid flashback. But while some of the elements are at best campy fun (Sam Jones’ and Melody Anderson’s lead performances in particular), the supporting cast, many of the wild sets and costumes, and the bitchin’ Queen soundtrack all work to make this an indelibly, enjoyably strange movie. No movie can be bad that includes the voices of Freddie Mercury, Max von Sydow, and Brian Blessed. (That last clip also features Queen’s kick-ass “Battle Theme”, which is the perfect space laser battle music cue.)

99. Them! (1954, dir: Gordon Douglas)

Perhaps the thing I gained the most out of this project was a greater appreciation for mid-century B-movies, not just as corny fun, but often as notable films in their own right. Them! is a great example. On the surface, it’s a movie about giant atomic ants rampaging through the American Southwest (and eventually Los Angeles), but despite that ludicrous concept, the film mostly plays it straight, with credible performances and a generally serious (but not too serious) tone. Decades before he broke our hearts as The Shawshank Redemption‘s aging librarian Brooks, James Whitmore plays a brave New Mexico state trooper who stumbles into a pulpy nightmare. In the role that (via a recommendation from John Wayne) earned him a career-making spot on Gunsmoke, James Arness does more solid B-movie work as the G-man called in to assist. Giant ants aside, though, the really unbelievable element on display here is the calm, effective multi-agency government response.

98. The Fountain (2006, dir: Darren Aronofsky)

Somewhat typical of a Darren Aronofsky film, The Fountain skirts between multiple genres, but I’m counting it as sci-fi mostly on the basis of the least sci-fi section of the film (the 16th century Tree of Life bit) being part of a book written by a character in another segment. Aronofsky initially planned this as a bigger-budget project with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett set to star, but when that fell through, he scraped together what money he could and did it on the relative cheap, with some inventive special effects on display in the future sequences. Hugh Jackman does well playing the three variations of the lead, and the always underappreciated Rachel Weisz is suitably ethereal as Jackman’s haunting, doomed lover. The film perhaps overreaches its grasp (I mean, it’s pretty much literally about life and death), which also isn’t unusual for Aronofsky, but I tend to appreciate the ambition in projects like this, even if they only get most of the way to where they’re trying to go.

97. The Blob (1958, dir: Irvin Yeaworth Jr)

A definitive ’50s B-movie, The Blob was actually (very loosely) based on a real incident involving Philly cops coming across a gelatinous dome that immediately dissolved into goop when they touched it. (Apparently this stuff is called star jelly, and it’s still pretty mysterious.) The film adaptation – which was originally going to be titled The Glob, which for reasons I can’t explain seems like a much worse title than The Blob – is an exemplar of the ’50s plot where the youth of America teams up with the authorities to combat whatever creeping terror and/or blunt Cold War metaphor comes their way. The biggest win for this particular entry in the genre (besides the simple yet highly effective monster) is the presence of a very young Steve McQueen as the intrepid male lead, the first lead role in what would become a legendary career. The film inspired a goofy, belated sequel in 1972 and a solid, grody remake in 1988, in which the authorities are far less trustworthy than they are here.

96. High Life (2018, dir: Claire Denis)

The English-language debut of acclaimed French filmmaker Claire Denis, High Life features a strong central performance from future Batman Robert Pattinson, along with a solid supporting cast which includes Outkast’s André 3000. But the movie, by far, belongs to the great Juliette Binoche. Playing a disgraced doctor on board a spaceship full of prisoners that’s been sent on what certainly seems like a one-way trip toward a black hole, Binoche defines the film’s at times uncomfortable mixture of sexuality and danger, starring in a breathtaking solo sex scene (it feels reductive to call it a masturbation scene) and consistently providing an intensely weird, intensely hot energy throughout, which plays particularly well against Pattinson’s overriding calmness. As much as there’s an overarching plot to the film (or purpose to the mission the crew has been sent on), I suppose it comes down to the ability to create life amidst death, even among the damned.

95. The Day of the Triffids (1962, dir: Steve Sekely)

Much like Them! at number 99, the plot of The Day of the Triffids is baldly absurd, with an alien horde of giant killer plants invading Earth under cover of a meteor shower. What’s stunning about the movie, and what allows it to rise above its modest roots (pun intended), is the coldly efficient way in which the invaders are able to waylay the vast majority of humanity basically overnight. The stunning colors of the meteor shower induce blindness in anyone who witnessed them, which incapacitates almost everyone on the planet, grinding civilization to pretty quick halt. The few who somehow managed to avoid the light show are left to pick up the pieces, with the early quasi-deserted London sequences being particularly influential on many future sci-fi and horror films, particularly Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later…

94. Idiocracy (2006, dir: Mike Judge)

Mike Judge’s cult classic has had a strange journey since it first hit theaters back in ’06. Initially, it was basically buried by 20th Century Fox for vague reasons which may have had to do with negative test screenings and/or corporate displeasure with the way many real companies are mocked in the film. Then the film gained steam as a cult classic on the strength of its reasonably strong reviews. That led to it being featured in one of the all-time great hot take internet articles, which went viral on more than occasion after it was first published in 2014. Then the 2016 Presidential election came. Among the many things it changed forever was the profile of this goofy sci-fi comedy, as it first became a half-ass punchline used by seemingly anyone to describe seemingly anything that they felt superior to during the Trump years. That also led to a predictable backlash, with Gizmodo’s eugenics argument being picked up by other outlets. (The subheading on that Vice article literally says, “You know who’d find the movie hilarious? Hitler.”) What a strange ride. Through all that, you have a movie that’s legitimately funny (especially Terry Crews’ performance as the President), maybe not as thought-through as it could’ve been, but also something that we could all stand to quit blogging about for a while.

93. Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989, dir: Shinya Tsukamoto)

Shinya Tsukamoto’s Japanese cult classic is the shortest movie on this list at just over an hour, which is convenient because I don’t know how much longer something this disturbingly WTF could stand to be. The film – which was extraordinarily difficult to make, to the point that the three main stars were basically the only crew left by the time it was finished – became a cult classic shortly after release and eventually spawned multiple sequels. There’s plenty of talent and ingenuity on display here, and the strong body horror elements are strangely hypnotic in their own way. The version I watched didn’t come with subtitles, but I’m not sure if that really would’ve made much difference. It’s a remarkably visual and aural film, with some disconcertingly effective stop-motion utilized toward the end and Chu Ishikawa’s clanking score further amping up the industrial atmosphere. It’s a good movie, perhaps even great, but definitely revolting, which was sort of the mission statement of the ’80s body horror movement.

