I'm somewhat of a fan of 1970s sci-fi as it didn't rely on special effects as they weren't so good back then (apologies to Ray Harryhausen). I'd've put Rollerball on this list too and possibly The Stepford Wives.
Edit: Oops - I think the page only half loaded when I looked at it. Justifies my opinion though
D'oh - I completely missed the bottom half of that article. I was double checking the quality of my downloads of those films and searching for 1080p versions, so maybe I got my browser tabs in a twist.
Not sure all of these are underrated, films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers are (rightfully) well-known and respected.
Big fan of THX 1138, I believe it would’ve been much better known and respected if it wasn’t overshadowed by Star Wars. I actually prefer THX 1138, but I haven’t seen it in a long time as I don’t think there’s a high-quality transfer - without the CGI retouchings - widely available.
And Zardoz is a punchline for good reason, but I still find it an interesting film. It’s got bizarre, creative worldbuilding, and I love that final shot.
I feel like it established some pretty common elements in sci-fi (eg, the violence channel) and was the first time I saw on film concepts from Huxley’s Brave New World.
It’s a low budget movie and I think it’s ok to be a single note film. But that note was really unique on 1971 and seems rote because it’s sort of baked into the “consumerist hedonist dystopia” that’s very common now.
I watched it with my wife, who doesn't enjoy weird crap from the 70's. But she does enjoy making fun of films, and enjoys my Sean Connery impressions.
That movie made for amazing MST3K-style home viewing, because of Connery's reputation as a weirdo and womanizer and the fact that that movie was horny.
Will watch again with the wife I am sure before too long.
Zardoz is a great film for weeding out the posers from those who are truly into the weird. I've known more than one person to nope out as soon as Sean Connery shows up wearing the neon orange plastic banana hammock/bandolier and getting the long rambley speech about evil penises.
> Big fan of THX 1138, I believe it would’ve been much better known and respected if it wasn’t overshadowed by Star Wars.
Really? I think THX 1138 actually benefits from the halo effect of Star Wars; if it wasn't made by someone as (eventually) famous as George Lucas it would have remained an obscure flop, which would be a shame.
Westworld is not underrated. It's a pretty bad movie as far as craft goes, but gets and deserves credit for being early in the genre. It had good ideas but they weren't developed well. Fortunately other movies, and the first season of the show, explored that much more effectively.
Rule 34 being what it is, there is an adult version of Westworld called Sexworld (1978) and it's not too shabby, they threw enough budget and production values at it to make it interesting. It explores the theme of what happens when you get to live out your fantasies in some surprising ways. The movie can be found online in the usual places.
Also, the list left off Futureworld (1976) which is much better than Westworld and featured some CGI that was ground-breaking for the time.
Yeah I forgot about that. I think it was a miniseries. When I saw it, it was presented as one viewing, and I remembered it as a long movie. But it was originally broadcast differently.
I think this is more of a listicle for those not familiar with how utterly bizarre 70's scifi movies could be. Underrated by non-genre movie fans specifically. One curiosity not listed was "Capricorn One", one of OJ Simpsons movies. Another is the first Mad Max which squeaks in at 1979.
Another genre that could use similar treatment is the 70's disaster movies like Towering Inferno, Airport and their ilk.
I wouldn't consider the first Mad Max as a scifi film though I love its awful acting and general cheesiness. It's far more of an action film than anything else as it doesn't really examine why society is breaking down from what I can remember.
Whilst Soylent Green is dystopian, I'd consider it scifi as it features food recycling technology and suicide booths. (Edward G Robinson was terminally ill when he shot Soylent Green and died just a few weeks after filming - makes his death scene quite poignant although his co-stars weren't aware of his bladder cancer).
Depending on which version of the film you've seen, some of the cheesiness and awful acting likely comes from the US dubbed version. That said, it still is somewhat mindless action.
As usual with these "underrated" lists, it feels more like "a list of movies you might want to watch if you haven't". Think I'll start replacing "underrated" with that from now on.
