The best science fiction movie...

Over on the Linkedin website, in the Movie Addicts discussion group, Michael Gericke posed the question "Science Fiction - What's the best movie?" Although it's not a movie commentary as such, I'd like to re-post my answer here, somewhat amended.

As the notion of "best" here is clearly subjective, it's not really possible to arrive at a definitive answer. That given, my vote would go to Stanley Kubrik's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), probably the most far-reaching SF movie ever in ambition of ideas and brilliance of technique, though its intellectual "coldness" may put many people off.

My second vote would probably go to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) which was hugely influential and which I can watch again and again. As well as the brilliant scenes where replicant androids are tested for emotional responsiveness, I especially love the scene where Deckard, using speech navigation on his home computer, finds a crucial clue in a photo, zooming in beyond all belief.

Here are some other contenders, organised by topic:

• Best noir-inflected: Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville;
• Best robots/androids: Douglas Trumbull's Silent Running, Paul Verhoeven's Robocop, John Cameron's The Terminator / T2, and again Ridley Scott's Blade Runner; Brad Bird's The Iron Giant;
• Best aliens: Robert Wise's The Day The Earth Stood Still, Nicholas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth, Ridley Scott's Alien, Steven Spielberg's E.T,, Close Encounters of the Third Kind;
• Best action-packed: Andy & Larry Wachowski's The Matrix, James Cameron's Aliens and The Terminator / T2, John McTiernan's Predator, Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall, John Carpenter's The Thing;
• Best social satire: Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Stanley Kubrik's A Clockwork Orange;
• Best paranoia: Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris
• Best humour: John Carpenter's Dark Star, Stanley Kubrik's Dr Strangelove;
• Best special effects (at the time): Jack Arnold's The Incredible Shrinking Man, Stanley Kubrik's 2001, Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park; James Cameron's Avatar

N.B. I referred to an excellent book: The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies, John Scalzi (2005)