Which is the best movie genre? Some would say science fiction, and they aren’t wrong. After all, cinema is about creativity, and the productions falling under this genre usually have the most unusual concepts. Regrettably, sci-fi movies tend to be overlooked by the Oscars. To date, Everything Everywhere All At Once is the only sci-fi film to win Best Picture. That’s shocking, considering we live in a world where movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien exist.
The snub could be blamed on the fact that not everyone watches sci-fi, and it’s easy to assume that a great portion of the voting team misses out on the best “fake science” movies every year. Additionally, the Academy tends to ignore blockbuster movies when awarding major trophies, and many sci-fi movies happen to fall under that category. Think of Star Wars, Avatar, and so on. These films only ever get recognized for technical achievements, never for acting or overall quality. But a few words are always better than none. Interestingly, some spectacular films were totally ignored by the Academy, despite receiving widespread praise from both fans and critics.
Here are 10 sci-fi movies that would have won Oscars if the world were a just and fair place.
‘The Terminator’ (1984)
The idea of The Terminator came from a fever dream James Cameron experienced during the release of Piranha II: The Spawning, and so glad are we that the movie got made. In it, a cyborg assassin known as the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is sent from the future to kill a young woman named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whose unborn son is destined to lead humanity in a revolt against sentient machines. Also sent back in time is the soldier, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), whose goal is to protect Sarah.
An Unforgettable Hybrid
Combining sci-fi, action, and slasher elements, The Terminator was a revolutionary film that touched on the ever-so-hot topic of sentient AI before it even became popular. But unlike the people at the Saturn Awards (who awarded it Best Sci-Fi film), Academy members weren’t impressed. The visual effects, cinematography, and sound are all incredible. Thankfully, James Cameron got the recognition he deserved in later years. From Titanic to Avatar, all of his major movies have had big nights at the Oscars.
‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ (1951)
Set during the Cold War’s nuclear arms race, Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still opens with a flying saucer landing in Washington, D.C. Alien visitor Klaatu (Michael Rennie) is quickly shot by aggressive soldiers, but he survives. After studying the human population for a while, he warns Earthlings to abandon their war-loving ways or be annihilated by a union of extraterrestrials determined to preserve peace in the galaxy.
Metaphorical and Technically Superior
The Day the Earth Stood Still was a critique aimed at the Cold War, but its pacifism, immigration, and brotherhood themes are timeless. For decades, moviegoers have been battered by so many stories of aliens attacking Earth, but that never happens here, so the entire film feels refreshing. Nominations for Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, and Best Sound should have come, but none of that happened. Wise would later find glory via West Side Story and The Sound of Music.
‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (1971)
There is a major problem in Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers: San Francisco health inspector Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) discovers that humans are being replaced by alien duplicates; each of them a perfect biological clone of the person they’ve replaced, but lacking empathy and morals. He realizes this only happens when someone goes to sleep, so he tries hard to stay awake while finding a way to stop the aliens.
One of Sutherland’s Greatest Performances
Adapted from The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, this sci-fi gem ambles rather than zips — but it’s a lot of fun and Donald Sutherland is fantastic. Aren’t his facial expressions the best? Whatever view you might have about the political subtext (Communist spies hiding in America), there is no denying that Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a remarkable piece of cinema. Well, no Best Actor nomination came for Sutherland. Neither did it win a Best Adapted Screenplay Award.
‘Stalker’ (1979)
Famous for being reshot in its entirety after being filmed for almost a year in stock that was unusable, Stalker is pure psychedelic fun. The Soviet movie follows an expedition led by a mysterious figure known as the “Stalker” (Alexander Kaidanovsky), who guides two men — a sad writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) and a college professor (Nikolai Grinko) — through a wasteland and into a restricted region known simply as the “Zone”, where there is a room that can grant you your innermost desires.
Greatest Foreign Sci-Fi Movie?
It’s hard not to wonder whether Stalker was only snubbed for political reasons. It relies on long shots and less rapid montage. And, for a ‘70s film, it is extremely good-looking, deserving of a visual-related nomination. There ought to be some recognition for the screenplay by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, too. The script makes Stalker a far more ambiguous and somewhat less sympathetic central character than is the case in the book. This allows both Solonitsyn and Grinko to give unforgettable, nuanced performances. A Best Foreign Film Oscar would have been a great consolation, but that didn’t come either.
‘Ghost in the Shell’ (1995)
Mamoru Oshii’s groundbreaking cyberpunk film, Ghost in the Shell, takes us to a futuristic world where Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg working for Public Security Section 9, is hot on the heels of a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master. During her mission, Motoko fights existential doubts, wondering whether she really has a consciousness or it’s all an illusion.
