by William Moon

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

OK, we’re back. Here’s part one, in case you missed it. Now, on with the list.

50. 12 Monkeys (1995, dir: Terry Gilliam)

I mentioned in the intro that La Jetée was ruled out because it’s not feature length, but that you should watch it if you can, and I want to reiterate that here. Chris Marker’s 1962 French short is truly unique, even in comparison to either the film or TV series versions of 12 Monkeys, which are directly inspired by it. As for the feature film version, Terry Gilliam’s idiosyncratic 1995 hit remains a unique entry in the filmographies of its two biggest stars. Bruce Willis, as he does in many of his strongest roles, plays a slightly off-kilter version of the standard Bruce Willis character. He’s a violent and desperate loner, just with those characteristics not as glamorized as they are in, say, a Die Hard sequel. It also makes his ultimate role in the bigger picture a bit more poignant in a way. Brad Pitt is also here, as an unhinged rich kid using a potentially dangerous eco-terrorism group as a way to get back at Daddy. Pitt was nominated for his first Oscar for this performance, which is perhaps not something most people would immediately guess. The film around those performances is just as wonky, with Gilliam never letting you forget you’re watching a Terry Gilliam movie. But a neat sci-fi plot joins with some inspired imagery to create something that follows in La Jetée‘s footsteps, but is also its own unique thing.

49. 28 Days Later (2002, dir: Danny Boyle)

In a move that would likely please Danny Boyle, 28 Days Later goes on a list that otherwise rules out all zombie films (Boyle famously argued that his film was not a zombie movie, which was obliquely referenced in Shaun of the Dead). The film, while certainly trading heavily in zombie tropes, is more of a plague movie, as the blood-borne infection is clearly explained in the film’s intro scene. And that kind of subgenre-straddling allowed Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland to sort of have their cake and eat it, too. The post-apocalyptic nightmare Cillian Murphy awakens to and much of the isolationist terror in the film clearly owe a huge debt to the works of zom-father George A. Romero, but the infected also present a unique physical challenge to the survivors with their maniacal demeanor and lightning speed, elements Zack Snyder would bring to his Dawn of the Dead remake two years later but which had been avoided in mainstream zombie films prior. The result is a slightly different run-for-your-life kind of terror, and the film’s finale is able to reframe some of that imagery around Murphy’s character, not infected but now threatening in his own right as he takes on the asshole military guys. Of course, despite Boyle’s claims otherwise, there’s no denying the film set off a zombie boom afterwards, one which hasn’t really subsided in this era of multiple Walking Dead shows.

48. The Fifth Element (1997, dir: Luc Besson)

One of the more unique films of the ’90s, The Fifth Element marries the big-budget American blockbuster style it’s working in with the French roots of its director, Luc Besson. By this time, Besson had been an established filmmaker in his homeland for over a decade and had also found international success with 1990’s La Femme Nikita and 1994’s Leon: The Professional. For The Fifth Element, Besson scrounged up the biggest budget ever for a European film at that time and used it create a colorful extravaganza of a space opera, complete with a snarky Bruce Willis, an ass-kicking Milla Jovovich, a scenery-devouring Gary Oldman, and Chris Tucker with his Chris Tucker setting dialed up to a billion. Beyond the cast, the film is just visually gaudy as all hell, with Jovovich’s bright orange hair being one of the more restrained design elements we see. I don’t say any of that as a criticism, by the way. As we’ve increasingly been drawn into a world of grim and gritty genre films and/or the visually repetitive house styles of franchises like Marvel, seeing this veritable orgy of color and shape is still refreshing, even 24 years on. The plot is fairly standard sci-fi save-the-universe stuff, but the performances, the gonzo vibe, and the endlessly quotable dialogue make this one of the giddiest science fiction flicks ever made.

47. Total Recall (1990, dir: Paul Verhoeven)

I wouldn’t call Paul Verhoeven a subtle man. The Dutch filmmaker has enjoyed a long career of wildly variable success, with his films ranging from lurid Dutch-language hits to lurid Hollywood blockbusters to lurid erotic dramas to lurid revenge films and back around again. Case in point – Total Recall, a 1990 adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” turned Arnold Schwarzenegger action extravaganza. Even the two halves of that description don’t quite cover the film Verhoeven turned in, which is much bloodier and more grotesque than any of the other Arnold films around it (save possibly Predator), and which, as a Dick adaptation, still plays a lot like an Arnold Schwarzenegger shoot-’em-up. (Notably, all previous attempts at adapting the story had envisioned someone like Richard Dreyfuss or William Hurt in the lead role, so then Quaid’s second identity and action heroics would come as more of a surprise.) But in Verhoeven’s hands, all the story elements are dialed up. Arnold is grabbing random pedestrians and using them as human shields, we’ve got three-breasted hookers, guys getting killed by massive drill bits, Ronny Cox’s bug eyes, and Michael Ironside seething every line of dialogue through gritted teeth. Like The Fifth Element, this lack of subtlety is a feature, not a bug, and even with all that the film still manages to tell a pretty trippy story about identity and memory anyway, thus retaining the spirit of Dick’s original story.

46. Altered States (1980, dir: Ken Russell)

The weird result of the strained collaboration between two pretty hardheaded guys, director Ken Russell and writer Paddy Chayefsky, Altered States is a trip. William Hurt, in his film debut, goes to some pretty intense places in this hallucinogenic tale of a scientist experimenting with sensory deprivation and psychoactive drug use. While I’m just gonna assume that dropping acid and floating in a water tank won’t cause you to actually devolve into a caveman, the film takes its pseudoscience to some interesting places, and Hurt’s performance and Russell’s provocative direction carry the audience along with them. (Even a movie about William Hurt turning into goo doesn’t hold a candle to Russell’s earlier British films, which were always bananapants to the max.) But the ideas put forth here about reaching different levels of consciousness and some of the ways we could get there through science were pervasive in the years leading up to this film, and Altered States stands as something of an apotheosis of that era.

45. Videodrome (1983, dir: David Cronenberg)

Dialing up the WTF factor from the previous few entries even more, we have Videodrome, David Cronenberg’s wild follow-up to the breakout success of Scanners. That he would try to capitalize on his newfound commercial viability by making a movie like this – that calls out the world’s media culture while also being this grotesque, violent, and erotic – tells you all you need to know about Cronenberg. (The film flopped hard, by the way, with the director getting his career back on solid commercial footing with The Dead Zone later in the year.) James Woods, in a role tailor-made for his general greaseball vibe, plays a TV station manager who’s looking for something even more violent and smutty than what his network already airs when he finds a program that’s basically an extended snuff film. From here, things go down a hallucinatory rabbit hole of sex, violence, and distressingly fleshy technology. How much of this is science fiction, per se, depends on how you interpret the film’s events, but the point Cronenberg is trying to get across is all too clear.

