From astronauts, aliens, and AI - These 13 science fiction films are a must-see
Before Stanley Kubrick's "2001," robots looked like jukeboxes on legs and served as assistants to space travelers, whose means of transportation were either pointy rockets or (usually a hallmark of aliens) flat saucers. Everything changed with "2001" in 1968. Thanks to bigger budgets, more complex storylines, and improved special effects, the science fiction genre lost its reputation as a silly fairytale for dreamers and became a blockbuster genre. Here are 13 "modern" sci-fi classics that should be part of your film canon.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
What it's about: Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey" glides along serenely, a brief history of humanity, which, when it is granted intelligence by an extraterrestrial, or rather supernatural, source of creation – still quite simian in its early days – immediately uses this prize to kill. A story that then repeats itself hundreds of thousands of years later aboard the spaceship "Discovery," when astronaut Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) must dispose of the murderous HAL 9000.
"I'm scared, Dave!" you hear the computer say. "My mind is slipping. I can feel it." It was our first cinematic encounter with AI—artificial intelligence. Back then, when computers were still a few years away from our everyday lives, we didn't feel so uneasy about it. It was quite exciting, and in the end, humans outsmarted the machine before being outsmarted by God (or something). The audience was overwhelmed by the look: spaceships and space stations finally looked "real."
Where I can watch it: on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K; streamable on Prime Video, Apple TV, Magenta TV, YouTube Store (for a fee)
Director: Steven Spielberg
What it's about: Once upon a time, when the polar ice caps had melted and the skyscrapers of Manhattan were navel-deep in water. In those days, there was a boy named David who wasn't like other boys. Where the others had hearts, he had wires, metal, and plastic. He loved his mommy, but one day she took him into the woods and left him there with his teddy bear. So the little robot David went in search of the Blue Fairy from the fairy tale Pinocchio, which his mother had read to him.
The fairy would transform him into a human, just as she had once done with the little puppet. And then, he believed, his mommy would love him as much as she loved his human brother, Martin. "Stories," he told himself, "tell what happens." And David still believes that today.
In 2001, Steven Spielberg, then Hollywood's chief dreamer, showed us a fairy tale set in the future and about us – about responsibility and love, exile and homesickness, grief and death. This sad story was actually intended to be told by Stanley Kubrick, who died in 1999. The perfectionist would have filmed it with a cooler, more cerebral approach. The "Clockwork Orange" atmosphere and the diffuse sunlight that shines through the windows like a glare are reminiscent of him. And there's a finale that seems like a nod to "2001."
Where I can watch it: on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray; streamable on Paramount+ and the Prime Video Channel Arthaus+ (flat rate); on Prime Video, Magenta TV, Apple TV (for a fee)
Director: Gareth Edwards
What it's about: The film isn't just called "Monsters," it also contains monsters, and for a long time they're an invisible threat, consisting only of atmosphere, silhouette, and sound. Which – as you can see in Ridley Scott's "Alien" – is always most effective. They're of European origin, but they're referring to Jupiter's moon Europa, where life has been suspected from time to time because of its thin oxygen shell. The aliens arrive on Earth in a terrestrial probe, land in northern Mexico, and find it thriving. Trump's dream becomes reality: the USA builds a massive wall, so that no illegal aliens can smuggle in from the "infected zone."
The Air Force is dropping bombs on them. British director Gareth Edwards, who has a background in special effects, tells a philosophical story of people and fears, of a man and a woman (Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able) who must cross the Zone and experience uncanny things. The travelers first learn to respect each other, then the alien species, which they finally see – surprisingly terrifying and beautiful, never before seen, but certainly not monsters. The monsters are, in truth, the persecutors of the illegal immigrants. Have a home movie night, Donald!
