60) 1984
An adaptation that stays true to the attitude of the source material is that rarest of things, doubly so if that source is a novel. Triply if that novel is as world-renowned as George Orwell’s 1984, the story of one man’s fight against the tyrannical IngSoc, the totaliatarian government that now runs the newly created Oceania. More relevant now than ever given recent concerns about the role and reach of government in the Information Age, 1984 speaks to modern viewers as more than ever before.
John Hurt gives a harrowing performance as Winston Smith, a dissenting voice living in Airstrip One (formerly the UK) and fighting against the mass of opposition he faces on a day to day basis, striving always for freedom. That he works in IngSoc’s propaganda department only makes his yearning for worse, as he seems to be adding to the problem, until he meets Julia.
Michael Radford’s grimy adaptation plays on the then-relatively recent memories of World War II, invoking the blitz and images of concentration camps, to make a point much deeper than most films. Modern viewers will no doubt be surprised by just how much of Orwell’s vision, through Radford’s adaptation, applies to life today – you only need to look at modern day North Korea to see how prescient the film was in terms of psychology and aesthetics. Like the best sci-fi, it has a lot to say about society in a double-plus good way.
59) Event Horizon
It’s a pity that British film director Paul W.S. Anderson has become infamous for the bloated Resident Evil franchise recently, particularly when the filmmaker crafted a true cult classic in the form of Event Horizon in 1997.
On board a rescue vessel in 2047, Captain Laurence Fishburne and his ragtag crew make the familiar “oh-no-why-would-you-do-that?!” decision the genre is renowned for. In this case, it’s to investigate the Event Horizon, a wayward ship that has reappeared on the edge of the solar system after 7 years lost at space. What follows is a psychedelic riot of violence that is likely to stay with you long, long after the film ends. And yes, even after a stiff drink.
Anderson’s wicked vision is a bona fide B-movie that revels in its own sense of chaos. What’s more, fans will find joy in recognizing the narrative cues Event Horizon takes from the likes of Alien and The Thing. Even though the movie concludes with a muddled third act, this is an interstellar journey worth taking.
Mind you, it’s not one for the faint hearted.
58) Men In Black
Gliding effortlessly to a global box office haul of $589 million in 1997, Men In Black is the film adaptation of The Men In Black comic book series by Lowell Cunningham. With the unique visual style of director Barry Sonnenfeld (The Addams Family, Get Shorty), an excellent script by Ed Solomon (the Bill & Ted films, Now You See Me), and fantastic, pitch-perfect performances by cast members including Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and Vincent D’Onofrio, this sci-fi action comedy brings the laughs, cranks the tension and delivers on all counts.
When police officer James Darrell Edwards III (Will Smith) pursues a man on foot through the sights of New York City – ending in a decidedly unsettling confrontation at the Guggenheim Museum – he finds himself quickly immersed in the unseen world of the Men In Black. The agency is charged with supervising alien refugees as they reside on earth, while hiding their existence from the rest of the human population. After receiving an invitation to the agency’s underground base in Battery Park, Edwards becomes Agent J, and must assist the gruff Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) when a sudden mass exodus of aliens from earth hints at an impending intergalactic issue.
The film benefits from a talented supporting cast – including Linda Fiorentino, Rip Torn, Tony Shalhoub and David Cross – and features Academy Award winning make-up and creature effects by the legendary Rick Baker (An American Werewolf In London), along with the work of Industrial Light and Magic. Such was its success and popularity, it spawned an animated series – Men In Black: The Series – and two sequels.
57) Independence Day
Part of the mid-90s wave of ‘invasion pictures’ that included Mars Attacks! and Men In Black, Independence Day is an action-packed sci-fi blockbuster – essentially a modern-day version of a star-strewn 1970s disaster film.
Writer/director Roland Emmerich – along with co-writer and producer Dean Devlin – weave multiple plot threads involving a broad cast of characters, as the world struggles to fend off a deadly alien invasion that threatens to exterminate the human race. From Will Smith’s Air Force Captain, to Jeff Goldblum’s scientific genius; from Bill Pullman and Mary McDonnell’s Presidential couple, to Randy Quaid’s alcoholic crop-dusting pilot. The film even features a very young Mae Whitman in a part so surprising, you’d be forgiven for exclaiming, “Her?”
Independence Day is, unsurprisingly, steeped in thick layers of American gung-ho, patriotic cheese. The President’s final rabble-rousing speech, delivered ahead of the final assault, is perhaps the most amusingly pompous moment of all, while there also is the implication that the rest of the world sits patiently on their hands, awaiting word from those brave, self-sacrificing Americans who might just be able to figure this whole thing out. However, in the face of all this jingoism, the audience cannot help but be entertained. This is a giant, perfectly sweetened, guilty pleasure of a popcorn movie that zips along at warp speed, keeping eyes glued to the screen, and posteriors glued to seats.
