![]() The New Sci- Fi Boom: 1. Best Sci- Fi Films of The Last 5 Years. One of the most popular genres in film history is science fiction. Over the years, audiences have been amazed as they are transported to exciting new worlds, meet alien creatures, face possible post- apocalyptic futures, or experience the thrill of adventure in space. While sci- fi movies have been entertaining the public as far back as the 1. Flash Gordon serials, the genre experienced a wave of popularity during the early days of the summer blockbuster. ![]() Thanks in large part to the overwhelming success of George Lucas’ Star Wars in 1. The ’7. 0s and ’8. Star Wars sequels, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E. T.– The Extra Terrestrial, the Alien films, Back to the Future, and the start of the Terminatorfranchise. These movies aren’t just considered fine examples of sci- fi genre fare, they are also listed as some of the greatest films ever made. Director Neill Blomkamp has emerged as one of the leading voices of this sci- fi generation with his Oscar- nominated feature length debut District 9and this month’s Elysium. Of course, Blomkamp is just one high- profile director to try his hand at the genre and his contemporaries have added some memorable entries to the realm of sci- fi. Here are a few examples of ways you can filter the charts: The Worst Sci-Fi Comedies of All Time; The Top 10 Sci-Fi Comedies of All Time; The Top 20 Sci-Fi Comedies. The 3D resurgence of the late 2000s brought with it a lot of films that never should’ve been in 3D (we’re. Before she was Wonder Woman she was Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained warrior. When a pilot crashes and tells of conflict in the outside world, she leaves home. Here are our picks for the ten best sci- fi films of the past five years (ordered by release date). Of course the list is not all- inclusive, so once you’ve had a chance to read our picks, share yours in the comments. The 2. 5 Best Sci- Fi Movies of the Last 2. Years. This week sees the release of . And while in all likelihood . Some are intimate character studies; others span multiple planets or planes of reality. They prove that great ideas aren’t defined by the size of their budgets but by the scope of their ideas and the depth of their emotions. It’s easy to be cynical about the state of filmmaking in 2. This brilliant flip of the gender script also functions as a metatextual meditation on the way audiences typically objectify actresses—Johansson is frequently naked, but never in a entirely titilating way. ![]() Outer Limits, V, Star Trek & More! We've selected the very best designs in sci-fi movies, and a host of influential designers discuss our picks. I swear ya’ll published this the exact same day as The Fil mStage.com’s own list on purpose.![]() The more Johansson endeavors to empathize and become more “human,” the more she realizes that her body serves no purpose beyond its attractiveness to those she’s made to lure into a fatal trap; it was only created for the pleasure of men, not for herself. It’s that uniformity that consumes Andrew Niccol’s . The premise of the world of . Who wouldn’t want to pass on prime genes to their offspring? Who wouldn’t pay for that? Well, the people who can’t pay for that. A meditation on class warfare mixed with a modern Romeo and Juliet romance, Niccol’s 1. Ethan Hawke’s Vincent Freeman faces in his attempts to fulfill his lifelong career goals (and hook up with Uma Thurman, a dream many people can relate to) aren’t far off from the issues faced by contemporary society. Where other time- travel films dumb things down to keep the audience engaged, Carruth’s hyper- realistic . Carruth has said he wanted to make the film as obtuse as possible, so the audience was left as confused about the events as the characters themselves (who he lovingly referred to as “morons”). Sure, it looks cheap; what film shot for a reported budget of $7,0. But that homemade aesthetic somehow adds to the appeal. The biggest discoveries are sometimes the ones that are made by a bunch of friends working together in someone’s basement. The 3. D (and IMAX) immersed viewers in the experience, letting space become another character in the film. As Sandra Bullock’s astronaut spins around, untethered in the great expanse of outer space, you're as disoriented as she is. In both the literal and figurative sense, it’s breathtaking (as Bullock slowly loses oxygen, you find yourself counting your own breaths). And while it works incredibly well as a sci- fi suspense thriller, . It’s only in accepting the end, in leaving the womb of the space station and crawling up out of the primordial clay, does Bullock’s character find a new beginning. Artificial Intelligence’ (2. Directed by Steven Spielberg. The tension between humans and robots—between the “real” and the “fake,” the creator and the created—is just the sort of kinda/sorta real- world issue that works best on the big screen. Steven Spielberg’s 2. The mechas that populate Spielberg’s brave (and flooded and just kind of awful) new world are capable of so much (though they don’t realize it, and we don’t let them), but we’re principally preoccupied with young David, who just wants to be a real boy. This reimagining of the Pinocchio mythos translates seamlessly to Spielberg’s cold and distant tale, and Haley Joel Osment’s portrayal of the little mecha that could is gut- wrenching to the point of being actually painful. Spielberg shows that a “fake” boy can inspire