A dead Detroit cop rebuilt as a machine; Verhoeven's satire wrapped in an action film.
The original, a black-and-white elegy for Hiroshima in the shape of a monster.
A TV executive finds a snuff broadcast and his body starts changing; "long live the new flesh".
Pod people replace a Californian town; the Cold War paranoia film that still works.
An Antarctic base and a shape-shifter; Rob Bottin's effects and the paranoia of the blood test.
Manhattan as a prison and Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken; Carpenter's dystopia of 1997.
Lang's 1927 city of the future: the Maschinenmensch, the workers below and a look every sci-fi film borrowed.
A lonely writer falls in love with an operating system, in a very warm Los Angeles.
The march on the Capitol, and the ending the books did not soften.
Marty and Doc in 1885; a western with a DeLorean pushed by a locomotive.
Ripley cloned two hundred years on, in a Joss Whedon script shot by Jeunet.
A colony ship lands on a paradise planet where David has been busy.
Young scavengers board a derelict station between the first two films, and find what is on it.
Cameron turns Scott's horror into a war film: Ripley, the marines and the queen.
Luke in exile on Ahch-To, and the throne-room fight the sequel trilogy is remembered for.
Fincher's grim debut: Ripley crash-lands on a prison planet with one alien and no weapons.
The victors are sent back in, and the arena is a clock.
How Han met Chewie and won the Falcon from Lando; the Kessel Run, finally shown.
Katniss becomes the face of the rebellion from the bunkers of District 13.
The Skywalker saga closes with Palpatine back and Rey choosing a name.
Katniss volunteers for her sister and enters the arena.
Hoverboards in 2015, an alternate 1985 and a return to the night of the first film.
Anakin becomes Vader on the lava banks of Mustafar.
The Republic gets an army and Anakin gets a wife.
Endor, Jabba's barge and the redemption of Darth Vader.
Podracing, midi-chlorians and the start of the prequel trilogy.
How the Death Star plans were stolen; the saga's best war film.
A boy hides an alien in his bedroom closet in suburban California.
The best of the saga: Hoth, Dagobah, and the line everyone misquotes.
A scavenger, a defecting stormtrooper and the Falcon back in the air.
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