44. Robocop (1987, dir: Paul Verhoeven)

Ah, Robocop. As discussed in the Total Recall write-up, as ridiculous as the idea of a cyborg cop is, you see the title and you read about the basic premise and you probably figure exactly what kind of schlocky sci-fi/action flick you’re gonna get. But with Paul Verhoeven involved, no, it’s not going to be that simple. Along with the cybernetic whoop-ass we came to see, we also get a welcome pillorying of corporate America, a similar trashing of mass media, the “I’d buy that for a dollar” guy, brutal violence, guys getting shot in the dong, other dudes getting melted, and Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, and Miguel Ferrer all competing in the Asshole Olympics (they all win). It’s not exactly Shakespeare, but it is the kind of movie that just openly compares this cock-shooting robot cop with Jesus and isn’t shy about it. ’80s action movies were a formative influence for many of us, for better or for worse, but the ones that really stand the test of time are the ones that weren’t afraid to get friggin’ weird. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work for Diiiiiicccckkkk Joooooonnnnnnnneeeesssss.

43. Predator (1987, dir: John McTiernan)

Further proving that 1987 was a killer year for genre films, Predator comes decloaking out of the tree line to land at 43. Like Escape from New York, Predator is a lean, mean, fightin’ machine, with a salty group of commandos doing battle with the now iconic trophy-hunting alien. While Arnold and the boys would’ve probably made this at least watchable either way (most of the movie is spent with just them anyway as the Predator creature design wasn’t decided on until well into production), the satisfyingly awesome monster that confronts Schwarzenegger at the end takes the movie up several notches. (I feel like this would’ve just been a decently profitable one-off if they had stuck with some of the earlier concepts for the hunter.) But the best monster typically is one that isn’t shown until very late, but that makes the build-up worth it when it finally arrives. And as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is here to remind us, the guys cast as the Predator’s quarry really sell you on the idea that it’s the most badass thing in the galaxy, at least until Arnold beats it with some mud and a pulley. That said, this is one of the all-time most rewatchable movies and is probably the movie I’ve seen the most in my life. Always remember the golden rule – there’s always time for Predator. (But not The Predator. Don’t ever make any time for that movie.)

42. Silent Running (1972, dir: Douglas Trumbull)

An extended stretch of ’80s flicks is interrupted by Silent Running, one of the most representative pre-Star Wars ’70s sci-fi movies. Bruce Dern brings that singular Bruce Dern energy to the role of a man so committed to preserving some of the last remaining plant life from Earth that he’s willing to smoke his butthole crewmates to do it. But Dern plays Freeman Lowell with just the right amount of idealistic heroism mixed with a streak of desperate lunacy. While his performance gives the movie a center, the story is fleshed out by the predictably excellent visuals put forth by debuting director Douglas Trumbull. While he only ever directed two films (this and the tragedy-marred Brainstorm), Trumbull is an icon in the visual effects world, having plied his trade on 2001: A Space Odyssey before this and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Blade Runner afterward. This film, while not nearly as well-known as those, has had a long life in the sci-fi world, with its tale of a man and his robots alone in space being echoed in multiple future projects, particularly (and somewhat humorously) Mystery Science Theater 3000. (Also note the script credits, which feature Michael Cimino, who would go on to direct The Deer Hunter, and Steven Bochco, who seemingly created every cop and lawyer show that aired between 1980 and 2000.)

41. Akira (1988, dir: Katsuhiro Otomo)

A landmark in both anime and cyberpunk (perhaps the landmark in the former category), Akira is the film most responsible for the popularity of Japanese animation in the US. For the first movie of its kind many Americans ever saw, the film is an archetypal work, laying out many of the stylistic beats that crop up in other works in the genre. Somewhat loosely adapting his own manga, director Katsuhiro Otomo doesn’t pull punches with his storytelling or his visuals, dropping the audience into a dense tale of a futuristic Tokyo, street gangs, telekinetic youths, and one young man’s alienation that becomes a threat to it all. The imagery is stunning even still, with the prominent red color scheme still striking a vivid tone all these years later. It is, in some ways, a product of its era, with some uncomfortable bits such as the one female character who seems to exist only to be brutalized. But the movie’s influence is beyond massive, and not just in Japan or even solely in animation. A live-action remake has been (probably mercifully) stuck in development hell for decades now, with Taika Waititi’s recent involvement at least being somewhat encouraging, though the production is again on hold. If it never comes to fruition, that’s fine, because I simply cannot see how it could ever replicate what the original was able to do.

40. Forbidden Planet (1956, dir: Fred M. Wilcox)

A loose take on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Forbidden Planet is the one of the most enduring sci-fi films from the genre’s first golden age. The header image I chose for the entire list, the classic flying saucer, is taken from this film, and that’s not the only iconic design element present in it. In the short-term, the big breakout star was Robby the Robot, who was popular enough that he reappeared in several unrelated projects in the years immediately afterwards. But even the id monster (pictured above), which is only glimpsed in short bursts as it’s invisible most of the time, still stands out as a memorable visual effect, especially for the era. While not a perfect film, Forbidden Planet stands along with The Day the Earth Stood Still as the most impactful, influential sci-fi films of their time, with an overarching influence on the look and feel of the genre that almost can’t be fully understood. (Also it has Leslie Nielsen in one of his many serious roles, before his appearance in Airplane! completely altered the trajectory of his career.)

39. Bride of Frankenstein (1935, dir: James Whale)

One of the first great sequels ever produced, Bride of Frankenstein improves on the already strong original in almost every way, with Boris Karloff’s performance as the monster still a potent mix of pathos and fury, the addition of Ernest Thesiger’s Dr. Pretorius, who would become an influential villain in his own right, and, of course, the introduction of the title character, who only appears very briefly in the film’s climax, but whose excellent creature design made her an instant icon. But, as with the first film, it’s really Karloff’s show more than anyone’s, as he ups the monster’s capacity for violence while also projecting even more depth and nuance as a being struggling with the nature of its own existence and the overwhelming fear and revulsion it inspires in others. The encounter with the blind man, spoofed so memorably in Young Frankenstein, is included here, with the scene being Karloff’s monster on a platter essentially. I mean, considering the kind of movie this is and the era in which it was made, the filmmakers could’ve easily gotten away with just a slapdash quickie monster flick cash-in, but that’s definitely not what we got. What we got was near sublime.

38. Ex Machina (2014, dir: Alex Garland)

A film with more than a little in common with Bride of Frankenstein clocks in at 38. Ex Machina digs into a now age-old sci-fi question – what is the nature of existence for an artificial being – and plumbs new depths from the topic. Mostly a story about three characters, Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac are both very good as the two humans who mean to test the latter’s creation, but Alicia Vikander, as the creation in question, dominates the film with a star-making performance. She modulates from vulnerable to manipulative to inviting to remote with ease, and the film’s effective FX help her sell her character as a being with true intelligence and some kind of humanity, but also as something that’s still wholly unique. The color-coded set design also helps push the futuristic aspects of the story in a subtle way while also not feeling all that far removed from the ergonomic splendor many of us probably imagine mega-rich Silicon Valley douchebags live in. Alex Garland has returned to some of these concepts of humanity with Annihilation and Devs, but this film lays it all out there for us.

37. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978, dir: Philip Kaufman)

The only pair of films to make the list where one is a direct remake of the other sees the second take on Invasion of the Body Snatchers land at 37. Taking the same basic concept as the original, Philip Kaufman’s effort updates the allegory from Cold War/McCarthyism to a specific brand of ’70s paranoia also seen in many of the decade’s political thrillers, but tinged here with a touch of New Age philosophy. The special effects are also updated, which leads to some occasionally shocking moments as well as some goofy ones, like the dog-man. But a game cast (including Leonard Nimoy, Veronica Cartwright, and particularly gaunt Jeff Goldblum) joins Donald Sutherland for one of the all-time great remakes, and one that gets to do with its ending what Don Siegel’s original wasn’t allowed, which sort of makes it a worthwhile venture just by itself.