real emotion from even the most hardened of audiences. A parable of the real- life horrors of apartheid, . Rather than the sleek, sophisticated futuristic tech of traditional sci- fi, Blomkamp made his weapons and gadgets look used and worn, lending the film an additional degree of realism and believability. The fictional technology accessorizes a story about the complexities of humanity rather than serving as its focus, a rarity among large- scale Hollywood productions. Blomkamp remains a promising and intriguing talent regardless of the disappointment of . The ingenious premise follows the cast of a long- cancelled cult sci- fi series as they’re plucked from the convention circuit by honest- to- goodness E. T. s (played with genuine, otherworldly weirdness by Enrico Colantoni, Missi Pyle, and a pre- . The aliens have mistaken the . Written by David Howard and Robert Gordon with an exhaustive knowledge of—and an obvious affection for—the tropes of . Boyle’s ability to weave a mighty story with a compelling cast of characters is on full display here, as he immediately steeps us in life on board the Icarus II as it approaches its final (like, really final) destination. Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland are both adept at world- building—even tiny worlds, like the kind someone might find on a tricked out spaceship bound for glory—and that’s perhaps the boldest thing about . Even as their motivations and desires flicker and flame, almost everything about . It’s practically Shakespeare on a space vessel as the interplanetary drama continually boils down to the most personal of motivations. Let’s live, Boyle and Garland and their characters (played by a stellar cast that includes Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, and Cillian Murphy) demand, even if it kills us. The results were as satisfying as they were unexpected, a brilliantly constructed mystery (written for the screen by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen) set in a future where a trio of “Precogs” anticipate murders and a special unit of police officers led by Cruise decode their visions and prevent the killings before they take place. Cruise’s belief in his job is shaken after he himself is accused of killing a man he’s never met; he goes on the lam to prove his innocence while a Department of Justice agent (Colin Farrell) assigned to determine the true efficacy of the “Pre. Crime” division stays hot on his trail. But what puts this sci- fi film among the elite of the last quarter century is the way its possible future reflects on our actual present, and what it has to say about the post- 9/1. There are no costumes, capes, or secret identities, but there are futuristic gadgets, exotic spacecraft, and sentient space trees that sound like Vin Diesel. He’s just one member of an outstanding cast that includes Bradley Cooper as the voice of wise- cracking raccoon Rocket and Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer, a vengeful warrior whose alien brain does not understand the concept of figures of speech. Even with all the crazy imagery and geeky concepts, . The uncharted corners of the universe have never felt so universal. The Wright- produced debut feature from Joe Cornish has a rowdy, boundless energy and awesomely fresh alien designs. But it’s not the threat of furry aliens with glowing teeth or the desperate fight for survival that makes . While we patiently await his follow- up project, we still have . It’s an Amblin adventure for the modern age; a throwback that also’s forward- thinking. It's his best movie, which is saying an awful lot. Like Douglas Adams before him, Wright uses a blend of grand science- fiction concepts and comedy to explore what makes humanity tick. It's a dizzying blend of concepts that have no right to work together at all, and yet they do. Like the other entries in his “Cornetto Trilogy,” . When someone dies, the audience feels it. When the crazy sci- fi takes center stage, the ideas are just as captivating as the jokes. But somehow director Andrew Stanton was able to pull if off, and somehow he was also able to make . There are friendly nods to past sci- fi films like . If you were to say it was based on a recently uncovered novel from Isaac Asimov or Robert Heinlein, no one would blink an eye. It’s that smart, that inventive, and, most importantly, that human. One of its greatest pleasures is watching its plot unfold for the first time, so let’s stick to the basics: Sam Rockwell, giving a career- best performance, plays the sole employee of a mining operation on the moon. Bored and on edge, his only friend is a robot voiced by Kevin Spacey. So when he uncovers something very peculiar out on the surface of Earth’s only natural satellite, things only go downhill. Rockwell is our doorway into this future, a blue- collar everyman whose mundane existence in an extraordinary scenario instantly grounds us in this world. Through suggestion and design, Jones blends extraordinary sci- fi concepts into what’s actually a fairly straightforward story of a man going through a devastating identity crisis. This is the very best kind of science fiction; a personal inner struggle given concrete form. This is not a science- fiction film interested in predicting a plausible future; instead, it wants to use the malleable landscape of genre fiction to delve into big ideas. Set entirely aboard an advanced train that continuously shepherds the last remnants of humanity through a second (man- made) Ice Age, . It doesn't make literal sense, but the resulting blend of satire and wild visuals is worth suspending disbelief. Each car, each battle between the downbeat lower classes and the fascist forces of the front brings a new surprise. Some are violent, some are hilarious. All of them are totally unexpected. At the center of it all, Chris Evans proves himself to be so much more than Captain America, embodying a hero whose dark past is so audacious you may have to rewind his big monologue to make sure you heard everything correctly. The 2. 