92. Blade Runner 2049 (2017, dir: Denis Villeneuve)

One of many belated sci-fi sequels of the ’10s, Blade Runner 2049 will go down in history, perhaps if for no other reason, as the movie that cinematography icon Roger Deakins finally won his Oscar for. (He’s won another since for 1917.) Deakins is arguably the GOAT in his field, and it was very satisfying to see him finally break through for his work on a film that I’d been waiting so long to see. And as much as Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling getting punched by Harrison Ford, or an effectively loopy Jared Leto were the supposed stars of this picture, this was Deakins’ show all the way. The cinematography here is downright orgiastic, with Deakins and director Denis Villeneuve treating us to perfect shot after perfect shot throughout the film’s bloated 2 hour and 40 minute-plus run time. While the movie on the whole doesn’t quite replicate the era-defining majesty of its predecessor (for one thing, it’s a much plottier movie than the original, which makes it feel different right away), it’s still a worthwhile genre exercise for its look alone. Add in movie-stealing performances from Ana de Armas (as the holographic girlfriend Joi) and Sylvia Hoeks (as the brutal replicant Luv), and you have a worthy entry into the Blade Runner canon.

91. Gravity (2013, dir: Alfonso Cuaron)

Alfonso Cuaron cemented his standing as one of this generation’s finest filmmakers with this multiple Oscar-winning space adventure. A white-knuckle thrill ride of a movie, the making of Gravity really put star Sandra Bullock (and to a lesser extent, George Clooney) through the wringer, as the production did as much as it could to simulate the unforgiving harshness of space. At only 91 minutes long, this is one of the shortest big-ticket Hollywood movies you’re likely to see in this day and age, but the film packs a hell of a lot into that hour and a half, with maybe just a few false steps here and there. (Yes, as noted spoilsport Neil deGrasse Tyson would have you know, many aspects of the film are scientifically inaccurate, perhaps most notably the events that lead to Clooney’s initial exit from the story.) We’ve seen multiple major directors tackle a “realistic” space movie in the last decade or so, but I don’t think any of them have been as technically accomplished as this one. (And credit to another iconic cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, who excels here.)

90. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984, dir: Hayao Miyazaki)

A Studio Ghibli movie before there was even a Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki’s sophomore feature establishes many of the animation icon’s signature moves. The story is basically a 50/50 mixture of quasi-steampunky science fiction and the broad fantasy Miyazaki’s known for, and while the English translation of the original Japanese dialogue can be a little on the nose at times, you can already see what would make its writer/director (working from his own manga) so revered in the coming decades. The appearance of a brief musical motif during the film’s climax is just one of those perfect bits of filmmaking that sets a master apart, and that says nothing of the movie’s obvious influence on future Japanese-rooted art, particularly with the Ohms (the giant trilobites pictured above), who have inspired similar creatures in multiple other projects.

89. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017, dir: Rian Johnson)

Almost certainly the most polarizing movie released in my lifetime, the second entry in Disney’s scattershot sequel trilogy never fails to provoke strong reactions. Personally, I think it’s far from a perfect movie (the Canto Bight sidequest seems out of place, Holdo’s kamikaze run is visually arresting but also a potential world-breaking plot element, her sacrifice is fine but Finn has to be saved at the end when she’s clearly more important to the Resistance than he is, the list goes on), but it also took the kind of huge swings that franchise movies nowadays seem almost allergic to. Kill off a thinly-drawn villain midway through (bonus points for doing it in one the coolest visual set pieces in the franchise’s history), take a hard look at the lives our older heroes are likely to be leading (grouchy old man Luke), break away from the tiresome notion that everybody in this vast sprawling saga has to be related to be important (or don’t, if you’re J.J. Abrams) – all those were good ideas that I still almost can’t believe were allowed to infect the money-printing Disney/Lucasfilm machine. While this movie was perhaps too flawed to do it on its own (and the two films around it in the saga actively took the franchise in the opposite direction), I firmly believe this kind of “burn it down to build it back up” mentality is what Star Wars desperately needs, at least in its films. Let’s just have a coherent plan next time, guys.

88. The Lobster (2015, dir: Yorgos Lanthimos)

Another film that stretches the definition of science fiction, The Lobster is basically the deadpan comedy Olympics, which introduces a barely explained sci-fi conceit as a means to drive even more deadpan comedy. Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz are both tremendous as the film’s leads, with their Irish and English accents (respectively) being fine-tuned for maximum drollness. The supporting cast is similarly excellent, with Olivia Colman and John C. Reilly (who are basically national treasures) being particularly skilled at delivering this kind of absurdist black humor. The sci-fi conceit mentioned above (in case you’re unfamiliar) is that in this dystopian society, single people (including widows/widowers and those recently divorced) are sent to a facility to find a match, and if they can’t find a suitable partner in the allotted time, they’re transformed into the animal of their choice. It’s as ridiculous as it sounds, but it leads to wonderful nonsense like the world’s most desperate singles mixer (emceed by Colman and her terminally bland husband) and the above shot, where the room that houses the unfathomable technology to change a human into an animal looks like a subpar spa at a Ramada Inn.

87. Frankenstein (1931, dir: James Whale)

The granddaddy of ’em all (or, since it was written by a feminist icon, perhaps the grandmommy of ’em all), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often considered the first true science fiction novel. While all the various film versions of the story are generally considered horror movies first and foremost, the science fiction aspect of Shelley’s tale still runs through most of them (obviously less so when Frankenstein and his monster get tossed in with your Draculas or Wolfmen). It’s definitely on display in James Whale’s iconic adaptation of the novel, which introduced many of the elements that society at large still associates with the story (the neck bolts, the torches and pitchforks, “It’s alive! It’s alive!”). Boris Karloff’s fearsome yet sympathetic portrayal of the monster is the film’s most iconic touch, but don’t discount Colin Clive’s mad doctor or the wonderful make-up and laboratory set design that really brought the creature to life. The script makes some odd changes (Victor Frankenstein becomes Henry, the film generally seems to “British up the story” by toning down the central European-ness of the novel), but it definitely adds a hell of a lot more to the overall mythos than it takes away. Who knows if Frankenstein (the novel, the doctor, or the monster) is anywhere near the household name it is today if this movie was never made.

