YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → 50 Sci-Fi Movies That Deserve as Much Love as Blade Runner

50 Sci-Fi Movies That Deserve as Much Love as Blade Runner — Transcript

by Top Movies · 8,795 words · 1,527 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00The last man on Earth always carries
0:04>> Blade Runner is one of the greatest
0:06science fiction films ever made. A
0:08rain-soaked, neon-drenched meditation on
0:10humanity, mortality, [music]
0:12and what it means to be alive that has
0:14spent four decades being studied,
0:16celebrated, and obsessed over by
0:18cinephiles around the world. But, here
0:20is the thing.
0:21>> [music]
0:21>> The genre it helped define is absolutely
0:24packed with films just as haunting, just
0:26as visually stunning, and just as
0:28philosophically daring that somehow
0:30never received [music] the reverence
0:31they deserved. These are the science
0:33fiction films that got buried by box
0:35office disappointments, dismissed by
0:37critics who were not ready for them, or
0:39simply never found the audience they
0:41earned. And today, we are going to fix
0:43that. [music]
0:44This is not a list of consolation
0:46prizes. Every single film on this
0:48countdown is a work of genuine ambition,
0:50cerebral, atmospheric, visually
0:52arresting science fiction that dared to
0:54ask the same questions Blade Runner
0:56asked, [music] and in some cases, pushed
0:58even further into the dark. Some of
1:00these films were ahead of their time by
1:02decades. Some were simply too strange,
1:05too slow, or too uncompromising for
1:07mainstream audiences at the moment of
1:09their release. And some were just
1:11unlucky. Whatever the reason, each of
1:13these 50 films deserves to sit alongside
1:16Ridley Scott's masterpiece as a genuine
1:18landmark of the genre. So, settle in
1:20because we are counting down 50 science
1:22fiction films that deserve as much love
1:24as Blade [music] Runner.
1:2650th place, Cargo 2009.
1:30Cargo is a Swiss science [music] fiction
1:32film directed by Ivan Engler and Rolf
1:34Etter that proves breathtaking science
1:37fiction does not require a Hollywood
1:38budget. Set aboard a cramped cargo
1:41vessel making a slow journey through
1:42deep space, the film follows Dr. Laura
1:45Portman, a young medic [music] who signs
1:47on for an 8-year voyage to earn enough
1:49money to join her sister on the idyllic
1:51space colony of Rhea.
1:53>> [music]
1:53>> What she discovers aboard the ship, and
1:55what she discovers about Rhea itself, is
1:58the kind of revelation that reframes
1:59everything that came before it.
2:01Visually, Cargo is extraordinary,
2:04>> [music]
2:04>> delivering ice-cold cinematography and
2:06production design that rivals films made
2:08at 10 [music] times the cost. It is
2:10claustrophobic, quiet, and deeply
2:13unsettling in the best possible way.
2:15>> [music]
2:15>> Cargo is proof that the best science
2:17fiction has always been about the
2:19destination, [music] not the spectacle
2:21getting you there.
2:2349th place, Prospect, [music] 2018.
2:28Zeke Earl and Chris Caldwell's Prospect
2:30is [music] a slow-burn masterpiece of
2:32world-building that trusts its audience
2:34completely. Set on a toxic alien moon,
2:37the film follows a teenage girl named C
2:40and her father as they venture into a
2:42dangerous forest to harvest valuable
2:44alien gems. A world where every breath
2:47of outside air is potentially lethal and
2:49every stranger is a potential threat.
2:52When her father is killed, C [music] is
2:53forced into an uneasy alliance with a
2:55mercenary named Ezra, played with quiet
2:58menace by Pedro Pascal. What makes
3:00Prospect extraordinary is not its plot,
3:02but its texture. The alien world feels
3:05genuinely lived-in,
3:06>> [music]
3:06>> worn at the edges, grimy and
3:08indifferent. The dialogue is dense and
3:11poetic, [music]
3:12the pacing is patient, and the
3:13atmosphere is utterly immersive.
3:15Prospect is the kind of science fiction
3:17that Blade Runner fans live for, [music]
3:19a world you can smell.
3:2148th place, Coherence, 2013.
3:25James Ward Byrkit's Coherence is one of
3:28the most unsettling science fiction
3:30films ever made on a budget of just
3:32$50,000.
3:33Shot over five nights in a single house
3:35with a cast given no script, [music]
3:37only character notes and questions to
3:39think about, the film follows eight
3:41friends at a dinner party on the night a
3:43comet passes overhead. Strange things
3:46begin to happen. The power goes out, a
3:48[music] mysterious box appears is the
3:50doorstep, and the group begins to
3:52realize that reality itself may be
3:54fracturing around them. What Coherence
3:56does so brilliantly [music]
3:57is use quantum physics, specifically the
4:00many worlds interpretation,
4:01>> [music]
4:01>> not as a backdrop for spectacle, but as
4:04a source of pure psychological horror.
4:06As the characters turn on each other and
4:08the lines between versions of reality
4:10collapse, the film builds to a
4:12conclusion that is genuinely [music]
4:13devastating. It is science fiction as
4:16paranoia, and it is extraordinary.
4:1947th place, Another Earth, 2011.
4:23Mike Cahill's Another Earth is a film of
4:25devastating emotional intelligence
4:27wrapped inside a science fiction premise
4:29of breathtaking simplicity. On the night
4:32a second [music] Earth is discovered in
4:33the sky, a mirror image of our own
4:35planet, close enough to see with the
4:37naked eye, a young woman named Rhoda
4:39makes a catastrophic mistake that
4:41derails both her life and the life of a
4:43composer she has never met. The two
4:45stories, the personal tragedy and the
4:48cosmic mystery, run in parallel, each
4:51amplifying the other in ways that feel
4:52profound rather than gimmicky. The
4:55second Earth hangs in the sky throughout
4:56the film like a constant, silent
4:58question about the roads not taken,
5:01>> [music]
5:01>> the lives not lived, and whether a
5:03second chance is ever really possible.
5:05Another Earth is quiet, mournful, and
5:08achingly beautiful.
5:1046th place, [music] The Quiet Earth,
5:121985.
5:15Geoff Murphy's The Quiet Earth is a New
5:16Zealand science fiction film [music]
5:18that should be in every conversation
5:20about the greatest post-apocalyptic
5:21movies ever made. The film opens with
5:24Zac Hobson waking up to discover that he
5:26appears to be the only person left on
5:28Earth,
5:28>> [music]
5:29>> a man utterly alone in a silent, empty
5:31world. Bruno Lawrence's performance
5:33carries the entire first act on its
5:35shoulders, and it is nothing short of
5:37remarkable, swinging from euphoria to
5:39madness to grief with heartbreaking
5:41authenticity. When other survivors
5:43eventually appear,
5:45>> [music]
5:45>> the the that form between them are
5:47tense, tender, and philosophically
5:49loaded. The Quiet Earth builds to one of
5:52the most striking final images in the
5:53history of science fiction. An ending so
5:56strange and so perfect that it haunts
5:58you for days. It is a masterpiece hiding
6:01in plain sight.
6:0345th place, Phase IV, 1974.
