It's about time we here at Cinefix
turn our lens towards genres.
This week we're looking at science
fiction in hopes that picking out its
best might give us a clue as to what
exactly it is we see in the stars.
These are our picks for
the top ten sci-fi films of all time.
(Music)
Of course, science fiction isn't all
lasers, snakes, and rocket juice.
At its best, we've always thought
that sci-fi was a genre of ideas,
of speculation,
of dreaming about what's next.
And as our favorites emerge, we saw that
they tended to convalesce around a handful
of key thematic conflicts.
Sorting into categories more
philosophically than otherwise.
And for our first slot, we're looking
at science fiction that examines
how humanity might respond in
the face of great scarcity.
What it might look like to cling to
species existence by a relative thread.
It's not post-apocalypse,
but boy, is it close.
'Soylent Green' and 'Logan's Run' are some
of our sub-genre defining faves here.
But for this first slot,
we want to take some time to to
look at the newer, 'Snowpiercer'.
- Would you wear a shoe on your head?
Of course,
you wouldn't wear a shoe on your head.
A shoe doesn't belong on your head.
A shoe belongs on your foot.
A hat belongs on your head.
I am hat.
You are a shoe.
I belong on the head.
You belong on the foot.
Yes, so it is.
- If you can get past some of
the thermodynamically invalid science
silliness of the core premise.
That a hurtling mega train is somehow
the best place to weather a global winter.
Boy does it open up a beautiful world
of stunning and fascinating set pieces,
each arranged in a different
car down the line.
And along the way it explores some serious
questions and genuine moral quandaries.
What if prosperity is
predicated on suffering?
What if the good of all
depends on the pain of some?
What is the cost of bringing
down a broken system?
Revealing and questioning those parts of
people that respond to limited resources
and exposing some of the barbarism
on which society can be built.
(Sound) Of course,
when things get a little bit worse,
we have the science fiction film that
examines how humanity responds in the face
of its utter destruction.
How we as humans and as a species
face our own upcoming extinction.
Potential and preventable, certain and
unavoidable or nearly come to pass.
It gives us a unique opportunity to
reflect on how tenuous our relationship
with our planet and existence really is.
Some of our favorite films in this genre
are the likes of 'Sunshine', 'Contagion',
'Andromeda Strain',
'The Road', and '12 Monkeys'.
However, we think Alfonso Cuaron really
outdid himself with 'Children of Men'.
- As the sound of the playgrounds faded,
the despair set in.
Very odd, what happens in a world
without children's voices.
- 'Children of Men' shows us an incredibly
bleak look at the coming apocalypse.
With just enough of a dash of hope that we
don't all off ourselves on the way out of
the theater.
And it's a brilliant concept for
the end, a worldwide sterility.
Certain enough to finish our species for
good, but protracted enough for
us to have time to really
stew in the idea of it.
It is an incredible window through which
to look at how dependent upon future and
posterity we really are.
And how quickly things might
break down in their absence.
Regressing from nice and
polite to brutish and
short with longevity no
longer on the table.
(Sound) Of course,
if we're talking sci-fi, at some point,
we're gonna run into aliens.
And if we're looking at it from our
philosophical perspective, one of our
favorite ways to consider alien movies is
to look at the human encounter experience.
It offers a unique opportunity for
us to look at ourselves as a community
of humans, a species as a whole.
With a new extraterrestrial
player in the game,
all over a sudden our in group
bickering can be cast aside or not.
We love 'Close Encounters of
the Third Kind', the original 'The Day
the Earth Stood Still', and the lesser
known rad indie 'Another Earth'.
However, for our third pick,
we've gotta get us some 'Contact'.
- If you should meet these Vegans and
were permitted only one question
to ask of them, what would it be?
- (Cough) Well, I suppose it would be,
how did you do it?
How did you evolve?
How did you survive this technological
adolescence without destroying yourself?
- A "Robert Zemeckis" film based on
a story by "Carl Sagan" himself,
'Contact' is a perennial fan favorite.
A potential alien encounter serves
as a point of departure for
a discussion about what our shared
values as a society are and should be.
About what it means for
there to be something else out there and
how we should respond.
Perhaps ahead of its time in a frank and
balanced discussion about rectifying
the competing world views of
scientists and the religious.
'Contact' searches for
common ground in our shared humanity and
seems all the more relevant for it today.
(Sound) Another sort of alien encounter
happens not in the initial contact,
but in the aftermath of it, where we have
to deal with the question, what now?
And this immediately invites questions
that mirror those we face in society today
with racial, cultural,
and political undertones.
Probably one of the most allegorical is
'District 9', neatly mapping apartheid
race relations onto human-alien
interaction in Johannesburg.
