Science Fiction Movies

sci fir collageWant to know the best Science Fiction movies?  How about the worst Science Fiction movies?  Curious about Science Fiction box office grosses or which Science Fiction movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Science Fiction movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information and lots more.

The following massive table has 625 Science Fiction movies ranked Best to Worst in 6 different categories.  Why so many movies you wonder?  Well…”A very long time ago in a galaxy far far away”…Steve Lensman requested we do an UMR (Ultimate Movie Rankings) page on Science Fiction movies.  In order to figure out which science fiction movies were the best statistically we had to research as many science fiction movies as possible.

Before starting this massive research project we came up with three rules.  (1) Superhero, King Kong and Godzilla movies would not be included in the study…..why?  To us they fall into the fantasy category versus the science fiction category. (2) To be included in the page the movie’s box office grosses needed to be known.  (3) The movie needed to have played in North American theaters.  To help find all of these movies two books were a big help: Chris Barsanti’s The Sci-Fi Movie Guide and Tom DeMichael’s Modern Sci-Fi Films FAQ.    After completing this research…we were able to finally write our science fiction page.  Click on Top 200 Science Fiction Movies to see the sister site to this page..

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Star Wars is well represented on our Science Fiction Movies page

Alphabetical Science Fiction Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort movies by stars of the movie
  • Sort movies by adjusted domestic box office using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort science fiction movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort movies by how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort movies by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each movie received.
  • Sort movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
  • Blue link in Co-star column takes you to that star’s UMR movie page
  • Highly recommend using the search and sort buttons to help navigate this massive table.

 

 

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52 thoughts on “Science Fiction Movies”

  2. Wow it took a bit of time to put together but it was worth the wait Bruce, excellent job amigo!

    625 films. I think you could have gone up to 1000 films, or would the page go all wonky?

    A quick glance at the titles, I don’t see any of the classics missing. The only significant sci-fi not on there are comic book movies like Superman, The Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four which have more sci-fi elements than many of the films on the chart. Good to see Guardians of the Galaxy has been included. The recent Godzilla is also sci-fi but you didn’t want to add about 100 monster movies to the list. Maybe in the future you can update the list, make it 1000 films and include a few superhero and monster movies.

    Okay I’ve scanned the whole lot, there are exactly 80 films I haven’t seen, more than I expected, some titles I’ve never heard of before today. So that brings my total to 545 sci-fi films watched out of 625.

    Movies I’ve never heard of before include – Upstream Color, Turbo Kid, The Lobster, Sound of My Voice, Rock and Rule, Sleep Dealer, Six String Samurai, Lazer Team and Hard to be a God.

    I’ll check out the chart toppers on your other sci-fi page.

    That’s it for now, more posts later. Voted Up!

    Reply

    1. Hey Steve
      1. Glad you were able to check out your requested page.
      2. I agree I could have made this page much bigger….but 625 movies covers a lot of science fiction.
      3. I noticed comic book movies were listed in lots of Top Science Fiction lists….but to me they have their very own category….the same for the classic monsters….though a few of those movies made it into these page.
      4. So your tally is 545….let me count…..and go to another comment for my results.

      Reply

    2. Hey Steve….my tally is 460…. and you think I do not like science fiction movies..lol Actually I am shocked I am that close to your tally. With the exception of The Lobster…I was not familiar with those movies either….thanks for the comment

      Reply

  3. This is crazy. I mean that in a good way. The amount of movies and stats on this page is incredible. I am very impressed. P.S. I like that it is in alphabetical order, have you thought doing that with your other pages? It makes it real easy to find a movie.

    Reply

    1. Hey Helakoski…..thanks for stopping by. I think the alphabetical order is perfect for a page this big…..but I like the best movies being at the top of the normal short ones. Thanks for the nice words about this massive pages.

      Reply

  4. STEVE:

    1 So much here that it’s going to take a while for me to digest – and I didn’t even have to research and compile he project!

    2 However a few interesting points already strike me like for example:

    (1) The Vincent Price version of The Fly has a surprisingly really excellent adjusted gross ($120 Mil) for that kind of movie in the fifties; and Price movies tended to be low budget, low grosses that made modest profits. For example that is demonstrated further down the list by Vincent’s Return of the Fly $(27 Mil) and his Abominable Dr Phibes ($24 mil ).

    (2) Given the exclusion of the Creature from the Black lagoon movies I was surprised to see The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms included. However Bruce has to draw a line somewhere and we certainly cannot accuse him of bias when he includes a Sandra Bullock movie ! Also he
    is risking incurring your wrath by impartially including both the Burt Lancaster’s Island of Dr Moreau (1977) and the 1996 remake The Mumbles of Dr Moreau.

    3 All in all though a valuable and highly comprehensive page with more to come.

    PS To paraphrase Marilyn Monroe can I be the one who feels sorry for the Lobster?

    BOB

    Reply

    1. Hahaha The Mumbles of Dr. Moreau, I like it. And so true too. No one could understand a word Brando was saying on that set, they just let him do his own thing and hope for the best, in one scene he was wearing a bucket on his head, why? Who cares it’s Brando.