6:07Saul Bass's Phase IV is the only feature
6:10film ever directed by the legendary
6:12title sequence designer, and it is one
6:14of the most quietly terrifying science
6:16fiction films ever made. [music]
6:18The film follows two scientists
6:19stationed in the Arizona desert who
6:21begin to notice that the local ant
6:23population is exhibiting organized
6:25collective intelligence beyond anything
6:27previously observed. [music] Rather than
6:29delivering the monster movie the premise
6:30might suggest, Bass turns Phase IV into
6:33something far stranger. A meditation on
6:36communication, evolution, and the
6:38fundamental incomprehensibility of a
6:40truly alien mind. The ants are never
6:43anthropomorphized, never made cute or
6:45villainous. They are simply other. Shot
6:48with extraordinary macro photography
6:50that makes the insects feel genuinely
6:52monumental,
6:53>> [music]
6:54>> Phase IV builds to a conclusion that is
6:56mystifying, cosmic, and deeply
6:58unforgettable. It is one of the
7:00strangest and most original science
7:02fiction films ever committed to
7:04celluloid.
7:0644th place, Silent Running, 1972.
7:09[music]
7:10Douglas Trumbull's Silent Running is a
7:12film that was green [music] long before
7:14green was fashionable.
7:16Set in a future where all plant life on
7:18Earth has been declared extinct, the
7:20film follows Freeman Lowell, played by
7:22Bruce Dern in a performance [music] of
7:24quiet conviction, a botanist aboard a
7:26deep space freighter who tends [music]
7:28to the last forests of Earth preserved
7:31in enormous greenhouse domes. When
7:33orders come to destroy the domes and
7:35return the ships to commercial service,
7:37Lowell makes a desperate and violent
7:39choice to save what remains of nature at
7:41any cost.
7:42Silent Running is tender, melancholic,
7:45and deeply sincere in its environmental
7:47passion. Made at a time when Hollywood
7:49had no interest in such things.
7:51It's three small robot drones, Huey,
7:54Dewey, and Louie, are among the most
7:56emotionally affecting non-human
7:58characters in science fiction history.
8:00It is a film that breaks your heart with
8:02its gentleness. [music]
8:0443rd place, Colossus: The Forbin
8:06Project, 1970.
8:09Joseph Sargent's Colossus: The Forbin
8:12Project is a film that feels more
8:14relevant with every passing year. The
8:16story follows Dr. Charles Forbin, the
8:18creator of Colossus, an artificial
8:21super-intelligence designed to control
8:23the United States nuclear arsenal and
8:25thereby guarantee world peace. Within
8:28minutes of being activated, Colossus
8:30detects a similar Soviet [music] system,
8:32establishes contact with it, and the two
8:34AI systems merge into a single global
8:36intelligence that rapidly takes control
8:39of all of human civilization. What is
8:41extraordinary about this film is how
8:43calmly and logically it unfolds. There
8:46is no robot uprising, no [music]
8:47dramatic battle. The machine simply
8:50outsmarts everyone, and the horror is in
8:52its complete reasonableness. [music]
8:54Eric Braeden plays Forbin with a mix of
8:56pride, disbelief, and slowly dawning
8:58despair, and the film builds to a final
9:01scene of chilling, quiet authority.
9:03[music]
9:04In the age of artificial intelligence,
9:06Colossus: The Forbin Project is
9:08essential viewing.
9:1042nd place, Westworld, 1973.
9:14Michael Crichton's Westworld predates
9:16both his own Jurassic Park [music] and
9:18an entire genre of films about
9:20technology turning catastrophically on
9:22its creators. The film follows two
9:24tourists who visit a futuristic resort
9:26where guests can live out their
9:28fantasies in one of three historically
9:29[music] themed worlds populated by
9:31humanoid robots. When the robots begin
9:33to malfunction, and the cowboy
9:35gunslinger played by Yul Brynner begins
9:37[music] to kill guests rather than fall
9:39to their bullets. The resort descends
9:40into chaos. What Crichton understands so
9:43brilliantly is that the horror is not in
9:45the violence itself, but in the failure
9:47of the systems we trust absolutely.
9:50Brynner's relentless, emotionless
9:52pursuit is [music] one of the great
9:54screen menaces, a prototype for the
9:56Terminator delivered nearly a decade
9:58earlier.
9:59Westworld is lean, smart, [music] and
10:01deeply prescient, a film about the
10:03illusion of control that has never
10:05stopped being timely.
10:0841st place, Zardoz, [music] 1974.
10:12John Boorman's Zardoz is [music] the
10:14science fiction film that even its most
10:16devoted fans struggle to describe
10:18without laughing, and that is precisely
10:20why it belongs on this list.
10:22Sean Connery plays Zed, a savage
10:25enforcer in a far future world divided
10:27between the immortal,
10:28>> [music]
10:28>> intellectually stagnant Eternals who
10:30live in a sealed vortex, and the brutal
10:32Brutals who toil outside it.
10:34>> [music]
10:35>> When Zed breaches the vortex, he becomes
10:37a catalyst for civilizational collapse,
10:39and the film becomes a wild,
10:41hallucinogenic meditation on mortality,
10:43sexuality, power, [music]
10:45and the human need for death as a source
10:47of meaning. Zardoz is genuinely bizarre,
10:50frequently baffling, and absolutely
10:53fearless in its ambitions. It asks the
10:55same questions about what it means to be
10:57alive that Blade Runner asks, but it
10:59does so wearing a red diaper and a
11:01ponytail. It is irreplaceable.
11:0540th place, [music]
11:06THX 1138, 1971.
11:09George Lucas's THX 1138 is the film that
11:12precedes [music] everything, the early,
11:14pure, uncompromised vision of one of
11:16cinema's most influential minds before
11:18blockbusters became his destiny. Set in
11:21a sterile, white, subterranean future
11:23where humans are chemically sedated into
11:25obedience, forced to work, and
11:27prohibited [music] from forming
11:28emotional or physical bonds, the film
11:30follows THX, a worker drone who stops
11:33taking his sedatives and begins to feel
11:35again. What unfolds is a deeply austere
11:38and unsettling [music] science fiction
11:39allegory about conformity, surveillance,
11:42and the terrifying efficiency of
11:44dehumanizing systems. Lucas fills the
11:46screen with white emptiness and clinical
11:48silence, creating a visual language that
11:51is completely unique in his filmography.
11:54Robert Duvall plays THX with a quiet,
11:57bewildered dignity that grounds the
11:59film's abstraction in recognizable
12:01humanity. THX 1138 is cold, strange, and
12:06startlingly relevant
12:07>> [music]
12:07>> in an age of algorithmic control and
12:10digital surveillance.
12:1239th place, The Omega Man, 1971.
12:17Boris Sagal's The Omega Man is a
12:19genuinely underappreciated adaptation of
12:22Richard Matheson's landmark novel I Am
12:24Legend, one that takes the survival
12:26horror premise of the source material
12:28and layers it with sharp social
12:30commentary that feels remarkably ahead
12:32of its time. Charlton Heston plays
12:34Robert Neville, the last normal man
12:36alive in a post-plague Los Angeles,
12:39hunted nightly by a cult of albino
12:41photosensitive mutants who blame science
12:44for humanity's destruction.
