Science Fiction movies to see before the aliens get you
The sci-fi movies that most appeal to the non-human or extra-terrestrial sensibilities of theNeoplatonist. In alphabetical order after an inexorable number...
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- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsKeir DulleaGary LockwoodWilliam SylvesterAfter uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins: a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer HAL 9000.My supreme favorite. Better at conveying religious awe than most church services.
- DirectorJames CameronStarsEd HarrisMary Elizabeth MastrantonioMichael BiehnA civilian diving team is enlisted to search for a lost nuclear submarine and faces danger while encountering an alien aquatic species.Just make sure you see the proper LONGER ending version. Far, far superior, in theNeoplatonist's humble opinion.
- DirectorRobert ZemeckisStarsMichael J. FoxChristopher LloydLea ThompsonMarty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown.
- DirectorTed PostStarsJames FranciscusKim HunterMaurice EvansThe sole survivor of an interplanetary rescue mission searches for the only survivor of the previous expedition. He discovers a planet ruled by apes and an underground city run by telepathic humans.Good sequel to the great original, with a weird religious theme running through it. The human mutants at worship must be seen to be believed.
- DirectorRidley ScottStarsHarrison FordRutger HauerSean YoungA blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.Sci-fi film noir par excellence. Somewhere out there, the definitive version of this movie exists, but I forget which one. Do a bit of research and make sure THAT's the version you see.
- DirectorJames WhaleStarsBoris KarloffElsa LanchesterColin CliveMary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Baron Henry Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.Yes, often classified as "Horror", but the scientific setting (creating life from death by science) makes it Horrific Sci-Fi.
- DirectorJohn CarpenterStarsDan O'BannonDre PahichBrian NarelleIn the far reaches of space, a small crew, 20 years into their solitary mission, find things beginning to go hilariously wrong.Hilarious beyond laughter.
- DirectorVal GuestStarsEdward JuddJanet MunroLeo McKernWhen the U.S. and Russia unwittingly test atomic bombs at the same time, it alters the nutation (axis of rotation) of the Earth.Better than most apocalyptic movies. Has a very gritty and believable realism.
- DirectorRobert WiseStarsMichael RenniePatricia NealHugh MarloweAn alien lands in Washington, D.C. and tells the people of Earth that they must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets.Don't bother with the remake. THIS is THE version. He comes to the earth, he's known as a "Carpenter", he preaches the truth, he's killed by a hostile government and its soldiers, he rises from the dead, he ascends into heaven... Hang on, was that this movie or was it the New Testament???
- DirectorFrançois TruffautStarsOskar WernerJulie ChristieCyril CusackIn an oppressive future, a fireman whose duty is to destroy all books begins to question his task.One of the most imaginative depictions of a future dystopic society. Here "firemen" burn books...
- DirectorJames WhaleStarsColin CliveMae ClarkeBoris KarloffDr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses.See comments for "Bride of Frankenstein".
- DirectorDean ParisotStarsTim AllenSigourney WeaverAlan RickmanThe alumni cast of a space opera television series have to play their roles as the real thing when an alien race needs their help. However, they also have to defend both Earth and the alien race from a reptilian warlord.Almost as funny as Dark Star. Best appreciated by TV sci-fi fans who don't mind seeing themselves parodied (affectionately).
- DirectorGene Fowler Jr.StarsTom TryonGloria TalbottPeter BaldwinAliens arrive on Earth to possess the bodies of humans. One of their first victims is a young man, whose new wife soon realizes something is wrong with him.One of the very best of the 1950s black-and-white alien cycle.
- DirectorChristopher NolanStarsLeonardo DiCaprioJoseph Gordon-LevittElliot PageA thief who steals corporate secrets through the use of dream-sharing technology is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of a C.E.O., but his tragic past may doom the project and his team to disaster.
- DirectorJack ArnoldStarsGrant WilliamsRandy StuartApril KentAfter Scott Carey begins to shrink because of exposure to a combination of radiation and insecticide, medical science is powerless to help him.Strangely moving ending. Great stuff.
