Stephen Jones: Ten Best Science Fiction Films and Honorable Mentions
Stephen Jones is an editor of horror anthologies from Pimlico, London. His non-fiction books include The Illustrated Vampire Movie guide and The Illustragted Frankenstein Movie Guide, The Illustrated Werewolf Movie Guide, The Essential Monster Movie Guide, The Art of Horror, and The Art of Horror Movies. His list, which appears on page 499 of The Overlook Film Encyclopdia: Science Fiction, edited by Phil Hardy, The Overlook Press, 1995, is in order of preference. His extensive comments list numerous additional films. Unlike Hardy, he feels that special effects have been a boon to the genre, and only one film from the 1950s makes his top ten. He finds SF films from the 1960s "not particularly inspiring," but mentions three he prefers over "such techno-tedium as Kubrick's 2001 -- A Space Odyssey," preferring the "inherent weirdness" of the mentioned three. The last group he praised for "entertainment value" and "combining fast-paced narrative with state-of-the-art effects."
avg. score: 13 of 23 (55%)
required scores: 1, 7, 12, 15, 18