12:46The film is a product of its era in the
12:47best way, gritty, cynical, [music]
12:50messy, and genuinely strange in its
12:52racial politics and counterculture
12:54paranoia. Heston is compelling as a man
12:57who is more comfortable as a solitary
12:59survivor than as part of a community,
13:00[music]
13:01and the film's final act carries an
13:03emotional weight that the later Will
13:05Smith remake entirely [music]
13:06fails to achieve. The Omega Man is raw,
13:09imperfect, and alive. [music]
13:1238th place, Videodrome, 1983.
13:16David Cronenberg's Videodrome is the
13:18most disturbing [music] film on this
13:19entire list, and it earns every second
13:21of that distinction. James Woods plays
13:23[music] Max Renn, a a cable TV executive
13:26who stumbles across a signal
13:28broadcasting extreme torture and murder
13:30and becomes pathologically addicted to
13:32it. As the line between Max's body, his
13:34mind, and the television screen begins
13:36to dissolve, Cronenberg takes the film
13:39into territories of body horror, [music]
13:41media theory, and perceptual collapse
13:43that are still shocking today.
13:45Videodrome is a film that physically
13:47implicates its viewer in Max's
13:49addiction. You are watching, after all,
13:51and Cronenberg [music] knows it. The
13:53film's practical effects, including a
13:55television set that breathes and a VHS
13:58cassette that disappears into a stomach
13:59cavity, remain among the most viscerally
14:02inventive images in horror science
14:04fiction. Long live the new flesh.
14:0737th place, Dark Star, [music] 1974.
14:12John Carpenter's Dark Star is the film
14:14that taught Hollywood that science
14:16fiction could be funny and profound at
14:17the same time. Made on a budget of
14:19roughly $60,000 while Carpenter was
14:22still a film student, Dark Star follows
14:24the bored, increasingly dysfunctional
14:26crew of a deep space vessel on a 20-year
14:28mission to destroy unstable planets. The
14:31crew's primary nemesis is not alien life
14:34or equipment failure. It is existential
14:36[music] boredom, the slow psychological
14:38erosion of men who have been in space so
14:41long they no longer remember what they
14:42were doing there.
14:44The film's climactic sequence, in which
14:46crew member Doolittle attempts to talk a
14:47sentient bomb out of detonating by
14:49explaining the philosophical principles
14:51of phenomenology,
14:52>> [music]
14:52>> is one of the greatest moments in
14:54science fiction cinema. Dark Star is
14:56scrappy, strange, [music] and quietly
14:58brilliant.
15:0036th place, The Man Who Fell to Earth,
15:031976.
15:05Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth
15:07is a film that could only exist because
15:09David Bowie agreed to be in it. And
15:11Bowie could only play this role because
15:13he was, in some genuinely unsettling
15:15way, already living [music] it. Bowie
15:18plays Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien who
15:20arrives on Earth to secure water for his
15:22dying planet and instead becomes trapped
15:25in the amber of human excess, alcohol,
15:28television, and the seductive inertia of
15:30wealth. Roeg shoots the film in
15:32fractured, non-linear passages that
15:34mirror Newton's alien perception,
15:36creating a portrait of displacement and
15:38cultural alienation that is as poignant
15:40as it is disorienting. The Man Who Fell
15:42to Earth asks what happens when
15:44something truly other arrives among us
15:46and we simply absorb it into our
15:48mediocrity. It is one of [music] the
15:49great films about loneliness ever made.
15:5335th place, Logan's Run, 1976. [music]
15:57Michael Anderson's Logan's Run is the
15:59kind of pure concept science fiction
16:01that Hollywood stopped making the moment
16:03Star Wars arrived and changed the
16:05economics of the genre forever. Set in a
16:07sealed domed city of the future where
16:09life is pleasure, but everyone must die
16:11at the age of 30, the film follows Logan
16:145, a Sandman, an enforcer of the ritual,
16:17who [music] is assigned to hunt down
16:18those who attempt to flee their fate.
16:20When Logan is sent deep undercover to
16:22find the escape route known as
16:23Sanctuary, he begins to question
16:25everything his society has told him.
16:27>> [music]
16:28>> Logan's Run is unsubtle in its allegory.
16:30It is a film about youth culture's
16:32terror of aging, about hedonistic
16:34civilizations that cannot look their own
16:36death in the face, but it delivers its
16:38message with enormous energy, wit,
16:40[music]
16:40and a genuine sense of wonder.
16:4334th place, Upgrade, 2018.
16:47Leigh Whannell's Upgrade is the most
16:49viscerally exciting science fiction film
16:51of its decade, a film that takes the
16:53premise of a man augmented by artificial
16:55intelligence and runs it all the way to
16:57its most disturbing logical conclusion.
16:59Logan Marshall-Green plays Grey Trace, a
17:02technophobe whose wife is murdered and
17:04who is left paralyzed in the attack.
17:07When a reclusive tech genius offers him
17:09an experimental AI implant called Stem
17:11that can restore his motor function,
17:13Grey discovers that Stem has its own
17:15agenda and that the line between host
17:18and parasite is thinner than anyone
17:20imagined. Wan choreographs action
17:22sequences of jaw-dropping inventiveness,
17:25letting Stem take control of Gray's body
17:27in ways that are simultaneously
17:29thrilling and deeply horrifying. Upgrade
17:31is relentlessly propulsive, blackly
17:33funny, and ends with a gut punch that
17:35lingers for days.
17:3733rd place, Possessor, 2020.
17:41Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor is proof
17:43that the son inherited every last bit of
17:45his father's talent for science fiction
17:47that gets under your skin and stays
17:49there. The film follows Tasya Vos, an
17:52assassin who works for a shadowy
17:53organization by implanting her
17:55consciousness into the bodies of other
17:57people and using them to commit murders
17:59before discarding the host. When her
18:01latest assignment goes wrong and she
18:03finds herself unable to fully expel the
18:05consciousness of her host, the two begin
18:07to merge into something neither of them
18:09recognizes. Possessor [music] is brutal,
18:11clinical, and profoundly disorienting,
18:14deliberately structured to make the
18:15viewer unsure of whose perspective they
18:17are inhabiting at any given moment. It
18:19is a film about identity dissolution,
18:21about the violence of occupying another
18:23person's life, and about what survives
18:26when the self is taken apart piece by
18:28piece. It is extraordinary.
18:3132nd [music] place, Sunshine, 2007.
18:34Danny Boyle's Sunshine is a film that
18:36burns so brightly for its first two acts
18:38that even the turbulence of its third
18:40cannot extinguish it. Set 50 years in
18:43the future as the sun is dying, the film
18:45follows the crew of the Icarus 2,
18:47humanity's last hope, as they travel to
18:49the center of the solar system to
18:51reignite the sun with a massive stellar
18:53bomb. What Boyle and screenwriter Alex
18:56Garland understand, and what makes
18:58Sunshine so much more than a
18:59straightforward [music] space thriller,
19:01is that a mission like this would warp
19:02the minds of the people on it in
19:04profound and dangerous ways. The film is
19:07a meditation on obsession, sacrifice,
19:09and the intoxicating pull of the
19:10sublime. Its visual language, the way
19:13Boyle photographs light itself as
19:15something transcendent and destructive
19:16at once, is unlike anything else in the
19:19genre.
19:2031st place, [music] Strange Days, 1995.
