Sci-fi Movie History

All plot summaries are courtesy of user comments at imdb.com, the Stink Zone of movie websites.

METROPOLIS (1927)

It is the future, and humans are divided into two groups: the thinkers, who make plans (but don't know how anything works), and the workers, who achieve goals (but don't have the vision). Completely separate, neither group is complete, but together they make a whole. One man from the "thinkers" dares visit the underground where the workers toil, and is astonished by what he sees...

THINGS TO COME (1936)

In the year 1936 a global war begins. This war drags out over many decades until most of the people still alive (mostly those born after the war started) do not even know who started it or why. Nothing is being manufactured at all any more and society has broken down into primative localized communities. In 1966 a great plague wipes out most of what people are left but small numbers still survive. One day a strange aircraft lands at one of these communities and its pilot tells of an organisation which is rebuilding civilization and slowly moving across the world re-civilizing these groups of survivors. Great reconstruction takes place over the next few decades and society is once again great and strong. The world's population is now living in underground cities. In the year 2035, on the eve of man's first flight to the moon, a popular uprising against progress (which some people claim has caused the wars of the past) gains support and becomes violent.

LA JETÉE (1962)

Earth lies ruined in the aftermath of a nuclear war. The few surviving humans begin researching time travel, in hopes of sending someone back to the pre-war world in search of food, supplies, and hopefully some sort of solution to mankind's imminent demise. The protagonist is a man whose retention of a single, vague childhood memory (that of witnessing a murder on the jetty at Orly airport) is the basis for his being chosen to travel back in time. His journey leads him towards an enigmatic and paradoxical destiny.

FARENHEIT 451 (1966)

When fireman of the future Montag comes home from a hard day of book burning, his wife is totally engrossed in a screen that fills a wall of the living room. Here she gets her entertainment and all the information the people in charge want anyone to know. A few days later Montag is intrigued by a woman he sees on the monorail who looks very much like his wife. But this woman's eyes suggest that she has an active mind. She is a subversive, hoarding books. And he learns from her why books are so dangerous they have to be burned. People will want to think for themselves.

2001 (1968)

The monoliths have been watching us. They gave us the "evolutionary kick in the pants" we needed to survive at the Dawn of Time. In 1999, we discovered a second monolith on the moon. Now, in the year 2001, the S.S. Discovery and its crew, Captains Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, and their onboard computer, HAL-9000, must discover what alien force is watching us...

THX 1138 (1971)

George Lucas adapted this, his first film, from a short he made at University. THX 1138, LUH 3417, and SEN 5241 attempt to escape from a futuristic society located beneath the surface of the Earth. The society has outlawed sex, with drugs used to control the people. THX 1138 stops taking the drugs, and gets LUH 3417 pregnant. They are both thrown in jail where they meet SEN 5241 and start to plan their escape.

THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971)

A U.S. Army satellite (Scoop VII) falls to earth near Piedmont, New Mexico. The recovery team experiences difficulties as it becomes clear that the satellite has performed its intended function all too well, and has brought back something from space. A team of scientists is assembled in a high-tech, underground facility to identify and defeat the "enemy" before it is too late.

SOLARIS (1972)

This film probes man's thoughts and conscience, as it follows a psychologist who is sent to a space station situated over the mysterious Solaris Ocean. The two other scientists there tell the psychologist of strange occurrences in the station, and the Ocean's eerie ability to materialize their thoughts. After being in the station for a while, the psychologist finds himself becoming very attached to it's alternate reality.

SLEEPER (1973)

A clarinet player who also runs a health food store is frozen and brought back in the future by anti-government radicals in order to assist them in their attempts to overthrow an oppressive government. When he goes off on his own, he begins to explore this brave new world that has Orgasmatron booths to replace sex and confessional robots.

FANTASTIC PLANET (1973)

This film takes place on a faraway planet where giants rule, and tiny humanoids must fight for their lives and their equality. A metaphor of class struggles.

STAR WARS (1977)

Farmboy Luke Skywalker (Hamill) finds more than he bargained for when he gains possession of two androids (Daniels & Baker), who lead him on the adventure of his life to save a beautiful princess (Fisher), befriend a devil-may-care space smuggler (Ford), and save the galaxy from the evil clutches of Darth Vader (Prowse/Jones). Tutored by the mysterious Obi Wan Kenobi (Guiness), Luke must "Learn the ways of the Force."

ALIEN (1979)

When commercial towing vehicle Nostromo, heading back to Earth, intercepts an SoS signal from a nearby planet, the crew are under obligation to investigate. After a bad landing on the planet, some crew members leave the ship to explore the area. At the same time as they discover a hive colony of some unknown creature, the ship's computer deciphers the message to be a warning, not a call for help. When one of the eggs is disturbed, the crew do not know the danger they are in until it is too late.

