The term “sci-fi” gets thrown around so freely that we sometimes lose sight of what these stories are actually supposed to be about. It’s not all about spaceships and Saucer People looking to invade Earth — actually, it’s often specifically not about the very things we typically associate with the genre.
Science fiction, at its core, is supposed to tell stories about the moral, social and political implications of advancing technology. It’s supposed to speculate on the future, our future. Think more about Frankenstein and Brave New World, rather than Star Wars and Hunger Games.
That being said, science fiction also doesn’t lend itself to a blockbuster movie in the traditional sense. The best sci-fi stories aren’t about action and bombast; they're about ideas and characters and socio-political commentary. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that we don’t actually get genuine sci-fi at the movies often.
However, while you can’t always get your sci-fi fill at the theater every weekend, Netflix and Hulu actually have a fairly comprehensive tour through the history of the genre, if you know where to look.
From the baby steps of Frtiz Lang’s Metropolis, to more modern examples like Interstellar and Snowpiercer, the streaming services act as historical time capsules of how science fiction has evolved on the silver screen over the years.
So, if you want to take a tour of the best the genre has to offer, these are the essentials.
A Trip To The Moon (1902)
Director: George Méliès
Why It’s Essential: It wasn’t long after film became a viable medium in the early 1900s that we first traveled to the moon, courtesy of the mind of director George Méliès. This silent sci-fi masterpiece has a history almost as interesting as the movie itself. It was originally thought lost — along with Méliès’ other work — until its rediscovery in the late 1920s. Then, in the ‘90s, something of a miracle took place: a hand-colored version of the movie was rediscovered and restored.
To the relief of completionists everywhere, this restored version from 2011 is also available on Netflix, complete with a soundtrack by Air, a French electronica band that also provided the music to the movie The Virgin Suicides. Clocking in at under 20 minutes, this is a no-brainer as a piece of the sci-fi canon. It’s historically essential for film fans and genre buffs; plus, it features one of the most iconic moments in the history of cinema:
Metropolis (1927)
Director: Fritz Lang
Why It’s Essential: No movie on this list has had as big of an impact on the history of film as Metropolis. Lang’s futuristic dystopia combined a universal tale of the dangers of totalitarian governments with groundbreaking special effects to create a complete package that filmmakers are still trying to recreate today.
It’s still almost inconceivable that he managed to get this to audiences at all. This was a time when most directors were still trying to figure out how the film medium even worked; meanwhile, Lang was bringing robots, sprawling cities and mammoth sets to the screen in a way that would outclass his competition for decades to come. Once you put the film in the proper historical perspective, it’s easy to see the straight line from Lang to Kubrick to Lucas and into the modern age of Hollywood.
Godzilla (1956)
Director: Ishirō Honda
Why It’s Essential: Most people see Godzilla as nothing more than a giant lizard stomping its way through cardboard cities filled with poorly lip-synched townspeople. However, at its core, the King of Monsters is a cautionary tale about the dangers of nuclear energy, mainly asking the question: What are the consequences of unleashing this evil on the Earth?
Well, in 1954, we got our answer: Godzilla. Spawned from these same nuclear weapons, the creature served as a startling metaphor from Japan about the irreversible dangers of the atomic age. Unfortunately ‘Zilla has since become a global phenomenon and money-maker for studio execs, meaning the moral of this story has been lost in a sea of cartoons, T-shirts and Americanization. Maybe that’s the most distressing metaphor of them all.
The First Man Into Space (1959)
Director: Robert Day
Why It’s Essential: OK, so “essential” might be a stretch, but you can’t stream the evolution of sci-fi without at least one 1950s B-movie schlockfest, and The First Man Into Space is as good a place to start as any. In it, a navy test pilot flies beyond the reach of Earth’s atmosphere, only to return covered in cosmic dust, which, of course, turns him into a blood-thirsty monster. Because, 1950s science, apparently.
The plot, the acting, the creature effects — all terrible. Still, they’re terrible in a charming way. As studios cut down on budgets and got rid of their special effects departments, this type of shoestring melodrama became the norm. Sci-fi was kids' stuff, after all, so it wasn’t worth investing time and resources into these movies.
It might sound like I’m being harsh on The First Man Into Space, but I’m really not. You could easily kill a rainy afternoon on this car wreck and get a good history lesson on the rut the genre was in until the end of the ‘60s.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Why It’s Essential: There’s really not much more to say about 2001, right? It’s a masterpiece. It’s one of film’s great achievements. No matter how many times you watch it, you’ll probably still be lost — but that’s a good thing.
2001 asks the big questions, doesn’t answer them and doesn’t really care if you’re following along or not. Sporting peerless special effects and a story that attempts to reconcile our place in the universe, this is a movie that takes on new meanings with each viewing. Any answer you get just leads to more questions with each subsequent viewing. It can be maddening for some, illuminating for others, but it's always beautiful for whoever's watching.
I’m not going to try and convince you to watch 2001 (as if you haven’t already). It’s a masterpiece, and it’s ready to stream whenever you want.