Where I can watch it: on DVD and Blu-ray; streamable on Disaster X – Prime Video Channels (flat rate), on Prime Video, Apple TV, Magenta TV, Videobuster, freenet Video (for a fee)
Director: Ridley Scott
What it's about: No space film is as creepy as "Alien." From the very first minute of the film, the ore smelting ship Nostromo groans and roars through space as close to a heart attack as Wolfgang Petersen's U-96 just before its (historically incorrect) rivets pop. And from the cry for help from the depths of space, which was actually a nasty, recoded warning cry, we are gripped by a sense of apprehension we've never experienced before. We hardly ever see the monster, but we never forget it.
"In space, no one can hear you scream!" That was the slogan for Ridley Scott's space thriller, for which the Swiss surrealist HR Giger created one of the most effective monsters in film history – the black, banana-skulled xenomorph with the glassy double set of teeth. And at least no one heard the last surviving astronaut, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), scream. Because she defeated the monster. After the film, the audience certainly didn't have pretty fingernails anymore.
Where I can watch it: on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K; streamable on Disney+ (flat rate), Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube Store, Sky Store, and Magenta TV (for a fee).
Director: Richard Fleischer
What it's about: smog, overpopulation, climate catastrophe, food problems. In the year 2022 of this 52-year-old utopia, everyone is eating "Soylent Green," a cookie whose recipe hides a terrible secret. Charlton Heston, who, after his years in epic films ("The Ten Commandments," "Ben-Hur," "El Cid"), has enjoyed sci-fi since "Planet of the Apes" (1968), discovers this horror as a police officer assigned to a murder case. And risks going mad.
Richard Fleischer's 1973 film is considered an early classic of eco-fiction—like Douglas Trumbull's "Silent Running"—and is also a detective story set in the future in the style of film noir. Heston is a modern-day tough guy à la Sam Spade. His living "police book" is played by Hollywood legend Edward G. Robinson. It was the last role for the man who had his breakthrough in 1931 as mob boss Rico in the gangster film classic "Little Caesar."
Where I can watch it: on DVD and Blu-ray; streamable on Prime Video, YouTube Store, Magenta TV, Microsoft Apple TV (for a fee)
What it's about: Plant conservationists have no chance in space, even if the militarists on Earth want to misuse the bio-spaceships for war purposes. Astronaut Lowell (Bruce Dern) refuses to accept this, so he first murders his environmentally indifferent fellow astronauts before setting off on the "Valley Forge" toward Jupiter to preserve the world's last remaining forests. These forests then suddenly begin to wither.
Douglas Trumbull's "Silent Running" is one of the most touching science fiction films in film history, and when Joan Baez sings her "Rejoice in the Sun" over images of bunnies and snails, you'll be glad for every Kleenex. When, at the end, little robot Dewey floats out into space as a lonely gardener in the space greenhouses, the viewer is overcome by a deep affection for the tin box. Compassion for the machine.
Where I can see it: on DVD and Blu-ray; streamable on Prime Video, Microsoft, YouTube Store (for a fee)
Director: Duncan Jones
What it's about: Sam (Sam Rockwell) is lonely and wants to return to his family. The caretaker of a helium-3 smelting plant is sitting in his lunar rover on the moon. His three-year contract is almost up, and the direct line to Earth isn't working at all. Sam's partner is Gerty, the onboard computer, who displays smiley faces to accentuate his words and speaks with the voice of Kevin Spacey. Gerty is reminiscent of the murderous HAL from "2001," but Sam calls him PAL (= buddy), and in the end, that's what Gerty really is. Artificial intelligence that protects its friend from the approaching rescue team after a shocking secret is revealed. The film's message: Never trust your employer, they only have their best interests at heart!
When the ugly truth comes to light, David Bowie's song "Space Oddity" pops into the viewer's head: "Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do." The man who made "Moon" (and later "Source Code") is Duncan Jones – David Bowie's son and a lifelong science fiction fan. For just five million dollars, he created this masterpiece, which to this day makes many of the $150 million-dollar smash hits of the genre look old, heavy, and lame.
