Killer robots, Alien invaders, and David Bowie — yes, the 1970s had it all. Keep
watching for the best sci-fi movies of this weird and wonderful decade.
Today, Westworld is better known as an acclaimed HBO series — but the show was
actually spawned from a once-forgotten 1973 film that mixed gunslinging action
with sci-fi brilliance. Written by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton,
Westworld was his directorial debut and just his second original screenplay.
Westworld is a futuristic adventure starring Yul Brynner,
in a deliberate homage to his role in The Magnificent Seven. Ten years into the future,
the Delos Corporation has created a series of theme parks for the wealthy. One park,
aptly known as Westworld, is an extravagant recreation of the Wild West. Adult guests can
indulge in any desire they wish — but when a series of cascading program errors and
system malfunctions spread throughout the parks, Westworld's androids develop minds of their own.
"I'm shot."
"What?"
"I'm shot!"
One of several films to warn of the coming dangers of artificial intelligence and robot technology,
Westworld was praised by Variety for its "chilling topicality,
and superbly intelligent serio-comic story values."
It was followed by a lesser sequel, Futureworld, and a single-season TV spin-off, Beyond Westworld.
Not every great '70s science fiction film was a blockbuster. Released in 1970,
Colossus: The Forbin Project is an underrated classic that crosses genres,
being equal parts frightening science fiction parable and riveting political thriller. Based
on a novel by Dennis Feltham Jones, the movie warns of the dangers of artificial intelligence.
In a grim near-future on the brink of war, Dr. Charles Forbin has designed a highly intelligent
supercomputer called Colossus, which is intended to control the nuclear arsenal of the United
States and its allies. Soon, however, Forbin realizes that the Soviet Union has their own
device, and he and his colleagues watch helplessly as the two AI systems begin to work together.
A gripping science fiction thriller, Colossus:
The Forbin Project dispenses with action and adventure, instead opting for a slow,
deliberately-paced narrative set mostly in boardrooms and control rooms. What the
movie lacks in action, however, it more than makes up for in suspense.
In the late 1960s, an aspiring young director named George Lucas crafted a 15-minute science
fiction short about a totalitarian state that demands a total lack of emotion from
its citizens. It was titled Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB. The movie became the basis for one
of the first projects distributed by Warner Bros. under the American Zoetrope banner,
a production house started by Francis Ford Coppola to nurture creative young
talent and independent filmmaking. The full-length feature, THX 1138, was Lucas' feature film debut.
THX 1138 is set in an underground world devoid of love, passion, hate,
or anger, as free will and thought are squashed by the state. When one man and
one woman stop taking the medication that suppresses feelings, however,
they are confronted by the true horror of their world — and fall in love in the process. They
experience emotions for the first time… and immediately become fugitives from the law.
A glimpse into a harrowing future, THX 1138 gained more attention after the release of Lucas' Star
Wars, and has since become a revered classic for its exploration of the nature of free will.
"What do you do? For a living, I mean?"
"Oh, just visiting."
Many cult classics can stake a claim among the best sci-fi films of the 1970s,
but are none quite as unusual and offbeat as The Man Who Fell to Earth. Most notable
perhaps for its lead performance by David Bowie, the film was barely given a theatrical release,
reportedly because Paramount executives were so perplexed by it. Over the years, however,
The Man Who Fell to Earth has garnered a passionate fan following, not just for
Bowie's charming and affecting performance, but also for its eerie tone and compelling story.
Bowie stars as an alien who hails from a world on which an environmental crisis has
left the planet dry and barren. Coming to Earth seeking water,
he takes on a human identity and sets himself up as the CEO of a major technology firm in
order to save his homeworld. Soon, though, he becomes a wealthy tycoon and slowly
falls prey to Earth's many temptations — including the love of a beautiful woman.
Today, The Man Who Fell to Earth is considered a bona fide sci-fi gem,
and its influence lives on in a surprising limited series remake that was launched in 2022.
It's hard to remake a classic movie and do it justice, but in the 1978 Invasion
of the Body Snatchers did that and then some, retelling the same story as the
1956 film of the same name. Sometimes cited as one of the best remakes ever,
the film brought the story of a sinister alien invasion into the 1970s, mixing it with the tone
of the decade's best political thrillers and loading it with relevant social commentary.
In this frightening reboot of the original movie, we meet San Francisco-based scientific researcher
Elizabeth Driscoll, who is disturbed when her boyfriend begins acting strangely. It soon
becomes clear that a strange alien force is creating duplicates of human beings,
forcing Driscoll and her allies to flee from a city of doppelgangers.
A stunning, suspense-filled alien invasion story with few equals, Invasion of the Body
Snatchers also happens to boast one of the bleakest endings in sci-fi movie history.
The subgenre of post-apocalyptic sci-fi gained steam in the 1970s,
and it arguably reached its zenith with the ultra-low budget Australian film Mad Max.
George Miller's ability to carefully craft a high quality futuristic action movie on a shoestring
budget shook the filmmaking world, with a cottage industry of wannabes springing up in its wake.
In Mad Max, most of society has all but fallen apart due to global oil shortages.
As survivors try to eke out a meager living, local warlords and gangs of
ruthless bikers attempt to take advantage of the chaos — but one of the last remnants of
organized law enforcement, a cop named Max Rockatansky, is out to stop them.
