Birth. Evolution. Mankind. Age. Exploration. Universe. Death. 2001: A Space Odyssey...you'll never see anything like it, a brilliant visionary picture that's abstract, beautiful, complicated, and simple all at once. Considering the year the movie was made in—and that's not 1968—but 1963 which is five years of work to make the vision possible.

It goes without saying you'll never see anything like Blade Runner which is a Philip K. Dick adaptation just like Total Recall. What an amazing job by everybody for making it in 1981. It's a stunning accomplishment, indeed. The story is simple: Harrison Ford is a Blade Runner and his job is to kill robots, called Replicants, who have illegally come to Earth. That's the whole movie.

For the first time ever in cinema history, Signourney Weaver becomes an ultimate female hero when she goes against the monster. It's the role that will define her career. Oftentimes, monsters either look corny or ridiculous, but in Alien, the Xenomorph is the most impressive thing ever shown, creating the gold standard that'll have to be matched from there on.

The Back to the Future trilogy is a great, fun journey with many zany scenes and superb performances. I love the characters, the stories, and the uniqueness of the incidents and how one specific moment can change history. Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd will always be memorable as Marty McFly (what a cool name) and Doc Brown, respectively.

Anyone asking me this question, "Can you tell me the greatest horror movie ever made?", my answer will always be Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's bar none the best I've ever seen. There's no monster, blood, gore, or violence whatsoever. It's just the beautiful use of subtlety to create frightening scenes.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger met James Cameron at a restaurant, he wanted to audition for the role of Kyle Reese. But the director took a look at him and said, "My God! You're the Terminator!" But Arnold replied, "No, no, no...I want to play Kyle." Highly insistent, Cameron went, "Absolutely not! You are it. A machine!" Of course, I'm making up the exchange of dialogue, but you get the idea of the magnitude.

Magical and infinitely interesting, Close Encounters of the Third Kind shows why Steven Spielberg is the greatest director ever lived. He made a lot of masterpieces, and this is one of them. It's hard not to be impressed. Douglas Trumbull, the visual effects man, came over from 2001: A Space Odyssey to help out.

In the vein of And Then There Were None, Predator is one of the best sci-fi horror pictures of all time and is a hell of a ride. This is about muscles, guns, and blowing up things. Arnold Schwarzenegger is unforgettable as Major Dutch. So are his lines: "Get to da choppa!!!" and "If it bleeds, we can kill it."

12 Monkeys is an unparalleled sci-fi thriller with strong performances by Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, and Madeleine Stowe. Terry Gilliam's direction elevates it to another level. It's also a confusing movie to follow until the fatalistic ending that will clear up the mystery. What's impressive is the number of red herrings, including Brad Pitt's character, that put everybody on the wrong track.

Not exactly The War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of the most intelligent, thought-provoking sci-fi pictures made. Michael Rennie doesn't get enough credit for his performance as Klaatu. He has a good presence for an alien visitor. His character is also unassuming and easygoing yet is observant and knows how to deal with trivial matters which are typical of Americans.

At the hands of master director John Carpenter, Escape from New York is one of the ultimate cult films. It's also a surreal futuristic flick with an all-time badass by the name of Snake Plissken whom Kurt Russell was born to play. All hell breaks loose in New York City when Snake meets unsavory, eerie-looking characters around the city and starts pissing them off which makes it a fun picture to watch.

Among John Carpenter's top three films of all time, The Thing is a bona fide horror classic that improves on the original in every way possible. The plot is terrific which is alike to Alien. But this time, everybody dies because it's for the sake of saving the world from the unstoppable monster. The movie is pure terror all the way to the end.

Famous for the characters and the battle between good and evil as indicated in the opening crawl, nobody can forget Star Wars and the next two sequels. It changed everything for the sci-fi genre which hasn't been topped since then. The second part is unique for allowing the bad side to win and not really having a concrete ending.

Buoyed by Ethan Hawke's performance, the story of Gattaca is what makes the film so interesting to watch that it almost transcends the sci-fi genre and steps into the "human spirit" territory. Its feel is less of sci-fi but more of neo-noir, taking advantage of some of the most appetizing yet minimalist in/exteriors, with a surprise twist at the end.

This sci-fi masterpiece can't have been made possible without the vision that harkened back to Blade Runner and therefore to Philip K. Dick. Drug abuse isn't out of the question, either, as he dealt with alternate realities. It's why Total Recall feels like a mind trip. The primary reason to see the film besides Arnold Schwarzenegger is the cinematography which is outstanding.

