World's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

The worlds best fantasy and science fiction films

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• A Clockwork Orange
• Aliens
• Back to the Future
• Big Fish
• Blade Runner
• Brazil
• Cocoon
• Contact
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Dune (SF-channel mini-series)
• E.T.: The Extraterrestrial
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Field of Dreams
• Frequency
• Gattica
• Gormenghast (SF-channel mini-series)
• Inception
• The Incredible Time Travels of Henry Osgood (TV)
• Lord of the Rings Trilogy [AA]
• The Lost Room (SF-channel mini-series)
• The Matrix
• Minority Report
• Poltergeist
• Pleasantville
• The Prestige
• The Prisoner (mini-series)
• The Sixth Sense
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• Time Bandits
• The Time Machine (remake)
• The 12 Monkeys
• V for Vendetta (2005)
• WALL-E (animated)

Runners-Up: 2010, A Boy and His Dog, The Abyss, Outland, Silent Running, Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, The Wrath of Khan, Vanilla Sky, 2046 (Japan), Gulliver's Travels (mini-series)

The Prisoner was actor Patrick McGoohan's tv sequel to his first show, Secret Agent Man, and still has a large cult following due to its originality and statements about brainwashing, freedom, individuality, non-conformity, and government repression. It was planned as a 16-part complete series with an ending, first time ever on television, and British of course.

A Clockwork Orange was good, and the first and maybe only film rated X for violence (tame by today's standards), but the book was phenomenol, one of the best ever, Burgess wrote it to exorcise demons from a real life home invasion by a gang. The entire book was in Alex's vernacular, and later editions had a necessary glossary of the invented slang. "Hey, Billy Boy, come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles that is, ya eunuch jelly thou."

Big Fish is my favorite Tim Burton film, a beautiful fantasy of tall tales.

Where to you put Poltergeist, is it horror or science fiction? Same with Aliens.

World's Best Sports Films

Films in gold won Best Picture Oscars®

• Breaking Away
• Bull Durham
• Chariots of Fire
• Field of Dreams
• Friday Night Lights
• Glory Road
• Golden Boy
• The Great White Hope
• Hoop Dreams (doc.)
• Hoosiers
• Million Dollar Baby
• The Natural
• Phar Lap
• Pride of the Yankees
• Raging Bull
• Requiem for a Heavyweight
• Seabiscuit (remake)

I guess I stretched a bit to make a sports list, as Bull Durham and Breaking Away belong in comedy, and Field of Dreams in fantasy & science fiction. Five boxing films and no Rocky... well, there are much better boxing films above. Raging Bull should have been Scorsese's first directing Oscar, and Goodfellas or Gangs of New York should have been his second, then his Oscar for The Departed could have gone to Alejandro Inarritu for Babel, which was filmed on three continents and in four languages. Friday Night Lights is probably the first great football film.

World's Best Horror Films

• Aliens
• American Werewolf in London
• The Changeling
• Jurassic Park
• King Kong (bw)
• The Lady in White
• Nightmare on Elm St.
• Poltergeist
• The Ring
• The Sixth Sense

Also: Thought not traditional horror, Requiem for a Dream from the brilliant David Aronofsky (only his 2nd film, Pi was the other) is the scariest film of the decade, and fans of hiding in the closet or even some gore won't be disappointed (warning though: NOT for the squeamish or under-18, and I'm not kidding) Five of these are monster movies, five are ghost stories. Some of these can easily double as Fantasy-Science Fiction films, like Aliens and Poltergeist, so they are on both lists. King Kong makes it as the original monster movie, and still the best. The Changeling is a classic-style horror story with George C. Scott. The Exorcist could be here if it wasn't so laughable and boring; same with Jaws (one thrill every 15 minutes on cue, sending all the kids at my theater screaming up the aisles!).

Oscars 2008: No Country for Old Men

... but a good country for Coens... see my previous post for my predictions, I only hit the big ones and the Bourne ones. No Country for Old Men won the big prize for Best Picture, and the Coens won for that as co-producers, they won as directors, and for the screenplay - and Javier Bardem won supporting actor so it got four awards overall. Bourne Ultimatum actually won three: sound editing, sound mixing, film editing - that's about all it was up for! Daniel-Day Lewis won actor as expected for There Will Be Blood, which also won for cinematography by Robert Elswit. Big surprise was Marion Cotillard for Best Actress - she was speechless and basically just cried; La Vie En Rose also won for makeup for making her look like Edith Piaf (the transformation was almost surreal). I think Julie Christie was the easy favorite, and was terrific in Away from Her. Tilda Swinton was a surprise for supporting actress (I thought Ruby Dee or Cate Blanchett) - it was the only award Michael Clayton got. More solo awards: Atonement won for music, Juno for orig. screenplay, Sweeny Todd got art direction, Ratatouille won Animated Feature, and Golden Compass won Special Effects - figured they'd get a bone tossed to each - now they can all be on TBS' "Academy Award Movies" show. Documentary was Taxi to the Dark Side, which looked like a harrowing look inside Iraq. Best Song was interesting - a couple of musicians in Ireland made a movie in 17 days, put their "Falling Slowly" song in it and won the Best Song Oscar! Composers were were Glen Hansford and Marketa Irglova, said they made their film for one-hundred thousand. (Dollars? Euros? Pounds?) Still a lot of spare change in the guitar case. Best Foreign Language Film was the first win ever for Austria, a film about Nazis called The Counterfeiters - the director said Billy Wilder and Otto Preminger came here from Austria to escape the Nazis, so it was fitting that their first Oscar would be a film about Nazis. Daniel-Day Lewis got his Oscar from Helen Mirren and he knelt before her and she pretended to knight him with the Oscar... that British humor!