ALTERED STATES (1980)

An American researching different states of consciousness with the aid of mind altering drugs and an isolation chamber begins to experience disturbing physical changes in his body that point toward an evolutionary regression.

EXCALIBUR (1981)

The myth of King Arthur brought once again to the screen. Uthur Pendragon is given the mystical sword Excalibur by the wizard Merlyn. At his death Uthur buries the sword into a stone, and the next man that can pull it out will be King of England. Years later Arthur, Uthur's bastard son draws Excalibur and becomes king. Guided by Merlyn, Arthur marries Guenivere and gathers the Knights of the Round Table. Arthur's evil half-sister Morgana sires a son with him, who may prove his downfall.

BLADE RUNNER (1982)

In a cyberpunk vision of the future, man has developed the technology to create replicants, human clones used to serve in the colonies outside Earth but with fixed lifespans. In Los Angeles, 2019, Deckard is a Blade Runner, a cop who specialises in terminating replicants. Originally in retirement, he is forced to re-enter the force when five replicants escape from an offworld colony to Earth.

TRON (1982)

Computer Classic, one of the first computer generated movies. A hacker is split into molecules and is transported into a computer. In this computer a mean program called Master Control behaves like a dictator. The hacker, who programmed a number of features of the environment he got into, teams up with a book keeping program and his girl-friend and together they try to replace Master Control with Tron. Tron is an honest safety system.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982)

When his mother and father are killed in a raid by the evil sorcerer Thulsa Doom, Conan is sent to a slave camp. As the years pass, he develops into a powerfully-built man, still determined to get revenge for his parents' death and solve the riddle of steel. He learns that Thulsa Doom is the head of a mysterious snake cult and in his attempts to get closer to the evil sorceror Conan makes some powerful friends and many deadly enemies.

VIDEODROME (1983)

Lowlife cable TV operator Max Renn discovers a "snuff TV" broadcast called Videodrome. But Videodrome is more than a TV show; it's an experiment that uses regular TV transmissions to permanently alter the viewer's perceptions by giving them brain damage. Max is caught in the middle of the forces that created and the forces that want to control Videodrome, his body itself turning into the ultimate weapon to fight them.

DUNE (1984)

In the far future, a duke and his family are sent by the Emperor to a sand world from which comes a spice that is essential for interstellar travel. The move is designed to destroy the duke and his family, but his son escapes and seeks revenge as he uses the world's ecology as one of his weapons.

TERMINATOR (1984)

A cyborg is sent from the future on a deadly mission. He has to kill Sarah Connor, a young woman whose life will have a great significance in years to come. Sarah has only one protector - Kyle Reese - also sent from the future. The Terminator uses his exceptional intelligence and strength to find Sarah, but is there any way to stop the seemingly indestructible cyborg?

BRAZIL (1985)

In an Orwellian vision of the future, the populace are completely controlled by the state, but technology remains almost as it was in the 1970's. Sam Lowry is a civil servant who one day spots a mistake in one of the pieces of paperwork passing through his office. The mistake leads to the arrest of an entirely innocent man, and although Lowry attempts to correct the error, it just gets bigger and bigger, sucking him in with it.

ALIENS (1986)

The only survivor of the Nostromo, Ripley is discovered in deep sleep half a century later by a salvage ship. When she is taken back to Earth, she learns that a human colony was founded on the same planet where the aliens were first found. After contact with the colony is lost, she finds herself sent back to the planet along with a team of warriors bent on destroying the alien menace forever, and saving any survivors -- if any remain.

NAKED LUNCH (1991)

Not an adaptation of beat writer William S. Burrough's novel but a mix of biography and an interpretation of his drug- induced writing processes combined with elements of his work in this paranoid fantasy about Bill Lee, a writer who accidentally shoots his wife, whose typewriter transforms into a cockroach and who becomes involved in a mysterious plot in an Islamic port called Interzone. Wonderfully bizarre, not unlike Burrough's books.

WAX, OR THE DISCOVERY OF TELEVISION AMONGST THE BEES (1992)

The bizarre story of Jacob Maker, weapons-guidance designer and beekeeper extraordinaire. When the bees drill a hole in Jacob's head and insert a television with supernatural images that control his will, Jacob enters into a hallucinatory, alternative reality.

ARMY OF DARKNESS (1993)

This is the sequel to "Evil Dead 2." Ash finds himself stranded in the 13th Century with his car, his shotgun, and his chainsaw. Soon he is discovered and thought to be a spy for a rival kingdom and is taken prisoner. After proving his merit in The Pit, he decides to help the kingdom retrieve the Necronomicon (which will also help him return to his own time), which they need to battle the supernatural forces at play in the land. Ash accidentally releases the Army of Darkness when retrieving the book, and a fight to the finish ensues.

