Five Sci-Fi Classics You Should Own

5 - Dark Star
For a film seemingly produce on a budget of about 50p and a length of string, Dark Star is one of the most influential films of the genre. Without Dark Star there would be no Alien and without Alien where would we be?

Suicidal smart bombs, alien life and a lack of toilet paper - this film has it all.



4 - Tremors
Ok, so Tremors rips the idea of giant worms straight from Dune, but when the result is this good we can let the plagiarism slide. This sci-fi comedy horror pretty much bombed at the box office in 1990, barely breaking even, but performed far better when it was released to video. It's easy to see why - the cast, script and production are superb and it manages to walk the fine line between comedy and horror almost perfectly.



3 - Aliens
Ah, the 80's. Big hair, big shoulder pads and big-budget sci-fi action epics. From start to finish, Aliens is an edge of your seat roller-coaster ride of tension, action, classic quotes you can apply to everyday life and huge explosions. If action sci-fi is your thing, it doesn't get any better than Aliens.

Just don't bother with the third and fourth films in the series.
 


2 - Akira
Some Anime/Manga is just plain weird, being little more than highly-fetishized cartoon pornography appealing to the frankly bizarre Japanese market. Akira isn't like that. The animation - which was all hand drawn - is simply stunning and while the script clearly loses something in translation enough remains to retell the epic story of ESP, government conspiracies and all-out nuclear war.



1 - The Thing
John Carpenter's masterful retelling of the 1951 classic "The Thing from Another World" works on so many levels it almost boggles the mind. From the humour to the suspense to the paranoia, everything is perfectly pitched to pull you in and deliver the sucker punch. The special effects are superb, the acting good (if not Oscar good) and the cinematography epic in scope. This is a film you'll watch again and again.