Can you guys please list other relatively unknown good science fiction movies of the recent years like Europa Report?
On top of my head, I recommend the following:
The Dark Hour (2006) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0484273/
Eva (2011) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1298554/
Cargo (2009) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381940/
Not a movie but a short -lived series. I though Defying Gravity really his its stride by the 7th or so episode and was extremely disappointed when it was cancelled. Well worth it for sci-fi fans.
share*Event Horizon if u havnt seen it alrdy.
~If the realistic details fails, the movie fails~
A pretty decent one is "The Island" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399201/?ref_=nv_sr_1
shareI've been compiling a list of very good low-budget sf movies from this century, since I'll be doing a panel on that topic at an upcoming sf convention (Arisia in Boston).
Neither The Dark Hour nor Eva are even in Netflix's database, nor do they show up in an Amazon search. The latter definitely looks interesting. Cargo is on my list of movies that don't appear to be good enough to check out (in this lifetime).
Of the movies I've already seen that are relatively obscure, the absolute standouts were Fish Story and Perfect Sense. I also have a perverse soft spot for Kaboom.
I also think that the Russian duology Night Watch / Day Watch is completely underrated, and also sf as much as it is fantasy. But I bet you've seen it ...
And I'm assuming that if you know Primer, you know Upstream Color, which I think is one of the five greatest movies, period. And I'm guessing you know the likes of Another Earth, Sound of My Voice, Timecrimes, and Safety Not Guaranteed.
So here's the chronological list of movies I'm hoping to check out in the next two months:
Thomas in Love
Ditto
Interstate 60
Code 46
Save the Green Planet!
Cypher
District B13
Idiocracy
The Nines
Sleep Dealer
Virtuality
Ink
TiMER
[I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK -- not available]
Robot and Frank [seeing this tomorrow]
Shuffle
The History of Future Folk
Vanishing Waves
Extracted
How I Live Now
The Machine
The Rover
Coherence
The Last Days
I Origins
And then there's a second tier that I may or may not get to (for some of these, marked *, I'm waiting to get a better sense if they're worth my time):
Koi … Mil Gaya
Avalon
The Wild Blue Yonder
Zebraman
*Allegro
Blindness
Fetching Cody
*Before the Fall
Ghost from the Machine
Griff the Invisible
Iron Sky
Womb
The Signal
*I'll Follow You Down
*Young Ones
*Autómata
I'm omitting sf / horror hybrids, BTW.
Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.share
You get a chance to see Automata yet... i liked it, and would rank it among your top tier.
shareHere's the list I created at the end of the project, which ultimately involved me seeing 52 more movies to go with the 37 I had previously seen*. Automata, I'm afraid, is near the bottom, but not because aspects of it weren't excellent.
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls076641370/
I have to go to a lot of message boards and publicize this list, which I think / hope will be helpful to any fan of sci-fi flicks!
*11 of those didn't make that list: 3 weren't good enough, 4 were eliminated when I decided not to include the mid-budget movies**, and 4 weren't sci-fi.
**It's not a long list: The Thirteenth Floor (1999), The Butterfly Effect (2004), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Slither (2006), Cloverfield (2008), Blindness (2008), District 9 (2009), Splice (2010), Never Let Me Go (2010), Limitless (2011), Source Code (2011), Hanna (2011), Looper (2012), The World's End (2013), Her (2013), The Giver (2014), and The Maze Runner (2014). At some point I may do a separate list that includes these and big-budget films.
Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.share
Contact (1997) - just in case you haven't seen it.
The Andromeda Strain (1971 - film) (2008 - miniseries) - While the miniseries is much more recent - and even though I am a big fan of Benjamin Bratt and really, really wanted the miniseries to kick ass if only because I am a big fan of Benjamin Bratt - the fact is that the original 1971 film is the superior product. This is really good, solid, hard sf that has aged particularly well.
Another older film that is still intriguing: Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) - A colossal supercomputer (because, in those days, it was assumed that a supercomputer had to be massive) that develops its own intelligence and "goes rogue" on its masters. Think "War Games" (1983) - also a terrific sf film.
Some of these titles are old, but they are nevertheless really solid, satisfying, worthwhile science fiction. I think, in the 60s, 70s, and even the 80s, science fiction filmmaking was still somewhat ghettoized. It didn't yet aspire to being everything to everyone. As much as I love and appreciate the Star Wars franchise, I believe it has in many ways infantalized the genre. At least in Hollywood.
Science fiction is recovering, but it's taken a while.