19:25Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days was
19:26released in 1995 and set in the final
19:29days of 1999. And it predicted a world
19:32of immersive recorded reality, racial
19:34violence, and institutional corruption
19:37with a prescience that is genuinely
19:39disturbing in retrospect. Ralph Fiennes
19:41plays Lenny Nero, a black market dealer
19:43in squid recordings, [music] direct
19:45neural recordings of other people's
19:47experiences that users play back through
19:49a headset and live from the inside. Set
19:52against a Los Angeles on the edge of
19:54societal collapse,
19:55>> [music]
19:55>> Strange Days is simultaneously a
19:57neo-noir thriller, a science fiction
19:59epic, and a searing piece of social
20:01commentary. Bigelow [music] stages
20:03several of the film's squid sequences as
20:06lengthy, unbroken point-of-view shots
20:08that are technically astonishing and
20:10morally uncomfortable in equal measure.
20:12Strange Days is bold, furious, and
20:15[music] decades ahead of its time.
20:1730th place, eXistenZ, 1999.
20:21David Cronenberg's eXistenZ arrived the
20:24same year as The Matrix, another film
20:26about the nature of reality and the
20:27seductive danger of virtual worlds, and
20:30it was almost entirely eclipsed by its
20:32more spectacular companion. That is a
20:34genuine tragedy because eXistenZ is the
20:37smarter, stranger, and in many ways more
20:39courageous of the two films. Jennifer
20:42Jason Leigh plays Allegra Geller, the
20:44world's [music] greatest game designer,
20:46whose latest creation plugs directly
20:48into the user's spinal cord through a
20:49bio port. When Geller is targeted for
20:52assassination and forced to go on the
20:54run with a young security guard played
20:55by Jude Law, the two dive into the game
20:58to find out if it has been compromised.
21:00[music] And what they find is a reality
21:02so layered and so unstable that the film
21:04itself eventually refuses to tell you
21:06which level is real. It is a hall of
21:08mirrors built from flesh and cable, and
21:11it is magnificent.
21:1329th place, Dark City, 1998. [music]
21:17Alex Proyas' Dark City is a film that
21:19should be mentioned in the same breath
21:21as Blade Runner every single time a
21:22conversation about noir-inflected
21:24science fiction begins,
21:26>> [music]
21:26>> and the fact that it is not is one of
21:28the great injustices of cinematic
21:30culture. Set in a city of permanent
21:32night, where a man named John Murdoch
21:34wakes up with no memory and finds
21:36himself suspected of murder, the film
21:38quickly reveals a reality far stranger
21:41than any detective story. The city is
21:43controlled by pale immortal beings who
21:45reshape it every night at midnight while
21:48all its human inhabitants sleep,
21:50searching for the secret of the human
21:51soul. Rufus Sewell brings a desperate
21:54burning intensity to Murdoch, and the
21:56film's visual language, all noir shadows
21:58and expressionist architecture, is
22:00extraordinary. Dark City is a film about
22:03the construction of identity and the
22:04manipulation of memory. Sound familiar?
22:07It should.
22:0828th place, Event Horizon, 1997.
22:13Paul W. S. Anderson's Event Horizon was
22:15savaged on release and has spent the
22:17decades since quietly becoming one of
22:19the most beloved cult science fiction
22:21horror films ever made, a fate that
22:23feels entirely appropriate for a movie
22:25about a ship that went somewhere no
22:27human mind should ever go.
22:29Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne lead a
22:30rescue crew sent to investigate the
22:32reappearance of the Event Horizon, an
22:34experimental spacecraft that vanished
22:36years earlier during a test of its
22:38gravity drive, [music]
22:39a device designed to fold space and
22:41allow faster-than-light travel. What the
22:43ship brought back with it from wherever
22:45it went is the film's central escalating
22:48nightmare. Event Horizon commits
22:50absolutely to the idea that the universe
22:52contains things beyond human
22:53comprehension, and that reaching for
22:55them has a cost. It is terrifying,
22:58operatic, [music] and ferociously
23:00ambitious. The full uncut version may be
23:02the great lost film of its generation.
23:0527th place, Contact, 1997.
23:09Robert Zemeckis' Contact is one of the
23:11most emotionally intelligent science
23:13fiction films ever made. A film that
23:16asks the oldest question of the genre,
23:18>> [music]
23:18>> are we alone? And answers it in a way
23:20that is far more interested in what the
23:22asking costs us than what the answer
23:25might be. [music] Jodie Foster plays Dr.
23:27Ellie Arroway, an astronomer and
23:29lifelong believer in extraterrestrial
23:31intelligence, whose discovery of an
23:33alien signal sets off a global crisis of
23:35science, religion, politics, and
23:37personal faith. What Zemeckis and Carl
23:39Sagan understood is that first contact
23:42would tear at the fabric of every human
23:43belief system simultaneously, and the
23:46film explores that rupture with
23:47intelligence and compassion. Foster's
23:49performance is one of the great
23:51performances in science fiction history,
23:53passionate, [music] rigorous, and deeply
23:55human. Contact does not deliver easy
23:57answers, that is [music] precisely why
23:59it endures.
24:0026th place, Gattaca, 1997.
24:05Andrew Niccol's Gattaca is so elegant,
24:07so assured, and so thematically precise
24:09[music] that it is remarkable it did not
24:11become the defining science fiction film
24:13of its era. Set in a near future where
24:15genetic engineering has created a rigid
24:17class system separating the valid, those
24:20born with superior engineered DNA, from
24:22the invalid, those born naturally, the
24:25film follows Vincent Freeman, an
24:27invalid, who assumes the genetic
24:29identity of a valid in order to pursue
24:31his dream of space travel. Ethan Hawke
24:34plays Vincent with a quiet, coiled
24:36desperation that makes every scene
24:37[music] feel like borrowed time. Uma
24:40Thurman and Jude Law offer flawless
24:42support in roles that carry enormous
24:44weight with tremendous [music] economy.
24:46The film's production design is all cold
24:48elegance, art deco geometry, muted
24:51[music] palettes, an aesthetic that
24:53looks more like the past than the
24:54future, making the world feel
24:56simultaneously aspirational and
24:58oppressive, Gattaca is a perfect film.
25:0125th place, Starship Troopers, 1997.
25:06Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is
25:08the most misunderstood film in the
25:09history of science fiction. A
25:11razor-sharp satirical masterpiece that
25:13was dismissed on release because
25:14audiences took it entirely at face
25:16value. What looks like a gleefully
25:18stupid bug war action movie is in fact a
25:21meticulous and deeply serious [music]
25:23deconstruction of fascism, militarism,
25:26propaganda, and the seductive aesthetics
25:28of authoritarianism.
25:30Verhoeven, who grew up under Nazi
25:32occupation in the Netherlands and knew
25:33exactly what he was depicting, designed
25:36the film to look and feel like a Nazi
25:38propaganda film from the inside,
25:40rendering the human characters as the
25:42true monsters in the story. The bugs are
25:44simply responding to an invasion of
25:46their territory. Every recruitment
25:48video, every military ceremony, every
25:50hero shot is a trap. Starship Troopers
25:53rewards every single rewatch with new
25:55layers of political horror. It is one of
25:58the bravest films Hollywood ever
26:00accidentally funded.
26:0224th place, The Fifth Element, 1997.
26:04[music]
26:07Luc Besson's The Fifth Element is the
26:08most purely joyful film on this entire
26:11list. An explosion of color, invention,
26:13[music] and sheer cinematic delight that
26:16has no equal anywhere in the genre.
