20 of my favorite Sci-Fi movies
I'm in love with these films. I think that for some people, movies are about visual effects and action, but that's the last thing I look for when I see a movie. I enjoy what provokes your mind to work. I don't like those blockbusters like The Avengers and I don't go for the last movies around, I appreciate filmmaking from the very start of cinematography to nowdays, so don't expect just a 2018 movie list. I'm going to put on this selection of science fiction films what I consider my favorite movies of all time, based on the message I received, cinematography and mostly, the effect they had on my life as a science fiction fan. Let's start:
#20 / Close Encounters of the Third Kind
This was the first film that make a huge impact on me when I was a child. After this film, I started to really pay attention to movies, to the story, the characters and I was on total terror when the skinny alien appeared on the screen.
I was a kid in a poor family and my father always waited for these "special" movies on TV to see them all together. After some time, he bought a VCR and started renting films. It was better seeing those films in there because there were no commercials.
#19 / Aliens
I remember seeing this one after the first Alien film, but the first one wasn't very scary to me, I was scare of the android. But on Aliens, thins changed, I was inside the movie, I was with them in the scout mission when they were attacked by a bunch of those creatures.
I was so involved in the film that when the queen showed up I couldn't believe it. The size, the teeths, the eggs. It was pure terror. I fell in love with this film in so many ways, that I think it's the primal factor for me to study audiovisual arts.
#18 / Predator
I saw this film because it was every sunday as the movie of the day. It was all cutted and full of commercials, but it was so fun to see that we just swallow all publicity without blame.
I felt different things the first time I saw this one, the invisible creature, the jump to the lake, then the creature shows his real face and fights. It was just amazing for a kid my age, I think I was 7.
#17 / Robocop
Robocop opened my eyes about the criminal world, then I started hating them. I wanted so badly for Robocop to have his revenge that when it finally happens in the film I was so happy.
I was getting awake more and more with every movie I watch, maybe not appropiate for a kid my age at the time, but I'm glad my parents were so easy and not paying attention to what I was watching.
#16 / Terminator 2: Judgement Day
I also remember quite good when I watched the first Terminator, it was a serious impact in me. I remember drawing and making my own terminator ideas on a notebook. Then I saw Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
It was just the best movie ever. I couldn't see it just one time and forget about it. The story envolved me so deep that it is the first memory of me crying about a movie, when they melt T800.
#15 / Back To The Future
This adventure was wild and you could imagine how it was for a child. At the time I saw this one, I was so involved in films that it was just crazy, I ate, played and did homework watching movies.
The delorean was my favorite car ever, I wanted my hooverboard, and go back in time to save people from the death. Never happened and reality around me was a bad one.
#14 / Flight of the Navigator
This movie is really serious, despite all the shallow comedy. It has time travel, alien abduction, men in black, ufos. Everything to fill your head with fantasy and emotion to run away from a extreme reality outside your house.
The film is full of emotions and mistery. It had a special place in my childhood because I escaped what was going on in my surroundings. We planned to move because the place was risky.
#13 / The Abyss
This movie is a wake up call for mankind but also a masterpiece of tension within decisions. You can feel the fear, the anger, the frustration in every character.
The message in this movie is really powerfull, but also the art behind the film is just amazing. James Cameron was a visionary with a huge message to give mankind.
#12 / Total Recall
At this point I was already a fan of Arnold. I don't remember the moment of my childhood in which I saw this film, but it was also a huge influence on me. We still watched movies the old way, all family on the leaving room looking at the TV.
I hated to see movies at the TV and started to love the VCR. There were season in which they rented several movies to watch in the weekend, and were like sacred moments. Films were the religion of my family and my own, I lived every movies.
#11 / Star Wars
I remember the first time I saw Star Wars. I didn't understand anything but the action scenes. Loved the lightsabers as everyone. But then I saw the second film The Empire Strikes Back and was worried because I did understand this one.
After the re watch of A New Hope I was so excited about the whole story, started paying attention and getting involved in the amazing story, creatures and characters. It was another one to my list of favorite movies.
#10 / Powder
This is a drama of an extraordinary men with magnetic / electric ability. His mother was hitted by a ray when she was pregnant. This is a story of a guy who is rejected for being different.
This movie also has a big premise that you need to discover. It's just food for your brain, in this times with so many empty movies, this film teaches something.
