The Greatest Sci-Fi Films of All Time
A meta-analysis of five Top-100 rankings of science fiction movies.
I. Abstract
I love movies. I also love science fiction. When the two are combined, something magical happens.
No. Not magical. Because there’s no magic in sci-fi.
Except the Force. But that isn’t really magic. Right?
Immediately, when one discusses science fiction, one runs up against the problem of definitions. What, technically, is science fiction? And, just as importantly, what is not science fiction?
These questions are especially critical when considering the topic of the greatest science fiction movies of all time.
Personally, I believe that the answers to these questions are largely intuitive. I can’t tell you what sci-fi is, but I know it when I see it.
Science fiction, like love and pizza, becomes harder to define the more one attempts to do so.
The purpose of this analysis, however, is not to arrive at a new, perfect, universal definition of sci-fi. That would be boring and unhelpful. Instead, I am seeking to understand science fiction, especially science fiction on film, through its exemplars.
So what films are exemplars of the science fiction genre? And which of those films could be considered the “best”?
And is that even a meaningful question?
II. Method
For this analysis, I found five online lists of the 100 greatest science fiction films of all time. Each of these lists was compiled in the last decade and posted online. Each of these lists is static; I deliberately did not use lists from IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes because those lists are, generally, always changing. (Additionally, the list on Rotten Tomatoes lumps sci-fi and fantasy together into one enormous, ambiguous, mushy, useless mega-genre.)
The lists I used are from the following sources:
Because this question is inherently subjective, I decided to analyze trends between these five sources rather than attempt to compile a list of my own. There is both broad agreement and disagreement between the five.
In order to be considered for inclusion in this analysis, the lists needed to meet certain criteria: they needed to be static, somewhat contemporary (within the last ten years), and not written by individuals. Additionally, each source needed to list the top 100 movies. (Lists of the top 25 or 50 sci-fi movies were not considered for inclusion in this analysis.)
Once the five sources were identified, their rankings were transferred to a spreadsheet in order to be compared side-by-side. A column was made for title, director, year of release, ranking for lists one through five, number of list appearances, average score, and awards won.
The scores for each film were averaged according to the number of lists on which the film appears. If a film appears on five lists, its scores were added together and divided by five.; if the film appears on four lists, its scores were divided by four; etc.
III. Results
(To skip all the boring charts, go straight to IV. Discussion.)
In total, the five lists together name 191 films and 144 directors. The films which appear on the rankings cover a span of 113 years. The entire spreadsheet is displayed below in Figures 1a through 1d. Films are listed alphabetically by title.
III.A. — Rankings
45 films appear on all five Top-100 lists. They are listed below in order from lowest to highest average ranking in Figure 2.
22 films appear on four of the five lists (shown in Figure 3). 18 films appear on three of the five lists (shown in Figure 4). 29 films appear on only two lists. 77 films appear on only one list.
Figures 3 and 4 shows the films which are mentioned on four and three lists.
III.B. — Awards
Among all of the films named, there are 23 Hugo Award winners for Best Dramatic Presentation and well as 2 winners of a Retro Hugo.
6 films have won the Nebula Award for Best Script. (The Nebula is primarily an award for science fiction writing.)
35 of the films have won the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film and 4 have won the Saturn Award for Best International Film.
5 of the films’ directors have been inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
22 of the films are on the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
Among the 191 films, 9 have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, 6 of which were released after 2009.
No science fiction film has ever won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
III.C. — Directors
A total of 144 directors have at least one film mentioned on at least one of these lists.
Of the 144 total directors, 30 have more than one film mentioned among the five lists. Figure 5 presents these 30 directors in order from most films mentioned to fewest.
When considering the directors and years of these films, I came up with a variable which I named agreement (a). Here’s how it works:
The total number of films by a director (or released in a certain year) is divided by the number of times those films are mentioned. This gives me a ratio of the lists’ agreement on any particular director or year.
Let’s take two examples: Gareth Edwards and Terry Gilliam. Both directors have two films mentioned: Edwards has Godzilla (2014) and Monsters (2010); Gilliam has 12 Monkeys (1995) and Brazil (1985). Godzilla and Monsters both made it onto only one list. 12 Monkeys and Brazil were both mentioned on all five lists. The calculation for each agreement score is shown to the left.
The highest an agreement score can be is 5.0. Thus, as a director’s or year’s a approaches 5.0, this indicates that those films are more universally agreed upon as “great” (or at least deserving to be mentioned among the 100 greatest)
III.D. — Year
Figures 6a and 6b below shows the number of films and how many times they are mentioned for each year. Figure 7 organizes this information into decades.
IV. Discussion
As I started crunching these numbers, I realized a few things:
First, I realized how much I enjoy crunching numbers.
Second, I realized how many different ways one can crunch a set of numbers.
Third, I realized that these results are actually pretty interesting. And surprising. And even a little frustrating.
Let’s go category-by-category.