When you think about it, Independence Day is the unlikely prototype for recent ensemble-based holiday movies like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve, only it had the decency to kill off a good chunk of its cast. But instead of being a celebration of America’s independence from Britain, Independence Day more generously celebrates humanities’ shared enjoyment of independence from neon green space lasers. Also –and most importantly- it’s a big budget 90’s blockbuster that’s still wildly entertaining more than 15 years later.
Most of that shelf life is owed to the prop and miniature effects, which hold up better than most CGI of the last decade. It’s almost a relic in a different way, recalling a time when mass destruction on a global scale was astonishing, instead of just par for the course. Has any explosion since ID4 been half as impactful as when the White House was turned into the world’s largest standing reserve of burnt toothpicks? Sure, the invaders inside the Brooklyn-sized saucers aren’t terribly complex, but at least they have a motive (and aren’t allergic to water). Besides, this is a meat ‘n potatoes sci-fi action flick that’s the right mix of frightening and fun; if Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith teaming up in their prime isn’t enough for you, nothing ever will be.
56) Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)
Even with the “tacked on” ending that the studio demanded (think the ending to another masterpiece, Psycho), this chilling, paranoia laden masterwork remains required viewing for film students, film buffs and film critics alike. A subtle but powerful allegory for the engrained nervousness that accompanied The Cold War, Invasion of the Body Snatchers works as commentary, an unsettling but stripped down horror film and simply a beautifully crafted piece of art, brought to us in vivid black and white.
From director Don Siegel, who would also give us hugely memorable works like Dirty Harry, Escape from Alcatraz and The Shootist, no notch on his filmography would prove as inspiring to others as this early work. The amount of influence this 1956 hit had on the genre know no bounds and has served as either a template or as passing inspiration for countless genre properties. Even sci-fi/horror staple The Thing likely wouldn’t exist without this brilliant allegory.
The very fact that we see the “human duplication” angle spoofed so much in popular culture (most recently with Edgar Wright’s brilliant The World’s End) is testament to what was brought to the table. But of course, being influential is for nought if the film itself doesn’t bring the goods, and with the aforementioned technical prowess being brought to life with great leading men and ladies, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is still infinitely watchable, inspired and damn chilling in its own right.
55) Gattaca
Andrew Niccol’s dystopian drama is increasingly brought up for its prescient and thoughtful ideas, and for the right reasons: the not-too-distant future of his 1997 film is getting very close. In his directorial debut, Niccol examines a society that has genetically enhanced the human race. DNA and eugenics do not just determine your natural ability, but also your social class.
Vincent (Ethan Hawke) was born naturally and cannot attain his dreams of working at the Gattaca Corporation, since he does not have any new genetic breakthroughs. As the futuristic society separates the “valid” citizens from the “invalids,” Vincent borrows the genetic profile of the more ‘perfect’ Jerome Morrow (Jude Law) to battle his own inferiority complex.
Gattaca is a science fiction film interested in ideas over action. Niccol’s brainy script contemplates the science and cautions viewers of a not-too-distant future where powerful players have direct control over the genetic code. Science is a danger that does not have to do with a technological pervasiveness; instead, it is related to biological disparity – something that is increasingly more available in modern society. Today, wealthy citizens can use advancements in science to ensure their child can be born with certain traits or as a particular sex.
A lab filled with genetically engineered humans that can keep the status quo is not too much of a fantasy anymore. Gattaca shows a future that is not just compelling or frightening, but one that continues to look more and more like the modern day.
54) The Fly (1986)
We have Jeff Goldblum to thank for his part in creating our current era in which horror, sci-fi, and action films involve not only spectacular effects, but also heart, soul, and intelligence. Taking the script solely on its face, this tale of doomed scientist Seth Brundle would still hold its own in the sci-fi annals, but in Goldblum’s hands it reaches tragedy of Shakespearean proportion.
The Fly earns its place here for its fearsome premise: that we must experiment in order to progress, but what happens when one takes the science just one step too far, or makes just one honest mistake? This isn’t Splice, in which hubris ruled and reaped the consequences of its folly; this is just a decent man and one catastrophic misstep.
Brundle was upset and in an emotional moment broke from his scientific protocol, missing the common housefly that swooped into the machine with him. An everyday element meets a human frailty, and an abomination unleashes, beyond science to undo. The laws of the physical world do not forgive, and because Goldblum keeps Brundle’s goodness aflicker, his terrifying fate becomes genuinely heartbreaking.
53) Starship Troopers
While it is true there were actual, factual sequels to RoboCop, it’s hard to argue that there isn’t some thematic connectivity between that film and the one that Paul Verhoeven made 10 years later, Starship Troopers.
Like RoboCop, Starship Troopers challenges you to cheer for a hero produced by a system that’s corrupt and soulless and meant to fight an enemy who are themselves un-redemptive and evil. If RoboCop is a western with a complex socio-political message, then Starship Troopers is an old-fashioned war movie with similar high-minded commentary, except the Nazis are us and an army of malicious bugs are the bad guys.
Based on the book by noted science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, Verhoeven takes many of Troopers‘ themes about militarism and fascism and adds a heavy satirical element. This is often highlighted in the film by a series of propaganda films that play like old time newsreels, and highlight the bright and bold troopers fighting the war, and the moral righteousness of the Earthers in their battle against the arachnid killing machines.
