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Ask HN: Great science fiction movies?

56 points by galfarragem ↗ HN
What sci-fy movies do you recommend and why?

Beyond the mainstream classics "Terminator I & II", "Blade runner" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" I don't know many more.

99 comments

[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 46.1 ms ] thread
mtmail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film) with a budget of $7000.
Udik
I suggest watching "timecrimes" or "predestination" for those who like their temporal paradoxes done right.
IronBacon
Take my vote for Timecrimes.

Another little movie that I liked very much is "Frequently Asked Question About Time Travels", and the two "Hot Tub Time Machine". OK, the second was really weak, but the leads are hilariously funny...

Last one, I promise, "Time Lapse".

ainiriand
The Timecrimes, brilliant piece of art.
onion2k
Danny Boyle's "Sunshine" is excellent. It strays away from scifi in to horror a bit occasionally, but the premise is great and the science is accurate. Dr Brian Cox was scientific advisor to the film.
krylon
I second that! The music, the special effects, the actors and actresses, and the atmosphere are superb.
Udik
I know it's pointless to discuss about personal taste, and movies are a great example and reminder of that. But to me Sunshine characters looked like a bunch of Big Brother contestants, spending their time in petty arguments, making trivial mistakes, and dealing with mostly imaginary physics, until Freddy Krueger shows up. And how do you solve an existential threat like the sun shutting down? But with a huge bomb, of course. As usual.
huhtenberg
+1

There's no "sci" in Sunshine's sci-fi. That was massively distracting and not something that could've been saved by the pretty visuals.

Joeboy
I'm not 100% sure it was intended, but to me it's in the category of "films that contain dizzying genre shifts". Other examples would be From Dusk Till Dawn or Kill List. I actually really enjoy this trope, I think the fact it starts off looking like "conventional" sci-fi and then goes somewhere unexpected is a plus-point (although maybe not for people who really like sci-fi).
Udik
It didn't seem to be intended or self-conscious in any way, instead it seemed to take itself very seriously: there wasn't an ounce of sense of humour in it. While "From dusk till dawn" is obviously a humorous genre cross-over. I haven't seen Kill list but Ben Wheatley is an interesting director with a passion for the grotesque- his Sightseers and Down Terrace are pretty funny.
dbcooper
Colossus: The Forbin Project

Before Skynet ...

bambataa
I enjoyed this but its ending really let it down.
dbcooper
I thought that was the best part. Chilling.
baq
There are a couple TV shows that every sci-fi fan should see: Firefly and more recently The Expanse.
wiredearp
There is a German sci-fi series on Netflix called "Dark" [1] that I would also grab the chance to recommend while it is online. I figured that it would have to be above average for Netflix to broadcast it internationally and it turned out to be quite superb (even if it is perhaps only tangentially science fiction).

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5753856/

krylon
Silent Running - brilliant (for its time) special effects
arethuza
I think the ending of Silent Running was the first part of a movie to make me cry (I was 15 or so).
eps 

  - You've seen Titanic?
  - Sure.
  - Did you cry at the end?
  - Of course!
  - Why?
  - She threw the diamond away!
Joeboy
I wondered if Laura Dern's role in The Last Jedi was a bit of a nod to her dad's role in Silent Running.
arethuza
Gattaca - a beautiful moving film with wonderful music (by Michael Nyman) about genetic engineering, discrimination and sheer determination.
NathanWilliams
A great movie, and come to think of it, I haven’t watched it in a few years. Thanks for the reminder!
numbsafari
It really holds up. The visual design, the subject matter... the mix of "future" and "past" make it really timeless. Well worth the rewatch.
AndrewDucker
Arrival.

Great, thoughtful, science fiction. Based on an excellent short story.

mcphage
> Based on an excellent short story.

The short story "The Story of Your Life" almost brought me to tears I loved it so much. I highly, highly recommend it to everyone.

0942v8653
It's a dreadful abuse of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but you should watch it anyway. Agreed.
Hates_
Predestination
xjwm
I'd second this, and would recommend looking up the Heinlein short story "All You Zombies," that the movie was based on. The film was a very accurate adaptation.
majewsky
Seconded. The end is quite mind-bending.
softwareman
'Contact (1997)' is good. One of the best alien movies. Since we are on the topic of fiction, let me add one more, Man From Earth (2007).
ElCapitanMarkla
I really like the Man From Earth. Terrible acting but good story
lowry
The story was written by a famous screenwriter and the film was produced by his family and friends once he passed away.

I actually liked the acting as well. It's more exaggerated than usual american acting, closer to the theatrical acting.

