86 articles
La Jetée
La Jetée (1962) is Chris Marker's 28-minute French photo-roman short, told almost entirely in still black-and-white photographs, about time travel after World War III destroys Paris; it won the 1963 Prix Jean Vigo and inspired Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys.
Les Visiteurs du Soir
Les Visiteurs du soir (The Devil's Envoys) is a 1942 Marcel Carné film written by Jacques Prévert and Pierre Laroche, a medieval fantasy of the Devil's minstrels defeated by love, made during the Nazi occupation and read as its allegory.
Lost Horizon (1937 film)
Lost Horizon (1937) is Frank Capra's Columbia Pictures adaptation of James Hilton's novel, starring Ronald Colman and Sam Jaffe as the High Lama; it won two Oscars, was cut for WWII reissue, and restored to 132 minutes.
Macario
Macario (1960) is Roberto Gavaldón's Mexican fantasy drama, also known as an adaptation of B. Traven's 'Godfather Death' story. A starving woodcutter shares his turkey with Death, gains healing water, and the film became Mexico's first Oscar-nominated film.
Marooned
Marooned (1969) is a John Sturges Columbia Pictures space-rescue drama, from Martin Caidin's novel, starring Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman, and James Franciscus; it won the Special Visual Effects Oscar and flopped at the box office.
Mighty Joe Young (1949 film)
Mighty Joe Young (1949) is an RKO fantasy film directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, reuniting the King Kong team of Merian C. Cooper, Ruth Rose, Willis O'Brien, and Ray Harryhausen; it won the 1949 special-effects Oscar and was remade by Disney in 1998.
Münchhausen
Münchhausen (1943) is Ufa's Agfacolor jubilee film for its 25th anniversary, directed by Josef von Báky with Hans Albers as the Baron of Lies, scripted by banned author Erich Kästner, commissioned by Goebbels, and one of the Nazi era's most popular films.
Mysterious Island
Mysterious Island (1961), also known by Verne's title L'île mystérieuse adaptation, is a Cy Endfield science fiction film produced by Charles H. Schneer with Ray Harryhausen stop-motion effects, about Civil War balloon escapees on Captain Nemo's island of giant creatures.
On the Beach (1959 film)
On the Beach (1959) is Stanley Kramer's post-apocalyptic drama adapted from Nevil Shute's 1957 novel, starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins as survivors in Melbourne awaiting nuclear fallout, premiered simultaneously in 18 cities on 17 December 1959.
One Million Years B.C.
One Million Years B.C. is Hammer Films' 1966 prehistoric adventure directed by Don Chaffey, a remake of One Million B.C. (1940), starring Raquel Welch and John Richardson, with Ray Harryhausen stop-motion dinosaurs; Hammer's biggest money-spinner.
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman is Albert Lewin's 1951 Technicolor romantic fantasy starring James Mason and Ava Gardner, fusing the Flying Dutchman legend with the Pandora myth in 1930s Spain, restored in 2008 and 4K in 2019.
Plan 9 from Outer Space
Plan 9 from Outer Space (aka Grave Robbers from Outer Space) is Ed Wood's 1959 black-and-white sci-fi film about aliens resurrecting the dead, famous as the Golden Turkey Awards' Worst Film of All Time and a so-bad-it's-good cult classic.
Planet of the Apes (1968 film)
Planet of the Apes (1968), from Pierre Boulle's novel La planète des singes, is Franklin J. Schaffner's science fiction film starring Charlton Heston as astronaut Taylor on a planet ruled by apes, famous for its Statue of Liberty ending, $26 million gross, and four sequels.
Quatermass 2
Quatermass 2 (US title Enemy from Space) is a 1957 Hammer science fiction horror film directed by Val Guest, starring Brian Donlevy, adapted by Nigel Kneale from his 1955 BBC serial about alien infiltration via a secret government complex.