Personally I have "Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea"[1] and "Time after time"[2] from the 70s on my watch list. If we stretch the definition a bit, I'll include "The Lathe of Heaven"[3] (1980) and "Icarus XB 1"[4] (1963).
I saw this as a young kid, randomly on a TV rerun late at night, not too long after it was released. The fact that it was widely unknown made it seem all the more like a fever dream or something since it was a while before I could even figure out what it was that I had seen. I remember it seeming very surreal and amazingly stylized.
Keep in mind that before video rentals, the internet and streaming, you would see something like this and you might never stumble across it again. For years I'm not sure if I could remember the title, just that it was very stark and about ants.
Now you can put "movie about ants" and Google autocompletes "...taking over the world" and all the top links are about "Phase IV".
I saw that top screenshot of Zardoz and Oh yeah. Slam those VHS rental memories on me.
Anyhoo. I'd say half of those are divided between standards (Stepford Wives, Soylnet Green, Westworld) and well known cult favorites (Running Silent, THX1138, Dark Star, Rollerball). I recall a favorite bumper sticker that read "I support Little League Rollerball". Andromeda Strain is somewhere between.
It was good to see Omega Man get a nod since it spent years replaying in my 1970s brain. And they're dead on about Beneath the Planet of the Apes; absolute insanity.
Demon Seed was one I hadn't heard of until earlier this year and I enjoyed it. It's an interesting 70s sci-fi/horror flick and I'm surprised it's so obscure.
"The Forbin Project" is available for free on Archive.org. There are also a couple of deliciously cheesy soviet SF movies from the 70s that are worth watching, like Solaris by Tarkovsky :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-4KydP92ss
Tarkovsky's Solaris is a lot of things but not "cheesy"! Planeta Bur, on the other hand, definitely is. And my personal fave https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213322/
You're right, actually I wanted to link to some other lesser known movies like "Moscow Cassiopea" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRut4LfosD0 ) but I couldn't find them right away :)
I re-watched a crisp 1080p version of it after commenting on that thread and was surprised how well paced it is, considering there's virtually no action.
Watched this many years ago when I was just getting into Mario Bava. It was far from vintage Bava, but I remember the astronauts had some seriously spiffy space suits. When I start my space company, that’s the chic I’m going for.
Anyone have the next layer down, like:
"Underrated gems that will be impossible to find but are worth it though you'll never see them"
And
"Top schlock for free on pluto or tubi that went past cult classic into 'oh yeah, I think I remember that one' territory "?
This is a really awesome list - I'm proud to have seen all but two of them.
But I would also note that the 70s gave us both Star Wars ('77) and Alien ('79). Of the two of them I actually think Alien is the most significant because it was the turning point where we lost the rubber suits, army guys, professors making long winded explanations, and hormonal teenagers and started getting the darker and more serious sci-fi.
Disney's The Black Hole also came out in '79 and it is an enjoyable movie if you don't know anything about physics. It is a serious attempt at sci-fi and kept me on the edge of my seat when I first saw it.
Star Wars had a very specific kind of influence, in two main ways: 1) The lesser of the two is that it inspired a wave of imitators of its aesthetic, kit-bash FX, and space-opera elements throughout the 80s—pretty much all firmly in "B-movie" territory, at best; and 2) More importantly, it proved the box office viability and entertainment potential of the genre-pastiche/mashup film, paving the way for Tarantino and others.
Interesting that Silent Running is list as "underrated", yet I think it's way overrated. I mean, on the topic of sci-fi, the movie has been mentioned in lists and otherwise for years. The theme is good, and I like the idea of watching the movie. But then I turn it on, and man, it's sure can be cringey. My shoulders go up around my ears when Dern's character is lecturing his shipmates on "real food". IRL, they would have thrown him out an airlock after one too many sanctimonious speeches. And that part with Joan Baez screeching on the soundtrack, ugh.
And to digress into nit-picking, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Saw that in the theaters because...it got good reviews.
