Arthouse cinema and science fiction can go hand in hand in terms of the messages being conveyed to their audiences. Science Fiction doesn’t need to be big galactic space battles and giant robots fighting aliens, even though those can be pretty cool. And art house films don’t have to be these kinds of pictures that you need to turn your phone off so that you can study what’s in the frame of the shot and what it’s trying to say about the human condition. If anything, these two genres are distant cousins.
The beauty of science fiction and the beauty of what arthouse films can convey in a single shot can almost elevate both genres if blended together. It can be a film about an alien coming to Earth and trying to understand human beings. Or a post-apocalyptic film that can show us the direction society could head in if our current societal affairs don’t straighten out. Arthouse cinema is Science Fiction, and vice versa when it wants to be. They can complement each other and have lasting impacts on an audience.
12 Liquid Sky (1982)
Liquid Sky takes science fiction and puts it into the dinginess of early 1980s New York City. Specifically, the punk music scene in the city at the time. It’s a neon-soaked cult classic full of sex, drugs, and dreamlike imagery, all compliments of its director, Salva Tsukerman. It follows the main character Margaret (Anne Carlisle), a woman who is hellbent on making it in the fast-paced fashion industry of NYC. As her life spirals from drugs, she is abducted by aliens who end up taking hold of her body. A sure-fire trip of a movie ensues.
11 Repo Man (1984)
Universal Pictures
You could argue that Repo Man isn’t necessarily an art-house film. But with its low budget, fast-paced action, and cult-like status, it has garnered a following in the world of obscure movie fans. Most likely due to its commentary on Reaganomics, it’s fair to at least give the film credit for being more than just some 80s flick with Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton. The world of Repo Man is easy to get immersed in. There is a brilliant artistry behind it, compliments of director Alex Cox. The gags in it are crowd-pleasers, like Meat-Flavored Beer. The film has everything from jaded car repossessors to aliens and moves brilliantly at just a tad over 90 minutes in run time.
10 2046 (2004)
Filmmaker Wong Kar Wai gives us a beautifully made science fiction romance film titled 2046. The film follows a science fiction writer in 1960s Hong Kong. A lot of it follows what he is writing, as it is about a train where anyone who gets on it is taken to a mysterious place where they can reignite the memories of the past. Art can imitate life as well, as we learn about the romantic relationships that the writer is involved in, and we, the audience, try to make the connection between his writing and something he has gone through himself. Wong Kar Wai is a masterful filmmaker, and although this film never fully feels sci-fi, the inspirations from the genre are definitely there.
9 Solaris (1972)
Don’t worry, this will not be the only time a film by Andrei Tarkovsky appears on this list. Solaris deals with memories in a science-fiction sort of way. It’s about a psychiatrist who ventures out into space as he investigates the death of a doctor and the mental health of his staff. On a nearby planet, he learns that the water is basically one giant extraterrestrial life form, as it brings out repressed memories of people. The film is based on the 1961 book by Stainslaw Lem and got a remake in 2002 starring George Clooney. But true cinephiles flock to the original version.
8 Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
Groundbreaking stop-motion animation helps this cyberpunk science fiction art film. Tetsuo: The Iron Man is shot on 16mm film and is about a metal fetishist’s curse he puts on the man who runs him over, thus turning the man’s flesh into metal. There are apparent inspirations from David Lynch’s Eraserhead and Cronenberg’s Videodrome. It’s a brilliant blend of body horror and avant-garde filmmaking that never lets up. The film’s low-budget effects never hurt the film; they only enhance it, with its pulse pounding and oddly erotic imagery that disorients audiences, but they can’t help but cheer.
7 Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
2018’s HBO original film Fahrenheit 451 was good but forgotten by most. The original 1966 adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s novel is about a world where all books have been banned and the job of a firefighter is to keep the fires of all reading material at 451 degrees, the temperature at which paper burns. However, he begins to rethink his views and stances on things once he meets a book-loving girl. The film takes place in a somewhat dystopian future, but has commentary on the world of today in terms of censorship. Let’s be honest, with recent events in the world right now with book banning, this film is more of a horror film than anything else now.
6 Brazil (1985)
Brazil is a brilliant science fiction film blended with dark comedy and a bit of social commentary that is directed by the great Terry Gilliam. It is hailed as a film that you can line up with George Orwell’s 1984 and one of the best movies of the 1980s. It stars Jonathan Pryce and is about a daydreaming man who finds himself caught in the middle of a world governed by a troubling bureaucracy. There is a lot being said in Brazil about hyper-surveillance of the people that make up a society and capitalism.
5 eXistenZ (1999)
If you thought David Cronenberg’s run was over after the early 1990s, you are wrong. eXistneZ is a brilliant body horror/sci-fi film that focuses on the world of video games. When a game developer (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and a businessman (Jude Law) go on the run together, she plants a pod with the game eXistenZ inside of him, and the two go on a reality-bending experience. This film was Cronenberg’s first official script since Videodrome, which explains a lot about media consumption and body horror themes in the film as it fuses both human anatomy and technology.
4 Under the Skin (2013)
Jonathan Glazer’s attempt at science fiction is brilliantly done in his film Under the Skin. Starring Scarlett Johansson as a woman whose body is taken over by an alien. She lures men into her van, seduces them, and then sends them into what looks like another dimension where they dissolve into nothing. There is a big mirror being held up to the human race in this film. The film explores sexism, sexual assault, environmental decay, and classism, just to name a few. We see a major theme of self-identity as Johansen’s character has an actual relationship with someone and what that does to the self. The brilliance of this movie is how simple-minded the alien seems. There is nothing abstract about it, really; it’s the human race that jars the being with all our complexities.
3 A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Banned in several countries upon its release. A Clockwork Orange is one of the most controversial films of all time about a young punk named Alex (Malcolm McDowell) who, with his gang, performs atrocious acts of violence and sexual assault. Once imprisoned, he becomes subject to experiments to modify his behavior. Once released, he becomes a victim to the world. The film takes place in the not too distant future for 1971 London standards and deals with themes such as whether evil is a necessity in life and whether freedom of choice and order are important things in society. It’s one of Stanley Kubrick’s most shocking films that walks its character down a potential redemptive path but leaves things open to interpretation in terms of how society deems people redeemed.
2 Stalker (1979)
Stalker continues to find new audiences decade after decade. Andrei Tarkovsky’s film is about a man, Stalker, who guides two other men, one a writer and the other a professor, into a place called the Zone. Once there, it is believed that the laws of nature don’t apply. The men search for the place called Room where one’s innermost dreams and desires can be fulfilled. The Zone looks like any sort of valley landscape with tall, uncut grass and rivers that run through it. There’s nothing eerie about it, and that’s the point. Be advised, Stalker is two hours and forty minutes of whatever you want to make it. Is it about the bleakness of human nature? Sure. Is it about being free of the Soviet Union? Why not. The feeling that we are all going to die soon and there is nothing we can do about it? Perfect. Regardless, let the film take you somewhere with its interesting pacing and cinematography that loads itself up with a lot of talk about existentialism.
1 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
There has not been a movie like it since its release. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has most likely inspired your favorite filmmaker, as it still holds up today. It is a mind-bending trip through space and time and a battle between man and machine. The only real connection you can make about the film upon your first viewing is that there is a large black structure that links the past and present together. If you want to overanalyze the film, go ahead, but the commonality of most of the opinions of the film is that it is a story about everything. The rise of humanity and where we are going. It is one big character arc for all of us to feel a sense of catharsis from. Oh, and one last thing: watch it on the biggest screen possible.