Unrivalled Technical Aspects
Only three animated films have ever received Best Picture, and this should be in the list. Various filmmakers have cited it as an influence, including the Wachowskis and James Cameron, who described it as “the first truly adult animation film to reach a level of literary and visual excellence.” It also should have won Best Animated Feature, thanks to its clever use of digitally generated animation” (DGA), which combines cel animation, computer graphics (CG), and audio entered as digital data. The manner in which “thermo-optical camouflage” is used is also impressive.
‘Moon’ (2009)
Moon stars Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, an astronaut who has been overseeing a lunar mining base for three years. The harvested helium-3 is meant to cater to Earth’s rising energy needs, but as noble as the job is, Sam is lonely, with only the base’s AI, GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), his only company. Towards the end of his stint, he bumps into someone who looks just like him and realizes he is one of many clones sent to the moon as a way of avoiding human labor costs.
Visually Stunning
Well-acted, The Moon should have been showered with the same kind of affection as The Martian. Rockwell shines, and Kevin Spacey provides stellar support as the voice of the more measured AI system. And, as is always the case with movies set on the moon, the cinematography is something to behold. The people at the BAFTAs were keen enough to see the brilliance and award it Best British Film. The sci-fi flick was also praised by scientists. Employees at NASA’s Space Center Houston were reportedly awed, while the Trends in Cognitive Sciences journal named it one of the most relevant sci-fi productions.
‘The Thing’ (1982)
Based on the 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There?, The Thing centers on a group of American researchers in Antarctica whose nightmares become a reality after encountering the eponymous “Thing”, an extraterrestrial being that assimilates and imitates other organisms. Predictably, paranoia pops up, with each person suspecting the other of being the alien.
Peak Carpenter
In most of John Carpenter’s top films, chaos has always been a regrettable by-product of unfortunate circumstances rather than their raison d’être. Here, it’s the same. No one really provokes the alien. It just shows up. Given the expert manner in which the filmmaker handles all this, he deserved a Best Director nomination. It was also unfair to ignore the magnificent work done by the make-up effects team. Still, The Thing got the biggest award: the appreciation of fans and critics. There have been numerous imitations, yet nothing can ever top this ‘80s gem.
‘Coherence’ (2013)
Coherence begins with a hotchpotch of buddies linking up for dinner the night a comet is predicted to pass over Earth. But as the mega event happens, they start experiencing strange phenomena, including unexplained power outages and the appearance of alternate versions of themselves. It is soon revealed that the comet has caused several realities to overlap. How will the mess be fixed?
A Clever Exploration of the Multiverse Concept
As much as we always talk about the Oscars ignoring blockbuster movies, a discussion also needs to be had about the snubbing of indie gems made on the most shoestring of budgets. Director James Ward Byrkit made the movie for only $50,000, and he ought to have been lauded for coming up with such a masterpiece on limited funds. Perhaps the Academy might have been put off by actors who were all Brykit’s friends and had never stepped into a film class before. But the amateur actors are all so dedicated to their roles, you’ll hardly notice their inexperience.
‘Blade Runner’ (1982)
Ridley Scott and Philip K. Dick imagined what 2019 would look like, and it didn’t look pretty. Blade Runner presents that vision, where bioengineered humanoids known as Replicants caused so many problems that they were banished from Earth. When some of them return, former police officer Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is appointed one of the few “Blade Runners” (agents tasked with hunting down Replicants).
Everyone Was Wrong About It
The nightmare that Scott foresaw wouldn’t really become a horrible reality, but it’s very much a possibility. Blade Runner‘s visuals and thematic complexity make it a movie worth watching again and again. However, critics were initially unimpressed, labeling it incoherent. This explains why the Oscars snubbed it, too. Years later, everyone changed their mind about it and praised it for not only laying the foundation for the cyberpunk genre but also making Hollywood enthusiastic about Philip K. Dick’s books. It’s time to introduce retrospective Oscars, where films that were overlooked in previous years are recognized.
‘Under the Skin’ (2013)
Awed by beauty, every victim in Under the Skin promptly goes home with Scarlett Johansson’s character after meeting her. But they have underestimated their conquest. Known as The Female, she is actually a predatory extraterrestrial who seduces men and harms them by luring them into a surreal void. We are thus treated to some claustrophobically terrifying situations.
A Powerhouse Performance
We can forgive the Academy for ignoring the movie’s many other elements, but Scarlett Johansson deserved Best Actress. In fact, she deserved it more here than she did for Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit. Basically, the same way DiCaprio deserved it more for The Wolf of Wall Street than for The Revenant. Overall, Under the Skin stands out as a thought-provoking assessment of choice, trust, and morality. Create time for it if you’ve never done so.
