Recommend some good sci fi from the 50's-80's

The original uncut The Andromeda Strain. Wish you could see it on a large screen.

I think one of the best sci-fi movies ever made.

--Ted

P.S. Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many folks here who say they don't like certain sci-fi movies are watching them at home on TV in sections. Movies (especially sci-fi) are meant to be viewed in one sitting, uninterrupted. Pausing a DVD, or taking a phone call while watching, etc. really defeats the filmmaker's intentions and the viewer's involvement and investment in the film.

 

Colossus: The Forbin Project
The Thing from Another World
This Island Earth
Fahrenheit 451

 

Alien

STII

Would have mentioned a few others, but they're mentioned above.

 

Fantastic Planet. The kind of film the phrase "it's a trip" was invented for.

The second and third Planet of the Apes movies are good too.

THX-1138. A futuristic dystopian film. George Lucas' debut as a director.

 

Any film that has the Batman in it has to be at least 51% good.

 

Uncut? Is the version I have on DVD (which I quite enjoy) shortened, or something?

 

Amen. I have a friend who routinely multitasks while watching tv--chatting on the phone, playing on his laptop, etc. Then he complains that the movies didn't engage him and didn't make any sense!

 

I'm talking about those basic chop jobs on network, local, and some cable stations.

--Ted

 

Well, anyone who enjoys a film on television when it isn't shown complete from beginning to end (TCM, PBS, Sundance, IFC, plus the premium channels) is out of their minds. Or, they're watching a film that deserves to be chopped up into digestible bits that can be forgotten as quickly as it takes one to change the channel. I can think of quite a few that could be classified as such. But The Andromeda Strain is certainly more worthwhile than that.

 

Loads of things where Jack Arnold was involved is very much worth a look;

The Monolith Monsters
Creature from the Black Lagoon
This Island Earth
Tarantula
The Incredible Shrinking Man


To name a couple...

 

But of course there are others:

Phase IV (1974) Ants take over.


The Quiet Earth (1985) Some man-made event kills pretty much everyone.

Fahrenheit 451 (1966) Literacy is illegal.

Barbarella (1968) Jane Fonda is naked...

Invaders from Mars (1953) Title says it all really, But this film has some really beautiful imagery.

The Ice Pirates (1984) Definitely a B-film, but it has it's moments.

Planeta Bur (Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet) (1965) -difficult to find in a reasonable copy as it is an Americanized version of a Russian film -and none of the hack-jobs done to the film did it any good

The Wasp Woman (1959) Woman turns into a wasp-monster. ( )

Doppelgänger (1969) What if there was another Earth-like planet in the same orbit but on the far side of the sun? - Gerry & Sylvia Anderson wrote and produced; If you like anything they've made you need to see this.

Fantastic Planet (1973) Brilliant animated movie.

Starship Invasions (1977) Fun little Canadian B-film about telepathic aliens that want to take over the Earth.

On the Beach (1959) Just after WWIII

The Stepford Wives (1975) Way better than the remake.

ETA:
Just noticed that some have been mentioned before... oh, well -I still stand by my recomendations.

 

I'm kicking myself for not having recommended Fahrenheit 451, actually, as I love that quite a bit.

Oh, yeah, and I'll mess this up with two Japanese movies from this era:

Gojira (or Godzilla): The original monster movie/allegory about the Cold War. Remains a rather solid and serious monster movie.

The Face of Another: If you prefer your sci-fi to be about how stripping away someone's face challenges notions of identity, society and morality, an unsettling, arty, bleak, depressing, paranoid, memorable film... eh. I dunno, give it a shot.

 

Otherwise known as JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN.

 

Star Blazers (the first two series. The third series "The Bolar Wars" was stupid)

 

So many people have recommended The Quiet Earth lately that I rented it the other day from Netflix. What was so great about it? I thought it was a little dull and I didn't like any of the characters. What was the deal with the end of the movie?

 

Which is also mentioned in the article I linked to.

Unless it's a turn-off for you to watch a film paced a bit slower than the usual Hollywood action-SciFi this 'dull'ness is one of the greater qualities of this particular film -IMO, of course!
Same with the liking of the characters - I didn't care very much for any of them either.
The ending is merely open to interpretation -mine being in the SciFi/fantasy way of thinking, that this grand experiment was indeed not understood by the entities that made it.
As to the motifs scattered at large throughout the film this review should cast some light on them.

 

Major League II.