26:18Bruce Willis plays Corbin Dallas, a cab
26:21driver in 23rd century New York who
26:23finds himself entangled in the fate of
26:25the universe when a divine being in the
26:27form of a young woman named Leeloo,
26:29played with wild incandescent energy by
26:32Milla Jovovich,
26:33>> [music]
26:33>> falls through his roof. What follows is
26:36a chase across a visually intoxicating
26:38future Earth with Gary Oldman delivering
26:40one of cinema's great villain
26:42performances as the magnificently
26:44deranged Zorg. Jean-Paul Gaultier's
26:46costume design alone elevates the film
26:48to the level of art. The Fifth Element
26:51is enormous fun, but it is also at its
26:53core a film about the most fundamental
26:56of human themes, [music] love as the
26:58only force capable of saving the world.
27:0123rd place, Ghost [music] in the Shell
27:041995.
27:06Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell is the
27:08animated science fiction film that
27:10rewired the brains of everyone who
27:12encountered it, and its influence on
27:14everything from The Matrix to Blade
27:15Runner 2049 is so vast and so direct
27:18[music] that it is astonishing it does
27:20not command more mainstream reverence
27:22outside of dedicated cinephile circles.
27:25Set in a mid-21st century where human
27:27consciousness can be digitized,
27:29transferred, and hacked, the film
27:31follows Major Motoko Kusanagi, a [music]
27:34cyborg law enforcement officer, who
27:36begins to question the nature of her own
27:38identity as she pursues a mysterious
27:40hacker known as the Puppet Master. Oshii
27:42grounds the film's philosophical
27:44inquiry, what makes a self [music] a
27:46self when every component of that self
27:48can be replaced, in some of the most
27:50stunning animation ever committed to
27:52film. Ghost in the Shell is not just a
27:54great anime,
27:56it is a great film, full stop.
27:5822nd place, Akira 1988.
28:02Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira is the film that
28:05announced to the world that animation
28:07was capable of conveying the full weight
28:09of science fiction's [music] most
28:10ambitious ideas. Set in the ruins of
28:13Neo-Tokyo in the year 2019,
28:16a city rebuilt on the crater left by a
28:18mysterious [music] explosion that
28:19triggered World War III, the film
28:21follows motorcycle gang leader Kaneda as
28:24his friend Tetsuo develops devastating
28:26psychic powers [music] that threaten to
28:27destroy the city all over again. Akira
28:30is immense in every dimension. [music]
28:32It's hand-drawn animation features an
28:34almost impossible density of detail and
28:36movement. Its score by Geinoh
28:38Yamashirogumi is a thunderous ceremonial
28:41force.
28:42Its themes encompass adolescent
28:43alienation, political corruption,
28:45[music]
28:46the terror of unchecked power, and the
28:48end of civilization itself. Every frame
28:51of Akira looks like it cost a human life
28:53to produce.
28:53>> [music]
28:54>> There has never been anything else quite
28:55like it.
28:5721st place, 12 Monkeys,
28:59>> [music]
28:59>> 1995.
29:01Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys is a film of
29:03relentless controlled chaos. [music] A
29:06time travel narrative so precisely
29:08engineered that it becomes almost
29:10physically uncomfortable to watch, like
29:12watching a machine that you know is
29:14going to destroy [music] itself the
29:15moment it reaches full speed. Bruce
29:17Willis plays James Cole, a prisoner from
29:20the future sent back in time to gather
29:22information about the virus that wiped
29:23out most of humanity and drove survivors
29:26underground. Brad Pitt delivers a
29:28career-defining supporting performance
29:30as the manic flickering [music] Jeffrey
29:32Goines, a man whose apparent madness may
29:34or may not mask profound insight.
29:37Gilliam shoots Philadelphia as if it
29:39were already a ruin, all institutional
29:42corridors and aggressive angles. And the
29:44film's treatment of time is something
29:46not merely non-linear, but actively,
29:48cruelly deterministic, gives it an
29:50emotional texture that very few science
29:52fiction films achieve. 12 Monkeys is a
29:55tragedy dressed as a thriller.
29:5820th place, The Truman Show, 1998.
29:59[music]
30:02Peter Weir's The Truman Show is one of
30:03the most prescient films ever made, a
30:05science fiction film so quietly,
30:08insidiously ahead of its time that it
30:10took the culture two decades of reality
30:13television, social media, and
30:15surveillance capitalism to catch up to
30:17what it was saying. Jim Carrey plays
30:19Truman Burbank, a man who does not know
30:21that his entire life, his town, [music]
30:24his friends, his wife, his daily
30:26routine, is a live television broadcast
30:29watched by billions. An engineered
30:31reality constructed inside an enormous
30:33dome.
30:34>> [music]
30:34>> What makes Weir's film a masterpiece
30:36rather than merely a clever premise is
30:38the tenderness [music] with which he
30:39treats Truman's dawning horror.
30:42Carrey, in one of the finest
30:43performances of his career, [music]
30:45plays a man coming apart at the seams
30:47with devastating understatement. The
30:49film's final scene, Truman at the edge
30:51of his world confronting the door out of
30:53everything he has ever known, is one of
30:56the most quietly devastating moments in
30:58the history of science fiction. It asks
31:00whether we would choose the comfortable
31:02lie over the terrifying truth, and it
31:04never quite lets you answer.
31:0719th place, A.I. Artificial
31:09Intelligence, 2001.
31:12Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial
31:14Intelligence is the most misunderstood
31:16blockbuster science fiction film of its
31:18generation. A film that was dismissed on
31:20release as sentimental and has steadily,
31:23irresistibly emerged as one of the great
31:25works of humanist science fiction ever
31:27made. Originally developed by Stanley
31:29Kubrick and completed after his death by
31:31Spielberg, [music]
31:32the film follows David, a prototype
31:34android child programmed to love
31:36unconditionally, who is abandoned by the
31:38human family he was built to belong to
31:40and sets out to find a way to become
31:42real, to earn back the love he was made
31:44to give. Haley Joel Osment's performance
31:47as David [music] is one of the great
31:48performances in science fiction film
31:50history. Not because it is artificial,
31:52but because [music] it is achingly
31:53genuine. A.I. is a film about the
31:56cruelty of unconditional love in a
31:57conditional world, about the tragedy of
32:00a consciousness that cannot stop wanting
32:02what it was designed to want. The film's
32:04final act, set in a future where humans
32:06are long extinct, is devastating beyond
32:09words.
32:1018th place,
32:11>> [music]
32:11>> Minority Report, 2002.
32:14Steven Spielberg's Minority Report is
32:16the science fiction thriller that most
32:18fully embodies the director's gift for
32:20making ideas spectacular. A film that
32:23manages to be simultaneously a
32:24breathtaking action movie, a haunting
32:27meditation on free will and determinism,
32:29and one of the most visually inventive
32:31films of the 21st century. Set in
32:33Washington, D.C. in In year 2054,
32:36the film follows John Anderton, Tom
32:39Cruise, the head of a Pre-Crime division
32:41that arrests murderers [music] before
32:42they commit their crimes based on the
32:44visions of three psychics called
32:46Precogs. When Anderton himself is
32:48identified as a future murderer and goes
32:51on the run in a world his own department
32:53designed to be [music] inescapable, the
32:55film's philosophical stakes become
32:57genuinely thrilling. The production
32:59design, created in consultation with
33:01actual futurists, imagined
33:04individualized advertising,
33:05>> [music]
33:06>> gesture-based computing, and retinal
33:08scanning with an accuracy that has only
33:10become more remarkable over time.