I watched this movie for an art history class and it’s considered an important movie politically due to environmentalist message. At the time environmentalism wasn’t basically movie short-hand for, “this is a black and white moral conflict obviously the environmentalists are the good guys” though obviously that’s how they are portrayed in the Silent Running. There’s was also a popular environmentalist book call Silent Spring, that was incorporated into the movie’s name.
"Silent Spring" is also a key theme in The Three-Body Problem. There's a Netflix adaptation coming later this year, but if you search around, there's a recent Chinese version (subtitles are available) that follows the book very closely: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20242042/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_...
On rewatch what threw me the most was American Airlines has a fleet of floating green houses in space to preserve the ecology of earth and one day decides nah, blow them up we don't need it anymore.
> My shoulders go up around my ears when Dern's character is lecturing his shipmates on "real food". IRL, they would have thrown him out an airlock after one too many sanctimonious speeches.
Virtually every HN discussion about nutrition is filled with those kinds of sanctimonious speeches (with everybody serving their own kind of "real food"). And it's hardly just HN or even the virtual world. I'd say the movie was ahead of its time in that regard, but I think it was always that way.
Having been born in '71, my folks, who loved horror and sci-fi, dragged me along to a lot of these. There was an old drive-in in town that would show this stuff so, we'd pull in, get popcorn and I'd usually fall asleep part way in, but I still remember scenes from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Incredible Melting Man, etc. Funny, though, many of those movies I never watched again when I was older.
My contribution to this discussion is Fantastic Planet.
1973, French, animated, batshit insane. It's a unique piece of art that's for sure. I watch it once a decade or so just to remind myself that it wasn't a half-remembered fever dream.
Not from the 70s, but it's worth checking out René Laloux's other work with Time Masters (1982) and Gandahar (1987). Isaac Asimov wrote the English translation for Gandahar.
To add to the list of 70's animated sci-fi, Galaxy Express 999 is worth checking out. It's a very French-inspired sci-fi anime that has a fair bit of charm.
Was born in 1991 and really had to go out of my way to pirate digital versions of these when I was in college. I was trying to think about why I sought these films out. I think the answer is that they are actually science fiction, as opposed to most “sci-fi” films now that are just based in escapism rather than speculation. The thing is that it’s pretty inexplicable because I can clearly see the flaws of these movies, they look corny, a lot bad dialogue written by nerds. But I have a real emotional attachment with these movies. I cried during Soylent Green and even Rollerball. There’s something about the corniness of these movies that’s very claustrophobic and tense, they are exciting because the movies have a thesis that’s like reading a serial killer’s manifesto, dark. The casting was crazy back then to male lead actors like Charlton Heston look haggard and old, and talk a lot, they sometimes just flip out, actresses are on the other hand usually just sexy young starlets who can’t act. It’s just such a different situation then like Adam Driver, or Chris Pratt stumbling through being Mr.Likable with a female lead who’s can act but only there because it would be weird if the script didn’t have a romantic arc.
Honestly I just love all movies but I do think Star Wars ruined it. It’s a good movie, certainly it shaped my childhood, but aside from the more “meta” mythopoetic elements of deconstructing the hero’s journey, it’s pure escapism and obviously was a huge hit and set the tone for the future.
One thing that bugs me about too many modern scifi films is that they just end up being a big chase at the end with the good guys running away from the bad guys. "The Adjustment Bureau" is an example of that and as a Dickhead, I was disappointed though to be fair, most PKD film adaptations are poor.
Yeah well you’re REALLY not going to like Don’t Worry Darling.
My thing is when clearly a climax has started and there’s still 30-40 minutes left in the film, it really feels like the climax’s are drawn out these days, you have 2 hour plus movies with 30 minutes of no plot/character development instead of a under 2 hour movie which would just be over at that point.
Hard to say if something was left off because it's not underrated, but Tarkovsky is one of those directors that's considered one of the best to have ever done it while also being someone a lot of (younger) people haven't seen. I'm partial to Stalker [1], but Solaris is also really beautiful [2].
