Cult Sci Fi Movies The Simpsons Movie ' title='Cult Sci Fi Movies The Simpsons Movie ' />Overlooked Sci Fi Movies You Need To See. With Star Wars revived, Star Trekrebooted and more installments of the Alienseries on the way, science fiction reigns at the box office. In an era of computers, smartphones, Siri, and digital everything else, technology shapes our lives more than ever before, and moviegoing audiences have more of a taste for the fantastic and surreal images of sci fi than ever before. Sci Fi movies, are, of course, nothing new. Since the earliest days of film, directors and writers have tried to explore new realities by mixing tech and fiction. While some sci fi outings become instant classics, others fade from view. For a select few, thats a disservice. Some films like Tron, Blade Runner, or The Thing fell through the cracks and audiences of their time dudnt connect with them. One of the many virtues of home media is that it allows cinephiles, like those of us here at Screen. Rant, to go back and reevaluate movies that get overlooked during their box office run. The titles contained herein didnt attract audiences of their day, or fell out of the public consciousness. Thats a shameeach one is a masterpiece of sci fi cinema in its own right. Think you know them Check out our list of The Greatest Overlooked Sci Fi Masterpieces. Brazil. Terry Gilliam gets little respect in Hollywood as a visionary director, which is our loss. The man has made some spectacular films, including the little seen masterpiece Brazil. A sort of dark comedy take on Orwells 1. Highly underrated scifi adventure, that delivers some of the coolest and most exciting battle sequences ever made for the big screen. Just the fact that Ive seen it. Science fiction has produced some amazing alien creatures, moving beyond the restrictions of reality to stretch our imaginations into the improbable and impossible. With so many great scifi flicks out there, youve probably read a few lists on different movie sites that have touched on the forgotten gems of the genre. Cult Sci Fi Movies The Simpsons Movie End CreditsCult Sci Fi Movies The Simpsons Movie MegashareIn honor of ComicCon, weve dug up 15 TV flops from the world of comic books, scifi and fantasy that missed the current nerdgenre era. Full information about the movie from the Internet Movie Database. From Doctor Who to Dollhouse, these are the series that told their greatest TV stories in worlds far away from our own. Bob Hoskins, Robert De. Niro, Jim Broadbent, andin a rare leading roleJohnathan Pryce. Set in a weird dystopian future populated by skyscrapers, secret police and a lot of air ducts, Brazil follows one mans obsession with finding the woman of his dreams. Sporting astonishing art direction, and a script that plays even more timely in a world of paranoia the movies take on terrorism is especially prophetic, and hilarious, Brazil confused audiences in 1. Unlike that novel, Brazil sees its ending as a happy one, owing to a frequent theme in all Gilliams work crazy people are the happiest in the world The Fountain. Darren Aronofsky puzzled audiences and critics alike with his enigmatic The Fountain. Viewers were divided in their opinions of the film, regarding it as a modern masterpiece or a bombastic work of ego. In truth, its probably both. Regardless, The Fountain holds a special distinction among modern sci fi, as it doesnt feature superheroes, space battles, or aliens. Instead of venturing into far outer space though it does feature scenes in space, it probes human history and the depths of the human spirit. Set in three separate time periods, it features conquistadors searching for the fountain of youth, a man mourning his dying wife, and a bald guy eating a tree in space. Its that kind of movie. Whats really going on hereAre the couples reincarnations of one another Parallel lives lived in parallel universes The dreams of one another Like the visual poetry of 2. A Space Odyssey or Mulholland Drive, just when The Fountain seems poised to reveal its secrets, it recoils into an enigma. Cube. This little seen sci fi thriller became an instant cult film when it debuted in 1. Shot on a single set with a group of unknown actors, Cube finds its characters kidnapped and held in a giant series of connecting cube rooms. How did they get there What is the function of the cube And how can they escapeCube adds tension to the proceedings by introducing a group of unstable characters, any of whom could end up dead at any time. The lack of stars in the cast only underlines that anything goes quality. A higher profile film with big name actors in the leads would telegraph to the audience that their characters would live through, at the very least, most of the movie. Director