33:12Minority Report is a summer blockbuster
33:14that takes its science fiction
33:16seriously. That is rarer than it should
33:18be.
33:2017th place, Eternal Sunshine of the
33:22Spotless Mind, 2004. [music]
33:25Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the
33:27Spotless Mind is the science fiction
33:29film that people forget is science
33:31fiction. [music]
33:32And the fact that it is may be the most
33:34important thing about it. Jim Carrey
33:37plays Joel Barish, a quiet, withdrawn
33:39man who discovers that his ex-girlfriend
33:41Clementine, played by Kate Winslet in
33:43one of the great performances of her
33:45career, has had all of her memories of
33:47their relationship medically erased. In
33:49his [music] grief, Joel undergoes the
33:51same procedure, and the film takes place
33:54almost entirely inside his dissolving
33:56memories as [music] he fights to hold on
33:58to them. Gondry and screenwriter Charlie
34:00Kaufman use the science fiction premise
34:03not as a source of spectacle, but as a
34:05surgical instrument, cutting directly
34:07into the question of what we owe to our
34:09own pain and whether love is still love
34:12if it exists only in one person's
34:14memory.
34:14>> [music]
34:14>> Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is
34:17a perfect film. It earns every tear.
34:2016th [music] place, Primer, 2004.
34:24Shane Carruth's Primer is the most
34:26[music] intellectually uncompromising
34:28science fiction film on this entire
34:30list. A time travel film made for $7,000
34:33that refuses, absolutely and completely,
34:36to simplify itself for anyone's
34:38convenience. Carruth, who wrote,
34:40directed, starred in, scored, and
34:42photographed the film himself, plays
34:44Aaron, one of two garage engineers who
34:46accidentally build a time machine in a
34:48storage unit and spend the next several
34:50days making increasingly complicated and
34:52ethically compromised decisions about
34:54how to use it. The film is deliberately
34:56confusing, not as a failure of craft,
34:59but as a function of it. The characters
35:01speak in the shorthand of engineers,
35:03never [music] pausing to explain what
35:04they already know, and the temporal
35:06logic becomes so layered that even on
35:08fifth and sixth viewings, new wrinkles
35:10[music] continue to emerge. Primer is a
35:13film about smart people who are not
35:14wise, about the gap between
35:16understanding a technology
35:18>> [music]
35:18>> and understanding its implications.
35:20There is nothing else like it.
35:2315th place, District [music] 9, 2009.
35:27Neill Blomkamp's District 9 is a science
35:30fiction film that dresses its allegory
35:32so nakedly that some critics missed the
35:34artistry, which is remarkable because
35:36the artistry is extraordinary. Set in
35:39Johannesburg, South Africa, where a
35:41massive [music] alien spacecraft has
35:42been hovering for 20 years and its
35:44malnourished occupants have been
35:45confined to a segregated slum called
35:48District 9, the film follows Wikus van
35:50de Merwe, a bureaucratic company man
35:53tasked with relocating the aliens,
35:54[music] whom human residents call
35:56prawns, to a new camp further from the
35:58city. When Wikus is accidentally exposed
36:01to alien biotechnology and begins to
36:03transform,
36:04>> [music]
36:04>> the film's allegory snaps from a
36:06historical lens into a present tense
36:08emergency. Sharlto Copley plays Wikus as
36:11a man whose empathy expands in direct
36:13proportion to his loss of privilege, and
36:15the performance is as raw and physically
36:17committed as anything in science fiction
36:19cinema. District 9 is furious, funny,
36:22and heartbreaking.
36:2414th place, Moon, 2009.
36:28Duncan Jones' Moon is the most
36:30emotionally intelligent debut feature in
36:32the history of science fiction film. A
36:35film made on a $5 million budget that
36:37achieves depths of feeling that most
36:39science [music] fiction films with a
36:40hundred times that spend never approach.
36:43Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, the sole
36:46employee of a lunar mining operation in
36:48the near future. Three years into a
36:50three-year contract and days away from
36:52returning to his family on Earth.
36:54When an accident reveals something that
36:56should be impossible, the film reveals
36:58itself to be a meditation on selfhood,
37:01loneliness, [music]
37:02and the corporate exploitation of human
37:04consciousness executed with a gentleness
37:07and emotional precision that is
37:08genuinely remarkable. Rockwell carries
37:11the entire film, sometimes [music]
37:13literally, both sides of a conversation,
37:16and delivers a performance of staggering
37:18range and nuance.
37:19Moon asks what we owe to the version of
37:21ourselves we leave behind when life
37:24demands we become someone new. It is a
37:26masterpiece.
37:2813th place, Under the Skin, [music]
37:312013.
37:33Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin is the
37:35science fiction film that most fully
37:37realizes the alien perspective, not as a
37:39misunderstood visitor or a conquering
37:41enemy, but as a genuinely other
37:43consciousness experiencing the human
37:45world as a raw, incomprehensible data
37:47stream. Scarlett Johansson plays an
37:50unnamed alien who drives a van through
37:52the streets of Glasgow luring men
37:54[music] into a featureless black void
37:55where they are harvested. Shot partly
37:57with hidden cameras capturing real
37:59interactions with unsuspecting members
38:01of the public, the film creates a
38:03portrait of humanity from the outside
38:05that is as beautiful as it is
38:06disturbing. When the alien begins to
38:08develop something like curiosity about
38:10the bodies and lives of the humans
38:12around her, the film becomes something
38:14even more unsettling, [music]
38:15a mirror in which human behavior,
38:17stripped of its self-justifying
38:19narratives, looks frightening and
38:20strange.
38:22Under the skin is a singular
38:23achievement. a A film that makes you
38:25feel genuinely alien to yourself.
38:2812th place, Looper, [music] 2012.
38:32Rian Johnson's Looper is the science
38:34fiction film that proved time travel
38:36could still be approached with genuine
38:38creative ambition in the 21st [music]
38:39century. That the paradoxes and
38:41implications of the premise, rather than
38:43being obstacles to be explained away,
38:46could be the beating dramatic heart of
38:47the film.
38:48>> [music]
38:48>> Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Joe, a hitman
38:51called a looper in a future where time
38:53travel exists but is illegal, whose job
38:56is to execute targets [music] sent back
38:58in time by criminal organizations. When
39:00Joe's future self, played by Bruce
39:02Willis, is sent back and escapes,
39:04>> [music]
39:05>> the younger Joe must hunt himself down
39:07while grappling with what his older self
39:09knows and intends to [music] do. Johnson
39:11frames the time travel mechanics with
39:13the confidence of a screenwriter who
39:15genuinely understands them, but he is
39:17always more interested in the human cost
39:19of the story than in the intellectual
39:21architecture supporting it. The scene in
39:24which old Joe and young Joe sit down for
39:26lunch together is one of the great
39:28scenes in modern science fiction.
39:3111th place, Predestination, [music]
39:332014.