Solaris is undoubtedly omitted due to not being underrated. It is one of the most critically acclaimed and influential science fiction films of all time.
That's what I would think as well, but I can't count how many people my age (40-ish) and younger that I've spoken to who haven't even heard of Tarkovsky, let alone seen his films. And I hang out with largely artists and musicians in NYC, where I've lived for 15+ years. I've even had actor friends who are successful in their field (Broadway, major film and television) say they've heard of but never seen Tarkovsky -- and of course they're all blown away when they see Stalker.
That's all to say I'd agree with you, that Solaris is one of the best sci-fi films of all time, but time and again I'm surprised that people just really haven't seen it, even in circles with people you'd expect would have a higher probability of encountering it.
I enjoy a lot currently watching Tales from the Loop - after the book of Simon Stalenhag (sorry can't type the a-round thing). There's some of the eerie not-much-happening world of Tarkovsky right there, and I'm quite sure whoever didn't like TftL wouldn't resist 10 minutes into Tarkovsky. Because for many - even from my local SF club - SF got to mean kaboom-whoosshhh-kill, nothing bad by itself but soooo limiting.
I definitely wouldn’t expect Solaris to be widely known among modern mainstream moviegoers. But when I hear “underrated sci-fi movies” I expect the context to include mainstream critical acclaim. Like if you had a list of “underrated professional table tennis players” you wouldn’t just include all the best players since most people are aware of few if any professional table tennis players.
Oh for sure, that's fair. I still want to tell everyone they should go see Solaris and Stalker though. Maybe the list I want to see isn't called "underrated", but more of "ones you probably haven't seen, but should".
I grew up about a 5 minute walk from Scarecrow video in Seattle.
Every time some "best [blank] movie list" comes out I'm always thrilled at how many I have seen thanks to the wonderful curation by their staff in the 90s.
Strongly suggest, if you go, to just ask the staff what they recommend.
Too much Charlton Heston in the author's list. He's a dreadful, wooden actor.
I love Silent Running.
Does The Stepford Wives count as sci-fi?
Logan's Run was a fabulous film, full of memorable moments and lines.
The Sutherland remake of Body Snatchers is brilliant; Sutherland's alien persona is genuinely scary, and despite his versatility I can't think of anything else he's done that's quite so out-there.
That's the meta-appeal for me. How did this guy get in so many movies? Back in the day, it was the pleasure of people seeing a favorite actor turn up in more things, I am sure.
> Does The Stepford Wives count as sci-fi?
Yes, for sure. What's your thinking on why it wouldn't?
Charlton Heston's peak was in the 1950's, which was a very different era for movies. Judging him by his performances in cheesy sci-fi movies isn't entirely fair if you haven't seen Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments, and avoided the trap of thinking that our modern fashions are the last word in good art (be that acting or filmmaking more generally).
> The Sutherland remake of Body Snatchers is brilliant; Sutherland's alien persona is genuinely scary, and despite his versatility I can't think of anything else he's done that's quite so out-there.
How about his Wilhelm Reich in Kate Bush's Cloudbusting video?
There's also his performance in "Don't Look Now" to consider.
IIRC the Cloudbusting video was based on Peter Reich's "A Book of Dreams", written while he was in a Swiss hospital recovering from a dreadful motorcycle accident. A book of hallucinations, akin to Naked Lunch. And then there's the whole orgone thang of his father.
You can knock Heston but I've always felt that in a way he single-handedly rescued American sci-fi. He brought real star power to a then-maligned genre.
It's great to check out the 1970s Invasion of the Body Snatchers to get a taste of 1970s culture and best of all see a little of what San Francisco used to look like.