Oscar Predictions for 2008

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men - because I like the Coen Brothers (Raising Arizona, Fargo) Director: Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men)- because they can give one award and they both get Oscars Actor: Daniel-Day Lewis (There Will Be Blood) -because he's one of the five best living actors (De Niro, Freeman, Hackman, Nicholson) and shoulda won #2 for Gangs of New York Actress: Julie Christie (Away From Her)- because she's still a babe and this may be her last chance for #2 and who the hell is this Cotillard babe anyway and did she do her own singing? Christie won half a century ago, just before Beatlemania. Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)- because he's Penelope Cruz' boyfriend and has won 378 awards already Supporting Actress: Ruby Dee (American Gangster)- because she's old and this may be her last chance and she's been a pro forever Writing - Adapted Screenplay: Atonement - because it won't win any big awards, they can toss it this bone and one Coen won a writing Oscar already for Fargo Writing - Original Screenplay: Michael Clayton - because it won't win any big awards, they can toss it this bone... blah blah You want writing? "Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt that the truth's a liar, but never doubt my love" -- Hamlet Cinematography: I dunno, I didn't see enough of 'em... ok: No Country again Film Editing: I dunno, I didn't see enough of 'em... ok: Bourne Ultimatum, good action flick! Music: now Sweeney Todd is a musical, but its ineligible cuz the music was written before this year, for the play? now that makes sense... Song: what, no Randy Newman song this year? then I don't care... Foreign Language Films: who watches films with subtitles? Sound Mixing, Sound Editing: what's the freakin difference, was the sound incredible or not? Bourne had good sound... Documentary and Short Subject: whatever's the most politically correct topic this year (Iraq, the Holocaust, AIDS, subprime loan failures, Chinese lead-coated toys) Who needs writers for this dribble? The best two Oscar presenters ever were Sasheen Littlefeather reading for Brando and David Niven responding to a streaker with ad libs and style. They like to spread the Oscars around nowdays so more films are eligible for the "Academy Award Film Festivals" they have on TBS.

Additions and Under Consideration

New additions:

• A Boy Ten Feet Tall (childrens)
• A Coal Miner's Daughter (musical/concert)
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (bw, drama)
• The Apartment (bw)
• Baby Boom (comedy)
• Bad Timing, a Sexual Obsession (romance)
• Black Orpheus (musical/concert)
• Bride and Prejudice (India, musical)
• Broadcast News (drama)
• Broken Trail (western, mini-series)
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (western)
• Dead Can Dance: Toward the Within (musical/concert)
• Dead Man Walking (drama)
• Dominick and Eugene (drama)
• Double Indemnity (bw, crime-7 Oscar noms)
• Elmer Gantry (bw, drama)
• The Emigrants (foreign lang, Sweden)
• Empire Falls (drama, mini-series)
• Fellini's Amarcord (foreign lang, Italy)
• Five Easy Pieces (romance)
• Frequency (Fantasy & SF)
• The Grand Illusion (bw, foreign lang, France)
• Gung Ho! (comedy)
• Hud (bw, drama)
• The Hustler (bw, drama)
• The Last Picture Show (bw, drama)
• Led Zeppelin (2 dvd, concert)
• Little Foxes (bw, drama)
• The Magnificent Ambersons (bw, drama)
• McCabe and Mrs. Miller (western)
• My Dog Skip (childrens)
• My Life as a Dog (foreign lang, Sweden)
• Peggy Sue Got Married (romantic comedy)
• Peter Gabriel: Secret World Live (musical/concert)
• The Player (crime & mystery)
• The Producers (comedy, orig. vrsn)
• Pulp Fiction (crime)
• The Seventh Seal (foreign lang, Sweden)
• Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (childrens)
• Stars Fell on Henrietta
• The Sweet Hereafter (drama)
• The Thin Man (series, comedy)
• The Truth About Cats and Dogs (romantic comedy)
• The Wings of the Dove (romance)

We have a number of films under consideration, both suggestions from the blog (thanks to Beth G, master fan of BW movies) and a personal list I need to rewatch:

• The 39 Steps (bw)
• D.O.A. (bw, original)
• Dolores Claiborne
• The Discreet Charm of the Bourgoisie (France)
• Jules and Jim (bw, France)
• The Lady Vanishes (bw)
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Narnia 1)
• Magic Town (bw)
• Orlando
• Panic in the Streets (bw)
• Proof
• Runaway Jury
• Separate Tables (bw)
• Shadow of a Doubt (bw)
• Shoot the Piano Player (France, bw)
• Walk the Line