36. WALL-E (2008, dir: Andrew Stanton)

Arguably Pixar’s most acclaimed film (though there’s healthy competition for that title), WALL-E‘s most immediate legacy was as (along with The Dark Knight) being the film whose exclusion from 2008’s Best Picture Oscar nominees led to the category being expanded the following year. Regardless of how you feel about that, or if you feel any way at all about it, the film is clearly a joy. Visually impressive and extremely endearing, the movie is also one of many Disney films that seems to take aim at the crass commercialism that Disney itself is so known for (stream it now on Buy-n-Large+ Disney+). While its parent company’s existence perhaps takes the sting out of the film’s social commentary (Pixar’s shift to more sequels/prequels shortly afterward is largely attributable to Disney’s need to make more money via merchandising), the film on its own merits is still wondrous, mixing a beautiful romance between its robot leads with a surprisingly thrilling story of how a space cruise liner full of humans have to break away from their highly sedentary life of comfort to have any chance to reclaim their ancestral home. Hollywood sound legend Ben Burtt supplies the title character’s voice (among others), and I especially enjoy the touch of having genre icon Sigourney Weave provide the voice of the ship’s computer.

35. The Host (2006, dir: Bong Joon-ho)

Following up his masterful breakthrough Memories of Murder (one of my all-time favorite movies), Bong Joon-ho was given a sizable budget by South Korean standards and used it to give us his take on the classic monster movie. While the film was indeed a blockbuster success in his homeland, The Host, as you would expect from Bong, is anything but a straightforward creature feature. Overcoming some occasionally shoddy VFX (particularly at the beginning and the very end), Bong’s film is, like its predecessor and the director’s later Oscar-winner Parasite, a magnificent feat of tonal balance. Like with Delicatessen, we have here another non-American film which is seamlessly able to shift from being a horror film to a political screed to a crushing family drama to a broad comedy, sometimes transitioning through all of them in basically the same scene. How he manages to do it, I have no idea, but the relatively early scene where the central family is mourning a presumed dead daughter is mordantly hilarious, as their unrestrained, perhaps performative grief at a public memorial quickly becomes a brilliant exercise in physical comedy. But anchoring all those layers above is a trenchant social commentary and pretty damn solid monster. And as always, lead Song Kang-ho, who appears in most of Bong’s films, is a master at conveying everything the director is trying to get across.

34. Galaxy Quest (1999, dir: Dean Parisot)

One of sci-fi’s most enjoyable comedies, Galaxy Quest‘s obvious spoofing of Star Trek and its fandom is what gets you in the door, but what gives the film that little extra oomph is how effective it is as a straight sci-fi/adventure. The visual effects are all on par with what you would expect from a late ’90s movie, and Robin Sachs’ villain Sarris is almost too good to have been used in what otherwise was a fairly broad parody. These are sneaky things that help a film age well. But not sneaky at all is the comic strength of the movie’s premise and what turned out to be a wonderful cast. Tim Allen, in all his Tim Allen-ness, is a really good Shatner analogue in ways the actor perhaps doesn’t even realize. Sigourney Weaver, who became a star playing a sci-fi woman nothing like the trope she’s mocking here, is generally wonderful, Sam Rockwell and Tony Shalhoub are as good as they always are, and character actor Enrico Colantoni is a scene-stealer throughout with his wonky portrayal of lead Thermian Mathesar. But, of course, nothing or no one can touch Alan Rickman here. It’s hard to image a funnier performance given by anyone in anything, as Rickman summons every bit of his prodigious talent to absolutely destroy the role of Alexander Dane. The movie needed someone who could equally sell this scene and this one, and I don’t think anyone else could possibly have done it better.

33. Jurassic Park (1993, dir: Steven Spielberg)

As much as I enjoy the film itself, the process of adapting Michael Crichton’s bestselling novel into an even more successful film has always fascinated me. Crichton and Steven Spielberg had known each other for decades, since before either of them were at all famous, and Spielberg had actually encouraged Crichton to push forward with the Jurassic Park novel at a point early in its development. When the time came to adapt it, the ways in which the two men’s views on the world diverged came to the fore, with Crichton’s emphasis on the irresponsibility of science and business clashing with Spielberg’s sympathy for the characters who just wanted to create something truly amazing. This dynamic plays out quite literally in the film, as Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm (much as he does in the novel) speaks for Crichton and Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond (who’s a far less sympathetic character in the book) stands for Spielberg. Watching the film through that lens gives it an extra layer of depth, at least for me, which sits nicely underneath all the whiz-bang dinosaur-related special effects. (The scene pictured above, despite its many plotholes, may still be the greatest special effects sequence ever committed to film. It looked then and still looks today like those SUVs got attacked by a real friggin’ dinosaur.) Add in the always welcome presences of Sam Neill and Laura Dern, and you have a movie that can be watched and enjoyed until the end of time.

32. Edge of Tomorrow (2014, dir: Doug Liman)

One of the great audience misses of the last decade, Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow is better than pretty much every non-Mission: Impossible Tom Cruise movie from the last 20 years put together. What’s amazing about it is how superficially similar to most of his trademark “running into danger” flicks this film is, with the time loop plot device almost working as somewhat of a spoof of the star’s well-worn screen persona. We have a fairly generic planet-endangering threat (alien invasion), a much younger, very beautiful female lead (Emily Blunt), and lots and lots of Cruise’s patented stone-faced derring-do. But the presentation of these elements is much cleverer. To begin with, Cruise taps into the weasliness we all know he possesses, as his William Cage is a smooth-talking coward at the outset. Instead it’s Blunt who gets to play the seasoned badass, with her backstory also being wrapped up in the same plot point Cruise soon finds himself tangled in. And, while the film is mostly played straight, there’s plenty of morbid humor here, the kind of stuff you can do in time loop movies, just as we’d already seen in Groundhog Day and would go on to see in Palm Springs. All those slightly off-kilter aspects help reframe this movie, and the results far exceed the film’s mediocre box office take.

31. Solaris (1972, dir: Andrei Tarkovsky)

When we talk about ’70s sci-fi being a slow burn, we mostly mean Solaris. Soviet master Andrei Tarkovsky was perhaps less enamored with his own film as critics and audiences worldwide have been, but the film is an epic, beautiful meditation on humanity and consciousness. Natalya Bondarchuk is particularly excellent as the female lead, presented here as a manifestation of Hari, the dead wife of Donatas Banionis’ protagonist, who has been created by the title planet. With the character not aware of the nature of her own existence, Bondarchuk (and Tarkovsky’s framing) lends an ethereal nature to the role while also managing an almost childlike naivete. But as reality, unbelievable as it is, sets in, Hari faces the situation for what it is. It’s a very dignified arc that’s performed beautifully. The film around her performance is, yes, long and slow, as Tarkovsky demanded a great deal from his audience, but the experience is rewarding if you’re tuned into the picture’s wavelength. While the general idea of space/the future/some other sci-fi plot point being a means to make humanity turn inward and face itself is common in the genre, it’s never more literal or more fully realized than it is here.

