Owing to the screen size of your device, you may obtain a better viewing experience by rotating your device a quarter-turn (to get the so-called “panorama” screen view).
Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
Science-fiction & fantasy literature: a critical list with discussions.
You can get a site directory by clicking on the “hamburger” icon () in the upper right of this page.
Or you can search this site with Google (standard Google-search rules apply).
(Be aware that “sponsored” links to other sites will appear atop the actual results.)
Search term(s):
Welcome to the Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works web site!
You have apparently come to this page from a link on a search engine or another site. If this is your first visit here, I much recommend that you take a few minutes to look over the introductory material accessible via the red “Introductory” zone of the Site Menu available from the “hamburger” icon in the upper right of this (and every) page. An understanding of the purposes and principles of organization of this site will, I hope and believe, much augment your experience here, for this page and in general. You can simply click this link to get at the site front page, which, unsurprisingly, is the best place to start. Thank you for visiting.
Why not? While this site is about speculative fiction literature, it would be a shame not to a at least cast a glance over at speculative fiction in other media, whether or not derived from books. This page deals with science-fiction and fantasy movies; I now also have a page on speculative-fiction television shows.
The lists below are in one important way very different from those of authors and books elsewhere on this site. I am a voracious reader, but I am not much of a movie-watcher. For me to make lists of speculative-fiction movies based solely on my experiences of such would be to make an almost absurdly short list—one sure to omit the great majority of literate (if that word can be used of film) movies. Thus, the lists below are suggestions based on my extensive examination of reviews, critiques, and discussions of such films.
I thought of giving tentative ratings, but finally decided that that would be stretching reviews and such too far. Thus, the lists include everything from sure shots to marginal possibles, with no distinction drawn. If you are unfamiliar with a given listed film, you will have to do your own homework to decide if it’s something you might want to see (but read the point made below).
(In the cases where I have actually watched a given film, however, that is so noted in the lists with a * before the title. Obviously, any of those I do expressly recommend.)
One point: movies, unlike books, can appeal visually even if their content is lacking. Avoiding the “eye candy” syndrome takes some will power. An awful lot of reviewers, amateur and professional, seem—especially for SF&F movies, which often have lots of eye candy on display—to let the sexy images blind them to the absence of much meaningful content. Believe me, I have spent many a midnight dreary, pondering, weak and weary, discussions of films wherein the praise boils down to “it’s exciting” or “it’s gorgeous”. (Sources like Film Crit Hulk have been quite helpful in cutting through the Rotten-Tomatoes-Metacritic sludge to meaningful and thoughtful discussions.)
Mind, my criteria for comedic films are somewhat looser than those for dramatic ones: I am more willing to let amusement value contest with depth. But even superficially lightweight comedic films can carry some subtle but real weight, some as biting wit, some as caricatures of reality (or of other genre films); I feel that most or all of the comedic films listed do at least some of that.
I had formerly segregated out foreign-made films, but no longer feel a need to make such a distinction (but have noted the sources of such films). I hope that these lists might point you to some films of value and interest that you might not otherwise be aware of, for not a few of these selections are somewhat obscure. Most or all are available on DVD; I have not tried to research possible streaming sources for any.
Each listed film title is a link to its entry on IMDB (the Internet Movie Database). You can also find a Wikipedia entry for most or all of these—but when using Wikipedia, have a care, because several of these films have titles the same as or quite similar to other films, or even other versions (re-makes) of the same film. Use the year of release (from the IMDB) to help distinguish like-named films.
(The listings within each category are simply alphabetical, excluding leading A, An, The. As noted above, a * signfies a movie I have myself actually seen; the rest are, as discussed above, based on reviews, critiques, and other discussions.)
This site is one of The Owlcroft Company family of web sites. Please click on the link (or the owl) to see a menu of our other diverse user-friendly, helpful sites.
Like all our sites, this one is hosted at the highly regarded Pair Networks, whom we strongly recommend—click the link to learn more. (To get 20% off on hosting fees if you move to Pair, use code pairref-FyXypEEk)
(Note: All Owlcroft systems run on Ubuntu Linux and we heartily recommend it to everyone—click on the link for more information).
) in the upper right of this page.