- DirectorRoland EmmerichStarsWill SmithBill PullmanJeff GoldblumThe aliens are coming and their goal is to invade and destroy Earth. Fighting superior technology, mankind's best weapon is the will to survive.
- DirectorDon SiegelStarsKevin McCarthyDana WynterLarry GatesA small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates."Mass hysteria won't explain the body on Jack's pool table." So say we all.
- DirectorPhilip KaufmanStarsDonald SutherlandBrooke AdamsJeff GoldblumWhen strange seeds drift to earth from space, mysterious pods begin to grow and invade San Francisco, replicating the city's residents one body at a time.I like both versions... Or maybe I like one, and my pod duplicate likes the other.
- DirectorIain SoftleyStarsKevin SpaceyJeff BridgesMary McCormackPROT is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a faraway planet named K-PAX. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own explanations.Sci-fi over which to sob your heart out.
- DirectorLana WachowskiLilly WachowskiStarsKeanu ReevesLaurence FishburneCarrie-Anne MossWhen a beautiful stranger leads computer hacker Neo to a forbidding underworld, he discovers the shocking truth--the life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber-intelligence.
- DirectorDuncan JonesStarsSam RockwellKevin SpaceyDominique McElligottAstronaut Sam Bell has a quintessentially personal encounter toward the end of his three-year stint on the Moon, where he, working alongside his computer, GERTY, sends back to Earth parcels of a resource that has helped diminish our planet's power problems.
- DirectorFranklin J. SchaffnerStarsCharlton HestonRoddy McDowallKim HunterAn astronaut crew crash-lands on a planet where highly intelligent non-human ape species are dominant and humans are enslaved.The original and still the best, in theNeoplatonist's primitive opinion.
- DirectorMichael SpierigPeter SpierigStarsEthan HawkeSarah SnookNoah TaylorAs his last assignment, a temporal agent is tasked to travel back in time and prevent a bomb attack in New York in 1975. The hunt, however, turns out to be beyond the bounds of possibility.Grand adaptation of the misleadingly titled short story "All You Zombies" by Robert Heinlein. Sort of time-travel film noir.
- DirectorShane CarruthStarsShane CarruthDavid SullivanCasey GoodenFour friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there's something bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices they've built, wrestle over their new invention.Time travel to make you feel existentially sick.
- DirectorVal GuestStarsBrian DonlevyJack WarnerRichard WordsworthProfessor Bernard Quatermass' manned rocket ship returns to Earth, but two of the astronauts are missing and the survivor seems ill and unable to communicate.Brilliant "astronaut infected by alien" drama, one of the earliest and best.
- DirectorVal GuestStarsBrian DonlevyJohn LongdenSidney JamesProfessor Quatermass, trying to gather support for his Lunar colonisation project, is intrigued by mysterious traces that have been showing up.Nightmarish conspiracy between government and aliens - as early as 1957...
- DirectorRoy Ward BakerStarsJames DonaldAndrew KeirBarbara ShelleyA mysterious artifact is unearthed in London, and famous scientist Bernard Quatermass is called in to divine its origins and explain its strange effects on people.Ancient aliens manipulating human genetic and psychic make-up... WE are the Martians. Fine screen adaptation of the BBC tv series. Andrew Keir does a superb Professor Quatermass.
- DirectorRupert WyattStarsJames FrancoAndy SerkisFreida PintoA substance designed to help the brain repair itself gives advanced intelligence to a chimpanzee who leads an ape uprising.Brilliantly good reboot.
- DirectorPaul VerhoevenStarsPeter WellerNancy AllenDan O'HerlihyIn a dystopic and crime-ridden Detroit, a terminally wounded cop returns to the force as a powerful cyborg haunted by submerged memories.As usual, stick with the original.
- DirectorJeremy KaganStarsKyle MacLachlanMartin SheenDwight YoakamBeginning at a 30-year reunion for members of a military nuclear bomb unit, flashbacks are presented that follow the attempts of Major Jesse Marcel to discover the truth about strange debris found on a local rancher's field in July of 1947. Told by his superiors that what he has found is nothing more than a downed weather balloon, Marcel maintains his military duty until the weight of the truth, however out of this world it may be, forces him to piece together what really occurred. Adapted from real-life events portrayed in the book _UFO Crash at Roswell_ by Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt.Pretty good re-enactment of the key alien mystery. For those interested in these things, look up the Shag Harbour incident too.
