The greatest sci-fi movie ever made?

[Cardinal]

@BwanaBob

This kind of remark drives me insane.

This movie is from 1951; it predates all the others mentioned here with the exception of Metropolis. Stuff you call cliche was invented in this movie. It is ridiculous to demean a movie that had its ideas stolen and rehashed a hundred times after.

What ideas are those?

[Cardinal]

Blah.

[BMalion]

By Grabthar’s Hammer, wh-what a great thread.

[Knorf]

My top 5:

2001: A Space Odyssey
Metropolis
Blade Runner
12 Monkeys
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I liked Outland, too, but it’s sci-fi is problematic due to confusion about physics. And of course I have a soft spot for the big sci-fi operas like Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, Star Trek 1 and 2 and the second Next Generation one (too lazy to look up it’s title, the one with the Borg), and I really loved Serenity. I think The Matrix deserves some kudos as well, and I liked the recent Spielberg movies A.I. and The Minority Report.

[Ludovic]

What about Logan’s Run? I’m surprised no one has mentioned that yet.

[CalMeacham]

I wanted to resurrect this for one last comment about The Day the Earth Stood Still – it was considered sufficiently “adult” and “highbrow” that NBC continued to show it on their prime-time Saturday Night at the Movies well into the 1960s. I recall watching it there. That’s a pretty high tribute – science fiction movies were stlll in the cultural slum back then, and I can’t recall another science fiction movie playing in that slot for a long time after. I don’t recall Forbidden Planet being shown in prime time on one of the three major networks at all. In the early 1960s it ran on WWOR, one of the New York independent stations (actually broadcasting out of Secaucus, NJ), who were glad to get it, I’ll bet, because it was a color film. The only time I recall seeing FP on a major network was in the late 1970s when CBS broadcast it as part of a big movie package intended to dethrone Johnny Carson. They played it up as a Star Warsian flick, which it wasn’t.

[Boyo_Jim]

@CalMeacham

I wanted to resurrect this for one last comment about The Day the Earth Stood Still – it was considered sufficiently “adult” and “highbrow” that NBC continued to show it on their prime-time Saturday Night at the Movies well into the 1960s. I recall watching it there. That’s a pretty high tribute – science fiction movies were stlll in the cultural slum back then, and I can’t recall another science fiction movie playing in that slot for a long time after. I don’t recall Forbidden Planet being shown in prime time on one of the three major networks at all. In the early 1960s it ran on WWOR, one of the New York independent stations (actually broadcasting out of Secaucus, NJ), who were glad to get it, I’ll bet, because it was a color film. The only time I recall seeing FP on a major network was in the late 1970s when CBS broadcast it as part of a big movie package intended to dethrone Johnny Carson. They played it up as a Star Warsian flick, which it wasn’t.

It was highbrow because the guy had an English-sounding accent.