Until you hit Zardoz or A Boy and His Dog, these are relatively tame. If you want the deeply weird, you should head for Cries of Ecstasy, Blows of Death or Invasion of the Bee Girls. For some reason, once the films got a little smutty, they also got rather experimental. I'm not saying they are good but they are unusual and you may find yourself mulling over what you saw more than you might expect. It's not dissimilar to a slightly earlier deal where some of the porn people were trying to move toward horror and some of the horror people were trying to have more of an exploitative feel (arguably the former group had less success than the latter). Again, the results weren't really good but they were sometimes interesting.
A lot of commentors here saying these are not underrated movies... They might not be if you were alive in the 70's. If you were not then there is an incredibly high chance you don't know of many/most of these. I'm a big sci fi fan and movie fan and I've HEARD of most of these but have only actually SEEN Westworld, Logans Run, and Soylent Green.
I'm usually pretty grumpy about these lists of "underrated" movies, because they're almost always movies that any moderately well versed fan of a genre has seen.
Happily, there are actually some films on this list I haven't seen.
In particular, I recently watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers after putting it off for years. Think it was on Amazon Prime. Takes place in SF. It's really good.
The style of title is a bit schlocky compared to current tastes, but it's a thoroughly competent modern style of film.
I've seen at least half or more of the movies on that list and can recommend them. Maybe not Rollerball or the one with Woody Allen, but the others are worth a watch.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 181 ms ] threadEdit: Oops - I think the page only half loaded when I looked at it. Justifies my opinion though
Big fan of THX 1138, I believe it would’ve been much better known and respected if it wasn’t overshadowed by Star Wars. I actually prefer THX 1138, but I haven’t seen it in a long time as I don’t think there’s a high-quality transfer - without the CGI retouchings - widely available.
And Zardoz is a punchline for good reason, but I still find it an interesting film. It’s got bizarre, creative worldbuilding, and I love that final shot.
It’s a low budget movie and I think it’s ok to be a single note film. But that note was really unique on 1971 and seems rote because it’s sort of baked into the “consumerist hedonist dystopia” that’s very common now.
But I will not go to second level.
That movie made for amazing MST3K-style home viewing, because of Connery's reputation as a weirdo and womanizer and the fact that that movie was horny.
Will watch again with the wife I am sure before too long.
Really? I think THX 1138 actually benefits from the halo effect of Star Wars; if it wasn't made by someone as (eventually) famous as George Lucas it would have remained an obscure flop, which would be a shame.
Also, the list left off Futureworld (1976) which is much better than Westworld and featured some CGI that was ground-breaking for the time.
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/THX-1138-1st-Directors-Cut...
But the series is worth the watch.
But Westworld, Omega Man, Logans Run, Silent Running, Soylent Green and Invasion of the Body Snatchers?
Another genre that could use similar treatment is the 70's disaster movies like Towering Inferno, Airport and their ilk.
Soylent Green - not SciFi, distopian.
Brave New World, Logan's Run - maybe SciFi, also distopian.
The Time Machine, Bladerunner - definitely SciFi.
Aeon Flux - Science Fantasy (there's no even halfway plausible scientific mechanism for the key element).
See: https://jalopnik.com/the-aussie-mad-max-is-so-much-better-th...
Luckily, the version I saw in the UK was the non-dubbed version.
Personally I have "Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea"[1] and "Time after time"[2] from the 70s on my watch list. If we stretch the definition a bit, I'll include "The Lathe of Heaven"[3] (1980) and "Icarus XB 1"[4] (1963).
[1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213322/
[2]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080025/
[3]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081036/
[4]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122111/
Keep in mind that before video rentals, the internet and streaming, you would see something like this and you might never stumble across it again. For years I'm not sure if I could remember the title, just that it was very stark and about ants.
Now you can put "movie about ants" and Google autocompletes "...taking over the world" and all the top links are about "Phase IV".
Anyhoo. I'd say half of those are divided between standards (Stepford Wives, Soylnet Green, Westworld) and well known cult favorites (Running Silent, THX1138, Dark Star, Rollerball). I recall a favorite bumper sticker that read "I support Little League Rollerball". Andromeda Strain is somewhere between.