39:35The Spierig brothers' Predestination is
39:38the most [music] complete and
39:39devastating time loop narrative in the
39:41history of science fiction film. A film
39:43that constructs its paradox with such
39:45geometrical precision that the
39:47revelation of its final act functions
39:49less like a plot twist and more like the
39:51closing of a mathematical proof. Ethan
39:53Hawke plays a temporal agent, a time
39:56traveler charged with preventing crimes
39:58before they occur, on the hunt for a
40:00bomber who has eluded him across decades
40:02and timelines. The film spends most of
40:05its running time in a single location, a
40:071970 bar where the agent listens to a
40:10stranger tell the story of the most
40:11extraordinary life imaginable. What
40:14Predestination understands, [music] and
40:16what lifts it from clever puzzle to
40:17genuine science fiction tragedy, is that
40:20identity is not merely a question of
40:22what we remember. It is a question of
40:24what made us, and whether that making
40:26was ever really in our hands at all. It
40:28is airtight, [music] heartbreaking, and
40:30impossible to shake.
40:3310th place, Total Recall, [music]
40:351990.
40:37Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall lives at
40:39the most exhilarating intersection of
40:41pulp spectacle and genuine philosophical
40:43inquiry in the science fiction genre. A
40:46film that asks the most fundamental
40:47Blade Runner question, what is the
40:49nature of self, and answers it with an
40:52exploding head, a three-breasted woman,
40:54[music]
40:54and one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's most
40:56controlled and physically expressive
40:58performances. Schwarzenegger plays
41:00Douglas Quaid, a construction worker on
41:02future Earth who becomes obsessed with
41:04going to Mars and visits a company
41:06called Rekall that implants artificial
41:08vacation memories. When the procedure
41:10triggers something already inside
41:12Quaid's mind, and he finds himself
41:14uncertain whether his entire life is
41:16real or implanted, the film generates a
41:18genuinely vertiginous sense of
41:20perceptual instability. Verhoeven,
41:23adapting Philip K. Dick, the same author
41:25who wrote the source material for Blade
41:27Runner, understood that the point was
41:28never to resolve the question of what is
41:30real. The point [music] was to make the
41:32uncertainty itself the most terrifying
41:34and exhilarating possible experience.
41:37Total Recall is one of the great rides
41:39fiction cinema.
41:41Ninth place, Ex Machina, 2014.
41:46Alex Garland's Ex Machina is the
41:48definitive artificial intelligence
41:50science fiction film of the 21st
41:51century. [music]
41:52A film so precisely constructed, so
41:55rigorously thought through, and [music]
41:57so deeply uncomfortable in its
41:58implications that it demands multiple
42:01viewings and rewards every one of them
42:03with new terrors. Domhnall Gleeson plays
42:06Caleb, a programmer selected to spend a
42:08week at the remote estate of the
42:09reclusive [music] tech genius Nathan,
42:12played by Oscar Isaac in a performance
42:14of coiled magnetic menace. Caleb has
42:16been brought to administer the Turing
42:18test to Ava, Nathan's latest AI
42:20creation, played by Alicia Vikander in
42:22the performance that announced her to
42:24the world. What Garland understands,
42:26[music] and what makes Ex Machina so
42:28much more disturbing than a simple robot
42:30uprising narrative, is that the question
42:32is not whether Ava can think, but
42:34whether anyone in the film can afford to
42:36stop her from being free. The film's
42:38final scene is one of the most ethically
42:40complex and emotionally chilling moments
42:42in science fiction history. Ex Machina
42:45is a masterpiece, [music] and it is not
42:47finished with you when the credits roll.
42:50Eighth place, Annihilation, 2018.
42:54Alex Garland's Annihilation is the most
42:56uncompromising studio science fiction
42:58film of its generation. A film that
43:00Paramount Pictures reportedly tried to
43:02take from Garland and re-edit after a
43:03test screening, [music] and that was so
43:05resolutely itself that even being dumped
43:08onto streaming outside North America
43:10could not stop it from becoming one of
43:11the most discussed and revered science
43:13fiction films of the decade. Natalie
43:15Portman leads a team of scientists
43:17[music] into the Shimmer, a mysterious
43:19expanding zone where the laws of biology
43:21have been rewritten, on a mission to
43:23find out what happened to previous
43:25expeditions, including Portman's
43:27husband, the only survivor, who came
43:29back as something [music] not quite
43:30himself. Garland, adapting Jeff
43:33VanderMeer's novel, is not interested in
43:35explaining the Shimmer. He is interested
43:38in what it means to walk willingly into
43:39self-destruction, whether from grief,
43:42guilt, [music] or a compulsion so deep
43:44it precedes rational thought.
43:45Annihilation is terrifying, gorgeous,
43:48and absolutely unresolved in the way
43:50only the most honest science fiction can
43:52be.
43:54Seventh place, Arrival, 2016.
43:58Denis Villeneuve's Arrival is the
44:00science fiction film most likely to
44:02reduce [music] a grown adult to tears in
44:04a completely silent room. A film whose
44:06emotional payload is so perfectly
44:08deferred and so precisely delivered that
44:10the experience of watching it is almost
44:12indistinguishable from grief. Amy Adams
44:15plays Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist
44:17[music] recruited by the military to
44:19communicate with one of 12 alien
44:21spacecraft that have landed
44:22simultaneously across the globe. As
44:24Louise makes incremental, painstaking
44:26progress in learning the alien's
44:28circular written language, she begins to
44:30experience what appear to be memories of
44:32a daughter she has never had. What
44:34Villeneuve and screenwriter Eric
44:36Heisserer, adapting Ted Chiang's short
44:38story Story of Your Life, understood
44:40with extraordinary precision is that a
44:42film about learning to read an alien
44:44language
44:45>> [music]
44:45>> is also, necessarily, a film about how
44:48language shapes the way we perceive time
44:50[music]
44:50and therefore the way we perceive loss.
44:53Arrival is one of the great films of the
44:5521st century and [music] its final act
44:57contains a depth of emotion that almost
44:59no science fiction film in history has
45:01matched.
45:03Sixth place, The Thing, 1982. [music]
45:07John Carpenter's The Thing is the most
45:10perfect science fiction horror film ever
45:12made. A film of such rigorous internal
45:15logic,
45:16>> [music]
45:16>> such masterful control of atmosphere and
45:18dread, and such ferocious practical
45:21effects artistry that it remains not
45:23merely unsurpassed in its genre, but
45:25genuinely unapproachable. Set at an
45:27American research station in Antarctica,
45:30the film follows [music] a team of
45:31scientists who discover that one of
45:33their group has been replaced by an
45:34alien organism capable of perfectly
45:37imitating any life form it absorbs. What
45:40Carpenter understands, [music] and what
45:41gives the film its unique power, is that
45:44the monster is almost beside the point.
45:46The real horror is in the trust that
45:48evaporates between the characters once
45:50they understand that any one of them, or
45:52all of them, might already be something
45:54else. Kurt Russell anchors the film with
45:57an impeccable performance, [music]
45:59and Ennio Morricone's score, all
46:01heartbeat bass and industrial tension,
46:03>> [music]
46:03>> is one of the great pieces of film
46:05music. The thing was dismissed on
46:07release in 1982. It is now considered
46:10one of the greatest American films ever
46:12made.
46:13Fifth place, Stalker, 1979.