But this conflict isn't just reserved for
aliens.
The question of cohabitance is raised
the science fiction of 'Robots', 'A.I.',
'Clones', and even 'The Undead'.
'Blade Runner' is another
excellent choice here,
examining the rights part of human rights.
However, for our number seven pick
we're actually going with 'Her'.
- You know,
I can feel the fear that you carry around.
And I wish there was something I
could do to help you let go of it.
Because if you could,
I don't think you'd feel so alone anymore.
- In an increasingly fascinating
artificial intelligence genre that is
taking more and more complex and realistic
looks at what thinking, and learning, and
self improving machines might
unleash upon our world and society.
'Her' is brave enough to almost entirely
ignore those questions in favor of what it
might unleash upon our emotions.
'Her' explores our fragile human
limitations not in intelligence, but
in co-dependency, and
attachment, and emotional need.
It is a deeply human look at
what the future might hold and
what innate features of
ourselves might hold us back.
Not just our inability to calculate
pi to the billionth decimal, but
in fact, those very inner
fragilities that make us human.
Of course, as much as the hippies
would like to insist otherwise,
survival as a species isn't all peace and
love.
And burning man barter economies
where we're all stronger together and
good vibes only.
Sometimes conflict is inevitable.
And as far as science fiction
is concerned, another big topic
of exploration is not how much we learn
to co-exist with another species.
But how we deal with sub-existing when
we find ourselves no longer the dominant
life form.
And here we love 'The Matrix',
'The Terminator', and 'Dark City'.
But for our number six pick,
we've gotta give it to
the original 'Planet of the Apes'.
- Tell us, why are apes created equal?
- Some apes it seems
are more equal than others.
- 'Planet of the Apes' is science fiction
near its boldest and socially relevant.
Exploring mankind at the bottom of
the totem pole, making a broad,
if not deep foray into the social
consequences of it all.
And there's an empathy and
self awareness underlying it.
It considers our historical role,
especially as colonialists and
conquistadors.
It inverts, asking us to a walk
a mile in the shoes of the oppressed,
interrogating our own
ethics in the process.
Does it lose some credibility
in the broadness of its strokes?
Sure, but it's the start of
the conversation, not the end of it.
The twist, absolutely classic.
(Music)
(Sound) A lot of science fiction
preoccupies itself with exploring future
technology.
The advantages, the wonder,
the possibilities but also the risks and
the danger.
And one of the most interesting ways it
does this is by examining the intersection
of new technology with human nature.
It examines our very human foibles and
quirks.
And considers the possibility that our
technological growth might outpace our
moral growth, exposing deficiencies
that may lie latent within.
Some of our favorite examples of this
kind of cinema come from 'Gattaca',
'Minority Report', and
'A Clockwork Orange'.
However, for our number five pick we're
actually gonna go with a "Chris Nolan"
film, and good god, no, not that one.
We're talking about 'The Prestige',
which we think is his
finest sci-fi film to date.
- Nothing is impossible, Mr. Angier.
What you want is simply expensive.
If I were to build for you this machine,
you would be presenting
it merely as illusion.
- Well, if people actually believed the
things I did on stage they wouldn't clap,
they'd scream.
Think of sawing a woman in half.
- Mr. Angier, have you considered
the cost of such a machine?
- Price is not an object.
- Perhaps not, but
have you considered the cost?
- The Prestige is not so
obviously science fiction.
Not least of all because it takes place
in the past, because it's about magic and
because there's hardly
a spaceship to be seen.
But there is science.
But the problem is that this obsession
driven innovation is completely divorced
from an honest and measured evaluation
of what the right thing to do might be.
Physics surpasses metaphysics.
Can we disregard, should we?
Algiers and Borden embody ceaseless
ambition without moral reflection.
Unleashing greater and greater suffering
with the help of "David Bowie" turned
"Nikola Tesla" destroying themselves and
each other in the process.
(Music)
But personal ambition is not
the only form of ambition and
individual moral decay is not
the only form of moral decay.
Science fiction also has a long
history of exploring not just how
technological advances might overtake
good sense on a personal level.
But how that technology might enable
the glitches in human nature to
reorganize themselves politically in a way
that enhances our ability to exploit,
suppress, and control.
Done excellently in '1984', in 'Brazil',
and back in Godards' 'Alphaville'.
However, for our next pick, we're still
pretty damn big fans of 'Metropolis'.
(Music)
Set in the far future society of 2026,
which is depressingly less than 10 years
away, 'Metropolis' was made
100 years prior in 1926.
A story about a dystopian society
where workers are little more than
fleshy machines.
And machines look like
tinny worker gals and
wealth stratification is far worse than
now, which is far worse than then.
So yeah, it's pretty bad.