30. Melancholia (2011, dir: Lars von Trier)

A film whose release was dominated first by buzz over its quality (and Kirsten Dunst’s lead performance) and then by the fallout from director Lars von Trier’s self-sabotaging Nazi comments at Cannes, Melancholia had quite the festival run before hitting arthouse theaters back in 2011. With most of that noise now passed into history, the film, widely acclaimed at the time even with von Trier’s stink hanging over it, has only improved its artistic standing. Dunst really is excellent as Justine, as is co-star Charlotte Gainsbourg as Justine’s sister Claire. The film’s two halves might seem mismatched, with the stakes being vastly different in each, but together they essentially paint a portrait of depression, with Justine’s slide in part one carrying over into part two, at least until the film’s big sci-fi element enters the story. As a rogue planet approaches, potentially threatening the total annihilation of Earth, the truth at the core of the film’s principal characters bubbles up to the surface, with Justine’s inner resolve coming through while her caretakers see their veneers of calm and strength shatter into a million pieces. The film isn’t exactly heartwarming, but it’s an impressive presentation of a condition that can be difficult to translate, and von Trier’s camera catches every moment, from the intimate to the apocalyptic, in lush detail.

29. Upstream Color (2013, dir: Shane Carruth)

One of those movies that just sort of washes over you, Upstream Color is a lot. With an ending that makes thematic sense even if you don’t quite understand what’s going on narratively, the key to the whole enterprise is Amy Seimetz’s performance as Kris, a woman who’s victimized in the film’s first act but is able to reclaim perhaps some of what she’s lost by the movie’s end (though certainly not all, which is an important part of her journey). With a manner of storytelling that definitely doesn’t hold your hand, the audience is treated to a cycle involving pigs, worms, orchids, and a mind-altering drug. The whole process can be pieced together, but still involves elements perhaps just beyond what can be completely understood. But the stakes for the characters unwittingly caught up in this cycle are very real and much easier to comprehend. There’s a lot to take from this film that no review or brief blurb could really explain, and its intriguingly confounding nature is helped along by some stark, occasionally disturbing visuals and a very effective score. It’s a great film with a deeply unpleasant real-life post-script where Seimetz would later accuse Carruth of abuse (the two were in a relationship for several years before and after this movie’s release). In light of that, Seimetz’s performance here only grows more powerful.

28. The Fly (1986, dir: David Cronenberg)

The original The Fly, from 1958 and starring the legendary Vincent Price, is a fun B-movie, probably not far behind many of the B-movies that made this list. While David Cronenberg’s remake is, well, a remake, it’s about as different from its antecedent as any remake could be. As you would expect from Cronenberg, the gross-out visual effects are top-notch, ranking up there with The Thing as some of the best of the body horror golden years. The direction is taut, and the script is sharp. But this is Jeff Goldblum’s movie. We spend so much time thinking of him as this one-of-a-kind personality both on-screen and off (which is certainly true) that we sometimes do forget that he didn’t become famous by being cool, offbeat Jeff Goldblum, he became famous because he can do really good work in front of a camera. His role here as the hubristic, doomed Seth Brundle has to be the finest performance of his career. He channels that unique Goldblum energy early in the film to show us a brilliant, charismatic scientist, but after the fly-ing occurs, he slowly mutates the character’s mind as the creature effects mutate his body. It’s as good a lead performance as we’ve ever seen in a horror film.

27. The Terminator (1984, dir: James Cameron)

Let’s be real, there are some janky-looking effects scattered throughout The Terminator. The rubber Arnold face during the mirror scene is a big one, and some of the stop-motion during the finale looks a little dopey, too. But also, so what? I know James Cameron has spent the rest of his career having all the money and asshole energy he needs to get whatever he wants to show up on screen, but it’s the B-movie aspects of his 1984 breakthrough that I love. As physically impressive as Arnold Schwarzenegger is here (and he took all his weapons training for this role very seriously, as well), there’s a visceral power to the sequence at the end where the Terminator’s endoskeleton emerges from the flaming debris left by a massive explosion. While its pursuit of Sarah Connor had already been pretty intense, it was here that the character truly embodied the nigh unstoppable, completely single-minded killing machine it was made out to be. And turning the finale into a one-on-one between the machine and his quarry spawned the Sarah Connor we see in the sequel, no longer a potential victim on the run, but instead a resourceful, dynamic action hero all her own.

26. The Iron Giant (1999, dir: Brad Bird)

In some ways a better Superman movie than any actual Superman movie, The Iron Giant sort of bridges the gap between the ’50s sci-fi B-movies it heavily draws from and the ’00s Pixar boom that it helped inspire. (Warner Bros. produced this film, but Brad Bird would move over to Pixar and direct two of their best, The Incredibles and Ratatouille). Providing a limited but still expressive voice-only performance in a sci-fi film years before most of us even knew what a Groot was, Vin Diesel voices the title character, and his delivery of the line “Superman” in the film’s climax is one of the all-time cinematic tearjerkers. The remaining cast are all solid, with veteran character actor Christopher McDonald also standing out as the film’s antagonist, the high-strung G-man Kent Mansley. Released the same year as Pixar’s Toy Story 2, the two films combined to really underscore the importance of adding a little bitter to the sweetness of animated children’s movies, with most animation houses (and especially Pixar) hitting us where it hurts with that same formula again and again for the next decade-plus. One other neat aspect of The Iron Giant, though, is its use of traditional animation (for everything but the Giant himself), which helps sell its pleasingly retro vibe.

25. Stalker (1979, dir: Andrei Tarkovsky)

Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece, Stalker is a very challenging film, but it may also be as beautifully photographed as any film has ever been. Like his earlier Solaris, and perhaps even more so, Tarkovsky demands patience from his audience. The average shot length of the film is over a minute long, which is an eternity in movie terms. But the experience is again very rewarding. Where Solaris used its sci-fi concept to push its characters to confront their personal pasts, Stalker makes its leads (and its audience) think about their deepest desires, and again I mean that literally. The characters’ stated goal in the film is to reach a room located within a region known as the Zone, an area where the laws of physics may not apply and which is shut off to the public by a particularly trigger-happy military. The room is said to have the power to grant anyone who enters their greatest desire, and the two men our title character is leading to the room have some heady thoughts on the nature of man’s greatest desires. The film, in its most testing move, doesn’t quite give us the payoff you might expect, but a return back from the Zone instead allows for more discussion about the nature of faith and desire. Maybe that doesn’t sound like such a great time, maybe it does, but once you let this classic get into you, it never gets out.

