Off the beaten path scifi movies
Alien: Covenant Forum Topic

dk
MemberTrilobiteMarch 28, 201715719 Views87 Replies
What are your top 5 or 10 scifi movies you like that may not be well known? I am trying to get ideas since I have fallen way behind in movie watching. For instance, BigDave and ninXeno426 recommended Ex Machina and I watched and enjoyed it. I can only think of three at the moment but feel free to list your favourites.
1. Equilibrium
2. THX 1138 (early Lucas pre Star Wars)
3. Overdrawn at the Memory Bank MST3K edition (funny riffage and not a terrible movie on its own)
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Replies to Off the beaten path scifi movies


Moon--great little piece with Sam Rockwell.
I love THX 1138--nice to see a fellow fan.


Of course thumbs up on Ex Machina!Some i dig that are a little obscure are:1. A Scanner Darkly:2.Pandorum:3.Air(i think I've mentioned that one)4.Moon. 5.Dredd(think i mentioned this one too)I'll come back with more,I gotta list

My dad gave me a ton of DVDs when he had to move and didn't have space to keep them. Moon might be in there. That is where I found Equilibrium.


I will have to rummage through those dvds again. There are almost 300 and many of them are not for me or I have them already.


The Arrival(not to be confused with Arrival)Repo men(not to be confused with Repo Man)




Your not alone lol.Actually i saw some one ripping it on one of the Life threads.

We are entitled to our opinions. If I'm feeling it, I'm going to watch and judge for myself. It's all good and I went OT on my own thread. How is that for setting an example?



I love THEM, it's a classic!
BUG [1970's movie with Bradford Dillman creating hybrid cockroaches, still scares the s**t out of me!]
Planet of The Vampires [worth watching for the similarities to both A L I EN and PROMETHEUS!]
It Came From Outer Space
DARK STAR [Surfing in space, beach ball alien, the knife trick, from these humble beginnings A L I E N was born!]
DEAD AND BURIED [1981 O'Bannon and Shussett wrote the screenplay, Stan Winston created the make-up effects!]
Doomwatch
Quatermass and The Pit
Invasion of The Bodysnatchers~ [the original version and Philip Kaufman's 1978 version with Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy!]
Things To Come
METROPOLIS
It! The Terror From Beyond Space
Robinson Crusoe on Mars
The Thing From Another World
John Carpenters The Thing [totally awesome practical effects!]
Forbidden Planet [with Robby the greatest robot ever!]
The Day The Earth Stood Still [Original version, not the Keanu Reeves remake!]
Scanners, The Brood, Videodrome, Shivers, Rabid, eXistenZ [I'm a fan of David Cronenberg!]
Leviathan [A L I E N underwater clone, but pretty good!]
Slipstream [starring Mark Hamill, as the baddie, and Bill Paxton]
SILENT RUNNING
OUTLAND
Prophecy
Don't Look Now [great horror film, one of my all time favourites, directed by the wonderful Nic Roeg!]
The Andromeda Strain
Phase IV
The Omega Man
Soylent Green
SOLARIS [1972 Tarkovsky original]
A Boy And His Dog
Farenheit 451
La Jettee
Alphaville
Barbarella
SPACEHUNTER: Adventures In The Forbidden Zone
SOLDIER
Will add more as I remember them....
"Let The Cosmic Incubation Begin" ~ H.R. Giger

The Illustrated Man(sort of sci-fi), Fiend without a Face(very old)
The Cars that Ate Paris(Kind of pre-Mad Max type of movie where the cars takeover a tiny town of paris in Australia), Oblivion(its similar to Moon).

JazzHands, I liked Cube, though I never went back for the sequels.
Did anyone ever see an old weirdly called 'Hardware'? I think it was Clive Owens first flick
also, I love Dark City though it's a hard genre to pin to

nin- OT a bit.
Arrival is solid. There is a twist near the end and not how I expected. It violates a couple scifi rules for me but they work well specifically for this movie. It is even a bit of a tear jerker. Anything else would be spoils.




Some good pics above - some repeats here but my 2 cents:
Moon (a good 'human' sci-fi)
A Scanner Darkly (crazy but moral, kind of, drug tale)
*Under the Skin (must see just for the creepiest death scene ever and, being honest, Scarlet Johansen . . .)
Ex Machina (when AI goes bad ;) but not in a cliched way)
Sunshine (a nice, uneventful trip to the sun)
and, not really off radar but
12 Monkeys (time travel, Terry Gilliam strangeness, top stuff)
*this would be my top pick if you've not seen it. Very dark. Combines alien invasion/abduction, alien AI and aliens on motorbikes, gross out scenes and Glaswegian night life. Random stuff but very well done imo. I think if you're British it's possibly even more unnerving . . .

Deep Space 12 Monkeys was great! I need to dust my dvd collection.
Under the Skin sounds interesting too. Thanks!


No worries dk :)
Im just gutted I've seen most if not all of those recommended above . . .
Hence why I can't wait for AC!

I've seen so many sci-fi films in the past, and I managed to find a few of these on the memory lane, some of which I still enjoy provided that I use my Nostalgia-Vision (TM)
- Saturn 3
- Outland
- Battle Beyond the Stars
- Robot Jox
- Innerspace
- The Blob
Hey don't laugh!
Sci-fi films are best enjoyed in grainy VHS screen quality on a fatass CRT TV imo (especially 80's space adventure films with lens flare, synth music, sometimes outrageous leather clothing, guy-in-a-suit monsters, stop motion and matte painting backgrounds.)
A huge 4k screen with a massive HT set-up is the 2nd best thing.


Thanks for the thumbs up on Arrival dk!Great lists!Under the Skin is on my must see too!


If any of you are into the "so bad it's good" thing, I recommend Starcrash. It's so stupid that it's awesome.
If that makes sense.



- Screamers
- Silent Running
- Enemy Mine
Man, I'm 44 and have seen so many movies. But can i remember them when needed? No! Balls!
- Brazil
- A.I.
- Her
- Clockwork Orange
- The Abyss
- Moon 44
- Pitch Black
- Dune (1984)
- Contact
Oops, only 5.... Oh well....
Eine Theorie die nicht auf Etwas solidem basiert ist für gewöhnlich nur Geschwätz.

Yes @Jazzhands! definitely The Cube and Cube Zero (not the second one)
Deepstar Six (The Abyss' younger brother, but still a little gem)
The Divide (mainly because Michael Biehn is in it lol)


Event Horizon was cool when i was a bit younger. Arrival was pretty frigging awesome..and I have to throw it out there.. Interstellar was pretty dope

Tiwaz No worries about more than 5!
I have a story about Pitch Black. I was leaving for military duty for 6 months and my family wanted a going away party for me- it was an emotional time. My daughter and I went to rent a movie (VHS) and our minds were on the changes about to occur. We wandered around and saw Pitch Black- never heard of it but we picked it up just to grab some kind of scifi movie. I had zero expectations and was just floored by the movie. I have three DVDs of it- just in case!

@dk Nice one.
I watched Dune when it came to the cinemas, 1984. I was 11 back then an dragged my granny along. I was like "WOAH!", especially the sandworms. I wonder what my granny was thinking. Probly something like "WTF?!". XD
Eine Theorie die nicht auf Etwas solidem basiert ist für gewöhnlich nur Geschwätz.

Top Sci-Fi movies for me:
Close Encounters
The Day the Earth Caught Fire
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Original)
War of the Worlds (Original, Gene Barry version)
Sunshine
Flash Gordon (1980)
My Dad loved how Michael Rennie portrayed the alien visitor was in the Day the Earth Stood Still.
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