Vincenzo Natali crafts a latter day masterpiece using a simple sci fi premise and building a mystery as frightening as it is captivating. The film also proves that even sci fi movies dont need ridiculous budgets or special effects to achieve greatness. Contact. Audiences that saw Robert Zemeckis Contact in 1. The film did well at the box office but, though Oscar buzzed, he didnt grant the film any major nominations. Maybe viewers accustomed to bloated space operas couldnt stomach the films subtlety. Based on the novel by astronomer Carl Sagan, Contact follows a brilliant scientist obsessed with discovering alien life. She discovers an ominous radio signal containing instructions to a mega machine and the world goes nuts. What does the machine doWhat do the aliens want And how can humanity adapt to knowing that it is not alone in the universe Contact takes a realistic examination of the current state of civilization, and asks stark questions about how man would react to contact with aliens. In a post War on Terror world, certain developments that seemed ridiculous in 1. Thoughtful, endlessly provocative, and utterly captivating, Contact deserves mention alongside classics like 2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a seminal sci fi masterpiece. Dark City. Viewers who have taken in Alex Proyas Dark City know that the Wachowskis, along with just about anyone else in Hollywood to make a sci fi blockbuster in the past 2. Little seen in its day but widely influential, Dark City deserves the same reverence and classification as Blade Runner. Both are overlooked masterpieces of sci fi cinema. Also, like Blade Runner, Dark City takes the neo noir approach to sci fi. In a city that never sees a sunrise, a group of bald, mysterious men wander about drugging its inhabitants and manipulating their memories. Just what do they want, and how does an anxious scientist played by Kiefer Sutherland in a marvelous, pre 2. Dark City raises questions about how memories affect our emotions and how our minds create our own reality. The incredible art direction of the movie, employing lots of scarlet lips, black leather trench coats, fedoras, and strange clockwork machines should have won an Oscar and gets rehashed just about everywhere today. For a stroke of moviemaking brilliance, take a visit to Dark City. AI Artificial Intelligence. This long in development collaboration between Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick hit theatres in 2. Boasting a remarkable cast, lead by Hayley Joel Osment, it left audiences frustrated and confused. Beautifully photographed and with two great performances by Osment and Jude Law, it offered a look into a technologically advanced world populated by companion robots. But what, if anything, was it trying to say about all of itAudiences puzzled over the last 1. Osments robot protagonist David interacting with even more highly advanced robots, and scenes in which his human mother is cloned. After fifteen years of debate, the perhaps overly subtle meaning has started to become clear. The robots of the future are programmed to love humans, which have long gone extinct. David actually knew humans, and therefore is a kind of cybernetic messiah to these sentient toasters. Taken in that way, the film examines the responsibility of humanity to its own creations. The movie might have been an instant classic upon its release had Spielberg focused more on the emotional attachments of humans to machines. The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature Downloading there. But the director made a more unusual choice instead. Does that subtlety, or the focus on the plight of, well, A. I., make the film any less of a classic No way 9. The Dark Crystal. Now heres a film that is totally, utterly, unique. The Dark Crystal served as Muppet mastermind Jim Hensons attempt to branch off into more serious and fantastic filmmaking. The movie tells its story with just puppets no humans ever appear on the screen. The puppetry, and the choice to tell a dark sci fifantasy story put off audiences who were expecting the whimsy and slapstick of the Muppets. After doing moderate box office numbers and receiving mixed critical response, The Dark Crystal fell by the wayside. But the movie wouldnt go away. Best Sci Fi TV Shows of the 2. Century, Ranked Indie. WireFireflySnap StillsREXShutterstock. Blending elements of science fiction and its most antithetical genre long before Westworld came along though not before the 1. Michael Crichton film, Firefly also forged a multicultural future from familiar American standards and East Asian cultures. The inclusive vision of tomorrow, where English and Mandarin Chinese are two commonly accepted languages is slightly undercut by the fact