- DirectorDuncan JonesStarsJake GyllenhaalMichelle MonaghanVera FarmigaA soldier wakes up in someone else's body and discovers he's part of an experimental government program to find the bomber of a commuter train within 8 minutes.
- DirectorRichard FleischerStarsCharlton HestonEdward G. RobinsonLeigh Taylor-YoungA nightmarish futuristic fantasy about the controlling power of big corporations and an innocent cop who stumbles on the truth.Atmospheric dystopia. Depressing but gripping.
- DirectorNicholas MeyerStarsWilliam ShatnerLeonard NimoyDeForest KelleyWith the assistance of the Enterprise crew, Admiral Kirk must stop an old nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh, from using the life-generating Genesis Device as the ultimate weapon.One hates to agree with popular opinion, but this IS the best of the franchise...
- DirectorIrvin KershnerStarsMark HamillHarrison FordCarrie FisherAfter the Rebel Alliance are overpowered by the Empire, Luke Skywalker begins his Jedi training with Yoda, while his friends are pursued across the galaxy by Darth Vader and bounty hunter Boba Fett.And so is this.
- DirectorJames CameronStarsArnold SchwarzeneggerLinda HamiltonMichael BiehnA human soldier is sent from 2029 to 1984 to stop an almost indestructible cyborg killing machine, sent from the same year, which has been programmed to execute a young woman whose unborn son is the key to humanity's future salvation.
- DirectorJames CameronStarsArnold SchwarzeneggerLinda HamiltonEdward FurlongA cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her ten year old son John from an even more advanced and powerful cyborg.
- DirectorGordon DouglasStarsJames WhitmoreEdmund GwennJoan WeldonThe earliest atomic tests in New Mexico cause common ants to mutate into giant man-eating monsters that threaten civilization.Best of the radiation-spawned-monster cycle. Wonderful.
- DirectorChristian NybyHoward HawksStarsKenneth TobeyMargaret SheridanJames ArnessScientists and American Air Force officials fend off a bloodthirsty alien organism while at a remote arctic outpost.See below.
- DirectorJohn CarpenterStarsKurt RussellWilford BrimleyKeith DavidA research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.As with "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers", I like both versions.
- DirectorMatthijs van Heijningen Jr.StarsMary Elizabeth WinsteadJoel EdgertonUlrich ThomsenAt an Antarctica research site, the discovery of an alien craft leads to a confrontation between graduate student Kate Lloyd and scientist Dr. Sander Halvorson.Not a remake - a prequel to the John Carpenter version. Pretty good and underrated in theNeoplatonist's mutated opinion.
- DirectorGeorge PalStarsRod TaylorAlan YoungYvette MimieuxA man's vision for a utopian society is disillusioned when travelling forward into time reveals a dark and dangerous society.As usual, forget any remakes. Here's the beautiful original.
- DirectorTerry GilliamStarsBruce WillisMadeleine StoweBrad PittIn a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet.A triumph of style over substance, but what style! What acting! Don't forget the plane scene at the end...
- DirectorWolf RillaStarsGeorge SandersBarbara ShelleyMartin StephensIn the English village of Midwich, the blonde-haired, glowing-eyed children of uncertain paternity prove to have frightening powers.Spookiest children ever. As usual, forget remakes.
- DirectorPeter WatkinsStarsMichael AspelPeter GrahamDave BaldwinA docudrama depicting a hypothetical nuclear attack on Britain.Wasn't sure if this really counted as sci-fi, because it's so horribly, terrifyingly realistic. But here it is. What would happen in event of a nuclear war...
- DirectorByron HaskinStarsGene BarryAnn RobinsonLes TremayneA small town in California is attacked by Martians, beginning a worldwide invasion.Those Martian war-machines have never been bettered. For those who dislike the "religious" ending, it's in the original Wells novel - God created the microbes that kill the Martians.