Sci Fi Movies of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s
by bbandick | created - 30 May 2013 | updated - 30 May 2013 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Destination Moon (1950)
Not Rated | 92 min | Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
"Destination Moon", tells the tale of when Doctor Charles Cargraves and retired General Thayer approach Jim Barnes, the head of his own aviation construction firms to help build a rocket that will take them to the moon.
Director: Irving Pichel | Stars: John Archer, Warner Anderson, Tom Powers, Dick Wesson
Votes: 4,688 | Gross: $5.00M
2. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
G | 92 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
An alien lands in Washington, D.C. and tells the people of Earth that they must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe
Votes: 85,699
3. Invaders from Mars (1953)
Approved | 78 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A young boy learns that space aliens are taking over the minds of earthlings.
Director: William Cameron Menzies | Stars: Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, Jimmy Hunt, Leif Erickson
Votes: 8,822
4. It Came from Outer Space (1953)
Approved | 81 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A spaceship from another world crashes in the Arizona desert and only an amateur stargazer and a schoolteacher suspect alien influence when the local townsfolk begin to act strangely.
Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake, Joe Sawyer
Votes: 11,026
5. The War of the Worlds (1953)
G | 85 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A small town in California is attacked by Martians, beginning a worldwide invasion.
Director: Byron Haskin | Stars: Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne, Robert Cornthwaite
Votes: 38,491 | Gross: $4.36M
6. Them! (1954)
Not Rated | 94 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
The earliest atomic tests in New Mexico cause common ants to mutate into giant man-eating monsters that threaten civilization.
Director: Gordon Douglas | Stars: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, James Arness
Votes: 24,152
7. This Island Earth (1955)
Passed | 86 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Aliens come to Earth seeking scientists to help them in their war.
Directors: Joseph M. Newman, Jack Arnold | Stars: Jeff Morrow, Faith Domergue, Rex Reason, Lance Fuller
Votes: 10,669
8. Forbidden Planet (1956)
G | 98 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
A starship crew in the 23rd century goes to investigate the silence of a distant planet's colony, only to find just two survivors, a powerful robot, and the deadly secret of a lost civilization.
Director: Fred M. Wilcox | Stars: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens
Votes: 53,131 | Gross: $3.00M
9. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Approved | 80 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan
Votes: 54,693
10. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Approved | 81 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
After Scott Carey begins to shrink because of exposure to a combination of radiation and insecticide, medical science is powerless to help him.
Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent, Paul Langton
Votes: 19,955
11. The Time Machine (1960)
G | 103 min | Adventure, Romance, Sci-Fi
A man's vision for a utopian society is disillusioned when travelling forward into time reveals a dark and dangerous society.
Director: George Pal | Stars: Rod Taylor, Alan Young, Yvette Mimieux, Sebastian Cabot
Votes: 44,801
12. Village of the Damned (1960)
Not Rated | 77 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
In the English village of Midwich, the blonde-haired, glowing-eyed children of uncertain paternity prove to have frightening powers.
Director: Wolf Rilla | Stars: George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Martin Stephens, Michael Gwynn
Votes: 19,117
13. The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)
Unrated | 99 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
When the U.S. and Russia unwittingly test atomic bombs at the same time, it alters the nutation (axis of rotation) of the Earth.
Director: Val Guest | Stars: Edward Judd, Janet Munro, Leo McKern, Michael Goodliffe
Votes: 6,192
14. Panic in Year Zero! (1962)
Passed | 93 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A family leaves Los Angeles for a camping trip just before hydrogen bombs destroy the city. In the midst of the chaos, the father must fight to keep his family alive along the highway.
Director: Ray Milland | Stars: Ray Milland, Jean Hagen, Frankie Avalon, Mary Mitchel
Votes: 4,815
15. Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
Not Rated | 110 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
Stranded on Mars with only a monkey as a companion, an astronaut must figure out how to find oxygen, water, and food on the lifeless planet.
