Looking up at the night sky, it’s easy to understand why science fiction exists. It can be a difficult genre to define, but at its core, each work of science fiction deals with a great unknown. Said unknown can probe the mystery of what resides alongside us in the universe, or it can pose the question of what we, as humans, are capable of with technology.
It is also one of the best escapes, distractions, or parallels given viewers’ situations and perspectives. During tough times like the current COVID-19 pandemic and resulting isolation for many, we hope this list of great sci-fi films provides at minimum some inspirations, and at most some reprieve.
The art of speculative fiction was cemented with the publication of Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein” in the early 19th century. Science fiction began cropping up consistently in literature, but it didn’t really reach cinema until what many consider to be the first science fiction film: Georges Méliès’ “A Trip to the Moon,” released in 1902. From there, the genre spent many of its first decades mired in B-grade Hollywood classics as filmmakers struggled to visually depict the intricacies of many science fiction plots.