Vaskivo
The movie has an awesome premise, and I enjoyed most of it.

But those two twists near the end made me really dislike the movie.

osullivj
Wonderful film that stands up to repeated viewings. I love the scene where Ellie gets the first hint of a signal and blasts across the desert in her T-bird shouting to her crew through the CB. An early Matthew McConaghy appearance where he hasn't yet succumbed to the inaudible muttering of later work. Contact is based on a Carl Sagan novel, which is also excellent.
tangue
THX 1138 : George Lucas's first film as a director, just before Star Wars. I wish the guy had a little less dazzling success so we could have seen more of his personnality
asteli
Believe you missed American Graffiti. (1973)

THX1138 is pretty special. I'm still trying to find a version without the typical Lucas retroactive CGI spliced in.

Fun fact: there's a scene in the movie (no spoilers) that was filmed, sideways, in the then-unfinished BART transbay tube. If you've seen the movie I bet you'll know which scene.

tangue
Yep I always forget that Lucas made American Grafiti. And didn't knew that this post-apocalypse tube was indeed BART. Indeed I was remembering this part when I recommended the movie.
sjclemmy
And along the same lines, Logan’s run which spawned a TV series.

And while we’re on 70’s TV sci-fi also; The Fantastic Journey, Battlestar Galactica.

clarents
Interstellar
Jare
C'mon I didn't like this movie at all but downvoting it is rather unfair.
jacknews
The first Planet of the Apes
cooper12
Here are my recommendations:

* Sunshine: I'll second this one, about a crew on a mission in space, turns into a different kind of film in the second half, which many people didn't like; has breathtaking visuals and a strong soundtrack.

* Her: A guy falls in love with an AI; has a wonderful atmosphere

* Gattaca: Set in a future of genetic engineering and how the protagonist fights against class discrimination

* Ex Machina, this was pretty hyped I'd say, but takes the opposite approach of Her and shows us the dangers of AI

* The Day the Earth Stood Still: a representative of aliens arrives on earth to tell humans to knock off their douchebaggery; still highly relevant today

* Metropolis: a silent film with a powerful score, set in a future with a large class disparity where the workers rebel

Honorable mentions that I'm not sure are really sci-fi: Brazil, The Prestige, Watchmen

xjwm
Primer, if you want a bit of a mind-bender.
arethuza
Possibly the only movie I have seen where diagrams help!
rangibaby
Akira is one of the greats. It’s essentially the story of post-WWII Japan retold as a sci-fi story.

Idiocracy (2005?) was a cult film for years and has recently become less obscure.

Anything with Sharlto Copley in it is going to be good. Or at least his role in it will be good. What a great and under appreciated actor.

krapp
My personal opinion is that Akira is something any fan of cyberpunk or anime has to watch.
Jare
Some random categories:

- Classics: Forbidden Planet, Solaris, Stalker

- Dystopia: Brazil, Gattaca, Children of Men

- Action: Verhoeven's trilogy of Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers

- Space: Gravity, Sunshine, The Martian

- Robots/AI: Ex Machina, Her

- Time travel: Looper, Primer, 12 Monkeys

drcongo
Random, but an excellent list. Worth specifying that Solaris should be the Tarkovsky one, not the dreadful remake.
zapperdapper
Yep, the Clooney version was a bit hit and miss IMHO. I really am not a fan of Natascha McElhone's style of acting, but I thought Jeremy Davies was brilliant as Snow.
kitd
I thought the recent film "Arrival" was really good.
ovi256
I found Arrival great, until the second part, where things stopped making sense. That part felt badly written. The ending was a let down because of that.
Vaskivo
Arrival is a great movie that I didn't enjoy. I think it's because it's a drama with a bit of sci-fi. And the movie explains "the thing" way too much. I felt it thought I was stupid.
Udik
> I felt it thought I was stupid.

It probably did. I suspect contemporary blockbusters are intentionally dumbed down to make them meet the bulk of the bell curve. And think of all those emerging markets with their hundreds of million of poorly educated youth, those can pay their tickets too.

You might say that it's always been like that. Well, it might just be that I'm getting older but I think it's become worse. Either the world is more global today and therefore the expectations about the viewers are more generic, or the equation "more people = more money" has become more compelling, or the producers have found more convincing and subtle ways to get from directors what they want. Villeneuve is a great director, yet Arrival felt shallow and formulaic.

DoofusOfDeath
I really liked "Passengers". I never understood why it rated so poorly on Rotten Tomatoes.
sjclemmy
Dark Star. Same writer as Alien I think. You can see some proto Alien ideas in there.