The Canon of SF Films

John Scalzi, who’s just publishing the Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies, puts out the canon of most significant SF films:

All of this is designed to be both interesting and informative, but the part of the book that’s going to get most people’s attention — and raise hackles — is The Canon, which features the 50 science fiction films I have deemed to be the most significant in the history of film. Note that “most significant” does not mean “best” or “most popular” or even “most influential.” Some of the films may be all three of these, but not all of them are — indeed, some films in The Canon aren’t objectively very good, weren’t blockbusters and may not have influenced other filmmakers to any significant degree. Be that as it may, I think they matter — in one way or another, they are uniquely representative of some aspect of the science fiction film experience.

Scalzi had final say on the list (reasons for each are in the book), but he solicited input from others. His list (with the ones I’ve seen in bold):

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
Akira
Alien
Aliens
Alphaville
Back to the Future
Blade Runner
Brazil
Bride of Frankenstein
Brother From Another Planet
A Clockwork Orange
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Contact
The Damned
Destination Moon
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Delicatessen
Escape From New York
ET: The Extraterrestrial
Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
The Fly (1985 version)
Forbidden Planet
Ghost in the Shell
Gojira/Godzilla
The Incredibles
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
Jurassic Park
Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
The Matrix
Metropolis
On the Beach
Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
Robocop
Sleeper
Solaris (1972 version)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
The Stepford Wives
Superman
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The Thing From Another World
Things to Come
Tron
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2001: A Space Odyssey
La Voyage Dans la Lune
War of the Worlds (1953 version)

An interesting list. One could do worse than bringing those along on desert island exercise.

(via BoingBoing)