From the airтιԍнт Back to the Future to the delightfully dark The Empire Strikes Back, some classic sci-fi movies from the 1980s have aged incredibly well. Due to the cultural differences and shortened attention spans of the past couple of decades, a lot of ‘80s movies have aged poorly — and that includes sci-fi movies. David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune was let down by trying to cram Frank Herbert’s entire opus into one movie, and it looks even more disjointed in light of the perfectly paced two-part adaptation that Denis Villeneuve released in the 2020s.
Tron’s visual effects look dated by today’s standards, Weird Science has a problematic sense of humor, and Howard the Duck’s human-duck love story is just bizarre. But for every ‘80s sci-fi movie that has aged badly, there are plenty that have aged like a fine wine. Movies like The Fly and The Terminator are close to perfect, while the action of Aliens and Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior still put modern blockbuster spectacle to shame. From Blade Runner to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, there are a bunch of timeless sci-fi films from the ‘80s.
10
Predator
On paper, John McTiernan’s Predator might sound like a ridiculous movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger leads a team of commandos deep into the jungle, where they contend with a big-game hunter from another planet who wants to pick them off one by one for sport. The otherworldly tracker has the powers of invisibility and heat vision, and the plot boils down to a one-on-one confrontation between Schwarzenegger and the Predator. It shouldn’t work, but it’s a near-flawless masterpiece of action cinema.
Predator starts off as a typical testosterone-fueled Schwarzenegger action-fest, but it gradually gets stripped down to a primal showdown between man and beast. It’s a surprisingly thoughtful meditation on humankind’s unending battle with the forces of nature. This story is so simple and bare-bones that it transcends the time in which it was made; it could’ve been made this year.
9
The Fly
From Wolf Man to The Substance, David Cronenberg’s body horror masterpiece The Fly continues to influence filmmakers to this day. Jeff Goldblum stars as a scientist who invents a teleportation machine. While he’s testing it out, a housefly gets into the chamber with him and he comes out the other side as a horrifying hybrid of man and fly. The woman he loves, played by Geena Davis, is devastated to watch him slowly turn into a monstrosity she doesn’t recognize.
The Fly is as much a character-driven drama as it is a sci-fi horror movie. Seth Brundle’s transformation into a monster is visually stunning, but it’s also deeply heartbreaking. The emotions of Seth and Ronnie’s tragic love story are timeless, and Chris Walas’ makeup and prosthetic effects still hold up against the horror genre’s very best.
8
The Terminator
James Cameron has been warning people about the dangers of artificial intelligence since the ‘80s, and his anti-A.I. message is sadly still just as relevant today, if not more so. The Terminator stars Linda Hamilton as everywoman Sarah Connor, who is targeted by a ᴅᴇᴀᴅly time-traveling cyborg — played by Arnold Schwarzenegger — who has been sent from a post-apocalyptic future where Sarah’s yet-to-be-born son John is leading the resistance against the machines that took over the world. John’s second-in-command Kyle Reese, played by Michael Biehn, is sent back in time to make sure Sarah isn’t killed before John is born.
While it deals with heavy themes, The Terminator is a riveting cat-and-mouse thriller at its core. Visually and thematically, it’s a tech noir. But narratively, it’s a straightforward slasher with a cybernetic serial killer picking off every Sarah Connor in the phonebook. It’s perfectly paced, and filled with nail-biting tension.
7
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
The Mad Max franchise as audiences know it today was created in George Miller’s Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. After the first movie’s low-budget depiction of a dystopian near-future, Miller used the extra money afforded by the sequel to plunge audiences head-first into a gonzo post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by gas-guzzling warlords. It’s essentially a sci-fi spaghetti western, presenting Max as a lone-wolf antihero rolling from town to town, protecting innocent civilians from ruthless gangs.
The thrilling set-pieces of The Road Warrior solidified Miller as one of the best action directors around (a reputation he still holds to this day). He established his penchant for practical effects and death-defying stunt work with the mind-blowing car chases of Mad Max 2. The Road Warrior is more visceral and exhilarating than most of the action movies getting made today.