Director: Byron Haskin | Stars: Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, Adam West, The Woolly Monkey
Votes: 7,151
16. The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Not Rated | 86 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
When a disease turns all of humanity into the living dead, the last man on earth becomes a reluctant vampire hunter.
Directors: Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow | Stars: Vincent Price, Franca Bettoia, Emma Danieli, Giacomo Rossi Stuart
Votes: 21,478
17. Alphaville (1965)
Not Rated | 99 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A U.S. secret agent is sent to the distant space city of Alphaville where he must find a missing person and free the city from its tyrannical ruler.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Akim Tamiroff, Valérie Boisgel
Votes: 27,574 | Gross: $0.05M
18. Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Not Rated | 112 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
In an oppressive future, a fireman whose duty is to destroy all books begins to question his task.
Director: François Truffaut | Stars: Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, Cyril Cusack, Anton Diffring
Votes: 45,392
19. Fantastic Voyage (1966)
PG | 100 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
When a blood clot renders a scientist comatose, a submarine and its crew are shrunk and injected into his bloodstream in order to save him.
Director: Richard Fleischer | Stars: Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmond O'Brien, Donald Pleasence
Votes: 20,804
20. Seconds (1966)
R | 106 min | Sci-Fi, Thriller
An unhappy middle-aged banker agrees to a procedure that will fake his death and give him a completely new look and identity - one that comes with its own price.
Director: John Frankenheimer | Stars: Rock Hudson, Frank Campanella, John Randolph, Frances Reid
Votes: 22,173
21. Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
Approved | 97 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A mysterious artifact is unearthed in London, and famous scientist Bernard Quatermass is called in to divine its origins and explain its strange effects on people.
Director: Roy Ward Baker | Stars: James Donald, Andrew Keir, Barbara Shelley, Julian Glover
Votes: 11,500
22. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
G | 149 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
After uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins: a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer HAL 9000.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter
Votes: 718,724 | Gross: $56.95M
23. Barbarella (1968)
Approved | 98 min | Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
In the 41st century, an astronaut partakes in sexy misadventures while seeking to stop an evil scientist who threatens to bring evil back into the galaxy.
Director: Roger Vadim | Stars: Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg, Milo O'Shea
Votes: 37,683
24. Charly (1968)
M | 103 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
An intellectually disabled man undergoes an experiment that gives him the intelligence of a genius.
Director: Ralph Nelson | Stars: Cliff Robertson, Claire Bloom, Lilia Skala, Leon Janney
Votes: 7,281 | Gross: $15.83M
25. Planet of the Apes (1968)
G | 112 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
An astronaut crew crash-lands on a planet where highly intelligent non-human ape species are dominant and humans are enslaved.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans
Votes: 192,866 | Gross: $33.40M
26. Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
M | 100 min | Sci-Fi, Thriller
Thinking this will prevent war, the US government gives an impenetrable supercomputer total control over launching nuclear missiles. But what the computer does with the power is unimaginable to its creators.
Director: Joseph Sargent | Stars: Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, William Schallert
Votes: 10,139
27. No Blade of Grass (1970)
R | 96 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
An environmental catastrophe destroys civilization. Led by father John and mother Ann, the Custance clan sets out on a quest for safety in a savage world that may just end up turning them into the very thing they are fleeing.
Director: Cornel Wilde | Stars: Nigel Davenport, Jean Wallace, John Hamill, Lynne Frederick
Votes: 2,055 | Gross: $0.35M
28. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
R | 136 min | Crime, Sci-Fi
In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke
Votes: 880,567 | Gross: $6.21M
29. The Andromeda Strain (1971)
G | 131 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Top scientists work feverishly in a secret, state-of-the-art laboratory to discover what killed the citizens of a small town and how the deadly contagion can be stopped.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: James Olson, Arthur Hill, David Wayne, Kate Reid
Votes: 40,406 | Gross: $3.42M
30. The Omega Man (1971)
PG | 98 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Dr Robert Neville has developed an experimental vaccine which makes him the only immune survivor of a biological catastrophe. A gang of homicidal mutants blame science for their condition and attempt to kill him.