86. The War of the Worlds (1953, dir: Byron Haskin)

After the success of the 1951 trio of The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Thing from Another World, and When Worlds Collide, a golden era of Hollywood sci-fi B-movie goodness was upon us. George Pal, producer of When Worlds Collide, went back to the well right away with this first film adaptation of H.G. Wells’ archetypal alien invasion story. Released in 1953 as part of another wave of successful sci-fi flicks (Invaders from Mars and It Came from Outer Space were also released that year), what stands out about this production is its vivid Technicolor. The bright color palette really helps make the Martian spacecraft pop on-screen (with color itself playing a role in the story), and the design of the Martian technology and the briefly seen Martians themselves still holds up now. The film keeps the deus ex machina ending of Wells’ novel and shoehorns in some ’50s-approved religious symbolism as well (The Day of the Triffids also did this), neither of which has aged as well as the rest of the movie, but this was a genre benchmark when it was released, and none of the other four feature adaptations of the source novel have yet topped it.

85. Scanners (1981, dir: David Cronenberg)

Genre master David Cronenberg had seen his profile raised incrementally with the release of 1977’s Rabid and 1979’s The Brood, but it was Scanners that not only pushed him, however incongruously, into the mainstream, but also helped establish Canadian cinema on the international box office stage. A surprise hit when released in January of ’81, Scanners plays like a horror movie riff on Marvel’s X-Men comics (among other inspirations) for much of its runtime, with its science fiction bona fides being established during Michael Ironside’s villain monologue toward the end. (The film draws inspiration from the many real life examples of fertility drugs having potentially dangerous side effects, some of which were finally proven in court after protracted legal battles against pharma giants.) Speaking of, Ironside largely establishes his long-running screen persona here, going on to play heavies in sci-fi, horror, and action films for decades afterward, and he easily steals the movie. The iconic head-‘sploding scene pictured above remains the most indelible image from the movie (when in doubt, blow it up with a shotgun apparently), but the effects and action sequences throughout the entire film still hold up, establishing this as also one of the first body horror flicks to have wide success.

84. The Abyss (1989, dir: James Cameron)

One of several movies present on this list that were absolute death to make, The Abyss is a somewhat overlooked, yet critical entry in James Cameron’s oeuvre. If one wishes to reconcile the blockbuster-directing machine Cameron of the ’80s and early ’90s with the later, underwater-obsessed Cameron, this is pretty much the nexus point between them. Cameron, ever the capital A A-hole, really pushed his cast and crew as far as they could go (and maybe a bit further) to get the underwater photography here just right, and those efforts do show up on screen. (Among the horror stories from the production involve Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio pretty much snapping after numerous retakes of the scene where her character is resuscitated after drowning and another incident where a crewman error nearly caused Cameron and several actors and cameramen to drown.) If the movie has a flaw, it’s that the grueling intensity of the shoot also comes through on screen, as the film, while wondrous, can be an arduous watch at times. But the wondrous parts really are special, including the groundbreaking “face in the water” scene and the grand finale. The film’s overall “love conquers all” message may be a bit hacky (this is even more prominent in the extended cut), but the craft on display here is tremendous, even if it’s still debatable whether the results were worth the on-set grind.

83. It Came from Outer Space (1953, dir: Jack Arnold)

The second of the three big alien invasion movies to be released in mid-1953 (Invaders from Mars was released a month prior and The War of the Worlds two months later), It Came from Outer Space stands out from the others by having the extraterrestrial visitors (despite initial appearances) be benevolent (in sharp contrast to the film’s very ’50s title). While the production value here was not up to The War of the Worlds‘ standard, what this movie has going for it most is a punchy script (credited to Harry Essex) that’s taken from a lengthy original treatment by sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury. The dialogue and characters are sharper than they often were in similar films of the era, and the choice to have the invaders actually be stranded beings who merely want to go home would reverberate down the decades, being cited by Steven Spielberg as a particular influence on Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

82. The Mist (2007, dir: Frank Darabont)

After having major success adapting two non-horror Stephen King works (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile), Frank Darabont took a stab at something more immediately recognizable as a King story with The Mist. Expanding on the 1980 novella, Darabont keeps the basic story beats (a thick mist envelops a Maine town, horrible monsters soon follow, a bunch of acquaintances are trapped in a supermarket, personality clashes and religious zealotry cause as much as chaos inside the store as the creatures do outside), but his principal contribution is an absolute kick-in-the-balls ending which King strongly endorsed. While that tends to dominate much of the discussion around the movie, the mixture of terrestrial and extraterrestrial horrors during the middle act is where the film shines. Marcia Gay Harden is always great in everything, and her take on the fanatical Mrs. Carmody gives needed depth to a character who could’ve come off as a shrill stereotype. (Toby Jones, too, stands out as the level-headed store manager.) Perhaps the finest subversion in the film is the ruthless way it undermines almost every decisive, heroic act anyone undertakes, with each one (with one major exception) only making matters worse. Dudes pulling plans out of their asses tends to work in most movies like this, but not here. These crab and spider monsters are not here for your desperate heroism, Tom Jane.

81. A Scanner Darkly (2006, dir: Richard Linklater)

The first of multiple Philip K. Dick adaptations to appear here (Blade Runner 2049 is a sequel to an adaptation), Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly utilized the same rotoscoping technique that the director had used for 2001’s Waking Life, this time to create a suitably hallucinogenic atmosphere for this druggy tale of identity and deception (drugs, identity, and deception are three of Dick’s calling cards). Given their general on and off-screen personas, Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr., and Rory Cochrane all are very believable as a group of junkie friends (Downey as paranoid dick Barris is a particular highlight), while Winona Rider gets a lot to do as Reeves’ supposed drug dealer. Most Dick novels are down-the-rabbit-hole insanity, but Linklater cuts through that with a story twisty enough to keep you guessing, but not so complicated that you lose track of the bigger picture (the drug-induced identity dissociation experienced by Reeves’ character, and the unethical manner in which the authorities manipulate and exploit him in their efforts to stop the drug trade). This story could’ve been told without the rotoscoping, but the animation adds just that little extra layer of disorientation without obscuring what’s important.