IV.A. — Rankings
IV.A.1 — So this is the big one, obviously. Here, finally, we can come close to an answer to the question, “What is the greatest sci-fi film of all time?”
The result — was almost a tie. Almost.
You knew it was coming. 2001: A Space Odyssey is the greatest science fiction film of all time.
2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner both appear on all five lists.
2001 was ranked number one on three of the five lists. Blade Runner was ranked number two on three of the five lists.
2001’s lowest ranking was fourth; Blade Runner’s lowest ranking was fifth.
It seems like we can all agree that these are the two best sci-fi films — and that 2001 is slightly better.
Except… I do have at least one close friend who hates both movies.
You can’t please everybody.
In addition to the top two, a few other trends stood out to me as I looked over the 45 films that made it onto all five lists.
IV.A.2 —Let’s talk sequels.
The Empire Strikes Back is the highest-ranked sequel on the lists, coming in at 4th overall. Empire beat out A New Hope on four of the five lists, even making it to number one on one of the lists. Let’s not talk about where Jedi ended up…
Alien beat out Aliens in the overall rankings as well as on four of the five lists.
Terminator 2 was ranked ahead of Terminator overall, but only beat its predecessor on two of the five lists.
None of the Matrix sequels were mentioned although The Matrix (tied for 12th overall) made it onto all five lists.
Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan was ranked 19th overall. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) was not mentioned on any list.
Back to the Future was ranked 20th overall while Back to the Future Part II only made it onto only one list at number 74.
IV.A.3 — Who doesn’t love a remake?
Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers made it onto all five lists and was ranked 34th overall with an average ranking of 49.8. The 1956 original, directed by Don Siegel, made it onto only four of the five lists, but it has an average ranking of 44.5. So it’s sort of a toss-up as to which is better.
It’s a little more clear-cut with Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 Planet of the Apes. The films is ranked 9th overall. The 2001 remake didn’t make it on to a single list.
John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), which was a loose remake of The Thing from Another World (1951), made it onto all five lists and is ranked 11th overall. The 1951 original made it onto only one list at number 67.
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972) is ranked 23rd overall. The 2002 remake directed by Steven Soderbergh was mentioned on two lists, outranking the original on one list 38 to 64.
The 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, the 2012 remake of Total Recall, and the 2014 remake of Robocop were mentioned a combined total of zero times. Each of their originals made it onto all five lists.
IV.B. — Awards
The first science fiction film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture was A Clockwork Orange, which also won the 1972 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.
The next sci-fi film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture was Star Wars in 1977. The film also won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1978, the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, and the 1978 Nebula Award for Best Script. (The only film to win that triple-crown of sci-fi perfection.)
The third science fiction film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982. E.T. also won the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film. (The Hugo that year went to Blade Runner).
It would be 27 years before another sci-fi film was nominated for Best Picture (two in the same year, actually), and it only happened after 2009, when the number of annual nominations doubled from five to ten.
Those films were Avatar and District 9.
Following Avatar and District 9, Inception (2010), Gravity (2013), Her (2013) and The Martian (2015) have also been nominated.
As I said earlier, no sci-fi film has won the Academy Award for best picture.
This can’t be entirely attributed to the Academy’s dislike of genre-films. Romantic comedies, fantasies, war films, and musicals have all won the award at some point. (Yes. War films are genre-films.)
I mean, 2001 wasn’t even nominated when it came out in 1968.
The movie that won Best Picture in 1968? An Oliver Twist musical. No joke.
IV.C. — Directors
IV.C.1 — First, let me say that only one film by a female director was mentioned, and it was on only one list. And that bums me out. So here’s to you, Kathryn Bigelow.
IV.C.2 — Now, something we can all agree on.
21 directors have a perfect agreement score of 5.0a. (If you don’t know what that means, jump back up to Results.)
The directors with an agreement score of 5.0a are: Paul Verhoeven (3 films); Terry Gilliam, Stanley Kubrick, and Robert Wise (with 2 films each); and Michael Anderson, Shane Carruth, Michel Gondry, Philip Kaufman, Irvin Kershner, Fritz Lang, Andrew Niccol, Katsuhiro Otomo, Dean Parisot, Alex Proyas, Nicolas Roeg, Franklin J. Schaffner, Andrew Stanton, Douglas Trumbull, the Wachowski siblings, Joss Whedon, and Fred Wilcox (all with 1 film mentioned).
IV.C.3 — Three directors have five films mentioned; they are James Cameron (4.6a), Steven Spielberg (4.4a), and John Caprenter (3.0a).
Three of James Cameron’s films appeared on all five lists: Aliens (1986), The Terminator (1984), and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). The Abyss (1989) and Avatar (2009) appeared on four lists each.
Four of Steven Spielberg’s five films appear on all five lists. They are Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), and Minority Report (2002). A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) appears on only two lists.