#09 / Independence Day
We finally moved to another house in better place, I was happy living there and my father became the owner of a small video store. He rented films there and I had this inmense selection of films to see, but they also had regular jobs, so they attended the store during nights and worked by the day.
I was on school until midday, so in the afternoon I used to watch 2 or 3 movies day by day. By these times I was like 9 or 10 years old. This film marked the blockbuster times for us, it was announced as a big event and it was. We loved the fresh prince back then and seeing Will kicking aliens was just mind blowing.
#08 / The Fifth Element
This became one of my movies to go to the grave. Luc Besson make a masterpiece with this, it's just a perfect combination of cast, story, makeup, sound, art & costume department. Everything is a mindblowing act in this film. 1996 and 1997 were the years of me chewing lots of films.
I remember falling in love with Mila in this film. She was the real fifth element. I watched some action films with Bruce but only liked Pulp Fiction, not taking too much attention to his other films, I though he just wanted to do action films with no substance beyond gunpowder.
#07 / Dark City
Dark City became the reason for me to like gothic and dark clothes. Those pale characters were creepy but also fascinating. I found in this movie a lot of things to admire. The message of a controlled mankind in so many ways is something that has been always with me.
The way they controlled the memories of their victims was a wake up call for me and I believe director Alex Proyas has some kind of knowledge about thing we don't or a weird kind of logic. This movie affected my way of thinking and helped me moulding my mind about certain things.
#06 / Fire In The Sky
This is a 1993 movie that I saw this really late, I think it was 2001 and I was shocked by the events described on the film and for the film saying it was based on the true events that occurred to Travis Walton.
He and a group of loggers were coming back from work when they saw this bright red craft floating. Travis came down and a beam of light paralized him. The terror from the Close Encounters skinny alien multiplied 100 times.
#05 / A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Well this film is an incredible demonstration of how powerfull can be a message for a better world. This just broke my heart, I wasn't a child anymore when I saw this movie but it touched me and another new nerve.
No one asks why there aren't movies like this anymore? why there aren't this kind of messages on films anymore? There still are some jewels around but they don't go mainstream like before. Why?
#04 / The Matrix
If other movies were a wake up call, The Matrix is a wake up slap in the face. A call to open your eyes and stand to this world we're living. They sent away one of the most powerfull messages to mankind with this film. It was just beautiful seeing the impact on people.
Again without asking anything, we live a life that's empty, meaningless, study, work, get sick and die. It makes you get awake. Unless you were at the theater just for the special effects and the message passed above you as the bullets on neo.
#03 / Mission To Mars
I remember this film as the one who make me started with my own theories about the origin of mankind, I was 15 and was making so much questions to myself.
I found answers and hypothesis through movies, learned english watching them and opened my mind to millions of possibilities about everything.
#02 / 2001 An Space Odyssey
I was 16 years old when I first saw 2001, I saw it because it was the year 2001 and I said "2001 A Space Odyssey's next on TV, let's take a look". I ended up with so many questions about meanings that I was just stranded.
But it wasn't the end, 2010 The Year We Make Contact was next. My brain just fried. The glory of the first one wasn't present on this one, and I also still was paranoid for the first one.
#01 / The Thirteenth Floor
This kind of movies were presents from my father, who was involved in this kind of movies about what people talked like weird themes. This is like matrix in some aspects, but it has other entrance and exit.
A different approach to what is "reality" and who controls it. An amazing vision of the grid that I became a little obssessed with. What it represents and how to get out of it is just a matter of waking up.
That was the last film. Now I want to say that there's no rank in here, because it's just a memory and timeline for me to record how and almost when I saw this films and a little info of what they mean to me. I saw most of those films really late and far from the premiere, but they all mean a lot to me. This is a personal list of films I wanted to show you, I'm not saying you have to like this because those are just films I grew up with and there are many more.
I'm leaving apart other films, but obviuosly I'm going to make more of this kind of post because I just love sci fi movies. I saw a lot of dystopian and post apocalyptic films, sci fi-horror films and alien films, so I want to make specific post for every subgenre. This post covers from 1970's to 2001 and the films of my childhood. I'm glad I was able to see the amount of films I saw as a child, by the year 2001 I wanted to watch again all those films but the video store of my father wasn't there anymore, we moved two more times and I had to start my own quest to find those movies again. I didn't wanted to change from VCR to DVD, so I started buying tapes on video stores that were getting out of business to make my own collection.
