Science Fiction
Science fiction as a genre of film making has been an element of the cinema experience since the earliest days of the motion picture industry. These films have explored a great range of unique topics, including many that cannot be readily presented in other genre. Science fiction films have been used to explore sensitive social and political issues, while often providing an entertaining story for the more casual viewer. Today, science fiction films are in the forefront of new special effects technology, and the audience has become accustomed to displays of realistic aliens, space battles, energy weapons, faster than light travel, and distant worlds.
This genre has produced many memorable films, as well as a number that can be considered mediocre or even among the worst examples of film production. It took many decades, and the efforts of talented teams of film producers, for the science fiction film genre to be taken seriously as an art form by many critics. The very best of these films may be scrolled below, or for Sci-Fi TV Series, select the green 'Televison Shows' heading on left, and then the 'TV Sci-Fi' option.
The Day the Earth Stood Still ( Blu-ray ) (1951)
7.8/10
Director: Robert Wise
Starring: Billy Gray, Hugh Marlowe, Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe
A spacecraft lands in Washington D.C. and an alien emerges, with a menacing robot whose destructive powers defy imagination. So begins the science-fic... Read more
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
7.8/10
Director: Robert Wise
Starring: Billy Gray, Hugh Marlowe, Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe
A spacecraft lands in Washington D.C. and an alien emerges, with a menacing robot whose destructive powers defy imagination. So begins the science-fic... Read more
When Worlds Collide (1951)
6.7/10
Director: Rudolph Mate
Starring: Barbara Rush, John Hoyt, Richard Deer
George Pal's science fiction classic that set the precedent for today's spectaculars. Human colonists race against time to build an escape rocket befo... Read more
Captain Video (1951)
5.9/10
Director: Spencer Gordon Bennet, Wallace Grissell
Starring: Gene Roth, Judd Holdren, Larry Stewart, George Eldredge
Two years after his television debut, the space-faring scientific genius and 'Captain of the Video Rangers' became the first TV character to make the... Read more
Flight to Mars (1951)
5.2/10
Director: Lesley Selander
Starring: Arthur Franz, Marguerite Chapman, Cameron Mitchell
The first science-fiction film shot in colour that follows an Earth expedition to the red planet who discover a subterranean city populated by the dyi... Read more
The Thing From Another World (1951)
7.2/10
Director: Christian Nyby
Starring: Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, Douglas Spencer
An American scientific expedition, set up in the North Pole, discovers a UFO crashed in the icecap. Inside is a frozen extra-terrestrial visitor. The... Read more
Destination Moon (1950)
6.4/10
Director: Irving Pichel
Starring: Dick Wesson, Warner Anderson, John Archer
The first Hollywood science-fiction project to take a serious look at the possibilities of manned spaceflight, George Pal's Oscar-winning colour film... Read more
The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944)
5.8/10
Director: Ford Beebe
Starring: Evelyn Ankers, John Carradine, Jon Hall, Leon Errol, Alan Curtis
An eager scientist tests his new formula for invisibility on an escaped fugitive. When the formula works the criminal runs off to terrorize a family h... Read more
The Invisible Woman (1940)
Director: Edward Sutherland
Starring: Virginia Bruce, John Barrymore, John Howard
Eccentric Professor Gibbs, brilliant but impractical, invents an invisibility machine and advertises for a guinea pig. What he gets is Kitty Carroll,... Read more
Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe - All 12 Chapters (1940)
Starring: Larry 'Buster' Crabbe, Carol Hughes, Anne Gwynne, Charles Middleton
Contains the original 12 episodes of the sci-fi action serial based on the Alex Raymond comic strip, starring Buster Crabbe as the heroic Flash trying... Read more