that there werent really any Asian actors in the show, but we suspect hope this troubling oversight wouldve been fixed if Joss Whedons cult classic series had lasted more than 1. Overall, Firefly has aged well because most of its themes were ahead of their time. From the existential theorizing to Nathan Fillions leading man status to the two main genres driving it all, Whedons space opera soared without relying on massive space battles. The Civil War had already been fought and lost. These are the survivors, and we get to know them very well, hoping against hope their drive to succeed continues to heal their souls. Wed follow these browncoats anywhere, especially with Captain Reynolds leading the charge. Read More. News Film TV Awards Toolkit More SEARCH Search The Best One Season Wonder TV Shows That Never Got Renewed. LostLostTouchstoneABCREXShutterstock. One of the most dissected pieces of entertainment of the Internet age, its almost impossible to talk about Lost as a single unit. Over its six seasons, the show went through countless iterations of what it was attempting to answer and what its characters sought from this strange island world. As a concise bit of ensemble storytelling, perhaps the show was more successful as a generations spanning multi timeline story than it was when things ventured into the realm of the metaphysical. But throughout all of its time on the air, the show was a fascinating Rorschach test for an emerging kind of audience. Lost was a fundamental text for an era of direct fan interaction, doing just as much to shape the expectations of genre fandom as it did to shape the stories of Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest. Anchored by a impressive family tree of writers and directors that helped bring the story to life, not to mention the dynamite Hall of Fame TV score by Michael Giacchino, it was the kind of show that found success on a number of creative levels. The ambition, scope and breathless, week to week obsession may never be equaled on network television. Doctor WhoWhile technically Doctor Who has existed for more than 5. Whovians can admit that the modern series that began with Christopher Eccleston in 2. Who of the past.  The genius of Doctor Who is that it takes all of the best sci fi tropes time travel, aliens, technology and the vast, unknowable aspects of space and compresses it into one person. The Doctor is arguably one of the most intriguing and complex characters to be ever created, and not just because he or now she has been played by multiple actors over the years. Adventurous, frightening, heartwarming, hilarious all of these aspects of the Doctor are also words that could describe the show. At its core, Doctor Who is a rollicking adventure tale for us mere humans who identify with the Doctors earthling companions. Its about exploring the furthest reaches of the imagination, no TARDIS necessary. Battlestar GalacticaBattlestar Galactica proved that even with the galaxy as a canvas, stories in space can still be as compelling as a group of people trapped on a ship. That restrictive framework put the focus on character, forming a solid base for a story that could react to real world developments unfolding as the audience was watching. A vehicle for social commentary as well as a mystifying series about the nature of identity, loyalty and optimism, it proved there was plenty of life in a premise that some thought was decades past its relevancy. Its also a shining example of what stories can do when they consider the value of institutions, law and the standards we hold to each other under extraordinary circumstances. Its certainly not the first piece of sci fi to use robots as a way to understand the finer points of humanity, but on the TV side, it might just be the best. Black MirrorEndemol UKFew pieces of entertainment can pull off the tricky balance between being a time capsule of the moment and also existing in a timeless world all its own. But thats exactly what Charlie Brookers twisted view of a not too distant future has done in each installment, regardless of its network home. Traversing the gap between worlds of the real and worlds of the mind, Black Mirror is a show that draws bleakness from human obsession and, in its most recent episodes, has even found a room for a glimmer of hope. For a tech centric view of the future, it also has plenty to say about how we remember whats most important to us. There are memories you can relive, ones that you can live inside, and the ones that you literally cant escape from. As a series built on a number of alternate realities, it finds the scariest truths of how we live our lives in the present. Stay on top of the latest film and TV news Sign up for our film and TV email newsletter here.