Still one of the best movies of its genre, Mad Max was a sensation in its native Australia thanks
to its gear-grinding action and over-the-top violence. It found just as much success Stateside,
turning Mel Gibson into a star and kickstarting George Miller's directorial career. Eventually
followed by a pair of sequels, Mad Max was later rebooted in 2015 with Mad Max:
Fury Road, a critically acclaimed blockbuster that reignited the franchise for the 21st century.
"Oh, what a day! What a lovely day!"
The man behind some of the best movies of all time,
Stanley Kubrick also directed one of the greatest dystopian sci-fi classics,
A Clockwork Orange. Based on the celebrated 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess,
the movie stars Malcolm McDowell and a broad ensemble cast of lesser-known actors in a story
about a dismal future that mixes unsettling surrealism with sharp social commentary.
A film that often borders on the avant-garde, A Clockwork Orange revolves around Alex DeLarge,
an eccentric street punk who leads an ultra-violent gang of thugs as they steal,
assault, and murder innocent people. Eventually,
Alex is apprehended by the authorities, who force him to undergo a brutal form of brainwashing.
A film that's cinematically breathtaking and disturbing in equal measure,
A Clockwork Orange is today considered to be one of the truly iconic films of the 1970s.
Young director Steven Spielberg had done plenty of work for television in the early 1970s,
and his transition to feature films yielded results almost immediately. In his second film,
Jaws, he produced one of the biggest hits of the decade and popularized the term
"blockbuster." To follow it up, he turned to science fiction, with a poignant story that
mixed family drama and an outer space mystery: the 1977 classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
While Star Wars blew audiences away with its fast-moving inspace opera action,
Spielberg went a different route, opting for an emotional drama told
through a story of alien visitation. Here, family man Roy Neary is contacted
by an extraterrestrial intelligence and becomes a conduit for communication when
they arrive on Earth. Neary's personal journey sits at the heart of the film,
as he struggles to understand what is happening while his family life deteriorates around him.
A visually captivating experience that fuses mystery, terror, wonder, and awe,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind was nominated for nine Academy Awards,
including Best Director for Spielberg. While it may not have been the biggest sci-fi film
at the box office in 1977, it was probably the most moving.
Based on a novel by Polish author Stanislaw Lem, the landmark film Solaris may be Russia's
greatest contribution to the sci-fi genre. While many American audiences still haven't given
the film its proper due, critics and sci-fi buffs have rightly hailed it as a milestone.
Released in 1972, the film centers on Kris Kelvin, a psychologist who is sent to a space station
orbiting the planet Solaris. On a mission to assess the mental condition of its crew
following a series of unexplainable emotional breakdowns, Kris soon begins to suffer himself
due to an unknown phenomenon that has struck the station. As he learns more about the aliens and
Solaris itself, Klein's experience also helps him deal with trauma that has haunted him for years.
A spellbinding psychological drama, Solaris has always been highly acclaimed,
but long underrated and underseen by wider audiences. That perhaps helps
explain why director Steven Soderbergh and star George Clooney remade the film in 2002,
in an effort to shine a light on an under-appreciated classic.
"You've just taken your first step into a larger world."
George Lucas' sci-fi phenomenon Star Wars was enough of a cultural touchstone that
it deserves to be counted among the best sci-fi films of the decade for its legacy
alone. Star Wars debuted to massive crowds and lines that wrapped around city blocks,
while children skipped school and adults took off work to go
see it. Boasting groundbreaking special effects, the movie is a modern-day fairy
tale about a young group of heroes who band together to defeat an evil galactic empire.
With its unprecedented ticket sales and mountainous merchandising blitz,
Star Wars changed the landscape of movies forever. Every studio wanted a piece of the pie, and while
sequels were nothing new in Tinseltown, the era of blockbuster franchises and toy tie-ins truly began
in 1977. And it wasn't just the special effects, the lunch boxes, and the box office bucks,
either: Star Wars was also a well-crafted story with a heartfelt emotional core.
Despite being a kid-friendly, pulp comic book space story a la Flash Gordon,
critics were bowled over, showering the film with gushing praise. Noted critic Roger Ebert,
who wasn't typically impressed by flimsy blockbuster fare,
happily awarded it four stars and remarked on its awe-inspiring nature. No matter how you
look at it, when it comes to great '70s sci-fi adventures, Star Wars is unquestionably king.
The 1970s were filled with great science fiction movies that ran the gamut from cerebral,
thought-provoking message films to breezy space adventures. But in 1979,
an iconic film from sophomore director Ridley Scott did something truly staggering. A grounded,
realistic outer space chiller that was unlike anything audiences had experienced before,
Alien delivered a story that expertly blended horror and science fiction.
Screenwriter Dan O'Bannon created a world that mixed the lived-in grittiness of Star Wars with
a cast of ordinary men and women, rather than larger-than-life heroes and colorful creatures.
These were not intrepid space adventurers, but blue-collar workers, long-haul space
truckers dealing with an extraordinary problem: a deadly alien stowaway that threatens to kill
every last one of them. The terrifying creature, later known as a xenomorph,
would instantly become one of Hollywood's all-time greatest movie monsters.
Sigourney Weaver led the film as Ellen Ripley, an unlikely woman protagonist in an era where
dashing male heroes dominated the screen. Her impressive performance inspired a generation,
as her indomitable presence made Ripley a force to be reckoned with. Eschewing fast-paced space
action for slowly-building tension dripping with atmosphere, the film's stylish direction,
gripping suspense, and sheer terror elevates Alien to the greatest sci-fi movie of the 1970s.