Rocketship X-M
Rocketship X-M (Expedition Moon) is a 1950 American black-and-white sci-fi film by Kurt Neumann for Lippert, rushed out 25 days before Destination Moon; a Moon crew lands on Mars, finds an atomic-war ruin, and dies returning to Earth.
Scrooge (1951 film)
Scrooge (1951), aka A Christmas Carol, is Brian Desmond Hurst's British adaptation of Dickens, starring Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge; a US box office failure that became the definitive, most faithful Christmas Carol film.
Stereo (1969 film)
Stereo (1969) is David Cronenberg's first feature, a Canadian experimental black-and-white sci-fi film about surgically induced telepathy at the Canadian Academy of Erotic Inquiry, shot for $3,500 at Scarborough College without sync sound.
The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao
The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964) is a George Pal MGM fantasy film, adapted from Charles Finney's 1935 novel The Circus of Dr. Lao, in which Tony Randall plays a Chinese showman and six circus figures in Abalone, Arizona; William Tuttle won an honorary Oscar for the makeup.
The Absent-Minded Professor
The Absent-Minded Professor is Disney's 1961 black-and-white comedy directed by Robert Stevenson, starring Fred MacMurray as Ned Brainard, who invents flubber, a gravity-defying flying rubber, based on Samuel W. Taylor's story.
The Amazing Colossal Man
The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) is a Bert I. Gordon American International Pictures sci-fi film, also known as The Colossal Man, in which Lt. Col. Glenn Manning grows into a giant after a plutonium bomb test and rampages through Las Vegas before falling from Hoover Dam.
The Angry Red Planet
The Angry Red Planet (1959/1960) is an Ib Melchior-directed, Sid Pink and Norman Maurer-produced AIP Mars mission film, notable for the red-tinted Cinemagic optical process and the Rat-Bat-Spider Crab.
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) is an American giant-monster film directed by Eugène Lourié, with Ray Harryhausen's first solo stop-motion Rhedosaurus, suggested by Ray Bradbury's story, and an acknowledged inspiration for Gojira.
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes is a 1969 Walt Disney comedy starring Kurt Russell as Dexter Riley, a student whose brain absorbs a computer's memory, including gangster A.J. Arno's gambling records; first of a Dexter Riley trilogy, remade for ABC in 1995.
The Damned (1963 film)
The Damned (1963) is Joseph Losey's British science fiction film for Hammer, based on H.L. Lawrence's The Children of Light, about radioactive children in a secret bunker; released cut in 1963, retitled These Are the Damned in the US.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire
The Day the Earth Caught Fire is a 1961 British sci-fi disaster film directed by Val Guest, in which simultaneous US-Soviet H-bomb tests knock Earth toward the sun; Daily Express reporters investigate, ending on dual 'World Saved'/'World Doomed' headlines.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film directed by Robert Wise, in which the alien Klaatu lands in Washington, D.C. to warn humanity.
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1947 Twentieth Century-Fox romantic fantasy starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison, adapted by Philip Dunne from Josephine Leslie's novel (as R. A. Dick), with Oscar-nominated cinematography and Bernard Herrmann's celebrated score.
The Gnome-Mobile
The Gnome-Mobile is a 1967 Walt Disney live-action fantasy comedy directed by Robert Stevenson, starring Walter Brennan in a dual role with the Mary Poppins child stars, based on Upton Sinclair's gnome novel.
The Green Slime
The Green Slime (1968), also Gamma 3: Cosmic War, is an MGM-Toei science fiction film directed by Kinji Fukasaku, starring Robert Horton, Richard Jaeckel, and Luciana Paluzzi, about asteroid-borne monsters invading space station Gamma 3.
The Illustrated Man (1969 film)
The Illustrated Man (1969) is a Jack Smight science fiction drama starring Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom, and Robert Drivas, adapting three Ray Bradbury stories; released March 26, 1969 by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, 103 minutes, 40% on Rotten Tomatoes.