24. Sorry to Bother You (2018, dir: Boots Riley)

There’s never ever been another film like Sorry to Bother You. What was advertised as a jokey satire where the main hook was a black man speaking with a stereotypically white voice at a call center job is so, so much more than that. Its mere presence on this list is kind of a spoiler, but even knowing that something is coming can’t possibly prepare you for what does come. LaKeith Stanfield, one of the finest actors working these days, is wonderful in the lead role. In a film that needed him (and the rest of the cast) to be funny, but also believably angry while still lending a sense of dignity and reality to a story that becomes increasingly ridiculous, Stanfield delivers. The, um, rap scene at the party towards the end is tremendously funny, but also a tremendously sharp and caustic take on how dumb and racist many people who’d swear they aren’t racist can be. Tessa Thompson, another consistently excellent performer, is also great, and the supporting cast, including some critical voice-only roles, is a wildly diverse and effective group. In a role that we’re finding out all-too-closely mirrors real life, rich kid Armie Hammer is just a little too good as an entirely deranged, yet still publicly respected and admired Silicon Valley ghoul. Writer/director Boots Riley, best known as the lead vocalist of hip hop band The Coup, comes blistering out of the gates with his debut. It’s a marvel that a movie like this exists.

23. Her (2013, dir: Spike Jonze)

Much was made around the time of Her‘s release of Scarlett Johansson’s voice-only role as the Siri-like AI virtual assistant referred to in the film’s title. There was a push to get her an Oscar nomination, which was ultimately unsuccessful, but her work was widely and correctly acclaimed. Less discussed, but still worthy of note, were the performances from the rest of the cast. Joaquin Phoenix is wonderfully normcore here, which is a great feat of acting considering we’re talking about Joaquin Phoenix, and Amy Adams is as radiant and strong as always. (I also find the idea of Phoenix sharing multiple scenes with a pre-Guardians of the Galaxy Chris Pratt particularly amusing.) In his first solo script, writer/director Spike Jonze really gets to the core of these characters and uses his not-all-that-much-of-a-stretch sci-fi conceit to get at the sometimes fleeting nature of desire, looking at it principally from the perspectives of Phoenix’s Theodore, but also Johansson’s AI and Rooney Mara’s idealized ex. Jonze also brings a strong, color-coded visual style here, with he and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema presenting us with a very vivid depiction of the near future, one that’s particularly red. While AI is often treated in sci-fi as a potential existential threat, this was a fresh, relatable take on the concept, one that feels of a piece with this modern world.

22. Back to the Future (1985, dir: Robert Zemeckis)

A clear example of a movie where the presence of numerous plot holes does absolutely nothing to lessen your enjoyment of it, Back to the Future is still the first movie that springs to the minds of many whenever time travel is brought up. It’s sort of funny to think about either of the film’s two big trivia items – that Bob Gale’s original script was a lot more satirical in nature or that Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty before being replaced. Like its eventual star, there’s an overwhelming affability to this film that’s probably the biggest reason why the constant nit-picking of its plot (an internet pastime for quite a while now) seems mostly done out of love more than anything else. Along with Michael J. Fox at his most endearing, Christopher Lloyd’s career-defining performance as Doc Brown is something that just never really ages (much like Doc doesn’t). Even the now-iconic DeLorean, one of the most dated plot elements imaginable, has just aged along with the rest of the film like a fine wine. There are quite a few dark, dour, challenging films included on this list, but let’s never underestimate the enduring mass appeal of something like this movie, which isn’t as easy to achieve as the snarky among us often seem to think.

21. Metropolis (1927, dir: Fritz Lang)

One of several films included on the list that was an absolute nightmare to make, Metropolis‘ place in the all-time film canon is well-earned. Fritz Lang had a tremendous vision, and helped invent the stereotype of the tyrannical European director in the process of committing that vision to film. Poor Brigitte Helm, who plays the dual role of Maria and her robot doppelganger, was borderline tortured, particularly during the scene pictured above, when the Machine Man had been created but not yet given Maria’s appearance. (Anyone could’ve been in the suit, but Lang insisted Helm do it.) The flooding scenes near the film’s end also were accomplished more or less by nearly drowning a whole lot of people. All of this difficulty comes in service of a film with powerful imagery that still sticks in the popular consciousness almost a full century later. With interwar Germany (and Europe in general) a powder keg waiting to explode, the film’s politics were happily co-opted by multiple factions, particularly after the more overtly socialist-leaning elements were cut by its fascist-leaning German distributor. Some of that footage has never been recovered, but efforts to restore the film to its full original length have been ongoing for decades, with the most complete, nearly two-and-a-half-hour version released in 2010 available on YouTube. It’s definitely worth your time, even if you’ve seen any of the previous shorter cuts (or the weird Giorgio Moroder version).

20. Arrival (2016, dir: Denis Villeneuve)

Editing is arguably the most important technical aspect of any film (give or take a Rope), but you don’t hear it discussed very often. Even beyond the obvious choices like actors and directors, editors are probably behind writers, composers, and cinematographers in terms of name recognition. Oftentimes, editors kind of end up like the referees in sports – if you do your job well, no one even notices you were there. Do it poorly, and it’s all anyone can think about. But with Arrival, Joe Walker’s editing more or less is the movie. The way the future sequences with Amy Adams’ character’s daughter are stashed early in the film, the entire plot point of how the visiting aliens experience time differently than us, the clues the audience is given throughout that allow us to pierce together aspects of this mystery just as our heroes do – all of that is driven by the editing. Now, that’s not to say this was a one-man show. Denis Villeneuve and cinematographer Bradford Young provide us with some truly awe-inspiring imagery, the script is crackerjack, the score from the late great Jóhann Jóhannsson is mesmerizing, and the key performances – especially Amy Adams’ as a character with a very resonantly feminine arc – are strong. All the elements are here, but it’s the magic from the editing room that really makes the movie sing.

19. Young Frankenstein (1974, dir: Mel Brooks)

One of cinema’s finest comedies, Young Frankenstein is a perfect blend of Mel Brooks’ strengths. The third of his three major works (behind The Producers and Blazing Saddles), Young Frankenstein doesn’t jump as gleefully over the line as its predecessors did (there’s no chorus line forming a swastika or, well, all of Blazing Saddles), but what it does have is A – a strong sense of vaudevillian physical comedy, B – a deep reverence for its subject (they tracked down the original lab equipment from 1931’s Frankenstein and used it), and C – a series of wonderfully absurd running gags (horses whinny every time someone says “Frau Blücher”, everything about Kenneth Mars’ mumbly, one-armed police inspector). Gene Wilder, one of the all-time greats, is at the top of his game here, mixing the wild-eyed lunacy of a traditional Dr. Frankenstein into his hilarious-at-all-times performance. The remainder of the cast is uniformly excellent, and just as the scene between the monster and the blind man in Bride of Frankenstein was a standout, the comic riff on it here between Peter Boyle’s monster and a cameoing Gene Hackman is one the funniest scenes ever in any movie. 47 years on, and this film is still just gold from front to back.

18. Children of Men (2006, dir: Alfonso Cuaron)

One of the greatest dystopian films of all time, Children of Men redirects the narrative thrust of its source novel (which plays more as a mystery novel, with the characters trying to find out what’s causing the mass infertility), turning it more into a tale of the kind of mass societal breakdown that would likely occur if we all lost hope. Clive Owen’s reluctant hero reflects the film’s larger vision, opening the film as someone who once cared, but has had all that energy drained out of him by the constant pummeling of an increasingly despairing, authoritarian world. But once forced again to care for someone or something bigger than himself, he rises to the occasion, rediscovering a part of him thought lost. But this isn’t just his movie either. His personal reawakening plays against a vast tableau that’s full of reminders of the all-too-real ways man can be inhuman to man. (The Abu Ghraib imagery is just as blunt and visceral as it needs to be.) And as the film’s ostensible antagonist (separate from the way the world order is the real antagonist here), the always great Chiwetel Ejiofor delivers a searing final monologue which takes place at the end of one of cinema’s most breathtaking long takes. Despite its inherent unreality, science fiction can sometimes be brutally real, and that’s never more true than here.

17. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, dir: Robert Wise)

The ’50s sci-fi movie to end all ’50s sci-fi movies, The Day the Earth Stood Still became the archetype for using sci-fi to unsubtly address the real-world problems of the day. Here, that problem is the then emerging nuclear arms race. Considering we didn’t know Mars was a lifeless planet until the ’60s, for someone alive in the years after the US dropped the A-bombs on Japan – with that soon followed by nuclear bomb tests undertaken by multiple countries – the possibility of extraterrestrials being aware of this and reacting the way Klaatu does probably wasn’t that much more far-fetched than the idea of hydrogen bombs themselves. The pace of technological advancement has generally increased throughout history, but it has hurtled forward in the last 150 years or so, and films like this one are generally reflective of the collective unease that sometimes comes along with that kind of progress. Considering we were entering an area defined by its can-do optimism at a time when there was significant overt societal discrimination going on, and we had just recently finished fighting the most devastating war in human history, cautionary tales like this were perhaps a necessary check on a society that could fairly be described as being a little too proud of itself. Many of the visuals in the film have grown corny with time, but the message of us needing to be reminded to change course to avoid bringing about our own destruction hasn’t changed at all.

16. Little Shop of Horrors (1986, dir: Frank Oz)

My favorite musical of all time, I’ve written about this movie for the site before, and my appreciation for the film hasn’t waned any since. A musical take on Roger Corman’s goofy The Little Shop of Horrors from 1960, Frank Oz’s film is masterfully staged. The early number “Skid Row (Downtown)” is a perfect example of that, with the film’s intentionally fake-looking backgrounds providing an ideal backdrop for a brilliantly edited, brilliantly choreographed sequence that may be the film’s strongest, and it doesn’t even feature the plant. When Audrey II does arrive, the increasingly large puppets used all look just right, real and tactile but also just a little cartoonish to fit the film’s tone, and the work it took to manipulate the puppet realistically was immense, especially during the songs. Rick Moranis, who’s generally magnificent here in a career-best role, actually had to act through his scenes with the plant at half-speed so they could be sped up afterward in order for the puppet’s movements to have the desired look. Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds really difficult. Beyond Moranis’ lead work, Ellen Greene carries over from the original off-Broadway stage production as Audrey, playing a role it’s hard to imagine anyone else pulling off. And Steve Martin’s deranged dentist Orin Scrivello seems like something out of a fever dream, and his big number just reinforces that. All in all, this is a movie that’s a musical about an extraterrestrial man-eating plant, and even that description doesn’t quite cover all the offbeat greatness contained within.

15. The Road Warrior (1981, dir: George Miller)

The first Mad Max movie just missed the top 100, but its acclaimed sequel throws on its assless chaps and barrels full-speed and on fire into the top 15. Knowing that this movie became a somewhat unexpected hit in the US, and thinking about the era in which it emerged, I’d love to know the specific word-of-mouth used to convince people to watch it. “Hey, I just saw this awesome movie about a bunch of Australian leather dudes running each other over in the streets.” George Miller’s chaotic post-apocalyptic quasi-Western sees young Mel Gibson’s Max take up the drifter-turned-reluctant hero role we’d seen Clint Eastwood and so many other cowboy actors play, protecting a group of settlers against a marauding gang of psychopaths, a group who serve as almost a logical outgrowth of the marauding gang of psychos led by the Toecutter in the first film. Vernon Wells, otherwise best known as the guy Arnold Schwarzenegger kills with a steam pipe in Commando, stands out here as the Wez, the nastiest of the henchmen to the hulking Lord Humungus. While playing a villain in Mad Max movie is probably physically challenging, it must be nice knowing that overacting is practically impossible. How could you ever overdo it when playing a character called Lord Humungus (or Toecutter, or Aunty Entity, or Rictus Erectus, or…)?

14. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982, dir: Steven Spielberg)

As recent projects like Stranger Things have renewed interest in the ’80s kid-focused sci-fi, adventure, and horror films that inspired them, we must all step back and again fully appreciate the film that’s at the top of that heap. While there are Steven Spielberg films I like just a touch more, this one probably best sums up the place his biggest hits hold in the hearts of so many. Sure, there’s product placement here, and the film, like Star Wars and many other contemporaries, became a gold mine at the box office and on the toy store shelves, but there’s a reason the film became its own little cottage industry. As Hollywood shifted from the auteur ’70s (the era Spielberg emerged from) to a more business-focused ’80s, they found the director who understood better than any other how to make movies that appealed to a certain part of the mass audience’s brains, the part that made us feel a legitimate sense of wonder, and then how to commoditize that wonder. Put that way, it all sounds rather crass, but this was an industry discovering a formula, not necessarily falling back on one that somebody else created. Generally speaking, the formula hasn’t been as successful in other people’s hands, and that’s the rub. For it to really work, the magic has to be there, and Spielberg is the best ever at providing that magic.

13. Brazil (1985, dir: Terry Gilliam)

The funniest little factoid about Brazil, to me, is that Tom Cruise was apparently considered for the lead. For a film that had such a strange, difficult journey to theaters (especially in America), that possible alternate universe version of the movie just seems so silly. Of course, Cruise did not get the role, as it instead went to director Terry Gilliam’s first choice, the great character actor Jonathan Pryce, who is predictably tremendous. Casting an actor known for his supporting roles as an unlikely lead was an inspired decision, as Pryce plays Sam Lowry as a man who’s clearly out of his depth, but who (literally) imagines himself as a dashing hero and is trying to live up to those dreams. Alongside him is a diverse supporting cast featuring some of the most reliably excellent actors of all time. Robert De Niro, who had wished to play the villain Jack Lint, instead plays a character best described as a folk hero plumber. It’s very fun to see such an esteemed actor in such an abnormal role. Ian Holm, Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins, and Peter Vaughan are also here, and special mention must be made of Gilliam’s Monty Python colleague Michael Palin as Lint (one of the best depictions of the banality of evil in film history) and Katherine Helmond as the increasingly gruesome-looking mother of Pryce’s lead. Everyone is playing someone just a little bit left of center, which fits in nicely with the film’s ductwork-filled, nightmarishly bureaucratic set design. Given when it was released, it would be easy to dismiss this as merely a take on 1984, but in Gilliam’s hands, it’s so, so much more than that.

12. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, dir: Steven Spielberg)

While the slow descent of the Neary family is important thematically and it’s a treat watching legendary French director Francois Truffaut lead the international team of scientists trying to make first contact with the film’s alien visitors, the main appeal of Steven Spielberg’s first sci-fi effort is distilled in three of the best-directed sequences of the legend’s career. The first one, Roy Neary’s visit from the aliens, sort of sneaks up on us, with what first appear to be the headlights of a trailing car revealing themselves to be something else entirely with the nifty visual cue of upward movement. Then the power of dramatic lighting kicks in as we’re treated to a template-setting close encounter complete with all the little “something’s not right here” tricks fleshing the scene out. The third, the film’s grand finale, is the kind of thing dreams are made of, with John Williams’ score and some truly impressive miniatures combining for one of the most awe-inspiring sequences imaginable. But the second, my favorite scene from the director’s career, is the stuff nightmares are made of. The gathering storm outside Melinda Dillon’s house clues us in that something’s wrong, and that instinct is proven correct as the next several minutes play out as every parent’s worst fear. But distressing as it all is, the scene is still wondrous, as Spielberg mixes his horror movie cues – the malfunctioning electronics, the screws slowly turning, the palpable fear from Dillon – with some still beautiful imagery like the light through the keyhole, the iconic opening of the door, and everything about the boy’s overriding calmness. It doesn’t get any better than that sequence, not anywhere.

11. Aliens (1986, dir: James Cameron)

One for the sequel pantheon, James Cameron forged a new path for follow-ups everywhere by almost completely shifting genre while maintaining fidelity to the original. In a world where horror movie sequels are a dime a dozen (and this was definitely already the case in the mid-‘80s), Cameron wisely refused to simply rerun the isolationist monster movie thrills of Ridley Scott’s seminal breakthrough, instead fulfilling the promise of that film’s egg scene by giving us a movie where the horrific Xenomorphs have reproduced en masse, while also avoiding the “characters still know nothing about a threat the audience knows all about” trap many horror sequels fall into. The result is basically the most faithful adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s seminal Starship Troopers we’ve seen (avoiding the source-material satire of its film adaptation) as a motley band of space Marines squares off with a horde of killing machines. The hive scene still brings the terror, but the rest of the film plays like a desperate military movie, with quips from the likes of Bill Paxton mixed in with a toweringly badass performance from Sigourney Weaver and the creation of a quasi-family unit by her, Michael Biehn’s Cpl. Hicks, and Carrie Henn’s adorable survivor Newt. This makes the film’s iconic finale of Ripley vs. the Queen hit a little harder thematically as well as viscerally. Impressive stuff that shows how adaptable the title species is on the page as well as in universe.

10. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982, dir: Nicholas Meyer)

The Star Trek franchise was already on the ropes even before its first episode aired, as its original pilot was passed on by NBC. In a rare move, TV icon Lucille Ball thought the series had potential and arranged for a second pilot, now featuring William Shatner as captain among other changes, which got picked up. Then the series was canceled after season two, and again the forecast was grim. But a letter-writing campaign saved the show and a weaker third season got it to syndication, where it became a bigger hit than it ever was for NBC. This success ultimately led to the unbelievably expensive, very mediocre Star Trek: The Motion Picture and things again looked dark. But along came producer Harve Bennett and director Nicholas Meyer, who called Ricardo Montalban back to Khan duty and turned the franchise into an out-and-out smash hit for really the first time. Moby-Dick in space is as hammy and overdramatic as that description would imply, with Shatner and Montalban feasting on the scenery, but that only elevates proceedings. Then the rumored demise of Spock arrives at the end, and the whole movie becomes something entirely different. Shatner’s eulogy is tremendously moving, a nice showcase of the oft-mocked man’s talent. And from front to back, the basic mood and look of the film (uniforms, ship design, quasi-naval feel) would be replicated through the remainder of the series, which once again had risen, however unlikely, from the dead. (Just like Spock would.)

9. Star Wars (1977, dir: George Lucas)

The scrappy little nobody that kick-started a massive empire (pun I guess intended) and changed the business of film forever, George Lucas’ brainchild hit that perfect sweet spot of both being something no one had ever seen before while also feeling strangely familiar. The familiar came from Lucas’ clear love of the films of his own youth, whether it be the Westerns of John Ford and Sergio Leone, the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa, or the classic adventure serials featuring characters like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Elements of all (and more) find their way into his burgeoning saga, with the film owing its largest narrative debt to Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. But of course what put it over the top were the elements people had never seen before. Some of the finest miniature and model work in film history combined with a sound design that truly changed the game (Star Wars, through Ben Burtt’s sound effects and John Williams’ score, is an aural experience like no other blockbuster series). All these little touches, many of which were cobbled together in a “necessity is the mother of invention” sort of way, combined to provide the masses with widescreen action like they’d never seen. Couple that with a sprawling but still easily digestible mythology and some archetypal characters, and you can pretty much print your own money.

8. A Clockwork Orange (1971, dir: Stanley Kubrick)

Never one to pull punches, Stanley Kubrick especially doesn’t here, turning Anthony Burgess’ bitter novel into a tale of ultraviolence and then ultrarehabilitation, with each part deeply upsetting in its own way. Masterfully shot and sweepingly scored, the film shows you Malcolm McDowell’s Alex at his worst several times over, but by keeping the perspective on him, the story continues to keep him centered in the audience’s mind. I won’t say it makes you sympathize with him, as he is a serial rapist and murderer, but when the worm turns and he’s on the receiving end of the brutality of the state and some of his own victims, you feel it. McDowell is tremendous in a monstrous role (the whole thing falls apart if he’s not there). Though he didn’t work with Kubrick again, the director regarded McDowell’s work here as genius, and with good reason. Beyond him, the film’s future slang (carried over from the novel) helps sell the world we’re seeing, and the set design is sharply detailed, with lots of touches that feel retro now, but felt like perhaps a quasi-logical way forward back in 1971. While the most violent sequences are still very hard to stomach, the film’s take on the casual, almost recreational brutality of young men is definitely not merely the stuff of science fiction.

7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, dir: Michel Gondry)

One of those great sci-fi films that doesn’t immediately spring to the mind as a sci-fi film, Eternal Sunshine is brilliantly directed and edited, smartly written, and very well acted by its principal cast. Jim Carrey, in the kind of role he seemed to strive for during his late-’90s move away from broad physical comedy, is never better than he is here, playing against type as an introvert. (The actor did not enjoy the production, though he and director Michel Gondry did work together again eventually.) Also all four actors who appear in what’s essentially the B-story – Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, and Tom Wilkinson – do excellent work, with Dunst and Wilkinson particularly standing out. (Wood, in one of the wormiest roles of his career, also figures into the A-plot as well.) But the dominant force here, perhaps even more than Charlie Kaufman’s celebrated script or Gondry’s dazzling direction, is Kate Winslet. Possibly the finest actor of her era, Winslet took the character of Clementine, who could’ve easily been a manic pixie dream girl and nothing more, and created something that blew through any and all stereotypes. (Even stereotypes of Winslet herself, who was known for period pieces and prestige roles prior to this.) This scene, complete with disappearing book covers in the background, is often put forward as the moment where Clementine establishes herself as a character in her own right and not simply a prop for another character’s romantic awakening, which is key to the central theme of the messiness of real-life relationships, those removed from the idealistic ones seen in many rom-coms, where the merging of the hopes, dreams, fears, and insecurities of different people can be volatile, yet we do it anyway.

6. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015, dir: George Miller)

One of my two or three favorite theater-going experiences, Mad Max: Fury Road is basically everything. Beautifully shot, with George Miller using technology that wasn’t available when he made the three previous franchise entries, well acted, incredibly well staged, and full of strong characters and even stronger themes, Fury Road thrillingly reintroduced the Max Rockatansky character after decades away (with him now in the younger, less radioactive form of Tom Hardy). Hardy is great in the role, but along with Miller’s dizzying direction and the series’ trademark ludicrousness, the film is defined by Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa. Right from her name (which rolls off the tongues of many of the film’s antagonists quite menacingly), this was a character destined for post-apocalyptic immortality. Theron is physically impressive, mustering every bit of action hero badassery as any other character in the film, but is also a deep emotional well in a way that the title character consciously avoids. If the Mad Max films are told as a loose collection of records passed down by those who briefly encountered Max in their hour of need, then there’s always a certain unknowability to the man himself, which contributes to his mythic status. But with Furiosa, we get to know her quite well, with some of her backstory stated outright and the rest suggested by Theron’s steely intensity. Couple these elements with balletic set piece after balletic set piece, bonkers stuff like the guitar flamethrower dude, and relevant plot points about resource-hoarding and women’s bodily autonomy, and you have the best movie made in any genre in the 2010s.

5. Alien (1979, dir: Ridley Scott)

A sci-fi/horror film as structurally perfect as its titular monster, Alien was one of many projects that rose from the ashes of one of the many scuttled attempts to adapt Frank Herbert’s Dune in the ’70s. Writer Dan O’Bannon’s original idea was eventually passed through a few others’ hands, with emerging British director Ridley Scott eventually shepherding the concept to the big screen, with a strong cast and an even stronger creature design courtesy of Swiss artist H.R. Giger. You can (and probably should) hold your monster back from the audience, which helps build suspense and contributes to an air of mystery, but you’ll have to show your hand eventually. And the hand here was a very strong one, maybe the strongest ever. Then-unknown Sigourney Weaver emerged from an otherwise seasoned group of actors (Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ian Holm) as the “final girl”, but Weaver’s Ripley can hardly be reduced to any such term. And special mention to the always great Holm, who gets to lay down some wonderfully ominous expository dialogue after his character’s android nature is revealed. As horror movies go, you can argue for several choices as the greatest (which I’m about to do in the next entry), but Alien is one of the baselines from which all other entries in the genre are measured.

4. The Thing (1982, dir: John Carpenter)

The greatest horror film of all time, John Carpenter’s take on John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There? is much more faithful to the original novella than Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks’ The Thing from Another World, of which Carpenter was a huge fan (it was the scary movie being watched by Tommy in Halloween and has footage incorporated here). Whereas that film basically gave us a giant killer plant-man as its big bad, The Thing employed young effects whiz Rob Bottin to create an ooey, gooey shapeshifter in the mold of the body snatcher from Campbell’s pages. And Bottin did not disappoint, working himself nearly to death in an effort to handle as much of the work personally as possible. (The legendary Stan Winston subbed in for Bottin briefly to help get some of the work over the line.) Along with a memorable creature, the combination of isolated setting (always a plus for a horror movie) and the imperfect mystery of the story (you can’t completely work out who gets assimilated and when) add to the film’s doomy atmosphere. And then to top it all off, another veteran cast of actors do solid work as the assorted crewmen of an Antarctic research station, with star Kurt Russell being totally, completely badass as eventual de facto leader MacReady, dominating proceedings with his general Kurt Russell-ness and sporting cinema’s greatest beard in the process. The big set pieces all land (the dog-thing, MacReady’s big speeches, the defibrillator scene, the blood test), and the ending is perfectly downbeat. It’s a great director doing his best work.

3. The Empire Strikes Back (1980, dir: Irvin Kershner)

There had been many sequels prior to The Empire Strikes Back, but this movie was the one that really came to redefine the sequel into the idea modern audiences have of it. (That could be a demerit in the eyes of some, but that has less to do with this film specifically.) While the big twist of Luke Skywalker’s true parentage is just part of the pop culture fabric now, it was a game-changer back in 1980, and the film’s ability to tell new stories while expanding on what had been seen in the original film was something perhaps only the majestic The Godfather: Part II had previously done. Taken together, Empire‘s varied set pieces, new locations and characters, and more confidently-written returning characters all mark the backbone of the modern sequel, while its willingness to end the most anticipated blockbuster of all time (to that point) on such a down note is something you’re far less likely to see at the multiplex now (give or take an Infinity War, which also reinforces the specific influence this film has had on that mega-franchise throughout its existence). This film didn’t really change the franchise game as much as it invented it, and it’s set a bar that hasn’t been cleared since, not just by any Star Wars movie, but by any franchise picture.

2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, dir: Stanley Kubrick)

The apotheosis of meditative sci-fi, 2001: A Space Odyssey changed people’s ideas of what was possible cinematically. The zero-gravity sequences, the space station and ships, the scenes on the Moon, all of that was a quantum leap forward from whatever versions of them people had seen previously. And that’s to say nothing of the film’s opening and closing sequences. The mime performers during the “Dawn of Man” intro are severely underappreciated for their work, as their tremendously evocative performances are often lost in the wake of all the technical mastery that comes afterward. Some of that mastery comes in the form of Douglas Trumbull’s “Jupiter and the Infinite” sequence, with its trippy visuals and open-ended imagery. As is the case with several films on this list, Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece underperformed both critically and commercially in its original run, with the film’s glacial pace and seeming inscrutability working against it, but obviously time has been very generous to its legacy. Like the Vader twist in the previous entry, many iconic elements here have now passed into the pop culture language, readily identifiable to people who’ve never seen the film. But this is one of those films that A – should be seen on as big a screen as possible, and B – always gives you something else no matter how many times you watch it. While long (though not as long as many mainstream blockbusters released now), this is maybe the most expansive movie ever made, one so vast that even an entire solar system can’t contain the breadth of its vision.

1. Blade Runner (1982, dir: Ridley Scott)

The greatest film of all time, Blade Runner is also an oddity – a movie whose difficult production and initial failure led to a series of alternate versions, with each successive edit contributing to the film’s legacy almost as though they’re each parts of a long conversation the film is having with its audience. The unsuccessful theatrical cut, while derided by many for its intrusive voiceover and out-of-place ending, is still something that resonates with a certain portion of the BR fanbase, particularly those who approach it as a noir film. The director’s cut, a happy accident that found its way to release in 1991, redefined the film for many who were looking for a greater sense of meaning than was found back in ’82. And after some more tinkering, Ridley Scott’s final cut attempts to clean up some errors that had survived through the different versions while by and large sticking to the director’s cut. All of this fussing has fueled debate about the nature of Harrison Ford’s Deckard, which is apparently still a sore point between Ford and Scott, and it’s helped keep the film consistently in the minds of a large audience. But the real genius here was still largely present in the original – a gorgeous, immersive vision of the future that mostly hasn’t come true, but is still evocative, simultaneously reminding us of our past, present, and future, and doing it with a singular sense of style. (Much credit to designer Syd Mead and composer Vangelis for their work here.) This is a film that invites you to crawl up inside it and live for a while, and that’s something no amount of studio meddling or box-office failure could prevent.

So, that’s it, then. Whatever, you know, minor disagreements you might have with the list, let me know in the comments here on the page, on social media, via sky-writing, smoke signals, Morse code, you know, whatever.