Where I can see it: on DVD, BluRay, 4K; currently not available for streaming
Director: David Espinosa
What it's about: Mars. We gaze, mesmerized, at images of its surface. We interpret rocks that look like figures as living beings. We readily believe those researchers who see former riverbeds in elongated depressions and conclude: "There was water, there was life." Swedish-born director Daniel Espinosa ("Child 44") must have seen Ridley Scott's "Alien" several times before starting work on "Life." The procedures, atmosphere, and personnel are similar, even if the people on the International Space Station (ISS) are more cultured than the quarrelsome people on Scott's grim, rusty space freighter "Nostromo." They intercept the "Mars Pilgrim" probe and find a bristling single-celled organism in soil samples, awakening from a millennium of sleep under glucose.
Soon, the invisible tiny creature has become a visible glass flower, dancing in the Petri dish, cute as can be – until "Calvin" switches to repression mode and begins eliminating the crew. This space station is well-staffed: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ryan Reynolds, among others, fear for their lives. And a suspicion arises within them that this species may have once wiped out all life on Mars. From now on, it's not just about their own survival, but about ensuring that Calvin cannot, under any circumstances, reach Earth.
Where I can watch it: on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K; streamable on Netflix (flat rate), Prime Video, Apple TV, Sky Store (for a fee)
Director: Gareth Edwards
What it's about: Back in 1977, at the end of George Lucas' very first "Star Wars" film, the Death Star—the Empire's most potent weapon of mass destruction—could be as easily destroyed as a tin mailbox with New Year's Eve firecrackers. As the credits rolled and the initial excitement faded, one wondered how these engineering amateurs from the Dark Side ever rose to power. Malicious contemporaries would therefore call "Rogue One" arguably the most expensive plot hole correction ever. Beyond that, however, the film is a solid war film, one whose darkness is reminiscent of Irvin Kershner's "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" (1980). Felicity Jones and Diego Luna make a superb heroic team as the rebel duo Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor.
"Monster" director Gareth Edwards thankfully avoids the forced insertion of humor and comic characters. No previous film in the franchise has brought us so close to this world in a battleground – a world of co-optation, resistance, flight, violence, and death. A "film noir" fairy tale against nationalists, racists, populists, and all the questionable -ists of our time, a film that whispers to us that we must risk everything to preserve freedom and democracy. The best "Star Wars" series to date, "Andor," awaits on the streaming service Disney+.
Where I can watch it: on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K; streamable on Disney+ (flat rate), Prime Video, Apple TV, Rakuten TV, freenet Video (for a fee)
Director: Ridley Scott
What it's about: Initially, Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" was intended to be the long-demanded prequel to the "Alien" saga he initiated in 1979. But then the script increasingly moved away from those predatory, shiny black xenomorphs, switching to the Space Jockey, the giant skeleton with the burst ribcage that can be seen for a few seconds in "Alien."
In the film, scientists in the year 2089 discover pictograms of various lost Earth civilizations—a star map, as it turns out. The destination is quickly identified. It's off to the races. Religious researcher Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) believes she's been invited to paradise by God. A corporation is sponsoring the incredibly expensive ship—not entirely altruistically, as it turns out. Once they arrive, the Earthlings quickly realize they're not in Eden, but in a kind of alien military base. That their lives are threatened and the downfall of humanity is imminent, because the "gods" have apparently rejected their Earth experiment.
Where I can watch it: on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K; streamable on Disney+ (flat rate), Prime Video, Apple TV, Sky Store, Magenta TV (for a fee)
Director: Alex Garland
What it's about: It's a classic tragedy. Something falls from the sky—in the colors of the rainbow, it strikes a lighthouse—the beginning of the "shimmer," an iridescent phenomenon that steadily spreads from there. Military expeditions into its interior fail, and only the husband of biologist Lena (Oscar Isaac) returns—a shattered mind, a dream-lost being in a severely injured body. No one knows that he's on a mission, not even himself. Lena (Natalie Portman) sets off for Area X with four women.