One of the strongest and most enduring
influences on the genre ever,
it is bold and beautiful and
thematic and political.
Perhaps not perfectly logical or
built on the realest of science, but
concerned nonetheless with
something more important.
That left unchecked, human progress
at scale will overcome human dignity.
(Sound) On the far other
end of the spectrum,
from the large scale political
back down to the deeply personal.
We want to look at science fiction
films that explore how science and
technology might alter the very
core human experience.
What would happen if we could
enhance that one deeply
unique human feature
that is consciousness?
This is 'Limitless'
expanding our cognition, or
'Abre Los Ojos' extending
our experience beyond death.
Or 'Total Recall' and
'Videodrome' blurring the line
between virtual and reality.
'Strange Days' explores what might happen
if we could start sharing memories.
But for our number three pick we're going
with what might happen if you could
start to erase them with 'Eternal
Sunshine of The Spotless Mind'.
- This is a hoax, right?
This is Clem-
- I assure you, no.
- There's no such thing as this.
- Look, our files are confidential, Mr.
Barish, so I can't show you evidence.
Suffice it to say Ms. Kruczynski was
not happy, and she wanted to move on.
We provide that possibility.
- 'Eternal Sunshine of
the Spotless Mind' is very soft sci-fi.
Life looks very much like it does for
us today.
No super puppies or
clone slaves or laser sex.
Except a new technology has been
developed that can erase memory.
Marketed to help let go of
the pain after a breakup.
And much like 'Her' does with
artificial intelligence,
'Eternal Sunshine' explores
the consequences of this emotionally.
But it is not a warning to be
careful of erasing our past.
Instead it is an exploration
of human nature by relief,
revealing that which is deeply
human by examining its absence.
The result is not so much about
the future but about the present,
which is really what all our favorite
science fiction films are doing.
Using an exploration of where we might
be to explore where it seems like we're
heading in order to reveal
exactly where we are.
Closing in at number two,
there is another sort of cautionary tale.
Not of our future advancements unlocking a
part of our collective personalities that
turns nasty.
But of the future itself unleashing
something uncontrollable and
unpredictable, on the world.
We have stumbled down a path from
which we cannot easily return.
This is most classically 'Frankenstein' or
'Gojira', or more recently 'The Host' or
'Akira' or 'Jurassic Park'.
And for our penultimate pick,
it's 'Stalker'.
- (Foreign)
- 'Stalker' is a simple film.
A guide leads two men, the writer and
the professor, into the zone.
A mysterious and
unexplained place that we assume must
be a remnant of a nuclear disaster.
Or an alien visitation, or
some kind of wrinkle in space time.
There, they seek a room that is set to
grant its entrants their deepest desire.
The zone around the room is modern
society recaptured by nature.
A burnt out land returning to its infancy,
almost eerily predicting what would become
of Chernobyl less than a decade later.
And again, we see if science fiction can
see not turning us towards the future,
but inside, towards desire and ambition,
in a search for something greater.
Guiding us slowly into an exploration
of our own inner zone.
Interrogating what it might unleash upon
the world if such an opportunity might
arise.
(Sound) (Sound) And
finally for our top pick,
we are also looking at science
fiction that puts it all together.
Unhinges its jaw and
attempts to swallow the entirety of
the future of humanity in one gulp.
And for our pick,
you've probably already guessed it.
We're not distinguishing ourselves
as unique list makers on this one.
No for our top pick,
we're shocking all of nobody by
going with '2001: A Space Odyssey'.
Because sometimes if it ain't broke,
you really don't need to fix it.
- I am pushing myself to
the fullest possible use,
which is all I think that any
conscious entity can ever hope to do.
- What might we say about '2001:
A Space Odyssey' that hasn't been said
1,000 times before?
It is vast, inscrutable, beautiful,
boring, prophetic, navel gazing,
cold, genius.
It sets out to trace the entire history of
man from apes through star children and
spends ten minutes on kaleidoscope
colors in the process.
It is almost impossible to
understand on first viewing, or
without a little help from the book,
which may or may not even be canon.
But it also inspired and continues to
inspire nearly all modern science fiction.
In an era where science was a genre for
pulpy B-movie fare,
"Stanley Kubrick" revitalized it and
proved that it too could be art.
He flummoxed audience members, enraged
critics and challenged "Tarkosky" himself.
He struck a frustrating balance
between the posing of questions and
the absence of answers.
Inviting generations to consider
exactly who we were and
where we might go as a part of
something greater than ourselves.
Which is why it's our pick for
the best science fiction film of all time.
(Music)
So, what do you think?
Disagree with any of our picks?
Love any sci-fi films we skipped over?
Let us know in the comments below,
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more Cinefix movie lists.
