Looking for lesser known good sci-fi films
 

Hey all, i'm a big sci-fi fan but ive pretty much seen all the mainstream and popular/easily findable films so i'm looking for more. I'm up for any good sci-fi or cross genre sci-fi film (i.e. sci-fi/horror etc...) that's a little bit more obscure than your average film. Recomendations are apprieciated!
Thanks,
Kyle

Great topic.

Strange Days
Primer

These three have some heavy black humor and are on more of the surreal side:

Brazil (the longer cut)
Delicatessen
City of Lost Children

One final one is the Tarkovsky version of Solaris. If you liked 2001 definitly check this one out.

Thanks! I loved Brazil, Primer and Solaris and will be checking out Strange Days, Delicatessen and City of Lost Children.

If you enjoyed Brazil I think you will really like Delicatessen and City of Lost Children. They both have the same bizzar feel that Brazil does.

Thought of a few more.

Cypher - nothing I would call great but still entertaining and worth a rental.

Here are two David Cronenberg films. Pretty odd stuff.
Existenz
Videodrome

Here's a bunch that you may or may have not seen - but you should definitely check out!!!


CUBE (action sci-fi)
NOTHING (what the? sci-fi)
DARK CITY (masterpiece sci-fi)
EQUILIBRIUM (action sci-fi)
NATURAL CITY (Korean sci-fi Blade Runner)
AVALON (awesome european sci-fi)
DONNIE DARKO (masterpiece sci-fi)
GATTACA (masterpiece sci-fi)
PIE (what the? sci-fi)
CASSHERN (Japanese sci-fi)
IMMORTEL (European sci-fi)
METROPOLIS (anime sci-fi)
THX 1138 (George Lucas first film)

I second the nods to Gattaca and Cube.

Avalon - This movie is unbelievable, check it out immediately.
The Experiment (Das Experiment) Another great foreign flick. More psychological than Sci-Fi.
I'll second Videodrome and Primer.
Demonlover is pretty wicked. Try to seek out the Directors Cut.
The Thirteenth Floor is very underrated and of course Dark City is a classic.
I'll also second Existenz.

another vote for Existenz

I'd go with Serenity. There hasn't been much discussion about it on this board.

Wasn't too impressed with Serenity, personally. If you like Sci-Fi Channel stuff, then you'd probably like it. A bit too cheesy for my taste.

I'll fourth eXistenZ
Second Equilibrium
And I suggest you check out the orignal 1927 Metropolis (Fritz Lang), though the recent anime adaptation isn't bad either.

Lifeforce- some boring scenes, alot of dialogue. worth a rental at least.

You thought Serenity was cheesy but liked Equilibrium? Man, that's just.... odd.

i agree with strange days and dark city for sure

The Thirteenth Floor was very good, and it came out either a couple months or a year before than The Matrix, which have similar themes.

I'm not sure if Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malchovich count as Sci-fi films, but check them out as well.

Seek out a movie called Xchange. I was pleasantly surprised by that one.

Virus!!
Leviathan

This is a pretty good list, thumbs up... I've seen all of these except Motropolis, Nothing, Avalon and Immortel.

Some excellent suggestions already made. Some more are:

Repo Man (newly reviewed on this site)
Liquid Sky
The Quiet Earth
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Bottled Fools (AKA Hellevator)
Mark13 (AKA Hardware)
The Lathe of Heaven (1980 original version)
The Prisoner (British tv series)
Any Nigel Kneale that you can find, like the Quatermass movies (well, at least the first 3), The Stone Tape, Year of the Sex Olympics
Until the End of the World
Last Night (1998 end-of-the-world movie)
Deathwatch (1980 Harvey Keitel movie)
Battle Royale (not obscure to those up on Asian cinema, though, but still lacking R1 DVD release)
Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Tetsuo 2
Phase IV
The Last Wave (maybe not too sci-fi, but it does have an apocalyptic theme)
The Asphyx (terrific but little known 70s British horror/sci-fi)
The Item (very strange 1999 indy movie)
Save the Green Planet (Korean movie newly released in R1)
Accion Mutante

brainee said it, but i was just going to say that after watching the CE of "Repo Man" i would def. put in the Sci-Fi category and in fact did in my collection.

very quirky, very incomprehensible, but well played and fun.

