The 100 Best Sci-Fi Films Of All Time

80. “Jurassic Park” (1993)
Awe is something missing from too many blockbusters these days, which tend to add ‘shock and’ to the start of that quality, but it’s found in spades in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster adaptation of Michael Crichton’s dinosaur-theme-park novel. It’s not quite soulful enough to rank in Spielberg’s tier, but it’s still as thrilling, funny, scary, clever and, yes, awe-inspiring as any blockbuster you could hope for.

79. “Invasion Of The Body Snatchers” (1956)
It’s something of a political Rorschach test — is it about the communist infiltration of the U.S? Or McCarthyite paranoia? — but this first of many adaptations of Jack Finney’s 1954 sci-fi novel about pod-people aliens impersonating human beings and subtly taking over the world still packs a punch today. At least one version would improve on the premise (see below), but it’s hard to argue with the efficiency of Don Siegel’s take here.

78. “A Scanner Darkly” (2006)
There have been better sci-fi films from Philip K. Dick novels, but none that captured the pure, unfiltered Dick experience better than Richard Linklater’s “A Scanner Darkly.” Melding the trippy animation of “Waking Life” with his narrative abilities, it’s a truly mind-bending tale of an undercover agent (Keanu Reeves, in one of his best turns) addicted to a drug that makes him question his reality. It’s a hypnotic, trippy picture that lingers long on the mind like an acid flashback.

77. “Scanners” (1981)
The film that will always be known as the ‘exploding head movie,’ but is so much more than that on top. David Cronenberg’s thriller about psychics who are able to make skulls blow up isn’t his richest or most meaningful movie, but it’s a ton of bloody fun, moving like a sort of sci-fi-tinged “Three Days Of The Condor” with a cracking ending and a great villain turn from Michael Ironside.

76. “A Boy And His Dog” (1974)
Never judge a movie by its title, especially not “A Boy And His Dog,” which sounds like cutesy kids’ fare, and is instead set in a suddenly plausible post-nuclear-apocalyptic landscape, and sees a young Don Johnson wander the wasteland with his telepathic dog in search of women to rape. It ends with Johnson eating and cooking his love interest. It’s an adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s books, and while it’s deeply weird and sometimes misanthropic, it’s a fascinating, often thrilling piece of work.

75. “Minority Report” (2002)
The first team-up of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise, on a sci-fi from the writer of “Blade Runner” and “Total Recall,” had understandably high expectations, and for the most part exceeded them. Taking an ingenious concept — of a world where murders can be stopped before they happen — and turned into a thriller equal parts Hitchcock and noir, it’s full of texture and character, and has some of Spielberg’s best set pieces, only letting you down a little with a disappointingly conventional ending.

74. “The Brother From Another Planet” (1984)
This often overlooked Afrofuturist gem from “Lone Star” writer-director John Sayles sees Joe Morton play the titular mute Brother, an alien who has escaped slavery on another planet and attempts to settle into Harlem life, including becoming a superhero of sorts. Sayles’ usual subtlety and nuance are fully in effect despite the high-concept premise, and it’s a truly rich picture about both the immigrant experience and the legacy of America’s treatment of its black inhabitants.

73. “Starship Troopers” (1997)
Deeply misunderstood on release by critics who must have never seen a Paul Verhoeven movie, this subversive adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s sci-fi is an anti-war, anti-fascist satire disguised as a bloody blockbuster. Verhoven’s genius is that it works so well on both levels, building a world that’s all too-real now and poking at its monstrousness, while delivering some stunning set pieces. He even makes the deliberately bland casting work to his benefit.

72. “The Abyss” (1989)
In some ways “The Abyss” is James Cameron’s least loved movie, in that it didn’t make four hundred trillion dollars. But with its nightmarish shoot nearly thirty years in the past, it stands as a fascinating, thoughtful outlier in Cameron’s high-octane career. Its story of a deep-sea drilling platform’s encounter with an alien lifeform is more “Close Encounters” than “Aliens” and even if it doesn’t 100% stick the landing, it’s a sincere and gripping look at an alien world that’s rarely been examined since.

71. “Wall-E” (2008)
If the whole of Andrew Stanton’s “Wall-E” was as good as its virtually perfect, Chaplin-esque silent first half, it’d be Pixar’s best movie, and at least fifty places higher on this list. As it is, the space-station bound second half among humanity’s obese survivors is only terrific, still nicely serving the studio’s best love story, its most adorable character and a political message about the environment and the fears of automation that only becomes more relevant with time.