Solaris (1972)
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Why It’s Essential: Speaking the same meditative language as 2001, Tarkovsky’s Solaris is an existential foray into sci-fi from the Soviet Union that continues Kubrick’s philosophy of pushing the genre out of its B-movie past and into a higher form of art.
The film focuses on a psychologist visiting a space station that is orbiting the planet Solaris. There, he finds a crew of scientists that have each fallen victim to a separate emotional crisis that is somehow linked to the mysterious planet below.
The scientists studying the planet are just as much a piece of an experiment as Solaris itself. The movie deconstructs the communication between man and the environment, but it does so with a fresh coat of sci-fi paint. Tarkovsky’s goal was to help the genre transcend the tropes and mesh with the themes and issues you’d find in any earthly drama.
It’s in Solaris that science fiction became about more than just spaceships and green women; it became something more relatable and timely for our culture.
Blade Runner (1982) [Note: This Will Be Removed On 5/16/2016]
Director: Ridley Scott
Why It’s Essential: It’s Blade Runner. It’s a universal truth that it’s essential viewing, but it’s also just as easy to forget exactly why. Based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Blade Runner takes on the nature of humanity and the validity of our own reality, and combines it with incredible special effects by Douglas Trumbull.
The story of Rick Deckard hunting down rogue replicants plays out like a hardboiled detective yarn, but there’s so much more here. It’s haunting and devastating and nebulous and everything a good sci-fi story should be.
Blade Runner propelled thoughtful sci-fi into the blockbuster age, complete with a unique techno-noir flavor, eye-popping visuals, and a bit more mainstream charm than Kubrick was interested in providing. However, you knew all this already, right? It’s Blade Runner, for chrissakes! Give it a go ... even though Netflix only has the garbage-y Theatrical Cut, complete with a bored Harrison Ford slogging his way through the narration. Hey, lesser Blade Runner still outclasses pretty much everything else out there.
Primer (2004)
Director: Shane Carruth
Why It’s Essential: You’d be forgiven for never hearing of Primer, but once you get into it, you'll wonder how this flew under your radar. Written and directed by Shane Carruth, Primer deals with a pair of engineers accidentally discovering a way to travel back in time and the moral implications that follow.
This isn’t Doc Brown having a grand ol’ time mucking up the time stream; Primer, instead, gives gravitas and real consequence to the effect something like this can have on everybody around you.
Its dense, swerving narrative doesn’t hold your hand, either. The whole thing is scattered and confounding, and you’ll find yourself putting in an honest day’s work just to follow the whole thing. I actually had to sketch out a chart just to keep up with all of the different timestreams and realities. If you’re really looking to dive into what sci-fi really is — what it should be — this might actually be the best example on the list.
Melancholia (2011)
Director: Lars von Trier
Why It’s Essential: OK, so Melancholia might skirt just outside the realm of traditional sci-fi, but there are enough tethers to the genre that I decided to keep it on the list. Make no mistake, though, this is pure art house drama. The movie is split into two halves and examines the plight of two sisters, one battling a major depressive episode and the other dealing with crippling anxiety.
In the backdrop of this family drama is a rogue planet that emerged from behind the sun that is on an impending collision course with Earth. When taking the entire package into perspective, Melancholia is the most unique offering on this list: it's a metaphor-drenched opera, set to "Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde," that examines the disintegration of a family, while depicting the end of the world. There's a lot to unpack here as the movie pokes at the human condition like a raw, exposed nerve.
Snowpiercer (2014)
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Why It’s Essential: You would have been right to be skeptical that a South Korean film based on a French sci-fi comic book produced on a relatively lower budget would have had the impact of Snowpiercer, but then again, you can never doubt director Bong Joon-ho. After pulling off small miracles with Mother and The Host, he’s proven himself to be one of the most versatile directors out there, with the ability to blend smart, socially-conscious material into typical genre trappings.
Snowpiercer takes place in a world where climate change has left the Earth a frozen tundra. The remnants of society now live in a single train, which is split up between the workers and the elite. Like Metropolis, it tells a dystopian class war tale with a message of environmentalism that is timelier today than ever before. It’s also got a twisted sense of humor and some of the most raw, intense action you’ll see at the movies.
Interstellar (2014)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Why It’s Essential: Though it never quite reaches the heights it aims for, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is still an important entry into the recent sci-fi canon simply because of the fact that it’s an original property blessed with a blockbuster budget. In recent years, audiences have had to either find a local art theater playing an indie sci-fi gem or suck it up and venture off to a dumbed-down blockbuster that has tenuous shades to the genre.
Interstellar changed that — it had all of the lofty ideas of a Solaris or 2001 and Nolan was given the cash and freedom to actually see it through. The movie’s plot sees a team of astronauts traveling into a wormhole in order to find a hospitable planet for humanity to call home after cataclysmic crop failures across Earth leave the population without a dependable food source. It’s a thoughtful, beautiful, flawed film that likely needs more time to marinate to be fully appreciated.