Only one John Carpenter film appears on all five lists: The Thing (1982). His other films that appear on the lists are Dark Star (1974, 4 lists), Escape from New York (1981, 3 lists), Starman (1984, 1 list), and They Live (1988, 2 lists).
IV.C.4 — Having five of your films mentioned is impressive, but so is having three. (No director had exactly four films mentioned.)
The following directors have three of their films mentioned among the five lists:
Paul Verhoeven (5.0a), George Lucas (3.7a), Ridley Scott (3.7a), David Cronenberg (3.3a), Robert Zemeckis (3.3a), Richard Fleischer (3.0a), Nicholas Meyer (2.3a), and the J.J. Abrams (1.7a).
Each of Verhoeven’s three films made all five lists: RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), and Starship Troopers (1997).
Abrams’s agreement is pretty low, but he is also the youngest director with at least three films mentioned (at 50 years old), and (as you’ll soon see) the newer the film, the lower the agreement tends to be.
In other words, he’s like the d’Artagnan of this group.
Hang in there, kid. You’re going places.
IV.D. — Year
The earliest film to be mentioned is A Trip to the Moon, which was released in 1902 and directed by (and starred) Georges Melies. It is mentioned on four of the five lists and has an average ranking of 47.3.
After A Trip to the Moon, the second earliest film on the lists is Metropolis (1927), which was directed by Fritz Lang. The film is mentioned on all five lists, has an average ranking of 7.4, and is ranked 5th overall.
A Trip to the Moon and Metropolis are the only two silent films among the 191 films on the lists.
The next earliest film to be mentioned on all five lists is 1951’s The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The most recent films to be mentioned are The Martian, Ex Machina, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, all released in 2015. Each of these films appears on only one list.
Now let’s look at some charts!
IV.D.1 — Figure 8 below shows the numbers of films mentioned per year.
1984 was a good year, but it wasn’t really a great one.
11 films from this year found their way onto the five Top-100 lists. The agreement for 1984, however, is only 1.8a. While it has the most films mentioned, fewer than half appear on more than one list.
1984 saw the release of The Terminator (mentioned on 5 lists), Repo Man (3 lists), 1984, Dune, and The Last Starfighter (2 lists), and 2010, The Brother from Another Planet, Buckaroo Banzai, Dreamscape, Ghostbusters, and Starman (1 list).
Non-sci-fi films released in 1984 include Amadeus, Beverly Hills Cop, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Karate Kid, The Neverending Story, Purple Rain, and Romancing the Stone.
The year with the second most films mentioned is 1997, which had eight films and an agreement of 3.25a.
The films mentioned from 1997 are Gattaca and Starship Troopers (mentioned on 5 lists), The Fifth Element and Contact (4 lists), Cube (3 lists), Event Horizon and Men in Black (2 lists), and Abre Los Ojos (1 list).
1997 was also the year of Titanic and Goodwill Hunting.
1997 wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though. The world of sci-fi films was entering a very dark, dark period: The Star Wars original trilogy Special Editions were released in 1997, and The Phantom Menace began production.
That’s right. 1997 was the year Greedo shot first and the year Jar Jar was born.
IV.D.2 — Figure 9 shows the number of films mentioned by decade.
There’s no beating the ’80s when it comes to sci-fi films.
IV.D.3 — Figure 10 shows the average agreement by decade, beginning in the 1950s.
The interesting thing here is the steady decline in agreement following 1970.
I don’t think that this is entirely due to a decline in the quality of movies, however: one of the true marks of a great sci-fi film is its timelessness, which cannot be judged without some amount of time separating us from the film’s creation and release.
It is still too soon to say, with any degree of confidence, if Episode VII is better than Episode VI.
Or if The Martian will stand the test of time, especially after we have sent a manned mission to Mars.
Or if Her could be, in retrospect, eerily prophetic.
Or if Pacific Rim will actually spawn a beloved franchise and be as cherished as The Terminator.
Only time will tell.
V. Limitations
This meta-analysis is far from perfect.
I would have loved to include more than five lists here, but with each list, the amount of work increases exponentially. (I also really had a hard time coming up with five, let alone six or seven Top-100 lists.)
I’d also love to include some lists from non-English-speaking countries or writers.
Ideally, the lists used in this analysis would have been published in the same year. Some of their differences may be attributable to when they were compiled instead of their writers’ judgment.
VI. Ideas for Future Research
Some questions came up while I was looking over these lists that somebody might have time to answer:
Who are the most popular actors in science fiction films? Who are the greatest writers, editors, and sound technicians?
Also, could a similar analysis be performed on Westerns? Kung-Fu films? Musicals?
If any of these ideas spark your interest, let me know, and I’ll help out however I can.
And, finally, if you have any questions, ideas, comments, please let me know. If I spelled someone’s name incorrectly or listed the wrong year for a film, or if I just missed something really obvious, let me know and I’ll do my best to correct it.
I hope you found this half as interesting as I did.
The full spreadsheet can be found at the link below:
