Top Ten List: Black and White Science Fiction Movies

Perhaps Afarensis and I are the only two bloggers left on Mother Earth who fret over the decline of the intelligent, scary and wonderfully provocative science fiction movie. Thank heavens for DVDs, is all I can say. Because we can now build our own library of great movies we don't feel so mortified when we see the latest newspaper ad for Dark-Grudge-SawMeLegsOff-Descent-Freddy'sDead Part 5.

In honor of classic science fiction movies I would like to present my top ten favorites that were released in black and white. I am deliberately omitting films like The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing from Another World since everyone who has any knowledge of the history of science fiction cinema knows these are singular and iconic creations.

This list is highly subjective and I invite readers to weigh in with their own favorites. When I have more time (I'm currently getting ready to take a hike in the woods) I'll add links and commentary to these titles.

Are we ready then?

Here are the films, listed in no particular order:

20 Million Miles to Earth

King Kong

The Black Scorpion

Them

X - the Unknown

It Came from Outer Space

The Incredible Shrinking Man

Straightjacket [just kidding - but I do love this movie - Hack! Chop!]

Earth Versus the Flying Saucers

Godzilla King of the Monsters (Gojira in Japanese)

The Leech Woman

Well, there they are. Again, I left out such films as Forbidden Planet and Invasion of the Body Snatchers since everybody knows they are classics - it's the relatively obscure finds in the sea of science fiction movies that make watching them so much fun. They just might make one think a bit, too.

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I'm not sure what all you have excluded as classics, beyond the four titles you mentioned (and anything by George Pal), but I nominate "I Am Legend" and all of the Prof. Quartermass movies.

It strikes me that there are two major subgenres of fifties and sixties B&W science fiction movies that would dominate your list, giant radioactive things, and low budget British SF.

I can't think of my top 10 favorites, but "The Day the Earth Stood Still" comes to mind although it's a little preachy.

I don't remember the movie, but the first movie
Robby the Robot showed up.

More modern I like "The Wrath of Kahn" and "The Empire Strikes Back"

IT! The Terror From Beyond Space is a classic precursor to both the John Carpenter/Dan O'Bannon Dark Star and Alien. It holds up pretty well today.

Any of the early Gozilla movies are good SF (the somewhat later ones are interesting too, but are parhaps too weird to count as SF any longer).

I'd also nominate "The Brain from Planet Arous", if nothing else for the memorable final scene (spoiler ahead) of the heroe's beating a giant papier-mache brain floating on strings into pulp.

How could you forget the real classics:

  • o "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" (complete with saucy Victorian bathing beauties!)
  • o Lang's "Metropolis" (nicely reformated by Otomo)
  • o Another by Lang - "Frau Im Mond" (inspiration for countdowns and space flight movies)
  • o "Things to Come"
  • o Godard's "Alphaville" (Lemmy Caution seems to have inspired Rick Deckart from "Bladerunner")
  • o "Village of the Damned"... scared the living shit out of me when I saw it!!
  • o "The Thing" with James Arness as the veggie monster.
  • o If it can be called a movie: "La Jetee".
    • "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "Creature of the Black Lagoon", "Flash Gordon" episodes, and various Japanese SF movies might be great fun to watch (especially with friends willing to do an "MST3K") but I don't see how one can call them "classics". That's a bit like calling "The Macarena" a classic while ignoring "Prelude and Fugue in E-minor".

To MartinDH:

In my opinion anything by Fritz Lang is iconic and too classic for my highly biased list of little-watched [translation: "B" movies] but extremely entertaining sci-fi flicks.

I completely forgot Village of the Damned, but then again I would call that a horror film, not sci-fi.

Another movie I just love but didn't put on my list is The Monolith Monsters. This is an amazing tale of the most unlikely sci-fi villains ever created - rocks! The Amazon link is below:

http://www.amazon.com/Monolith-Monsters-Movie-John-Sherwood/dp/63030464…

What about Day of the Triffids? It has been so long since I've seen it, I can't remember much about it, but it made an impression, so...

I remember Them from "Creature Double Feature" on Channel 38 in Boston -- that was wicked! Also, I heartily second The Incredible Shrinking Man, which remains a great movie to this day.

While not a B&W movie, the Science Fiction Theater that aired on TV in the mid-1950s had some excellent stories, hosted by Truman Bradley and stories by many including Ivan Tors, responsible for the color SF, "Gog".

By John J. Coupal (not verified) on 14 Sep 2006 #permalink