50 Greatest Sci-Fi Movies of all time...

Colorado Dolfan · Nov 16, 2010

http://movies.msn.com/paralleluniverse/50-greatest-sci-fi-films/photo-gallery/feature/?GT1=28140

Pretty good list... Here's a couple of tidbits:

41) 'The Andromeda Strain' (1971)

No flying saucers, no little green men with big heads; no, the alien invasion here is just a germ, a virus ... a virus that causes instant death and has the noticeable effect of turning human blood into red powder! That can't be good. This is one of the pioneers in that problematic sci-fi/sci-fact genre hybrid sometimes called the bio-thriller. Based on a novel by the young Michael Crichton, who was at this time a stickler for making the science in his fictional concoctions as convincing as possible, this film is a super-suspenseful race-against-time picture in which a team of prickly scientists cut themselves off from the outside world to find a solution to this act of intergalactic germ warfare. A smart nail-biter that sneaks up on you.
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27) 'Total Recall' (1990)

Inspired author Philip K. Dick's stories of false memories and alternate realities and higher powers that may just be manifestations of schizophrenia or hallucinogenic drug hangovers are all the more powerful in that their protagonists are generally ordinary guys. Well. In this adaptation of the Dick story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" the protagonist is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. So much for that ordinary-guy idea, right? Notoriously over-the-top director Paul Verhoeven takes Arnold's larger-than-life qualities and runs with them, though, making the various twists and turns of Dick's am-I-really-here and who-am-I-really-anyway scenario that much more outrageous. It's like "2001: A Space Odyssey" goes to Las Vegas, and no less of a trip for all that. It's also filled with such Verhoeven staples as excess gore, bodily function gross-outs (get that thing out of your nose, for God's sake) and gratuitous sex and nudity. A splendid time, as long as you can get over the Dick betrayal.
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15) 'Independence Day' (1996)

One suspects that the thing today is to give this picture short shrift, particularly because it's one of those -- that is, one of those sci-fi films widely embraced by a larger public that more often than not likes to look down at sci-fi. And also because it isn't so much good sci-fi as it is good blowing-stuff-up stuff. But. It cannot be denied. The Roland Emmerich-directed alien-invasion-and-Earth-resistance movie is a really packed compendium of sci-fi blockbuster convention and action, mixed and executed for ultimate crowd wowing and rousing, and it really works in that respect. And, also, you've never seen New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles blown up so convincingly either before or since, have you? No. It may be a cliché, and inaccurate to boot, to say "resistance is futile," but it isn't wrong to say that resistance is unnecessary; there's just no point in fighting this movie's pleasures.
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8) 'Aliens' (1986)

In which then-tyro director James Cameron, relatively fresh from his "Terminator" triumph, gets a bigger budget and crafts some neat toys, "opening up" the classic Ridley Scott old-dark-house-in-space shocker "Alien" and turning it into a kind of, yes, Western and/or Korean War movie on another world. Here, the first film's sole survivor Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is drafted (one could say blackmailed -- the human villain here is a corporate slime played by Paul Reiser) into leading a "bug hunt" on a human colony experiencing problems with the titular acid-blooded creatures. Pyrotechnic big battles alternate with claustrophobic suspense set pieces that almost surpass those of the original, and the picture's climax -- and climactic line of dialogue -- is what you'd call a defining moment. We feel bad for anyone too young to have seen this when it first came out in theaters in 1986; this is the kind of exhilarating cinematic roller-coaster that's best experienced with a houseful of fellow riders.
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Thoughts?

Just one here: Thoroughly agree with #1 on that list. Definitely the best of the bunch... Though I guess the list was made before "Inception." That one would have had to be high on the list, IMO.

NaboCane · Nov 16, 2010

MikeHoncho · Nov 16, 2010

I would say Back to The Future as number 1, if it weren't based on a true story.

NaboCane · Nov 16, 2010

Wow...MSN likes cookies.

Is there a link to the whole list on one page? Page by page it's gonna take a long time to see the whole thing, and by the time I get to "1" I'll forget the rest.

Colorado Dolfan · Nov 19, 2010

I wish there was. :/

Definitely would make the look a whole lot easier...

Pavlous · Jan 26, 2011

Of all the sci-fi movies that I've watched I can say that Blade runner is the best on this category because the story is about the future built on a science that allows men to play God.

Ohio Fanatic · Jan 27, 2011

some of those movies were absurd choices. Three choices that were a crime to be left off IMO:

VanDolPhan · Jan 27, 2011

Yup not bothering without a 1 page listing.

Zippy · Jan 27, 2011

I did not see Predator?

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