Director: Boris Sagal | Stars: Charlton Heston, Anthony Zerbe, Rosalind Cash, Paul Koslo
Votes: 34,039 | Gross: $8.72M
31. THX 1138 (1971)
R | 86 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
In the 25th century, a time when people have designations instead of names, a man, THX 1138, and a woman, LUH 3417, rebel against their rigidly controlled society.
Director: George Lucas | Stars: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie
Votes: 54,583 | Gross: $2.44M
32. Silent Running (1972)
G | 89 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
In a future where all flora is extinct on Earth, an astronaut is given orders to destroy the last of Earth's botany, kept in a greenhouse aboard a spacecraft.
Director: Douglas Trumbull | Stars: Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint
Votes: 31,432 | Gross: $0.69M
33. Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)
R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Billy Pilgrim has mysteriously become unstuck in time. He goes on an uncontrollable trip back and forth from his birth in New York to life on a distant planet and back again to the horrors of the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden.
Director: George Roy Hill | Stars: Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman, Eugene Roche, Sharon Gans
Votes: 13,895 | Gross: $0.57M
34. Solaris (1972)
PG | 167 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A psychologist is sent to a station orbiting a distant planet in order to discover what has caused the crew to go insane.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Jüri Järvet, Vladislav Dvorzhetskiy
Votes: 98,160
35. Sleeper (1973)
PG | 89 min | Comedy, Sci-Fi
A nerdish store owner is revived out of cryostasis into a future world to fight an oppressive government.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Mary Gregory
Votes: 44,804 | Gross: $2.91M
36. Soylent Green (1973)
PG | 97 min | Crime, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A nightmarish futuristic fantasy about the controlling power of big corporations and an innocent cop who stumbles on the truth.
Director: Richard Fleischer | Stars: Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors
Votes: 70,500 | Gross: $7.92M
37. The Final Programme (1973)
R | 81 min | Sci-Fi, Thriller
A trio of scientists plan to create a self-replicating, immortal, hermaphrodite using the Final Programme developed by a dead, Nobel Prize-winning scientist.
Director: Robert Fuest | Stars: Jon Finch, Jenny Runacre, Sterling Hayden, Harry Andrews
Votes: 1,078
38. Westworld (1973)
PG | 88 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
A robot malfunction creates havoc and terror for unsuspecting vacationers at a futuristic, adult-themed amusement park.
Director: Michael Crichton | Stars: Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Norman Bartold
Votes: 62,908 | Gross: $16.06M
39. Dark Star (1974)
G | 83 min | Comedy, Sci-Fi
In the far reaches of space, a small crew, 20 years into their solitary mission, find things beginning to go hilariously wrong.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Dan O'Bannon, Dre Pahich, Brian Narelle, Cal Kuniholm
Votes: 27,205
40. Phase IV (1974)
PG | 84 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Suddenly, desert ants form a group intelligence and wage war on the humans. It's up to a couple of scientists and a girl to stop them
Director: Saul Bass | Stars: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford
Votes: 9,541
41. Zardoz (1974)
R | 105 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
In the late 23rd century, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.
Director: John Boorman | Stars: Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestelman, John Alderton
Votes: 24,534 | Gross: $0.07M
42. A Boy and His Dog (1975)
R | 91 min | Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
A young man and his telepathic dog wander a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Director: L.Q. Jones | Stars: Don Johnson, Jason Robards, Susanne Benton, Tim McIntire
Votes: 19,172 | Gross: $6.90M
43. UFO Robo Grendizer (1975–1977)
TV-14 | 26 min | Animation, Action, Adventure
Escaping from Vega's evil forces, the young Prince of planet Fleed leaves his destroyed homeland aboard the UFO Robot Grendizer, a powerful war machine, and makes it to Earth. Rescued by a ... See full summary »
Stars: Jôji Yanami, Hiroya Ishimaru, Rihoko Yoshida, Chiyoko Kawashima
Votes: 2,438
44. Rollerball (1975)
Approved | 125 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Sport