When I was a kid, my family didn’t own a television at all for a few years there. There were other parts of my childhood when we owned a TV but didn’t have cable. The handful of channels that we could watch for free during those years almost never had science fiction reruns or content of any kind, although I did eagerly watch it whenever I could find it.
We also rarely went to the movie theatre until I was well into my teens, so I hadn’t seen a lot of well-known films in general by the time I grew up.
I’ve caught up on many of the science fiction classics since then, but there are still quite a few of them that I haven’t gotten around to checking out yet.
Today I’m going to be listing as many of the ones I haven’t seen as I can think of. Some of them have since been remade, so I’m including the year they came originally came out if there’s a newer version of it that I recognized. Often there are so many changes from the original to the remake that it’s almost as though we’re talking about two separate franchises.
Next week, I’ll be publishing a similar post about fantasy films. The lists for both categories were so long that I thought they each deserved their own post.
Will I ever watch the shows on this list? I have no idea! My current to-watch list is so long that for now I’m going to continue focusing on more modern films, but it might be fun to catch up on the old ones someday as well.
- The Thing
- Westworld (1973)
- Robocop
- The Abyss (1989)
- Thx1138
- Moon
- A Clockwork Orange
- Ghost in the Shell
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers
- Brazil
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
- Mad Max
- Solaris
- The Day the Earth Stood Still
- Forbidden Planet
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- How to Train Your Dragon
- Metropolis (1927)
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
- Frankenstein (1931)
- King Kong (1933)
- 2010
- Fantasia
- The Andromeda Strain (1971)
- Flash Gordon
- Logan’s Run (1976)
- Dune
- Soylent Green
- Stalker
I was going to add the Alien and Predator series to this list, too, but I can’t remember for sure if I’ve seen any of them or not. They’re so well-known in pop culture that I know their basic plots even though I don’t know which of the films in either of these series I’ve actually seen.
What classic science fiction films have you never seen? On a humorous note, which classic science fiction films can you not remember if you’ve watched but know a few things about anyway?
I haven’t seen all of Alien. I watched it right up to that moment when… Then I couldn’t watch any more.
When I googled 2001, to see when it first came out, I saw that there are 50th anniversary showings near me next week. How time flies. I think I first saw it in 1971, and I still have no idea what most of it’s about.
Wow, I never would have guessed that 2001 was made nearly 50 years ago. I wonder how it’s held up over the years?
Would you say that Alien was a gory film?
Yes, I would say that Alien is a gory film. That’s why I stopped watching at the point the gore started.
I should think 2001 holds up very well. It’s probably ten or more years since I’ve seen it, so I can’t be certain.
I’ve never seen a lot of these either. I do know the plots of most of them though. I’ve only seen the first Alien (very good) and the prequel Prometheus (not so good).
I have seen the new (live action) version of Ghost in the Shell, and actually thought it was quite good, although I know it got a lot of bad reviews.
That’s good to know. What did you like most about Ghost in the Shell and Alien?
In Alien I liked the atmosphere of being trapped on the ship with the monster. It was a great way to create tension, because there was no escape other than defeating the alien. I also liked the character of Ripley quite a lot–Sigourney Weaver did a great job. (As April above said, some of the violent scenes were a bit hard to take, so fair warning in that regard.)
As for Ghost in the Shell, I liked the interaction between the protagonist and her friend/comrade Batou. The actors did a good job conveying their friendship just through expressions and body language. (Since it’s an action movie, there wasn’t much time for anything else.) I always like little touches like that in movies.