Add Cloverfield, The Man from Earth, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Under the Skin to my list. My point isn’t that these are all great films. I think that they show the variety of science fiction films released within the past ten and a half years. This decade is O.K. compared with other such periods of the same length.
I’ll second Europa Report if you like space travel. Or uh, Europa. Some might find it a little dull though, at least compared to time travel stories where guys use pirate guns or have telekinetic powers just because.
I thought Moon (2009) looked really good considering the low budget, though the twist was kinda silly. Really good AI character though!
I’ll second Under the Skin. Weird arthouse movie but gripping shot and presented. Earns a strong, ‘what the hell was that I just watched?’
District 9
Looper
Inception
All excellent films.
Good but not great:
Super 8
Cloverfield
Star Trek
Chronicle
Would y’all count Contagion? It certainly meets a certain number of SF styles and was a pretty good movie.
The next one, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, due out next week is getting rave reviews. Supposed to be a really solid sci-fi flick.
There’s also Minority Report and (flawed but I thought OK) Paycheck, both adaptations of Phil Dick’s work.
(ouch, after posting realized these were both more than a decade ago. Sucks getting old.)
Dark Star
Planet of the Apes
Soylent Green
The Omega Man
Silent Running
Escape from New York
Logan’s Run
Star Wars
2001
A Boy and His Dog
Rollerball
Colossus the Forbin Project
Westworld
Superman
No Cabin in the Woods guys?
O.K., Dale Sams, so the period you’re choosing is from 1968 to 1981:
Dark Star (1975)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Soylent Green (1973)
The Omega Man (1971)
Silent Running (1972)
Escape from New York (1981)
Logan’s Run (1976)
Star Wars (1977)
2001 (1968)
A Boy and His Dog (1975)
Rollerball (1975)
Colossus the Forbin Project (1970)
Westworld (1973)
Superman (1978)
And you’re cheating by giving a period of more than 10 years. Suppose I restrict it to 10 years by dropping Escape from New York. Then 1968 to 1978 is a pretty good time for science fictions films. Do you really think it’s that much better than 2004 to 2014?
So many good films! I’d especially recommend Cloud Atlas, don’t be put off by the people who say it is an overlong 3 hour film… it’s actually a perfectly long six hour film; you get a lot out of the second viewing. I might go as far as to say it is my favourite film.
The Prestige is even better the second time, but I don’t wanna say if it is scifi or not.
Though I am a huge firefly fan, I would not recommend Serenity to someone who has not seen the series, as it kind of assumes you know everything already.
John Carter isn’t really scifi, despite being set on Mars, it’s more fantasy, still, it was definitely enjoyable.
Dredd(with Karl Urban) was a excellent scifi action film
How was Paprika? I haven’t gotten around to watching it, yet, I’m sad to say.
And Battle: Los Angeles actually had it’s moments. If really more of “a war movie, but where the enemy happens to be aliens.”
You’re cheating too, 1968-78 and 2004-14 are eleven year spans. Well, 2014 is only half over, so ten point five for 2004-14.
Paprika is great fun and rather weird!
Others not yet mentioned (I think) are Chronicle and Robot and Frank, which was great fun! If you liked Her, check it out.
It’s like the producers gave some film school student, who’s watched too many German Expressionism films, a camera, an appreciable budget, and Laurence Fishburne, and said “go make a movie.”
Oh, wait, you said “good” Sci-Fi movies. Sorry.
Pacific Rim?
Only Lovers Left Alive is fantasy. But Jim Jarmusch, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston & John Hurt proved that there was still something new to say about vampires…
I’d add Cargo to the list
Shoot. I thought Escape was 1979. Guess that would be cheating too.
I guess the only way we’d know for sure is to go forward 25 years and ask people what ‘classics’ were on the 2004-2014 list. Though, God knows my list has a few obscure ones.
There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense if you think about Oblivion too much. Like how does Manhattan get covered with silt up to the observation deck of the Empire State Building? But visually, it’s a very cool film.
Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith were fine SF movies.
The Star Trek reboot would have been good, except having Vulcan destroyed was a little too comic-bookish, felt like a DC style reboot. Sad.
The Avengers movie was a good watch, especially for a superhero movie, which tend to be dull.
Gravity, as already cited, was absolutely great. But perhaps not science fiction.
I’ll ++ Europa Report.
Brian
Pacific Rim was a whole lot more fun than I expected, although it’s not really thought provoking.
Same thing for Dredd, which suffers somewhat from the problem of if the viewer isn’t at least passingly familiar with the Judge Dredd/2000 AD comics, the movie is a bit perplexing. OTOH, if you’re passingly familiar, it’s terrific.