5 Best Sci- Fi Films Of The 2. Century So Far. As kids, we looked ahead to the imminent 2. The robot butler and trips to the drug store in hovercars version hasn’t yet arrived, but the first 1. Sci- fi is almost as old as cinema itself —1. Georges M. Many so- called sci- fi blockbusters were really action movies with some fantastical trappings, rather than thoughtful, provocative examinations of the world we live in through speculation about worlds we might live in. That’s still true to an extent, but the last decade- and- a- half have seen a flourishing of smaller- scale, ingenious sci- fi pictures, as well as some dazzling bigger- scale examples with more ideas per se than explosions and laser fire. And with “Ex Machina” proving to be surprise hit this spring, the sci- fi idiom is the next in our Best Films Of The 2. Century So Far series (read Horror, Animated Films, and Music Documentaries). We set a few rules —no superhero movies (which is a genre unto itself these days), no films with sci- fi segments without the whole film being in the genre (see “Cloud Atlas” and “The Fountain”) and a few films that don’t quite feel like they are true science fiction. Otherwise, anything went, and the 2. Take a look below and let us know your favorites in the comments. The film was the best use of Cruise’s star persona in aeons (serving almost as a metaphor for the redemption of his own stardom), but the secret weapon, aside from a cunning evocation of video game tropes, the best alien warfare since “Starship Troopers,” and crystal clear direction from a back- on- form Liman, was Emily Blunt as the “full metal bitch,” making a strong case that she deserves to be the biggest star in the world. The film didn’t find the theatrical audience it deserved at home, but more and more people are catching on over time. Melding John Hughews David Lynch, and Albert Einstein into an ’8. Jake Gyllenhaal, in a star- making role) who receives visits from a sinister rabbit who may be trying to convince him to travel through time, it’s rich, funny, swooningly romantic stuff with a very fine cast (Patrick Swayze and Katharine Ross got well- deserved comeback roles, there’s a great cameo from producer Drew Barrymore, and keep an eye out for a young Seth Rogen as a bully), and a surprisingly melancholy tone. Kelly, just 2. 6 when the film was released, handles things with real flair (and a great ear for song selection), and while the Director’s Cut only makes the mythology more impenetrable, it’s a fascinating sci- fi puzzle- box on top of everything else. Lean, bloody, and with terrific action sequences (Quentin Tarantino called it his favorite film of the previous two decades), it’s also more than a mere genre piece: the students, and even their teacher (a smartly- cast Takeshi Kitano) are sensitively and three- dimensionally drawn, and its power as metaphor, both examining the power of violence and the demonization of youth, elevates it far above the tales of Katniss & co. Indeed, it cut a little too close to the bone for many, and landing in the aftermath of Columbine, it wasn’t released in the U. S. Some claimed the picture his worst (our review wasn’t very charitable), some thought it was a vision from the heavens, and as usual, when the dust has settled, more mannered judgments have taken root (more of a consensus Playlist opinion forms here). So yes, Nolan shoots for the fences in “Interstellar” and arguably does not connect in the same home run fashion he has for so many pictures in a row now. The dialogue can be really on the nose, while the ending some see as jumping the shark. None of us will make too strong of a case against any of those points. That said, Nolan’s film is still a dazzling, ambitious vision of love, time, space, and some deeper, perhaps fuzzier elements of the universe. It’s the place where the heart and quantum physics meet. While that might admittedly be a bit of an awkward intersection, its love- letter sincerity to humanity inspired by Nolan’s own children is at least visually awe- inspiring and occasionally breathtaking. Admittedly clunky in spots, it’s a film that will very likely only grow in estimation over time. But the film was a quiet, unexpectedly moving triumph, and was then exceeded on every front by Matt Reeves’ follow- up, one of the few sequels that trumps the original. Picking up after the ape- pocalypse, as Caesar (Andy Serkis) is forced to confront humanity again, as well as a new threat closer to home, the movie, even more than its predecessor, takes full advantage of the stunning performance- capture technology, which reaches something of an apex here. Beyond that, it’s also simply a remarkably well- told story: a rare summer blockbuster in which you actively root against violence taking place, with a borderline Shakespearean arc for its non- human hero, and Reeves’ stylish- but- unshowy filmmaking chops steering things beautifully.
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