80. Men in Black (1997, dir: Barry Sonnenfeld)

I’ll always have a soft spot for MIB, both as a concept (they keep trying more movies, but a show is the way to go) and this particular film. The gang would get back together for two sequels, both of which are significantly inferior to the original, and I’m not sure anyone even watched the recent spinoff. But the original movie stands far above the rest of the series mostly just because of how deeply weird it allowed itself to be. While the bizarrely strong chemistry between Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones is what the franchise was built on, this movie is dominated by Vincent D’Onofrio. His performance as the villainous bug in the Edgar suit is pure demented genius, from his croaky voice to his staccato delivery and stiff, rigid movements. Joining him on the film’s weird shit-o-meter is Rip Torn as himself Zed, Siobhan Fallon as Edgar’s long-suffering wife, and the Redgick scene, which neatly encapsulates the strength of the Smith/Jones pairing (Tommy Lee Jones’ delivery of the lines “It’s a squid,” and “Anything about that seem unusual to you?” is just so perfect that you see why people put up with him). The sequels tried to replicate this film pretty much beat for beat, but in each case, they focused more on replicating plot and not enough on replicating the oddball randomness that really made this movie work.

79. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996, dir: Jim Mallon)

Let’s keep the yuks going with the feature film version of the unkillable cult series. By all accounts, this film was a giant pain in the ass to make, with lots of studio meddling and some fallings-out amongst the show’s cast and crew severely hampering production. When finally released, the studio didn’t put much effort into promoting it, and the film never became anything like the mainstream crossover that Universal were probably wanting when they greenlit the thing. But in spite of all that difficulty, MST3K: The Movie holds up rather well. Even if you only take it as a slightly bigger-budget, ad-free episode of the show (which it more or less is), it’s very enjoyable and highly rewatchable. The film skewered here, 1954’s This Island Earth, is actually far better than just about any other movie ever riffed by the franchise, but its kitschy ’50s vibe still generates plenty of joke fodder, as even the best mid-century B-movies still were full of hammy acting, goofy plots, and even goofier effects. For anyone not familiar with the franchise, this film is a nice gateway to its offbeat, wiseass charms.

78. Things to Come (1936, dir: William Cameron Menzies)

A landmark in the development of science fiction as a genre, Things to Come is yet another H.G. Wells’ adaptation, though this one stands out since Wells was still alive at the time and was very interested in the production. The author flatly did not like Metropolis, which had been released almost a decade prior, and was very keen that this film, loosely based on his 1933 work The Shape of Things to Come, not resemble that film in any way, shape, or form. His hostility to that otherwise celebrated classic aside, Things to Come does chart a new direction for cinematic sci-fi, as its expansive narrative covers a looming world war (which starts almost at the same time World War II would in real life but stretches on much, much longer), a post-war plague, a rebuilding of society around science, and a far-off future where space travel is now being attempted. Throughout, even in the archetypal futuristic utopia in the final act, mankind’s tendency towards conflict rears its head, but the film continues to push its message of scientific progress above all. Some of the blunter ways this progress was accomplished in the source material is skirted over in the film, or else we’d be having a very different discussion about this movie now. But as a kind of mission statement, and definitely as a leap forward in cinematic design, Things to Come is a landmark.

77. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, dir: Don Siegel)

While not every sci-fi movie released in the ’50s was a Cold War and/or McCarthyism allegory, many of them were, and of those films, Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers is perhaps the most representative. The first of what is now four different theatrical versions of this story (with a fifth stuck in development hell), Siegel’s take on Jack Finney’s 1954 novel The Body Snatchers is an occasionally deliriously paranoid horror thriller (in that very ’50s way, particularly during star Kevin McCarthy’s sweaty breakdown at the end) which can equally be read as a take on the threat of communist infiltration or a riff on Joe McCarthy’s America, one that while highly distrustful of commies also had its own bland, creeping conformity. Siegel and the producers originally wanted the film to end with its lead ranting in the street like a lunatic while the threat of the pods goes unnoticed. The frame story where the authorities are alerted to the pods’ existence was mandated by the studio, which changes the overall tone of the project, but also left some further narrative gold to mine for the forthcoming remakes.

76. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991, dir: Nicholas Meyer)

Far, far better than any sixth film in a franchise has the right to be, Star Trek VI saw Nicholas Meyer return to the director’s chair. Meyer had been at the helm for the franchise-saving second film almost a decade earlier and had co-written the script for Star Trek IV, which stood as the two most acclaimed Trek films to date at that point. Here, he reused his original subtitle for The Wrath of Khan, with the themes of aging and death present in that film being even more pervasive here. The story’s incipient event, however, came from a suggestion of Leonard Nimoy’s. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the USSR ongoing, Nimoy wondered what it would be like if that had happened in space, with the destruction of the Praxis moon and the resulting detente with the Klingons driving the story forward. (This would also conveniently push the status quo in the direction of the then-ongoing Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the Klingons were no longer a hostile power.) The resulting film manages to work as a ’70s-style political thriller, an established lore-alterer, and a satisfying swan song for the original Star Trek cast. That was no mean feat.

75. Return of the Jedi (1983, dir: Richard Marquand)

Jedi is a fun film to watch as an adult mostly just to notice all the elements you didn’t catch as a kid. Here is where George Lucas just gives up and decides to toss another Death Star at us. Here is where Harrison Ford totally checks out on a character he never liked. Here is where it’s implied that the Ewoks, like, eat people. For a movie that can perhaps feel a little stale at times, there’s also an odd daffiness to the whole thing. That’s not to say it isn’t still enjoyable. Obviously so, or else it wouldn’t be on the list. But Jedi is a movie you appreciate in a whole different way than its two predecessors. If Empire is (rightly) celebrated for the universe-expanding choices it made, this movie is best seen at a remove, one where you can see the strings, but still enjoy the moves the puppets make. It’s almost like you’re watching George Lucas morph from young, hungry, kind of desperate George to old, weird, money-in-the-bank George in real time, while his pet franchise slides into the box of fan expectations, where it will remain forevermore.

74. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975, dir: Jim Sharman)

Perhaps more than any other movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has become almost impossible to evaluate purely on its own terms. The film itself is inseparable from the stage musical it’s adapted from, the classic soundtrack that accompanies it, the interactive midnight screenings that have gone on since its release 46 years ago, and (to a lesser extent) the kitschy mid-century sci-fi and horror B-movies to which the whole enterprise is indebted. As a film, you could make multiple salient arguments against it – it sort of runs out of gas in the second half, the plot is just an excuse for songs, yada yada. But this isn’t a movie to analyze like a serious film critic, it’s an experience. Your mileage may vary on that experience, but there’s no debating the giant cultural footprint it’s left in its wake. (And that doesn’t even factor in the film and stage musical’s impact on LGBT culture.) And no discussion of this topic is complete without giving due appreciation to Tim Curry for one of the most iconic performances anyone has ever given. Without him, this whole thing could’ve easily been a disaster.

73. Looper (2012, dir: Rian Johnson)

Rian Johnson loves his twisty plots, and with Looper, he was able to generate his twists with that twistiest of plot elements, time travel. It’s hard to imagine an absolutely air-tight time travel script (short of someone filming a lecture on temporal mechanics), but Johnson does reasonably well at establishing the basic rules, running with them, and avoiding the temptation to grind the movie to a halt by overexplaining everything. (Bruce Willis, particularly gruff in this role, dismisses any need for further clarity with a nifty line about straw diagrams, and the movie then basically drops the subject.) A memorably horrific scene involving another looper who tries to run basically lays out all the stakes you need to understand anyway. From there, the film morphs into a three-hander involving Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and JGL’s prosthetic nose Emily Blunt. I’m not as enamored with most of the back half of the film being confined to one location as many are, but the Kansas City setting does allow for a neat back-and-forth between big city mobster stuff and rural Americana, both of which are prominent in KC’s history. And along with the plot and the setting, the movie has style to burn.

72. Primer (2004, dir: Shane Carruth)

Speaking of twisty time travel stories, Primer is perhaps the twistiest one on the block. (Writer/director/star Shane Carruth consulted on early concepts for Looper, but his ideas didn’t make the final film.) A mixture of supremely dense plotting and the can-do spirit of purely independent film, Primer made a splash at Sundance in 2004 and became a nerd film du jour afterward. If all the heavy scientific verbiage seems, well, heavy, that’s a feature not a bug. Carruth didn’t want to simplify the film’s jargon for the audience, which can certainly be an alienating factor to many. While, much like with Donnie Darko, one can make the effort to sort out all the time travel particulars, you can also just let it wash over you if you so choose and still enjoy the film. And the super lo-fi vibe fits nicely with the reality that many technical or scientific breakthroughs occur in unglamorous locations, such as the garage seen here. (Note – Carruth is one of a handful of filmmakers whose reprehensible personal behavior has severely tarnished his reputation. This will be acknowledged further in the write-up for a different film.)

71. Quatermass 2 (1957, dir: Val Guest)

Aside from being what’s thought to be the first sequel ever to simply include the number 2 in its title (which is a wild little factoid), Quatermass 2 is also one hell of a punchy little sci-fi/horror flick. Riding high on the success of both the original BBC miniseries and 1955’s The Quatermass Xperiment, Hammer Studios cranked this sequel out looking to strike while the iron was hot. Weirdly, they sort of stole their own thunder when The Curse of Frankenstein became a runaway hit, overshadowing this film. That’s unfortunate, as Quatermass 2, despite the miscasting of American tough guy Brian Donlevy in the title role, is a crackerjack B-movie. As all three films in the series were condensed versions of miniseries, elements that fleshed out the shows had to be cut for time. This second entry handles those edits the best, as important characterization was missed in the first film and a sense of narrative momentum somewhat hampered the third. (Oddly, the second miniseries is usually considered the weakest of the three.) Here, the plot bumps along nicely, with elements of the urban/rural divide, distrust of the government, and a particularly sneaky alien invasion all coming together. It helped that original Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale wrote the script, even if he didn’t much care for most of the decisions that were made afterward. Still, this film balanced his characters with its plot requirements the best of the three, all of which were still plenty influential on both sides of the pond.

70. Attack the Block (2011, dir: Joe Cornish)

Staying in the UK, we have Attack the Block, a mild box office disappointment when it came out, but a film that served as a bit of a launching pad for many of its principals. Director Joe Cornish had already done steady work in British comedy and TV, but made his directorial debut here. The really big breakthrough has thus far eluded him, but the same can’t be said of the film’s two leads. Jodie Whittaker was an emerging talent in the UK, but not many in 2011 could’ve predicted her future tenure as the Thirteenth Doctor. And John Boyega, whose fiery lead performance dominates this movie, also made his feature film debut here, and his casting as Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens followed not long after. (The film also features Nick Frost and a pre-Legends of Tomorrow Franz Drameh.) A sequel has long been in development, but the first film works as a creature feature, a comedy, and as effective social commentary. And the design of the alien baddies is magnificent.

69. Star Trek: First Contact (1996, dir: Jonathan Frakes)

After the decent, but somewhat underwhelming Star Trek Generations passed the film baton from the original Trek crew to the TNG team, First Contact took a page out of Star Trek II‘s book by pulling one of the main villains from the TV series and pitting them against the captain of the Enterprise in a very Moby-Dick-like tale. The grandiosity of Khan, though, is traded out for the cold horror of the Borg (at least initially), while some time travel business also allows for character actor extraordinaire James Cromwell to give us an entertaining take on Zefram Cochrane, a figure from established Trek lore. The 21st-century Earth-bound story is enjoyable enough, but obviously the real meat on the bone here is Picard’s borderline obsessive battle with his old nemeses, with the story mostly serving as a sequel to the celebrated two-parter “The Best of Both Worlds” and ignoring the later changes the show made to the Borg. While the addition of the Borg Queen is sort of controversial (it does stand in contrast to everything about the Collective that had been established previously), Alice Krige’s confident, sexual performance in the role does a lot to make the character land. And with a movie budget, the Borg look way grosser and more terrifying here than they ever did on TV.

