The greatest science-fiction movies of all time, according to Roger Ebert
There’s an obvious difference between somebody’s favourite movies and those that can be called the greatest ever made, but there’s nonetheless plenty of overlap to be found in the titles Roger Ebert deemed to be the best of the best.
The legendary critic wasn’t merely bowing to the popular consensus, though, because he made it clear numerous times throughout a long and distinguished career that he wasn’t above enjoying terrible films the majority hated with a passion, nor was he averse to decrying the odd classic or two.
Either way, there aren’t many surprises to be found in the features awarded top honours by way of Ebert’s four-star rating, but there are a couple of exceptions. One of the most notable is Alex Proyas’ Dark City, which bombed at the box office and endures as more of a cult favourite than an indisputable great.
Ebert even wrote that it “resembles its great silent predecessor, Metropolis,” which is highly praised indeed when Fritz Lang’s masterpiece is both another of his favourites and one of the most influential sci-fi flicks in cinema history. Robert Zemeckis’ painstakingly accurate Contact is another that may not regularly feature on the majority of all-time lists, but for Ebert, it fully deserved to be there.
No collection of sci-fi’s greatest-ever movies is complete without the likes of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Ridley Scott duo of Blade Runner and Alien, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, George Lucas’ game-changing first instalment in the Star Wars franchise, or Steven Spielberg’s ET the Extra-Terrestrial, all of which are present and accounted for.
For a more existential and heart-wrenching change of pace, Ebert was blown away by Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and he wasn’t one of the many who felt the dissonance between Kubrick and Spielberg’s opposing directorial styles was a hindrance to AI Artificial Intelligence, a film that often feels like the work of two distinct auteurs battling for supremacy, which is exactly what it was.
There aren’t many surprises to be found in Ebert’s four-star sci-fi favourites, then, but there’s a very good reason why so many of them are ironclad masterpieces of the moving image. Whether it’s dripping in sentimentality like ET, exploring the limits of human ambition in 2001, or delivering eye-popping spectacle in Star Wars, each of them has stood the test of time for multiple generations.
Top marks weren’t something Ebert dished out all that often comparable to how many reviews he published over the years, and the fact that only 11 sci-fi movies made the cut underlines not only how infrequently the genre left him blown away but the lasting impact made by every single one that did.
Roger Ebert’s favourite sci-fi movies:
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
- Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
- Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998)
- Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
- Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
- Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
- ET the Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
- Contact (Robert Zemeckis, 1997)
- AI Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
- Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