Not as taut or gritty as the original, Aliens is a bit Hollywoodized. However, there's no question as to the suspense level, and it's still a pretty good movie. The biggest difference is the sheer number of aliens. Sigourney Weaver is outstanding once again, and I like the part when she cared about the little girl Newt who's played well by Carrie Henn in her only movie role.

The very first film to be released on DVD in the United States, Twister is purely on-the-edge-of-your-seat entertainment and is famous for one scene: the flying cow. It's cool to see that which does happen for real. So are the scenes when tornadoes are happening and trucks are riding alongside them.

"Send a maniac to catch a maniac." Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes on the same screen? Great. Perfect. Super fun. Most sci-fi pictures tend to have at best three to six novel concepts and then struggle to fill in the rest of the time to be remotely entertaining. But not this one. There's always something new every few minutes. Some of the stuff have turned out to be true, and the others remain to be seen.

This is the one that started it all. George Romero will forever be remembered for Night of the Living Dead which is an underrated American horror classic picture. Unintentional or not, it's also groundbreaking for casting a black actor as the main protagonist who's intelligent with a lot of common sense. Unique is the use of radio play to narrate what's happening at the moment.

Losing none of the power, The Abyss is an underwater picture that's Close Encounters of the Third Kind meets The Day the Earth Stood Still. When I saw Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Titanic back then, I knew where the groundbreaking work in special effects and underwater photography came from, and that's The Abyss, hence the Oscar win for Best Visual Effects.

A creative post-apocalyptic action movie, The Road Warrior further solidifies Mel Gibson's reputation as an international superstar. He helps out a small community of settlers in the battle against a roving band of marauders. The stunts are out of the world for 1981, and the fantastic opening and closing scenes are unbeatable as well.

Forget The Matrix...The Thirteenth Floor is the real deal. The most interesting concept is the setting primarily takes place in simulation when I thought it was the real world the whole time. Then, unlike The Truman Show, it turns out there's another simulation within it. Hence, there are three worlds going on at once, and it takes some work to orient myself in terms of which character is in which world.

For the role of his career, Michael Ironside is unforgettable as Darryl Revok. Of course, Scanners has an impossible-to-miss pièce de résistance which occurs almost at the beginning of the film. Yet the viewers should look past it and begin to appreciate the film for its thought-provoking storytelling.

Welcome back, B movies of the sci-fi genre. Tremors is a big treat. Everything is plain awesome, and the movie is thrilling and scary in the vein of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Unlike many others, it lays down the rules and faithfully follows them to the end. The creativity should be praised.

"Two men enter, one man leaves." It's the most famous line of the entire Mad Max franchise. Of all, this one is the most creative, having a Peter Pan slant. It must have taken a lot of work to build up the interior sets and to outfit all of the characters with unique clothes. To go further, they've made each world distinct from each other, and the Thunderdome is the most interesting of them all.

Galaxy Quest is one of the more interesting sci-fi pictures in a while. Not only it's a well-done flick, but Galaxy Quest is also a clever spoof. It's essentially Trekkies meets Star Trek. The story works, and the inside jokes are subtly written. I wonder what Captain James T. Kirk must have thought of the film; I'm sure it's too real for him in a Spinal Tap way.

Considered as the feminist version of 1984, The Handmaid's Tale is something different in the sci-fi genre, dealing with dystopia. The strong cast makes the film watchable, and it includes Natasha Richardson, Robert Duvall, Faye Dunaway, and Aidan Quinn. It's hard to find a bad performance among them.

The Hidden is an underrated sci-fi thriller with a great story to boot. In many ways, the movie is a combination of The Terminator, Twin Peaks, Scanners, Alien, The Driver, and The Manchurian Candidate. It's probably the best David Cronenberg film that he never directed.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure combines three things: history, time travel, and idiots. It's the one that Keanu Reeves will always be famous for. The concept is unique, and the movie is funny. The Maltese-born actor Terry Camilleri as Napoléon Bonaparte is the best character. His most hilarious moment is when he went bowling and let out a scream of profanities in French. The tie-in with Waterloo and waterslides is a stroke of genius.

On the same level as 2001: Space Odyssey, the visual effects of Brainstorm, especially when they're real and high-impact, are mind-blowing as ever. The film was actually made in 1981, but its release was delayed for two years due to Natalie Wood's untimely death. MGM was going to pull the plug for good, but director Dalton Trumbull convinced the studio that Brainstorm was salvageable.