A new OFCS Top 100 is coming soon: our “100 Best First Films” celebrates the best in directorial debut efforts. Voting is currently underway, and the list will be announced Monday, October 4. To celebrate the arrival of the new list – our first since 2004 – we’re taking a trip back in time, reposting our previous Top 100s.
The OFCS Top 100 Top Sci-Fi Films was announced in 2002. Read the list after the jump.
June 12, 2002: The Online Film Critics Society (OFCS), the international association of the leading Internet-based cinema journalists, is celebrating the first century of science fiction filmmaking with a list of the Top 100 Sci-Fi Films of the Past 100 Years. At the top of the list, according to the 115 members of the OFCS, is Stanley Kubrick’s cryptic 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Beginning with Georges Melies’ 1902 fantasy A Trip to the Moon and continuing through this summer’s top releases including Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and the upcoming Minority Report, sci-fi has proven to be among the most durable and prescient of film genres. In celebrating a century of sci-fi films, the OFCS writers considered more than 400 titles spanning every decade and a variety of formats ranging from short subjects to animation to classics of global cinema.
In polling the OFCS membership for this survey, the society invited its members to provide their choices for the century’s greatest sci-fi offerings. “It’s very interesting to see what a broad spectrum of films can be considered science fiction,” says Erik Childress, editor of eFilmCritic.com and a member of the OFCS Governing Committee. “By letting our members vote with their own thoughts instead of tying them down with an absolute final ballot AFI-style, you get to see a wide array of titles that many, including myself, wouldn’t even consider science-fiction (like Dr. Strangelove or Night of the Living Dead).”
The OFCS Top 100 Top Sci-Fi Films
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2. Blade Runner (1982)
3. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
4. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
5. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
6. Metropolis (1927)
7. Brazil (1985)
8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
9. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
10. Alien (1979)
11. Aliens (1986)
12. The Matrix (1999)
13. Back to the Future (1985)
14. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
15. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
16. The Terminator (1984)
17. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
18. Planet of the Apes (1968)
19. Dark City (1998)
20. Contact (1997)
21. 12 Monkeys (1995)
22. King Kong (1933)
23. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
24. La Jetee (1962)
25. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)
26. Solaris (1972)
27. The Road Warrior (1981)
28. The Thing (1982)
29. Jurassic Park (1993)
30. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
31. Robocop (1987)
32. Forbidden Planet (1956)
33. The Abyss (1989)
34. Alphaville (1965)
35. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
36. Donnie Darko (2001)
37. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
38. The Iron Giant (1999)
39. Frankenstein (1931)
40. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
41. The Truman Show (1998)
42. Videodrome (1983)
43. Pi (1998)
44. The Fly (1986)
45. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)
46. The Time Machine (1960)
47. Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
48. The War of The Worlds (1953)
49. Independence Day (1996)
50. The City of Lost Children (La Cité des enfants perdus) (1995)
51. The Invisible Man (1933)
52. Gattaca (1997)
53. Altered States (1980)
54. A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune) (1902)
55. Ghostbusters (1984)
56. Stalker (1979)
57. The Fifth Element (1997)
58. The Thing From Another World (1951)
59. Tron (1982)
60. Them! (1954)
61. The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
62. Starship Troopers (1997)
63. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
64. Superman: The Movie (1978)
65. Strange Days (1995)
66. Quatermass and the Pit (a.k.a. Five Million Years To Earth) (1967)
67. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
68. They Live (1988)
69. Things to Come (1936)
70. Sleeper (1973)
71. Mad Max (1979)
72. The Cell (2000)
73. Fantastic Voyage (1966)
74. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
75. Dead Zone (1983)
76. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
77. Akira (1988)
78. Time Bandits (1981)
79. eXistenZ (1999)
80. Invaders from Mars (1953)
81. On the Beach (1959)
82. Silent Running (1971)
83. Total Recall (1990)
84. Open Your Eyes (Abre los Ojos) (1997)
85. Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
86. THX 1138 (1970)
87. Seconds (1966)
88. Starman (1984)
89. Village of the Damned (1960)
90. Until the End of the World (1991)
91. Fantastic Planet (La Planète sauvage) (1973)
92. Men In Black (1997)
93. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
94. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
95. Highlander (1986)
96. The Andromeda Strain (1971)
97. Time After Time (1979)
98. Escape from New York (1981)
99. Slaughterhouse Five (1973)
100. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
In polling the OFCS membership for this survey, the society invited its members to provide their choices for the century’s greatest sci-fi offerings.
..and Ghost in the Shell (1995, Mamoru Oshii) ?
Would you tell me that, for example, “Starship Troopers” deserves to be in the sci-fi top 100 more than “Ghost in the shell”?