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Simon's Picks
10 Movies for Kids
Big Hero 6 (2014)
Rated: PG
High schooler Hiro and a giant inflatable healthcare robot (what we all need at the moment) team up with friends to become high tech crime fighters.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
The Last Starfighter (1984)
Rated: PG
Alex thought it was just a video game, but it was a recruitment tool for an endangered alien race looking for the best pilots in the galaxy.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
ET: The Extraterrestrial (1982)
Rated: PG
The classic tale of an alien left behind on planet Earth. Phone home? These days it would be “Zoom home.” And yes, we realize this violates the no blockbuster rule but we couldn’t leave it out!
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Men in Black (1997)
Rated: PG-13
True inside story of life at the SETI Institute.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Space Jam (1996)
Rated: PG
Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan team up to play for their freedom against an evil (or at least, not very nice) alien. All the Looney Tunes and NBA stars of the day make an appearance.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)
Rated: PG
Jumanji in space as two brothers and an astronaut are hurled through the galaxy by a magical board game.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
WALL• E (2008)
Rated: G
The exciting tale of a garbage robot in the distant future who sets out to save humanity. Not rubbish.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
The Iron Giant (1999)
Rated: PG
A boy befriends a giant alien robot in Cold War era Maine. How do you hide a 50ft metal man with the power to destroy, or save, humanity? Based on the classic tale by Ted Hughes.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Treasure Planet (2002)
Rated: PG
Pirates in outer space where the deck hands are robots and the doctor an astrophysicist with the best line in SF history: “Dang it, Jim. I'm an astronomer, not a doctor! I mean, I am a doctor, but I'm not that kind of doctor. I have a doctorate, it's not the same thing. You can't help people with a doctorate. You just sit there and you're useless!”
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Attack the Block (2011)
Rated R for creature violence, drug content, and strong language.
A street gang defend their community against an alien invasion (teen movie – some scary bits with bad language)
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
10 Movies for Adults
Annihilation (2018)
Rated: R
A biologist leads a team into a quarantined zone where the laws of nature have changed. A fascinating psychological study of facing a totally alien world with a couple of powerful female leads.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
The Dish (2000)
Rated: PG-13
The Parkes radio telescope in Australia (used for SETI searches and the discovery of fast radio bursts) plays a role in televising the Apollo 11 moon landing.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Sunshine (2007)
Rated: R
A mission to reignite the dying Sun and save all life on Earth. The first mission mysteriously disappeared, but aboard the second spacecraft the mood is optimistic. What could go wrong?
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
District 9 (2011)
Rated: R
In an alien refugee ghetto, a government agent gets caught in the middle of a human-alien conspiracy. An amazing statement on race, politics and humanity.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Ex Machina (2014)
Rated: R
A computer programmer is chosen to perform the Turing test on his boss’ android creation. Think you’re smarter than the machines? In this game of Turing tests, who is playing who?
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Monsters (2010)
Rated: R
After an alien invasion, a journalist is hired to escort an American tourist out of contaminated Mexico. The scary aliens are always just around the corner. Or are they? And who are the real monsters?
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Contact (1997)
Rated: PG
A technosignature contains the blueprints to build a mysterious machine. Carl Sagan’s story of first contact based (at least in the first half) on real places and people, including the SETI Institute’s own Jill Tarter.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Arrival (2016)
Rated: PG-13
When alien spacecraft descent to Earth, a linguist is chosen to lead an attempt at communication. Making contact is one thing; communicating with an alien civilization is another level altogether.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Solaris (2002)
Rated: PG-13
Psychologist Chris Kelvin is sent to a space station orbiting a sentient planet. Pushing the boundaries of what defines life and intelligence, it also gets to the very heart of human emotion.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Moon (2009)
Rated: R
An astronaut coming to the end of a lone three-year assignment on the Moon starts to realize things aren’t quite right, with the mission, or with himself. The ultimate self-isolation movie addresses the issues of existence and individual rights.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Seth's Picks
Let’s face it: Most science fiction films are heavy on the fiction and dopey on the science. But for me, that’s not the point: Sure, the writers have never enrolled in a physics course, but they can take you places you’ll never be able to go, whether that’s a hallucinogenic trip through a black hole, a hot ride through molten magma to the center of the Earth, or just a pleasant weekend on a jungled exoplanet.
You’re never going to travel more than a century into the future, but your multiplex or streaming service can take you much farther. What’s not to like?
Here are a few that stick in my mind like chewing gum.
War of the Worlds (1953)
Rated: G
This film comes in two varieties, the original (1953) and the Steven Spielberg (2005) remake. The latter is boring, but the former – which is careful not to give the Martians too much screen time – is deeply threatening. For Northern Californians, it’s satisfying to see that job number one for extraterrestrials is to destroy SoCal. But the real appeal is in the irony that the invading Martians are destroyed by Earth’s microbes when in reality, most astrobiologists figure that any real Martians are likely to be microbes themselves!
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
The Andromeda Strain (1971)
Rated: G
This adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel about a deadly pandemic from space has a disturbing resonance these days. But as a film, it’s nuttier than a boat-load of salted peanuts. The film follows formula, by spending most of its screen time with the drama of assembling a team of top scientists to battle a cruelly lethal outbreak, while simultaneously furnishing these academics with a government-financed dream laboratory deep underground. It’s science vs. the enemy. Sounds good, until every copy of the virus (!) opts to mutate to something as benign as pixie dust -- no fair changing the rules at the last minute.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Alien (1979)
Rated: R
The first of this successful franchise is basically a haunted house story. But the house is a spacecraft far, far away from any succor, and the ghost is an alien with multiple sets of cantilevered choppers. It’s mindless, it’s merciless, and it’s magnificently malevolent. Director Ridley Scott knows how to make you seriously afraid of being part of a future mining mission to the stars. The genius is that most people had never considered that as a career move in the first place.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
The Mole People (1956)
Rated: Not Rated
Just one of an entire genre of B-films, cheaply shot on black-and-white film stock, which are now musty remnants of an extinct cinematic species. The mole people live underground in the grottos of a hollow Earth, an apparently happy existence. However, they occasionally need to grab a human or two to become slaves for their mushroom farms. Look, I like mushrooms well enough, but if that’s all I’m ever going to eat, I think I’d give up the cramped, troglodyte lifestyle. A truly underground film, and so bad you might even like it.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Pamela’s Picks
Arrival and Contact have made an appearance in Simon’s list, so I won’t repeat in my list, though both are in my Fav File. I bring you some great oldies.
Blade Runner (1982)
Rated: R
In the twenty-first century, a corporation develops androids to be used as slaves in colonies outside of the Earth, identified as "replicants". A former Police Officer is hired to hunt down a fugitive group of replicants living undercover in Los Angeles, California.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Spaceballs (1987)
Rated: PG
A hotshot pilot and his sidekick must come to the rescue of a Princess and save the galaxy (wink wink) from a ruthless race of beings known as Spaceballs. One of Mel Brooks’ funniest films with an illustrious cast. LOL!
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Cocoon (1985)
Rated: PG-13
A group of elderly retirees discovers restorative powers of alien pods stored in a swimming pool. The aliens return to find the elderly in the way of their plan to retrieve the pods.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Rated: PG
Don’t miss French director François Truffaut, as one of the scientists looking for evidence of UFOs. Following some strange events, locals and scientists alike arrive at aß site in the dessert for the encounter with aliens.
IMDb • Youtube Trailer
Staff Movie Reviews