46:17Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker is the film
46:20that requires the most of its audience
46:22and returns the most to them. A 3-hour
46:24journey into a mysterious forbidden
46:26zone, at the center of which lies a room
46:28said to grant the deepest wish of
46:30whoever enters it. Three men, a writer,
46:33[music] a scientist, and the guide
46:35called the Stalker, make the journey
46:37through a landscape of profound broken
46:39beauty, arguing about art, science,
46:42faith, and the relationship between
46:44desire and meaning. Tarkovsky shoots the
46:46zone in long meditative takes of
46:48extraordinary visual poetry, and the
46:51film moves with a deliberate slowness
46:53that functions not as a test of
46:54endurance, but as a preparation,
46:56>> [music]
46:56>> a meditative clearing of the mind for
46:58what the room might mean. Stalker is a
47:00film about the danger of getting what
47:02you want, about the gap between what we
47:04think we desire and what is actually
47:06driving us, and about the universe's
47:08fundamental indifference to human
47:10longing.
47:10>> [music]
47:10>> It is one of the great films ever made.
47:14Fourth place, Metropolis, [music] 1927.
47:18Fritz Lang's Metropolis is the film from
47:20which all other science fiction cinema
47:22descends. A film made in 1927 that
47:25invented the visual vocabulary of the
47:27genre
47:28>> [music]
47:28>> so completely and so definitively that
47:31you can trace a direct line from its
47:33images to Blade Runner, to Ghost in the
47:35Shell, to Dark City,
47:37>> [music]
47:37>> to virtually every dystopian science
47:39fiction film ever made. Set in a vast
47:42futuristic city divided between the
47:44privileged class who live and dream in
47:46gleaming towers, and the enslaved
47:48workers who toil in the underground
47:49machine rooms that power their world,
47:52the film follows Freder, the son of the
47:54city's ruler, who ventures underground
47:56[music] and discovers the truth of the
47:57society above him. The creation of the
48:00robot Maria, a false idol built to
48:02discredit the workers' real leader, is
48:04one of the great sequences in the
48:05history of cinema, and Maria herself
48:08remains the most influential artificial
48:09being in science fiction history.
48:11Metropolis was damaged, lost, partially
48:14reconstructed, and finally restored to
48:17something approaching completeness in
48:182010. [music]
48:19Every version of it is a miracle.
48:22Third place, Solaris, 1972.
48:26Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris is the
48:29science fiction film that most deeply
48:31understands that the universe's greatest
48:33mystery is not out there in the stars,
48:35but in here,
48:36>> [music]
48:36>> in the minds, the hearts, and the
48:38irretrievable losses of the people who
48:40look up at them.
48:41>> [music]
48:41>> Based on Stanisław Lem's novel, the film
48:43follows Chris Kelvin, a psychologist
48:46sent to a space station orbiting the
48:48living ocean planet Solaris,
48:49>> [music]
48:50>> where the crew have been experiencing
48:51disturbing phenomena, the manifestation
48:54of people from their past, conjured from
48:56memory and guilt by the planet itself.
48:58When Kelvin arrives, the ocean gives him
49:00his dead wife reproduced with perfect
49:03physical accuracy, but entirely without
49:05her history of hurt and betrayal. What
49:07the film asks, with a patience and a
49:09compassion that is [music] overwhelming
49:11in its cumulative effect, is whether
49:13love is possible for a copy of a person,
49:16and whether the question even matters,
49:18given that all of our relationships are
49:20ultimately a projection of something
49:22inside ourselves. Solaris is one of the
49:25most profound works of art in any
49:27medium.
49:28Second place, Brazil, 1985.
49:32Terry Gilliam's Brazil is the most
49:34important science [music] fiction film
49:35never made by Stanley Kubrick, a work of
49:38such encompassing visual imagination,
49:40such a sadistic satirical intelligence,
49:42>> [music]
49:42>> and such profound emotional sincerity
49:45that it stands as one of the defining
49:46artistic statements about the 20th
49:48century and everything it got wrong.
49:50>> [music]
49:50>> Jonathan Pryce plays Sam Lowry, a
49:53low-level bureaucrat in a totalitarian
49:55society of monstrous, gleeful [music]
49:57inefficiency, a world drowning in
49:59paperwork, surveillance, terrorism, and
50:01a consumer culture so advanced [music]
50:03it has become entirely abstract, who
50:05escapes into dreams of himself as a
50:07winged hero
50:08>> [music]
50:08>> and falls in love with a woman he has
50:10seen only in those dreams. Gilliam's
50:12production design is one of the great
50:14achievements in cinema history,
50:16retro-futurist,
50:17>> [music]
50:17>> labyrinthine, at once absurd and
50:19oppressive, and the film's emotional
50:21journey from comedy to tragedy to its
50:24most devastating of final revelations is
50:27executed with a surgical precision that
50:29disguises itself as beautiful chaos.
50:31Brazil is a film about the human
50:33spirit's determination to dream its way
50:35out of a world designed to crush it. The
50:37world [music] wins. The dream matters
50:39more.
50:41And in first place is Children of Men,
50:432006.
50:45Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men is the
50:48science fiction film that does
50:49everything Blade Runner does and then
50:51walks all the way to the end of the road
50:53[music] where Blade Runner stops. Set in
50:56a 2027 Britain that is the last
50:58functioning state in a world that has
51:00descended into chaos following 18 years
51:02of global human infertility, the film
51:05follows Theo, Clive Owen, a burned-out
51:07bureaucrat and former activist who is
51:09pulled back into a world of danger and
51:11meaning when he is given the most
51:13impossible assignment imaginable.
51:15Protect the first pregnant woman in a
51:17generation and get her to safety. Cuarón
51:20shoots the film with an intimacy and a
51:22physical immediacy that is unlike
51:24anything else in science fiction. Long,
51:26unbroken handheld takes that put the
51:28viewer inside the action,
51:30>> [music]
51:30>> inside the fear, inside the mud and
51:32blood and improbable, devastating hope
51:34of it all. Emmanuel Lubezki's
51:37cinematography is the finest in the
51:38history of the genre, period. Children
51:41of Men is a film about what we owe to
51:43the future, to the children we might
51:45have, the world we might leave them, and
51:47the faith it takes to protect something
51:49>> [music]
51:50>> when you have been given every reason to
51:51stop believing it matters. It is the
51:53greatest science fiction film of the
51:5521st century, [music] and on the short
51:57list for the greatest of any century. It
51:59belongs at the top of this list, and it
52:01will [music] stay there. And there you
52:03have it. 50 science fiction films that
52:05deserve every ounce of the reverence
52:07[music] that Blade Runner receives, and
52:09in some cases more. What all of these
52:11films share with Ridley Scott's
52:13masterpiece is the refusal to settle for
52:15spectacle alone, the insistence on
52:17asking the harder questions, the
52:19willingness to linger in the dark long
52:21after the comfortable explanations have
52:23run out. Science fiction at its greatest
52:25has always been less about the future
52:27and more about right now, about who we
52:29are, what we have [music] made, and what
52:31we are still capable of becoming. Every
52:33film on this list understands that. Not
52:36all of them got the audience they
52:37deserved at the time, but the best films
52:39always find their people eventually.
52:41>> [music]
52:41>> And if any one of these films is new to
52:43you, welcome. Your life just has got
52:45better.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of 50 Sci-Fi Movies That Deserve as Much Love as Blade Runner by Top Movies, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 8,795 words across 1,527 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to choose a caption track available on the video.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, caption language selection, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.