The Hidden - great 80's sci-fi action that I'm suprised more people haven't seen.

Yes, a sci-fi story true to the genre.

also,

Dark Star (1974)
A Boy and His Dog (1975)
Silent Running (1972)

A personal fave: They Live!

Features one of my favorite lines ever: "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum."

Ultra-cheesy (I mean, it stars Roddy Piper, of '80s wrestling fame), but fun as hell.

this is an prime example of a great bad movie. def a fun movie to watch at anytime

Good picks! There are actually quite a few good sci-fi movies that fall outside the realm of Hollywood blockbusters or crappy Sci-Fi Channel Original Movies level garbage.

Oh, here's another one that seems a bit forgotten now: Ken Russell's "Altered States"

How about some of the finer aged stuff? I take it you've then seen:

Invaders From Mars(original)
Journey to the Seventh Planet
The Day the Earth Stood Still
20 Million Miles To Earth
Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers
The Thing(Hawks)
Fahrenheit 451
Kronos-Raveger of Planets
When Worlds Collide
Forbidden Planet
This Island Earth
The Crawling Eye

...and I'm sure you have seen THX 1138.

These are just a few faves. I have many, many more in the library and you can find them by checking out my Sci-Fi/Fantasy folder.

While you are at it....you'll also see I own films like Soylent Green, Omega Man, Silent Running, Planet of the Vampires, One Million Years B.C., Logan's Run, Starcrash...:lol:....and tons more. Hopefully they will release Crack In the World before long.

Haha, yeah... I guess Equilibrium was pretty cheesy too... I usually look for weird twists and original ideas in Sci-Fi, Serenity just seemed underdeveloped. Not to mention the acting was way over-the-top most of the time.

Thanks folks, great stuff... Serenity seemed underdeveloped because the characters and such had already been developed in Firefly... And Gutwrencher, great movies, ive seen most of them but ill have to check out Kronos-Raveger of Planets amd When Worlds Collide.

My vote goes to Colossus: The Forbin Project, although it is only available in atrocious pan-and-scan on DVD. -ohbfrank-

Since some of my favorite Sci-Fi choices (City of Lost Children, Delicatessen, Avalon, Strange Days) have been picked, I have little to go by (but are all excellent choices just the same). But here's a few ..

Returner (Japanese time traveling thriller)
Le Dernier Combat (French post apocalyptic yarn with almost no dialogue by Luc Besson)
Avalon (I couldn't resist mentioning this one again. I love Oshii's works) I'd even go as far to say see his anime titles Ghost in the Shell and Innocence. Either of these titles can supplant many recent (within last 20 years) Hollywood attempts at Sci Fi.
Stepford Wives (Not exactly what you think ...)

La Jette. It's where 12 Monkey's and the Jacket came from

Check out the animated Sci-Fi films of René Laloux: The Fantastic Planet and Light Years.

Donnie Darko and Serenity are two recent favs of mine and I'll add the series for Firefly

I watched Immortal, which I got fromtoddly6666 list a few days ago. Very different and one of those that I didnt exactly know what was going on but still pretty solid.

If you do lean toward some older ones, don't miss "The Day the Earth Caught Fire."

the day the earth stood still.... its a classic

For a more European artsy sci-fi check out:

Stalker
Alphaville

Piper said he ad-libbed this on the set. I remember seeing the same line in one of those old NFL films movies they'd show on ESPN. I always wondered who said it first, Piper or some NFL guy.

Alphaville (Godard, 1965)
Element of Crime (von Trier, 1984)
La Jetee (Marker, 1962)
Je T'aime, Je T'aime (Resnais, 1968)
Galaxy Express 999 (Rintaro, 1979)
Demonlover (Assayas, 2002)
World on a Wire (Fassbinder, 1973)
Until the End of the World (Wenders, 1991)

Wow, my Netflix queue has jumped up by at least 30 movies thanks to this thread. The ones I would have listed already were.

Thanks for the suggestions!