      Dr. Moreau’s experiments… if sci-fi… than Dr. Frankenstein? Or Dr. Jekyll? Dr. Emmett Brown?

      I remember a a debate we had on my movie forum a few years back- is Star Wars science fiction? I say yes it has planets, aliens, robots, spaceships etc but there were a group on the forum who refused to lump Star Wars in with Kubrick’s revered Space Odyssey. And even George Lucas referred to it as Space Fantasy. I suppose what they all objected to was what the fans call “Force Ghosts” but IMO the sci-fi aspects of Star Wars far outweigh the fantasy aspects.

      Dr. Phibes is definitely not sci-fi and shouldn’t be up there, David Hedison invented the transporter in the The Fly (1958) years before Star Trek showed up. The Fly is sci-fi /horror. Scientific experiments gone awry.

      Robert, I’ll bet this sci-fi project has given Bruce a bit of a headache. I suggested he separate it into two pages – classic 1950-1979 and modern 1980- to make it more manageable but he’s going for the epic of epics.

      Reply

      1. HI STEVE

        1 Thanks for the reply. It used to be that science fiction had to relate to space, rocket ships, spacemen etc but I presume that in today’s cinema anything that is shown as a scientific freak or an imaginary consequence of something that is connected with science but is unlikely to occur or will never do so is regarded as science fiction.

        2 For example if I recall correctly Tarantula’s giant size was the result of something like atomic radiation fallout. Conversely it could be said that the space travel in Abbott & Costello Go to Mars is incidental and that film is simply a comedy. However demarcation in such matters is for me anyway a nightmare but here is a dictionary definition:

        “Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes and Extraterrestrial life.” An Extraterrestrial is of course something that must come from space.

        3 Those who were treated to even the bucket were privileged. Apparently Mr Mumbles argued that Jor El would not have looked human and he wanted the producers of Superman 1978 to use only the Mumbles voice and dress someone else up in a suit like the one in the Creature but the producers told him that to earn all those millions he would have to put in at least an appearance!!

        4 Yes Bruce would have been the man to make Gone with The Wind if he had been about but aren’t you just jealous that we don’t have his capacity for epic projects?

        Best Wishes BOB

        Reply

        1. Hey Bob….well know the end of this project is near…I am beginning to admire my own work….goodness gracious this is a ton of movies…and I like that I got the table to sort the movies in alphabetical order…that should make it easier to find a movie. As for the definition of science fiction…I like your definition…..but it still leaves lots of room for movies to sneak in and be called sci-fi movies. 🙂

          Reply

      2. Hey Steve…Dr. Phibes was asked to leave the table….he was not happy…and we had to call security…..but he is now gone…lol. Dr. Moreau still has a seat at the table. For Bob’s sake…you gotta let Marlon into the club….lol. This will be the biggest page by far….though this page will pretty much be used when people say….why did Saturn 3 not make the Top 100 Critically Reviewed Movies table…this way I can say….because it was ranked 554th of 577 movies when it comes to critics and audience opinion. 🙂

        Reply

    2. Hey Bob….since the last update….I added another 235 movies. I think there are 40 plus movies from the 1950s. Vincent Price hit home runs with The Fly and the House of Wax….box office wise…that was the peak of his very long career. A few monster movies made it through our filtering devices. I image when I start looking at some of the lists of greatest science fiction movies….some that I eliminated will probably work their way back into the table. I figured I had to get Marlon Brando on the page….so Dr. Moreau made the page….lol. I pretty much spent every available moment today working on these page….seems I started going faster when I could finally start seeing the finish line. 🙂

      Reply

  5. The Lobster? Idaho Transfer? Are you making titles up again Bruce? [Cue Bruce seething] I thought you were doing sci-fi? [Bruce bites fist] So wait, you’re not including the fabulously famous Creature from the Black Lagoon and it’s sequels, but The Lobster gets a pass? [Steve bites fist] .

    Messing with you Bruce. As long as Forbidden Planet, The Day the Earth Stood Still and Stan the Man’s Space Odyssey is included I’ll be a happy sci-fi freak.

    The question is should superhero movies be included? Superman the Movie yes, Superman is form another planet. Batman is not sci-fi. The Avengers includes an alien invasion, so yeah. Godzilla? Yes and some monster movies are more fantasy, like King Kong. Ignore the monster genre? Up to you. But it looks like you’re including Gremlins and Highlander…

    Reply

    1. Hey Steve….I am shocked you have never heard of The Lobster….and Flora is shocked you have never heard of Idaho Transfer….which is directed by Peter Fonda. Creature of the Black Lagoon follows into the classic horror movie characters like Dracula, Frankenstein, Werewolf and others….one day…I will do a page on them….that is if I ever finish this science fiction page. But tonight…as it passes midnight here….I am done with the first and biggest part of the page. Now up to 577 movies….thinking there might be another 50 or so I want to include….then I will be ready to publish. 2001 is now on the page. As for superhero movies….I have a page for them already….so they will be not included. Godzilla might get his own page too. As for Gremlins….they were dumped on the last update….Highlander made the cut this time too. Thanks for checking out the latest updates.

      Reply

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