EDITED BY alexis wilson
By Randall Colburn
Science fiction is the imagination’s attempt to make sense of unmapped outer space. Here, Randall Colburn compiles some of cinema’s scariest, funniest, and most provocative
sci-fi films.
The Robert Zemeckis film uses time-hopping adventure to portray the pivotal moment when a child sees their parents as people. It addresses how fragile our realities are and how our fates rely on the smallest things.
Snowpiercer tells the tale of class warfare that’s bloody, thrilling, and not quite what it seems. Set on a speeding train in a post-apocalyptic world, the Bong Joon Ho (Parasite) film combines action, horror, and humor.
Denis Villeneuve opted for a sober approach that emphasizes character and story of Frank Herbert’s Dune. From the architecture to the sandworms, everything swims through desert vistas as large as the spice war’s impact.
The first six minutes of Alien contain no dialogue or music, just ambient sound. The crew of the Nostromo has nowhere to run when a worm bursts from a crew member’s stomach and begins picking them off one by one.
One of Steven Spielberg’s most inspired choices for E.T. was to obscure most of the film’s authority figures. A creature like E.T. is only lovable in the mind of a child, whose curiosities are rooted in compassion.