Translating your favorite novels to screen is a treacherous path. How do you get all those great ideas on to the screen — or maybe you just have to pick a few of the best ones and run with them. However they did it, these films got it right.

Project X is the most amazing blend of lofty science fiction ideas and B-Movie cheesiness you will likely ever see. The film is set in the distant future where a heroic spy broadcasts a cryptic message—“The West will be destroyed in fourteen days”—just moments before his memory is erased. A team of scientists is tasked with bringing him out of a cryogenic freeze … More

VOTE: 
4

A horror thriller that makes you paranoid just by watching it, Invasion of the Body Snatchers turns a normal, busy metropolis into the center of a grotesque alien invasion. Extraterrestrial spores infect the city … More

VOTE: 
3.5

Ingenious and groundbreaking, A Trip to the Moon, takes you on a fanciful journey to the Moon, where a scientific expedition encounters a comically fragile race of nasty aliens. An international blockbuster, it was the Star Wars of … More

VOTE: 
3.7
#21

Solaris 1972

Solaris is a contemplative film that explores the unknown: in deep space and in the human soul. Researchers orbiting a distant planet try to communicate with a mysterious alien presence, and the entity responds by sending … More

VOTE: 
3.7
#20

Akira 1988

Captivating, violent and action-packed, Akira is an epic anime film set in a corrupt Tokyo of the future. Scientists unlock God-like powers in a troubled teenager and, as his growing powers corrupt him, he draws his friends into a battle to save Tokyo from a devastating … More

VOTE: 
4.1

A roller coaster ride of violence and dark humor, A Clockwork Orange, follows a cheerful – and brutal – young hoodlum who steals what he pleases with a smile and a swift punch. In a future England, he and his mates go … More

VOTE: 
3.9

A tense drama about first contact with aliens, The Day the Earth Stood Still tells the story of an alien messenger sent to Earth with a stern warning for the human race. Upon landing, he is shot by a nervous soldier as … More

VOTE: 
4.1