If you’re a fan of science fiction, you’re probably well aware of the fact that numerous great sci-fi movies came out during the 1980s. And, sure, great pieces of science fiction can be found in most decades (even the 1920s had the iconicMetropolis), but there was something about the 1980s – and the way movies were made back then – that just suited science fiction and the aesthetics/conventions attached to the genre.
It was the last decade before computer-generated imagery started becoming relatively common in large-scale sci-fi movies, representing significant advancement for certain old-school techniques popular in genre cinema. Plenty of great filmmakers also seemed especially interested in exploring science fiction-related ideas – sometimes complemented with action, comedy, thrills, or even romance –throughout much of the 1980s, leading to numerous classics, the best of the best being ranked below.
10’The Terminator' (1984)
Directed by James Cameron
Kicking off a mostly inconsistent series (thoughTerminator 2: Judgment Dayis undeniably brilliant),The Terminatoris a gritty, exciting, straightforward, and moving piece of science fiction cinema. It wasn’t the very first movieJames Cameronever directed, but it was his first unequivocally great film, and one that kicked off a string of generally well-received (and often highly profitable) movies by the director.
WithThe Terminator, the plot boils down to a woman having to be protected from a persistent killer cyborg from the future, who’ll stop at nothing to kill her so she won’t be able to give birth to someone who’ll save humanity from a machine uprising.It successfully introduces a broader, wide-scale conflict, but chooses to do so with arelatively small and self-contained sci-fi story.The Terminatorfunctions brilliantly within its budgetary limitations, and the majority of it still holds up immensely well.
The Terminator
9’RoboCop' (1987)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Like withThe Terminator, there are some lesser follow-ups toRoboCopthat aren’t super essential (at best) andare genuinely quite bad (at worst). Still, the original is a classic through and through, looking at a dystopian city torn apart by crime and similarly impacted by brutal policing, and working as a great piece of satire while also delivering on the world-building and action sides of things.
RoboCopis indeed about a cop who becomes at least part robot following a near-death experience, becoming a walking instrument of death who matches the criminals he pursues when it comes to relentlessness and a capacity for violence.Paul Verhoevenseemed to beat his best when making outlandish, sometimes extreme, and often darkly funny sci-fi films, and of those titles he made that can be defined as such,RoboCopis probably the greatest.
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8’The Fly' (1986)
Directed by David Cronenberg
Working just aseffectively as a body horror movieas it does a sci-fi film,The Flykeeps things nice and simple on a narrative front, having a story that only involves a small number of main characters. One of them is a scientist who is working on a teleportation device, and events kick into high gear when one experiment with the device goes wrong, having the side effect of slowly turning him into a fly-like creature.
It was a remake of an older movie calledThe Fly, which had its own sequels, and then this version ofThe Flyalso got a sequel. But the series doesn’t get any better than this 1986 movie,thanks to the phenomenal performances of Jeff Goldblum (at his Goldblumiest) and Geena Davis, as well as the strong direction fromDavid Cronenberg, who’s arguably at the height of his directorial powers here.
7’Back to the Future' (1985)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Back to the Futureis the movie to which allother comedies involving time travel are compared, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s a breezy, easily enjoyable, and creative film, concerning one young man going back in time and risking his own existence in the future by interacting with his parents, which runs the risk of ensuring they never fall in love and eventually have him.
It’s a perfect introduction to the concept of time travel for younger viewers, given it doesn’t overly complicate things, but neither is it just a movie for a younger audience; just about anyone can enjoyBack to the Future, really.It’s a well-oiled machine of a movie that sees various parts falling perfectly into place, and it would thereby probably be difficult to find too many people out there who genuinely don’t like it.
Back to the Future
6’Akira' (1988)
Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo
If you’re a fan of anime at all, you’ve probably seenAkira, or have at least heard of it. It’san essential piece of Japanese animation, adapting the lengthy manga series of the same name and ambitiously condensing approximately 2000 pages into a two-hour movie. It’s set in the “future” of 2019, with a distinctly dystopian/cyberpunk feel and a story that involves criminal gangs, risky experiments, the military, and superpowers.