It was good to see Omega Man get a nod since it spent years replaying in my 1970s brain. And they're dead on about Beneath the Planet of the Apes; absolute insanity.
Among the rest were some genuine finds for me.
Spoiler warning: https://www.starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=70
I re-watched a crisp 1080p version of it after commenting on that thread and was surprised how well paced it is, considering there's virtually no action.
If we're going back to the sixties, I'll nominate "Seconds" with Rock Hudson.
Anyone have the next layer down, like: "Underrated gems that will be impossible to find but are worth it though you'll never see them" And "Top schlock for free on pluto or tubi that went past cult classic into 'oh yeah, I think I remember that one' territory "?
But I would also note that the 70s gave us both Star Wars ('77) and Alien ('79). Of the two of them I actually think Alien is the most significant because it was the turning point where we lost the rubber suits, army guys, professors making long winded explanations, and hormonal teenagers and started getting the darker and more serious sci-fi.
Disney's The Black Hole also came out in '79 and it is an enjoyable movie if you don't know anything about physics. It is a serious attempt at sci-fi and kept me on the edge of my seat when I first saw it.
And to digress into nit-picking, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Saw that in the theaters because...it got good reviews.
Also shut up Joan Baez is the shit.
Virtually every HN discussion about nutrition is filled with those kinds of sanctimonious speeches (with everybody serving their own kind of "real food"). And it's hardly just HN or even the virtual world. I'd say the movie was ahead of its time in that regard, but I think it was always that way.
https://www.schickele.com/wp/peter-schickele-bio/
1973, French, animated, batshit insane. It's a unique piece of art that's for sure. I watch it once a decade or so just to remind myself that it wasn't a half-remembered fever dream.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Planet
https://youtu.be/GZg5OKA1Miw for any who have an hour to spare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Express_999_(film)
Honestly I just love all movies but I do think Star Wars ruined it. It’s a good movie, certainly it shaped my childhood, but aside from the more “meta” mythopoetic elements of deconstructing the hero’s journey, it’s pure escapism and obviously was a huge hit and set the tone for the future.
My thing is when clearly a climax has started and there’s still 30-40 minutes left in the film, it really feels like the climax’s are drawn out these days, you have 2 hour plus movies with 30 minutes of no plot/character development instead of a under 2 hour movie which would just be over at that point.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(1972_film)
That's all to say I'd agree with you, that Solaris is one of the best sci-fi films of all time, but time and again I'm surprised that people just really haven't seen it, even in circles with people you'd expect would have a higher probability of encountering it.
Every time some "best [blank] movie list" comes out I'm always thrilled at how many I have seen thanks to the wonderful curation by their staff in the 90s.
Strongly suggest, if you go, to just ask the staff what they recommend.
* Welcome! | Scarecrow Video | https://www.scarecrow.com/index.html
I love Silent Running.
Does The Stepford Wives count as sci-fi?
Logan's Run was a fabulous film, full of memorable moments and lines.
The Sutherland remake of Body Snatchers is brilliant; Sutherland's alien persona is genuinely scary, and despite his versatility I can't think of anything else he's done that's quite so out-there.
That's the meta-appeal for me. How did this guy get in so many movies? Back in the day, it was the pleasure of people seeing a favorite actor turn up in more things, I am sure.
> Does The Stepford Wives count as sci-fi?
Yes, for sure. What's your thinking on why it wouldn't?
How about his Wilhelm Reich in Kate Bush's Cloudbusting video?
There's also his performance in "Don't Look Now" to consider.
I named a company after it:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070118045822/http://www.thefor...
I'm 31 for context.
Happily, there are actually some films on this list I haven't seen.
In particular, I recently watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers after putting it off for years. Think it was on Amazon Prime. Takes place in SF. It's really good.
The style of title is a bit schlocky compared to current tastes, but it's a thoroughly competent modern style of film.
I've seen at least half or more of the movies on that list and can recommend them. Maybe not Rollerball or the one with Woody Allen, but the others are worth a watch.