6
Blade Runner
Ridley Scott created a breathtaking vision of futuristic Los Angeles in his neo-noir opus Blade Runner. Based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Blade Runner stars Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a grizzled cop tasked with hunting down and destroying all the humanoid androids that have ᴀssimilated into human society. Ironically, as he kills the androids one by one, he gradually loses his own humanity.
Blade Runner has a pretty slow pace, especially by today’s standards, which may be challenging for some modern viewers. But it’s such a mesmerizing cinematic experience that the patient pacing actually works in its favor; it gives its audience plenty of time to soak in the neon-drenched visuals and philosophical themes. In between rain-battered action scenes and stunning snapsH๏τs of the future, Blade Runner begs the timeless question of what it means to be human.
5
Aliens
When James Cameron was hired to write and direct a sequel to Alien, he knew he couldn’t make a horror movie as fiercely effective as the original, so he pivoted to a different genre. Aliens is a high-octane action thriller that multiplies the threat of the xenomorph by the dozen. Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley reluctantly agrees to accompany a band of Colonial Marines to an off-world colony that’s been ravaged by a swarm of xenomorphs, on the off chance that there could be survivors who need help.
Aliens still holds up as one of the most exhilarating action movies ever made. And not only that; it’s one of the most emotionally engaging action movies, too. Ripley’s surrogate mother-daughter relationship with the colony’s only survivor — a young orphan named Newt — ensures that there’s a captivating, heartfelt drama underneath all the sci-fi spectacle.
4
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
After tackling the concept of alien visitors in the abstract in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg explored the topic on a more intimate level in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Henry Thomas stars as 10-year-old Elliott, a lonely child of divorce who discovers a kindred spirit in a friendly, Reese’s Pieces-loving alien who got accidentally left behind on Earth. As Elliott and his siblings try to figure out a way to get E.T. back to his ship, he forms an unbreakable emotional bond with the alien.
Despite its sci-fi conceit, E.T. is one of Spielberg’s most personal films. It’s as much a coming-of-age drama about a kid dealing with loneliness and an absentee father as it is a sci-fi adventure about an alien trying to get back to his home planet. E.T. is just as touching today as it was when it became a box office smash.
3
The Thing
John Carpenter’s reimagining of The Thing from Another World is one of the most masterfully crafted horror movies ever made. In The Thing, Kurt Russell leads a team of scientists at an Arctic outpost. When a shapeshifting alien enтιтy makes its way into the facility and he has no idea how many people have been ᴀssimilated, he and his colleagues quickly become paranoid and start turning on each other.
Although it’s set up as a sci-fi chiller, The Thing has all the components of a whodunit. It has a group of people trapped in an isolated location, gradually getting picked off by an unseen killer, unsure of who they can trust. The Thing proved that Carpenter is a master of suspense — the blood test scene alone demonstrated that — and it’s just as compelling now as it was then.
2
Back To The Future
Movies don’t come much more perfect than Back to the Future. Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s screenplay is waterтιԍнт — every word in the script is either setting something up or paying something off — and Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd make for one of the most compelling on-screen duos in movie history. Fox plays Marty McFly opposite Lloyd as Doc Brown, the inventor of a time machine. When Marty accidentally goes back in time and unwittingly interrupts his parents’ meet-cute, he has to make sure they get together so he has a life to go back to.
The time-travel storyline means that the movie is very much of the ‘80s, and when Marty goes into the past, it’s very much of the ‘50s. But despite featuring the cultural hallmarks of two bygone eras, Back to the Future is a truly timeless movie. It’s rock-solid storytelling full of lovable, relatable characters.
1
The Empire Strikes Back
The first sequel to Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, is still ranked as one of the greatest sequels ever made. It established the trend of sequels taking a darker turn and exploring grimmer storylines and subject matter. Luke Skywalker goes to the swamp planet of Dagobah to train with Yoda as he prepares to confront Darth Vader, and Han Solo and Leia Organa fall in love as they flee from the Imperial fleet.
From Han and Leia’s romantic confession to Vader’s bombshell revelation that he’s Luke’s father, The Empire Strikes Back has some of the most iconic moments in Star Wars history. It’s every bit the fun-filled space adventure that the first one is, but it also reflects the moral murkiness of real life (as Clerks pointed out). Four decades and more than a dozen Disney productions later, the Star Wars saga still hasn’t topped The Empire Strikes Back.
