Welcome to the classic Sci-Fi films of all time ...
These are, in our opinion, the classic Sci-Fi films ever made. We own each and every one of these and they are always a delight to watch. The links below point directly to Amazon.co.uk so that by following the links you can purchase these classics for yourself.
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THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
The very epitome of a cult SF classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still is more often referenced than seen, which is a pity since it remains even now one of the most thought-provoking examples of the genre. A Robert Wise's film of Edmund North's screenplay is a thoughtful Cold War allegory about a Christ-like visitor (Michael Rennie) who comes to Earth preaching a message of salvation for mankind, only to be spurned, killed then finally resurrected (significantly, Rennie's character Klaatu adopts the pseudonym "Mr Carpenter" while on the run from the authorities). Aside from its philosophical message, the film also boasts memorable imagery--notably the giant robot Gort--a much-quoted catchphrase in "Klaatu barada nikto", and one of composer Bernard Herrmann's most admired scores, featuring the theremin and other electronic instruments that must have sounded very otherworldly back in 1951. The result is a bona fide landmark in cinema SF with a central message about "weapons of mass destruction" that's still uncannily relevant today. |
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BARBARELLA
If there was ever a film that reflected the nature of the 60's hippy revolution then this is it. It has that much lovin and nude frolicking that you might think that this is a dirty movie but as the film progresses you start thinking that this is a pretty good film and the fun frolicks are just a bit of fun! It has all the things a good sci-fi movie should have and more, including an excellant bad guy called 'Duran Duran!'
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THE TIME MACHINE
In 1960 producer-director George Pal's The Time Machine reshaped HG Wells' thoughtful, ironic novel into a two-fisted action movie, but one that still appeals to children and adults immensely and deserves its classic status. In the first week of 1900 a group of fussy Victorians gather in Taylor's chintzy, overstuffed parlour to hear him tell of his expedition to the future, where the world is divided between the surface-dwelling, childish, beautiful Eloi and the hideous, underground, cannibal Morlocks. The time travel sequence remains a tour de force, with a shop window mannequin demonstrating a parade of fashions as the years fly by in seconds and charming but still-effective stop-motion effects. The future is a wonderfully coloured landscape with properly gruesome cave-dwelling monsters and a winning Eloi heroine in Yvette Mimieux. |
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THE PLANET OF THE APES COLLECTION (6 DISCS)
The Planet of the Apes was released at the height of racial and political unrest in America, adding resonance to its story of a NASA astronaut (Charlton Heston) stranded on a planet where superior apes dominate inferior human slaves. The film's final image, in which a horrified Heston realises the fate of humankind, remains one of the most indelible in all of science-fiction cinema. Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) continues the original's distant future scenario, pitting militant apes against mutant humans. Its phenomenal success spawned Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), in which simian scientists Cornelius and Zira (Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter) travel backward in time, setting the stage for the ape supremacy of the first two films. McDowall returned in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) as Caesar, the son of Cornelius, leading an ape revolution that bridges the historical gap of the previous films. Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) ended the five-film cycle with McDowall again playing the chimpanzee leader Caesar, defeating gorillas and human mutants to establish the hierarchy introduced in the original film. |
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METROPOLIS
Fritz Lang's Metropolis is perhaps the most famous German film of all time, and certainly one of the most influential of all silent films. In its lifetime it has been: drastically re-edited (shortly after release); unseen for decades; revisioned with a modern music score in the 1980s; and thanks to the work of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung and a network of archives all over the world, restored in 2001. This restoration of Metropolis is almost certainly the most complete and authentic version possible of Lang's original 1927 vision.
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WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE
Academy Award-winning story, highlighting the massive panic on Earth when it is discovered that a runaway star is heading for this planet, triggering off a desperate race against time to build a spaceship to carry a limited number of people to another planet...and safety. |
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WAR OF THE WORLDS
After the success of 1950's Destination Moon and 1951's When Worlds Collide, visionary producer George Pal brought the classic HG Wells story of a Martian invasion to the big screen, and it instantly became a science-fiction classic and winner of the 1953 Academy Award for Best Special Effects. It's a work of frightening imagination, with its manta-ray spaceships armed with cobra-like probes that shoot a white-hot disintegration ray. As formations of alien ships continue to wreak destruction around the globe, the military is helpless to stop this enemy while scientists race to find an effective weapon. Gene Barry and Ann Robinson play the hero and heroine roles that werede rigueur for movies like this in the 50s, and their encounter with one of the Martians is as creepy today as it was in 1953. It finally takes an unseen threat--simple Earth bacteria--to conquer the alien invaders, but not before War of the Worlds has provided a dazzling display of impressive visual and sound effects. This is a movie for the ages, the kind of spectacle that inspired little kids such as Steven Spielberg and still packs a punch. |
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FIRST MEN IN THE MOON
An adaptation of H.G. Wells' famous science fiction novel. A group of United Nations astronauts are alarmed at the tales told by a scientist who claims to have been attacked on the moon. The next planned mission to the moon may be under threat from ant-like creatures.
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LOST IN SPACE - COMPLETE COLLECTION
Lost in Space began life in 1965 as a science-fiction take on The Swiss Family Robinson. Produced by Irwin Allen, then in the midst of his run of spectacular-but-childish TV SF (before he became the master of big-screen disaster movies), the show featured a family of all-American space colonists cast away on a mysterious planet. Gradually the whole thing devolved into a silly (but sometimes fun) exercise in childish camp.
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THEM!
An early entry in the 1950s cycle of creature-feature pictures, Them! is the one about hordes of ants mutated to a giant size by the first A-bomb test. An exciting, persuasive exercise in paranoid science fiction.It begins as an eerie desert mystery, with New Mexico cop James Whitmore investigating disappearances and deaths: a mobile-home and a general store are crushed as if tanks have rolled over them, a shopkeeper is found dead of a huge injection of formic acid, quantities of sugar have been stolen and a catatonic little girl is shocked into shrieking "them, them!". FBI agent James Arness takes charge and a plaster-cast of a strange imprint summons a father and daughter investigative team. Law-enforcement, military and scientific experts deduce the nature of the problem and take swift, decisive action to counteract the danger. |
OK, we know we've missed a few other "classics" and so if you fancy seeing page 2 then click on the link below:
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