Unlike most sci-fi war movies, there’s an ambiguousness to the human side of the conflict, it’s never explained why the bugs attack Earth, although there is a scene early in the film where high school students dissect bug larvae. From the outset, it seems that Verhoeven is daring you to not cheer for our human heroes, and throughout the rest of the film, he keeps adding other subtle reasons to not get behind Johnny Rico and his heroic gang of Roughnecks.
Casting was an issue – seriously, who bought Casper Van Dien as a teenager? And taking Denise Richards as a starship pilot is almost as difficult as taking her as nuclear physicist – but including renowned genre actors Clancy Brown and Michael Ironside helped sell the ambitious script. The film itself also remains mixed in critical reaction, as some people mistake it as an endorsement of rampant militarism, confusing the film’s tone as flippant, and criticizing Verhoeven’s focus on big, sci-fi action over the novel’s more introspective first-person narration.
Thankfully, time’s been kinder to Starship Troopers, although the studio dispatched any lingering subtlety in two direct-to-video sequels, Verhoeven’s vision has had a chance to be more fully appreciated in the 17 years since its initial release. In the future, we may win all our wars, but do we lose all sense of self in the process? That’s a provocative question. Returning to it more than 15 years later, it can be hard to imagine how some viewers didn’t realize Paul Verhoeven’s interstellar satire was poking fun at the militarist overtones found in Robert Heinlein’s original, Hugo Award-winning novel about jarheads of the distant future. The characters look like the cast of Dawson’s Creek doing space marine dress-up, featuring Denise Richards, Casper Van Dien, and a telepathic Neil Patrick Harris. Starship Troopers is basically a $105 million dollar B-movie, how could anyone even attempt to take it seriously?
But it’s the film’s thick sarcastic streak that has allowed Starship Troopers to endure, along with some terrifically colourful man vs. space bug action that sees more goo spraying than a You Can’t Do That on Television/Uh-Oh crossover. As the film’s hysterical propaganda videos make clear, Verhoeven’s winking and nodding at social themes had gotten even less subtle since Robocop, but the fun of Starship Troopers is how accurately it picks out the emotions and appeal of military fetishism, and blows them out to astounding extremes, one Oorah, and cyborg Michael Ironside at a time.
52) Source Code
Source Code is a sci-fi thriller with heart and it’s a sci-fi thriller that works as an emotional drama as well. And that’s what really drew me to the film, never did I expect to see such a human element in a sci-fi thriller. This is a genre that is usually devoid of anything like that and in an age where we’re being slammed with big budget sci-fi thrillers that give us unrelatable stories and scenes ladened with special effects, Source Code stands out even more.
You see, Source Code functions on two levels. Yes, it’s a gripping and suspenseful sci-fi thriller, but there’s also another level. Aside from the search for the bomber, there’s something more at play here and it’s equally, if not more compelling than the main storyline. And that’s the emotional/human element that the film has. This is more than just a thriller, and by the end, we’re asked some tough existential questions that will really have you thinking. Source Code has both heart and smarts.
And that is really what makes the film so refreshing, the humanist take that is presented here. It’s that extra layer of depth that really sets this one apart. Most thrillers don’t have this element to them, and it’s great to see a thriller that can finally connect emotionally. The best part is, you’re not really expecting it and when it hits, it hits hard.
It’s clear that Source Code was made with great skill and craft, and Dunacn Jones’ direction shines through in every scene. He keeps the film moving at a feverish pace, never leaving us bored or lost in the scientific mumbo jumbo. Clues are dropped along the way for the more observant of viewers as Jones makes sure that everything is laid out clear and in an uncomplicated manner, making sure no one is lost. He has a deft handle on the material and with Source Code, he offers up a brilliantly constructed film.
51) Akira
I’m not sure there’s any one facet of Akira that isn’t fascinating. As a story, it’s completely of itself: it’s not reliant on any long-standing myths or typical character tropes. In terms of production, it was begun and completed two years before its director had finished work on the manga series it was adapted from. It’s a technical marvel. Characters’ mouths are animated to the specific speech patterns of the dialogue they’re speaking too. It combines a staggering sense of scale with an absolute believability. Its cast of characters is compelling and varied, and inhabits a lived-in world you could set an infinite number of works in. Even its villains are likeable. Its score, by Japanese music troupe Geinoh Yamashirogumi, is dominated by rich instrumentation and works on character motifs you’ll have stuck in your head for years.
So yeah, there’s no one part of it (and trust me, I could go ON) from top to toe that hasn’t in some sense proved influential. Empire magazine famously stated “no Akira, no Matrix. It’s that simple.” I don’t even think comparing Akira to any other single or group of films can do its sheer worth amongst cinemagoers and lovers of fiction any justice. Whether or not it wound up influencing a generation of filmgoers, Akira is quite simply the absolute best animated film ever made, and a damn sight better than the vast majority of its non-animated competition.
Leave well alone, Hollywood: it cannot be bettered.
