{"id":3542,"date":"2005-10-18T13:33:26","date_gmt":"2005-10-18T20:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2005\/10\/18\/scalzis-top-50-significant-sci-fi-films\/"},"modified":"2019-12-18T16:40:19","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T00:40:19","slug":"scalzis-top-50-significant-sci-fi-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2005\/10\/18\/scalzis-top-50-significant-sci-fi-films\/","title":{"rendered":"Scalzi&#8217;s Top 50 Significant Sci-Fi Films"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:7537,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.scalzi.com\\\/whatever\\\/003785.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:7538,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/us.imdb.com\\\/title\\\/tt0073747&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/us.imdb.com\\\/title\\\/tt0073747&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:7539,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/us.imdb.com\\\/title\\\/tt0327162&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20090629042122\\\/http:\\\/\\\/us.imdb.com\\\/title\\\/tt0327162\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-09 21:57:44&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-09 21:57:44&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:7540,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/pharyngula.org\\\/index\\\/weblog\\\/i_must_be_a_sci_fi_pop_culture_freak&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20071105090843\\\/http:\\\/\\\/pharyngula.org:80\\\/index\\\/weblog\\\/i_must_be_a_sci_fi_pop_culture_freak\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-09 21:57:49&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:429}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-09 21:57:49&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:429},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Another list meme: this time, John Scalzi&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scalzi.com\/whatever\/003785.html\" title=\"Whatever: The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies -- Officially Out!\">top 50 significant sci-fi films<\/a> (alphabetical, not ranked).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  &#8230;the part of the book that&#8217;s going to get most people&#8217;s attention &#8212; and raise hackles &#8212; is The Canon, which features the 50 science fiction films I have deemed to be the most significant in the history of film. Note that &#8220;most significant&#8221; does not mean &#8220;best&#8221; or &#8220;most popular&#8221; or even &#8220;most influential.&#8221; Some of the films may be all three of these, but not all of them are &#8212; indeed, some films in The Canon aren&#8217;t objectively very good, weren&#8217;t blockbusters and may not have influenced other filmmakers to any significant degree. Be that as it may, I think they matter &#8212; in one way or another, they are uniquely representative of some aspect of the science fiction film experience.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As always, films I&#8217;ve seen are in <strong>bold<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Akira<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Alien<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Aliens<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Alphaville<\/li>\n<li><strong>Back to the Future<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Blade Runner<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Brazil<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Bride of Frankenstein<\/li>\n<li>Brother From Another Planet<\/li>\n<li><strong>A Clockwork Orange<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Contact<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The Damned<\/li>\n<li>Destination Moon<\/li>\n<li>The Day The Earth Stood Still<\/li>\n<li><strong>Delicatessen<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Escape From New York<\/li>\n<li><strong>ET: The Extraterrestrial<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Fly (1985 version)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Forbidden Planet<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ghost in the Shell<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Gojira\/Godzilla<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Incredibles<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jurassic Park<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Mad Max 2\/The Road Warrior<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Matrix<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Metropolis<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>On the Beach<\/li>\n<li><strong>Planet of the Apes (1968 version)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Robocop<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Sleeper<\/li>\n<li>Solaris (1972 version)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Stepford Wives<\/strong> <em>(I&#8217;m assuming he&#8217;s talking about the <a href=\"http:\/\/us.imdb.com\/title\/tt0073747\/\" title=\"IMDB: The Stepford Wives (1975)\">1975 version<\/a>, not the <a href=\"http:\/\/us.imdb.com\/title\/tt0327162\/\" title=\"IMDB: The Stepford Wives (2004)\">2004 bad comedy version<\/a>, though I&#8217;ve seen that one also.)<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>Superman<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Terminator 2: Judgement Day<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The Thing From Another World<\/li>\n<li>Things to Come<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tron<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>12 Monkeys<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>28 Days Later<\/li>\n<li><strong>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>2001: A Space Odyssey<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>La Voyage Dans la Lune<\/li>\n<li><strong>War of the Worlds (1953 version)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/pharyngula.org\/index\/weblog\/i_must_be_a_sci_fi_pop_culture_freak\/\" title=\"Pharyngula: I must be a sci-fi pop culture freak\">Pharyngula<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another list meme: this time, John Scalzi&#8217;s top 50 significant sci-fi films. As always, films I&#8217;ve seen are in bold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2037],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-3542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tv-and-films","tag-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}