GROUNDHOG DAY (1993)

A weather man is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting "rat" (as he calls it). This is his fourth year on the story, and he makes no effort to hide his frustration. On awaking the 'following' day he discovers that it's Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. First he uses this to his advantage, then comes the realisation that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing EVERY day.

THE CROW (1994)

"People once believed that when you died, a crow took your soul to the land of the dead.....but sometimes, just sometimes, the crow could bring that soul back, to make the wrong things right..." Eric Draven and Shelly Websyter were engaged to be married on October 31.....they were brutally murdered the night before. A year later, the Crow brings Eric's soul back to seek vengeance and earn his eternal rest.

12 MONKEYS (1995)

When mental patient Cole is sent back in time to find information on a deadly virus that will destroy 5,000,000,000 members of the human race in 1996-1997, he mistakenly arrives in 1990. After explaining his plea to Dr. Kathryn Railly, he is placed in a mental institution. In 1996, he kidnaps Railly, using her to find the 12 Monkeys, a group of revolutionists that are planning to release the virus into select cities. But, he is wanted by the authorities for murder and kidnapping, plus he refuses to return to the future; he is in love with Railly.

CUBE (1997)

Six different people, each from a very different walk of life, awaken to find themselves inside a giant cube with thousands of possible rooms. Each has a skill that becomes clear when they must band together to get out: a cop, a math wiz, a building designer, a doctor, an escape master, and a disabled man. Each plays a part in their thrilling quest to find answers as to why they've been imprisoned.

FIFTH ELEMENT, THE (1997)

Two hundred and fifty years in the future, life as we know it is threatened by the arrival of Evil. Only the fifth element (played by Milla Jovovich) can stop the Evil from extinguishing life, as it tries to do every five thousand years. She is helped by ex-soldier, current-cab-driver, Corben Dallas (played by Bruce Willis), who is, in turn, helped by Prince/Arsenio clone, Ruby Rhod. Unfortunately, Evil is being assisted by Mr. Zorg (Gary Oldman), who seeks to profit from the chaos that Evil will bring, and his alien mercenaries.

CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (1997)

In an alternate reality, children are being kidnapped by strange cyclopses and taken to the laboratory of an evil scientist named Krank, who steals their dreams because he has never had any of his own. Elsewhere, an orphan girl named Miette is sent on robbery jobs by her keepers, a set of female siamese twins known collectively as Octopus. Miette meets a man named One, who is the strong man at the local funfair. Together they embark on a journey to find One's little brother who has been kidnapped by the cyclopses.

GATTACA (1997)

Gattaca Corp. is an aerospace firm in the future. During this time society analyzes your DNA and determines where you belong in life. Ethan Hawke's character was born with a congenital heart condition which would cast him out of getting a chance to travel in space. So in turn he assumes the identity of an athlete who has genes that would allow him to achieve his dream of space travel.

DARK CITY (1998)

John Murdoch awakens alone in a strange hotel to find that he has lost his memory and is wanted for a series of brutal and bizarre murders. While trying to piece together his past, he stumbles upon a fiendish underworld controlled by a group of beings known as The Strangers who possess the ability to put people to sleep and alter the city and its inhabitants. Now Murdoch must find a way to stop them before they take control of his mind and destroy him.

PI (1998)

Max is a genius mathematician who's built a supercomputer at home that provides something that can be understood as a key for understanding all existence. Representatives both from a Hasidic cabalistic sect and high-powered Wall Street firm hear of that secret and attempt to seduce him.

THE MATRIX (1999)

Computer hacker Thomas Anderson has lived a relatively ordinary life--in what he thinks is the year 1999--until he is contacted by the enigmatic Morpheus who leads him into the real world. In reality, it is 200 years later, and the world has been laid waste and taken over by advanced artificial intelligence machines. The computers have created a false version of 20th-century life--the "Matrix"--to keep the human slaves satisfied, while the AI machines draw power from the humans. Anderson, pursued constantly by "Agents" (computers who take on human form and infiltrate the Matrix), is hailed as "The One" who will lead the humans to overthrow the machines and reclaim the Earth.

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS (1999)

A portrait of a fictional town in the mid west that is home to a group of idiosyncratic and slightly neurotic characters. Dwayne Hoover is a wealthy car dealer-ship owner that's on the brink of suicide and is losing touch with reality.

DONNIE DARKO (2001)

Donnie Darko is a disturbed adolescent from a semi-functional upper-middle class family. After escaping from near death because he hears the voice of a 6 foot tall bunny, Donnie is led by the bunny to create havoc that is both destructive and creative.