Akirais a movie that both looks and sounds beautiful, bringing a vivid world to life with immense detail and telling a somewhat convoluted – though still gripping and thematically interesting – story.It’s the kind of movie that’s easy to get lost in and appreciate, withit understandably having a cult followingwhile also being one ofthe best international sci-fi moviesof its era.
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5’The Thing' (1982)
Directed by John Carpenter
If you want to single out just one year of the 1980s as being a particularly great one when it comes toscience fiction, you’d have to go with 1982. One essential release from this year wasThe Thing, which infamously didn’t get nearly the kind of recognition upon release that it deserved, instead taking a few more years before people started saying, “Okay, yeah, this is peak sci-fi in every way.”
The Thingtakes place in a remote location with characters confined due to a blizzard, their plight worsened by the fact that a shape-shifting alien is on the loose and systematically hunting them down. This is a movie that understands how to build tension, all the while also satisfying on a more visceral and obvious level when it wants to explode.There is bombastic and gory terrorpaired with quiet unease in a shockingly well-balanced way, and the resulting film is an absolute rollercoaster to sit through in the best of ways.
4’Aliens' (1986)
Just two years on fromThe Terminator, James Cameron made another significant piece of 1980s science fiction withAliens, which was a somehow more-than-worth sequel to a classic 1970s sci-fi movie,Alien.Sigourney Weaverwas the lead in both, butAlienstook a somewhat different approach to its predecessor by placing more of an emphasis on action, all the while still having suspense, terror, and thrills.
Aliensis a great sequel that escalates things while still feeling relatively in tune with what came before, building upon it and doing something different while not being too out of control with its differences.It is thegold standard for how to make a sequelwithout feeling like a retread, and is responsible for it being surprisingly difficult to label one movie intheAlienseries as the “objective” bestof the bunch.
3’Blade Runner' (1982)
Directed by Ridley Scott
On the topic ofAlien,that 1979 movie was directed byRidley Scott, and he made another sci-fi classic a few years later – in the 1980s – withBlade Runner. This one is simple narratively, being about one man who’s tasked with hunting down a number of replicants who’ve gone rogue, butBlade Runner’s complexity comes from its ambiguous characters, lofty themes, and immense technical proficiency.
The world ofBlade Runneris a stunning one, and it’s a film that sounds as good as it looks, thanks tothe immensely great score byVangelis.It’s a movie that endures and feels somewhat timeless, even if it’s, likeAkira, another sci-fi movie that’s no longer set in the future, thanks to time in real life marching beyond the late 2010s. But other than that, age has not weariedBlade Runnerat all, and there is still so much to be blown away by here.
Blade Runner
2’E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' (1982)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Pickinga favoriteSteven Spielbergmovieis always understandably tough, butE.T. the Extra-Terrestrialwould surely have to be a contender, in any event. It’s a film that sees Spielberg at his most sentimental and family-friendly, but it just works, dammit. This movie has so much heart, creativity, humor, and childlike wonder to it. It’s easy to get swept up in it when you’re a kid, and it’s somehow even more emotionally impactful when you watch it as an adult.
The story ofE.T. the Extra-Terrestrialis simple, following the friendship between a boy and an alien who gets stranded on Earth, with the former helping the latter to contact his home and thereby reconnect with his own family.It’s a movie about childhood, growing up, finding connections, and dealing with certain hardships, covering a huge range of emotions while also containing one ofthe very best scoresJohn Williamsever composed(which is really saying something, considering that man’s body of work).
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
1’The Empire Strikes Back' (1980)
Directed by Irvin Kershner
Okay, sure, if you want to get technical, theStar Warsseries is more of a space opera saga rather than a strictly science fiction one. You could call it closer to fantasy in feel and tone, if you wanted to, but then again, these are movies that take place in a far-off galaxy, feature weaponry that seems advanced, involve aliens, and have characters traveling between planets on spaceships, so it’s at least somewhat sci-fi, you know?
The high point of the entire seriesto date probably remainsThe Empire Strikes Back, which improved upon everything found in the already fantastic first movie from 1977.The Empire Strikes Backdoesn’t hit a single wrong note for its whole duration, being immensely impressive from a technical perspective, brilliantly paced, and even more emotional than its predecessor.Calling it one of the verybest movies of all time – regardless of genre– is surprisingly easy to do.