68. Palm Springs (2020, dir: Max Barbakow)

One of the breakouts from 2020’s Covid-induced worldwide streaming binge, Palm Springs basically tells the same story as many time loop films/episodes before it. This specific story element could be considered well-worn by this point, what with Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Happy Death Day, and episodes of several major sci-fi TV shows (Star Trek: The Next Generation, The X-Files, and Legends of Tomorrow all spring to mind) all already existing by the time this film hit Hulu. But somehow the sub-subgenre continues to surprise us, with the concept of a person or persons being stuck in an infinite loop consistently being mined for all sorts of keen observations on fate, eternity, and the human condition. Of those examples listed, some are more sci-fi-based than others, and Palm Springs involves just the right amount of heady quantum physics to explain what’s going on without boring us. That plot element also contributes to a strong character arc for Cristin Milioti’s Sarah, the film’s true dynamic character, who shakes off her pre-time loop malaise and thrusts forward a story that by its nature was stuck in neutral. (And co-lead Andy Samberg, funny as usual, gets the honor of receiving one of the many life lessons imparted by J.K. Simmons throughout his great career.)

67. Moon (2009, dir: Duncan Jones)

Duncan Jones’ throwback to the slow burn of ’70s sci-fi, Moon rises and falls on the shoulders of its star. The film features nifty visual effects (achieved on the cheap due to a fortuitously timed writers strike freeing up a lot of FX artists), an intriguing if somewhat logically dubious plot, and an overqualified supporting cast in a series of very small roles (The Boys‘ Dominique McElligott, The Maze Runner‘s Kaya Scodelario, Doctor Strange‘s Benedict Wong, and What We Do in the Shadows‘ Matt Berry all appear briefly, and, sigh, Kevin Spacey’s voice is prominent here), but the movie would’ve died on the vine were it not for a career-best effort from Sam Rockwell. One of Hollywood’s most versatile actors, Rockwell puts that range to good, subtle use by essentially creating the same character four different times, with discernible differences in each while still being basically the same guy. It’s tremendous work that went completely overlooked come awards season. (Rockwell has claimed major awards since, however.) His ability to modulate from comedy to desperation to despair to arrogance and everything in between gives this otherwise small-scale film all the grandeur it needs and then some.

66. Re-Animator (1985, dir: Stuart Gordon)

One of the more gleefully lurid movies to appear on this list, Re-Animator is an exemplar of the ’80s horror-comedy boom (of which Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy usually gets the most attention). The film riffs to a degree on Frankenstein by way of H.P. Lovecraft’s “Herbert West-Reanimator” short story, though what Stuart Gordon put to screen is a beast all its own. Genre icon Jeffrey Combs (also known for his 17,342 different appearances on various Star Treks) is perfectly arrogant and oily as West in a role that would be the out-and-out villain in almost any other film. But Re-Animator pitches him more in the middle, somewhere between Bruce Abbott’s ostensible protagonist Dan Cain and David Gale’s even more arrogant villain (that severed head up there). The performances are all game, and the little detail of the ridiculously bright highlighter green color of West’s reagent is just the perfect visual touch to let you know exactly what kind of movie you’re watching.

65. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016, dir: Gareth Edwards)

Of the five Disney-era Star Wars films, Rogue One, on the surface, would seem to have had the longest odds of being the strongest of the bunch. Not a mainline saga film like Episodes VII, VIII, and IX and not leaning on one of the franchise’s most popular characters like Solo, it somehow overcame a troubled production (with a major course correction being accomplished by reshoots overseen by screenwriter and ghost director Tony Gilroy) to emerge as absolutely the best Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back. The gritty band of rebels who push the story forward give the audience an idea how the sausage gets made when it comes rebellions like the one depicted in the series (lots of uneasy alliances between ideologically divergent groups), and the mid-production narrative restructuring, against all odds, actually helped the film’s final act, as the continually escalating battle just sort of seems to fall out of the sky onto the viewer, in a good way (the finale was going to be a much smaller-scale affair initially). Perhaps nothing sums up the film’s appeal more than not just the celebrated Darth Vader action scene at the end, but the off-handed way it was tacked onto the film. This kind of tinkering isn’t a long-term plan for success (see Solo and The Rise of Skywalker), but it somehow helped here, making the film zig when you were expecting it to zag.

64. Heavy Metal (1981, dir: Gerald Potterton)

The reason I said Re-Animator is “one of the most” gleefully lurid films on the list and not “the most” checks in at number 64. Heavy Metal, inspired by and partially adapted from the magazine of the same name, is basically all the impulses of a juvenile male sci-fi/fantasy fan cranked up to ten (speaking generally, of course. The assumption at the time was only boys liked this kind of stuff, an opinion still held by some now but that we know isn’t really true). Obviously a film with this kind of overt objectification of its female characters could be dismissed now as a relic of a thankfully bygone era (as much as that era actually is bygone), and I don’t begrudge anyone who wishes to do so. But underneath the sexist veneer, there’s a lot of intriguing, influential stuff here. Much of the artwork is seminal, the soundtrack is suitably bitchin’, and the whole thing somehow pushes past its guilty pleasure roots into something just a bit greater than any reductive views of it (or its own reductive views of others). There’s probably no other time in history where either the magazine or the film could’ve been made, but them coming along when they did had a clear influence on what was to come, for better or worse, I suppose.

63. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991, dir: James Cameron)

I remember growing up when a standard line was “sequels are never as good as the original”, which is so different from how Hollywood operates now – where any blockbuster acts a commercial for sequels and spinoffs as much as anything – that it feels like a million years ago. Obviously, many sequels that had already been released by the time of T2 were better than their predecessor, but this was one of the first movies where that was the immediate popular opinion. (I actually prefer the original, but anyway.) T2 is bigger and badder, with world’s biggest star Arnold Schwarzenegger now a good guy and the always effective Robert Patrick as the unstoppable villain. James Cameron’s talent for staging action set pieces is perhaps unequaled in film history, and he gave us several here. The film also spends a fair amount of time building up the relationships between the title character, John Connor, and Sarah Connor, with a studio push for Linda Hamilton to receive on Oscar nomination (which she wouldn’t get). If there’s a flaw here, it’s perhaps they go a bit too hard in that direction, but this is still one of the all-time memorable blockbusters and the franchise should certainly have been lowered into that vat of molten steel along with Arnie at the end.

62. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989, dir: Stephen Herek)

One of the weirdest lines drawn during this process basically separated the first Bill & Ted movie from its sequels, as the second movie brings in more religious and mythological concepts. This seems a heavy distinction to make about Bill & Ted movies, and that’s because it is. But, anyway, the unlikely franchise-starter is still a joy after lo these many years. It’s dumb fun, but not just that, as there’s a certain timeless charm to it, even as much of it is so deeply rooted in its late ’80s origins. Perhaps that’s because it’s such an over-the-top riff on the classic Chosen One trope, which we see in popular fiction over and over again. Something that so effectively spoofs that overused plot device is always going to seem fresh simply because there’s probably going to be movie or show telling a Chosen One story in the theater or on the TV at all times. Beyond that, much credit is due to Alex Winter and our lord and savior Keanu Reeves, who imbue the intentionally thinly-written title characters with so much dumb lovability that you can’t help but want to spend more time with them. Now let’s all fire up our air guitars.

61. They Live (1988, dir: John Carpenter)

John Carpenter’s classic eff you to the ’80s, They Live is a down and dirty low-budget good time, with the late great “Rowdy” Roddy Piper chewing bubblegum and kicking the asses of an assortment of blatantly unsubtle yuppie allegories. The film’s message is refreshingly right in your face throughout, with police state imagery, subliminal messaging through advertising, and humans shamelessly selling out the rest of us to get ahead. Sometimes movies make their point with a paintbrush, and sometimes they make it with a sledgehammer. Beyond the politics, Piper is effective in the lead, both physically and for his patented DGAF attitude. Also the celebrated fight scene between him and Keith David still hits hard all these years later. And while the alien masks are humorously cheap-looking, the very simple design of the film’s many subliminal messages has proven deceptively powerful and iconic over time.

60. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984, dir: W.D. Richter)

A run of ’80s-era cult classics concludes here with Buckaroo Banzai, a supremely goofy take on classic pulp heroes like Doc Savage that is elevated by a truly inspired cast. Peter Weller, a genre veteran, plays the title character as equal parts legitimate hero and someone who’s in on the joke, and a litany of character actors fill out the ranks of Buckaroo’s Hong Kong Cavaliers and the film’s Red Lectroid villains. Clancy Brown and (deep breath) cowboy Jeff Goldblum stand out for the forces of good, while Christopher Lloyd, Vincent Schiavelli, and Dan Hedaya excel as henchmen. But, much like Men in Black, a wonderfully deranged villain performance really puts this over the top, this one coming from an extremely grimy-looking John Lithgow as Dr. Emilio Lizardo. It must be fun to play a role like that, where no amount of over-the-top is too far over the top. Anyway, any future entries in the “franchise” have apparently been stuck in legal hell for all eternity (probably for the best), so enjoy this one just on its own merits and fire up “Since I Don’t Have You” while you’re at it.

59. Alphaville (1965, dir: Jean-Luc Godard)

French New Wave icon Jean-Luc Godard’s effectively odd mixture of futuristic sci-fi and retro noir, Alphaville is unlike any other movie likely ever made, as Eddie Constantine had been playing the character Lemmy Caution for years prior to the release of this film, with this being his seventh go-around in the role. Except that in those prior films (and one other Caution film starring a different actor), the character was a traditional G-man/private dick investigating the kinds of crimes that G-men and/or private dicks investigate in noir flicks. Here, Godard draws Caution into a kind of future, one that has space travel and an entirely new world order, but also one that looks suspiciously like mid-’60s Paris (and one where Caution can still describe himself as a Guadalcanal veteran, though I guess he could be referring to some other, fictional Battle of Guadalcanal). Trying to reconcile any of this is pointless, though, as something like that which doesn’t make sense in any other context makes perfect sense in the context of the French New Wave. Much of the film was improvised, with the visual presentation being what Godard was most concerned with. And while the city depicted is basically an un-redressed Paris, the City of Lights still carries its own quasi-futuristic air throughout. Long story short, there’s nothing on the list (or anywhere) quite like Alphaville.

58. Godzilla (1954, dir: Ishiro Honda)

While Them! beat Godzilla into theaters by a few months in 1954 (and is itself very good), let’s be real – Godzilla (or Gojira) is the granddaddy of all atomic monster movies. Spawning a nigh endless franchise and basically an entire subgenre, the original King of the Monsters film still packs a punch all these years later. All the goofier aspects of the character would come later, and there are no other kaiju for him to battle here. It’s just Godzilla and Tokyo, with the same reckless science that created the beast required to destroy him. While the subsequent films all have their own charms, and making Godzilla basically a good guy was ultimately a smart move, this movie stands above the others by reminding us of man’s own hubris and by showing the King as a pure destructive force of nature. (Plus the human story with Dr. Serizawa is sneakily effective, too.) The recent American entries in the series can throw all the money and CG at the character they want, but they still haven’t gotten close to capturing the powerful essence of the creature seen here, when he was just a guy in a lizard suit stomping on miniature buildings.

57. Fantastic Planet (1973, dir: René Laloux)

Some trippy French/Czechoslovakian animation from the early ’70s, Fantastic Planet‘s allegory of human Oms and the gargantuan Traags is one that’s flexible enough to reflect any of several social concerns. The Czech involvement could imply a take on communism (as the country was behind the Iron Curtain at the time), though the relationship between the two perhaps more clearly reflects the civil rights movement or apartheid or animal rights. It’s basically up to you how you wish to read this story of one species keeping another as pets or simply exterminating them en masse whenever they feel the need. But the visuals are great, with the kind of memorable wonkiness you’d see a lot from non-Disney animation of the time, especially from outside America. The music, too, is enjoyably strange, a mixture of funk and the kind of stuff you might hear in a Jacques Cousteau film, but also somehow futuristic. At a svelte 71 minutes, this is worth making time for.