British director Alex Garland delivered a new twist on the theme of "encounter with aliens." From the moment a giant albino alligator with mutated teeth drags one of the women into a fisherman's hut half-submerged in the river, the audience is transported along with the heroines to one of the most disturbing horror lands in film history. All connections to the outside world are severed, the compass needle dances like Swan Lake, and danger lurks everywhere. The monstrous takes on a beguiling and disturbing form. As at the end of "2001," humanity in "Annihilation" is confronted with an incomprehensible power. Approaching the alien is as impossible as if a housefly were trying to understand humanity.
Where I can watch it: on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K; streamable on Netflix and Prime Video (flat rate), on Apple TV, Magenta TV, freenet Video, YouTube Store (for a fee)
Director: Christopher Nolan
What it's about: The city rises like a tsunami, unfurling like wallpaper. The lower ends of the streets become walls, then rooftops stand upside down on top of rooftops, and you're flooded with that "wow!" feeling that only the greatest cinematic images can elicit. Christopher Nolan's "Inception" is a palace of such illusions; the director plunges both characters and audience into an intricate labyrinth of dreams. The 148 minutes fly by.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a corporate spy who uses drugs and a machine to lure drugged victims into their dreams in order to poach their innovative ideas. For the Mephistophelean Saito (Ken Watanabe), he is tasked with implanting a destructive thought in his rival, Fischer (Cillian Murphy). If he succeeds, he can return to his children. The process, called "inception," has never been attempted before. Then the cinematic classic, last great mission, "Ocean's Eleven," unfolds in the subconscious, where dream and real time diverge (which harbors dangers), and the defense mechanisms in Fischer's mind soon play out the hard way. When a dream then collapses, a seatbelt on the home theater sofa would be desirable.
Where I can watch it: on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K; streamable on Netflix and Wow (flat rate), on Prime Video, Apple TV, Magenta TV (for a fee)
Director: Duncan Jones
What it's about: This is what "Source Code" technology can do: A person sends their consciousness into another person's memory for eight minutes. A method designed to virtually prevent disasters. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Colter Stevens. He doesn't know how he got on this damn train, nor does he know who the nice Christina (Michelle Monaghan) across the hall is, who seems to know him. A glance in the train restroom mirror shows him a strange face. Ticket inspection. And: boom! - the train explodes.
Stevens wakes up strapped into a strange capsule. A uniformed officer (Vera Farmiga) at least explains the train incident to him via video link. From then on, his mind is sent back there: same train, same time frame, same (strange) head, same explosion. With increasing knowledge, he is supposed to track down the bomb and the bomb maker, because the bomber plans to blow up all of Chicago that very day. Things get really exciting because the hero tries to save the life of the lovable Christina, even though he is only living in an echo of reality. When the brain-bending threads unravel, the audience is as stunned as in Duncan Jones's first film, "Moon." Jones shows the birth of a parallel universe – and within it, the beginning of a love affair. Don't miss it!
Where I can watch it: on DVD and Blu-ray; streamable on Prime Video, Sky Store, YouTube Store, Apple TV, Magenta TV (for a fee)
Director: Darren Aronofsky
What it's about: A bald astronaut floats in an air bubble containing a gigantic dying plant—floating toward a nebula resembling a glowing tumor. One is drawn to the melancholic beauty of these images, but initially feels defeated by the film's complex narrative structure. Feelings like these are familiar from Kubrick's "2001" and the films of Peter Greenaway. They only fade after repeated viewings.
Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain" is the story of doctor Tom (Hugh Jackman), who wants to develop a cancer cure for his terminally ill wife, Izzi (Rachel Weisz), from a newly discovered plant. Izzi is writing a biographical book about a conquistador who hopes to find the Tree of Life among the Maya for his queen, who is threatened by the Inquisition. Tom neglects his lover in favor of research; she assigns him to write the final chapter of her novel, and then dies. He rediscovers his humanity in completing the literary fiction. A romantic statement in the guise of an avant-garde science fiction drama.
Where I can watch it: on DVD and Blu-ray; streamable on Disney+, Joyn (flat rate), Pluto TV, Rakuten TV, Plex (free)
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