We took a trip through decades of the genre and came up with a list of the most important and best hard science fiction movies of all time. They are the essence and the foundations of the book of sci-fi rules that’s still being written as we, the audience, become much more self-aware of our relationship with technology, the future, and whatever those two will bring.
Hard to define ‘hard’, a few more I liked: (no ranking)
The Time Machine (both the Pal and the Wells films; quite different)
Dark City (1998, Pryas)
Forbidden Planet (1956, Wilcox)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, Wise)
Fifth Element (hilarious, Besson, 1997)
Alien (Scott, 1979)
13th Floor (Rusnak, 1999)
Stargate (1994, Emerich)
Steamboy (2004, Otomo)
Movies made from famed series I’d REALLY LIKE to see:
Ringworld (Niven, a crime noone’s DARED to try).
Some setting of Riverworld. (Farmer)
ANY of Neal Stephenson’s SF books, esp. Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, Diamond Age, Anathem.
(Not even the BBC? I mean, who expected Doctor Who to get THIS far?!)
There’s too much kinky sex in Ringworld to be accepted by puritanical audiences.
Ringworld has an adaptation! It’s one of the most popular video games.
What? Where? What’s it called?
I have no idea what they’re talking about. The only Niven “Known Space” Ringworld games are all DOS based from decades ago.
However, Halo and Outer Wilds have both taken shots at ringworlds, but they are not Known Space universe.
Yeah I was talking about Halo.
I read Ringworld after playing Halo, thinking “haha I’ll check out this thing that looks like it influenced this game that I enjoyed” but then it turns out Bungie just lifted a bunch of stuff wholesale.