56. Under the Skin (2013, dir: Jonathan Glazer)

Haunting and at times viscerally upsetting, Under the Skin is an intentionally alienating movie. Taking a bit of a risk at a time when her star was burning as bright as it ever has, Scarlett Johansson shines here as The Female, an otherwise unnamed alien masquerading as a beautiful woman, who uses her appearance to lure random Scottish dudes to their deaths as part of a vaguely explained mission. (The book the film is based on is more explicit about what her goals are, but the film leaves it somewhat to the imagination.) It’s a bold performance from Johansson, who’s the only remotely recognizable actor in the film. While Jonathan Glazer’s direction and especially Mica Levi’s score create a suitably chilly, hypnotic atmosphere, Johansson makes the whole thing work with an incredibly nuanced portrayal of a being who’s certainly not comfortable being a human, but seems increasingly uncomfortable being a…whatever her species is. The film’s ballyhooed nudity was again a bold choice for the star, but by the time the extended sequence appears, any notions of it or the film in general being about titillation are long gone. In fact, the scene is yet another highlight from the actress, who regards her body silently, trying to understand this skin she’s inhabiting in a way she never thought to care about before. It’s a strong film, but also one you could be forgiven for only wanting to see once, as two key sequences are hauntingly disturbing in a way no amount of horror film gore could ever match.

55. Delicatessen (1991, dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet/Marc Caro)

If there’s one area where sometimes American films struggle when compared to their international counterparts, it’s mixing tones. Generally speaking, a film like Delicatessen, were it American, would likely have to go all in on being either a gruesome dystopian horror film, a lighthearted romance, or a farcical comedy. But this French film, co-directed by future Amélie helmer Jean-Pierre Jeunet, manages to almost effortlessly pinball back and forth between all three styles, and perhaps even a couple more. How else could you describe a film where a butcher/landlord’s daughter falls in love with her father’s new hired hand while her father and many of the building’s other residents are openly plotting to kill and eat the man (something they’ve done to multiple prior employees)? It’s a story that’s ridiculous on its face, and many of the film’s side characters are equally ridiculous, which is perhaps the key element to the whole thing – that it’s clearly a farce, something the French have long excelled at. Even the opening sequence, which establishes the source of the meat the butcher sells in the only way it possibly could, plays at least somewhat humorously. It’s inspired stuff, with weirdly endearing performances throughout.

54. The Quiet Earth (1985, dir: Geoff Murphy)

A sneaky good post-apocalyptic flick from New Zealand, The Quiet Earth was pivotal in the development of Kiwi cinema, particularly sci-fi cinema, and is still generally considered one of the great films to emerge from that country. Bruno Lawrence’s guilt-ridden performance propels the narrative of a man who wakes up one morning to find everyone in the world missing, possibly dead. His role in a global energy project is teased out slowly, with the project seemingly responsible (accidentally) for whatever the hell it is that’s happened. From there, questions of guilt, humanity in the face of overwhelming solitude, and what could possibly come next drive the film towards a stunning ending. Many of these concepts aren’t exactly new to cinema (1959’s The World, the Flesh and the Devil, in particular, has many similar plot elements), but The Quiet Earth puts a unique spin on them that makes this one of the sleeper hits of my recent sci-fi binge.

53. The Prestige (2006, dir: Christopher Nolan)

Christopher Nolan, one of a small handful of directors currently who are basically their own brand, has seen his films continually become grander in scope. But, with the exception of The Dark Knight, the film that made him a household name, I don’t think any other movie he’s made really showcases his strengths as well as The Prestige. A neat mash-up of magic and science, the film drives forward behind a strong cast, with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale both particularly good as the leads. The ending reveal about Bale’s character is effective because it’s so simple, with the script and the actor’s performance perfectly threading the needle of not telegraphing what’s coming but also giving you information that will all suddenly make sense when the shoe drops. Not to be outdone, Jackman is also strong, showing a man who’s the ostensible hero of this story, but who also descends into a particular kind of obsessive madness as the narrative unfolds, with the whole thing playing well off the actor’s dashing, cultured persona. Much like Jurassic Park (more on this comparison later), the film becomes essentially a debate about storytelling, whether it’s showmanship or craft that matter most, when in the end it’s both.

52. Escape from New York (1981, dir: John Carpenter)

One of the more purely badass movies ever made, Escape from New York is one of those perfect storytelling engine films – lean and mean, it lays its cards on the table right away and gives you what you want from then on. Of course, a pulpy banger like this doesn’t go anywhere without a charismatic lead, and Kurt Russell lights the screen on fire in a career-redefining performance. The second of his many collaborations with John Carpenter (after the Emmy-winning TV movie Elvis), Russell doesn’t do anything to reinvent the wheel as Snake Plissken, he just cranks up many of the standard movie tough guy clichés to 11 and pulls it off. (That he was playing a character already named Snake Plissken only helped matters.) Carpenter, for his part, supplies his usual taut direction, with the hellish future New York looking memorably grimy and a lot of random oddness thrown in just for a little extra flavor (Isaac Hayes as the villain, Halloween‘s Donald Pleasence as a randomly British US President). And given the state of things in actual New York in 1981, this movie probably seemed like a portent of things to come instead of just a two-fisted action movie.

51. Gattaca (1997, dir: Andrew Niccol)

A strong example of retrofuturism, Gattaca, in a visual sense, points us to a genetically purified future by showing us many design elements of our past. That so much of the look of this particular future is drawn from mid-century America (a common element in retrofuturism) is not an accident. That time period is when science fiction exploded into the popular consciousness, but it’s also an era where the kind of progress-via-conformity shown scientifically in the film went on socially in real life. It’s a sneaky bit of commentary on both our past and our possible future from Andrew Niccol and his design team. Ethan Hawke is well-cast as the lead here, handsome and Ethan Hawke-y enough to pose as a genetically-modified specimen, but also presenting the vulnerability, desperation, and idealism of a man from the unwashed masses who’s trying to rise above his station however he can. Uma Thurman and Jude Law, too, are suitably gorgeous, yet also able to tease out the human touches still present in their augmented super-people. (Law in particular does that sneery Jude Law thing while masking a truly broken man.) And while the personal connection Hawke’s revealed to have with his main pursuer could come off a little contrived, the confrontation it sets off between the two is rewarding enough to make it work.

OK, that concludes part one (or Episode IV if you’re George Lucas). Here’s a link to part two. See you on the other side.