You folks missed it by a light year!

Top 5:
Aliens
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Flash Gordon (1936)
Independence Day
Enemy Mine

Next 5:
The Andromeda Strain
Batteries Not Included
Men in Black
Aeon Flux
Dr. Who

Honorable Mention:
2001 A Space Odyssey
(throughly dated now, but I had to see it six times before they would give me my engineering degree in 1970)
Captain Video,
(the reason I wanted the above mentioned degree)
Soylent Green
(what I wound up doing with that degree…)

Chris,
I read the list of Sci-fi movies and was truly shocked. Why? First because you missed so many films and second (though minorly) because of a certain lack of specificity, shall we say, in the items on the list [for example: The Matrix- is that the first, second, or third part or do you mean the whole thing as one?]. To answer your last question first- no, there’s no way you’re going to get me to narrow it down to 5!

But as for missing entries, you need look no further than movies in the past year or so. Deja Vu is a fine sci-fi movie and a great action-adventure flick in one neat package. It wraps things up in a shiny box and leaves you thinking that things are typical ‘and they lived happily ever after’. But are they? What happens to our hero in the next 4 days 6 hours etc.??? Does the paradox loop repeat? Does the fact that the heroine is alive at that point mean that we’re looking at a new timeline? At least we know the bad guy didn’t get away with it.

Then you have another recent one- Serenity. It’s MUCH better than the usual B movie fare. It’s done seriously and they don’t spend time dwelling on the technology. Nor do they force technology into the role of hero. That they wisely leave to the humans involved.

Another movie from the past five years is A Sound of Thunder. And Independence Day. And from a decade not far away: Silent Running (with Bruce Dern). And… All the way back to 1957, with a movie named Kronos. Geez, there have been so many good (and not so good) ones. Where, in your list, is the Ultimate Classic film Forbidden Planet???

Your group will have to do a little better roundup if you ever want to get a good list, much less a Top Five!

You forgot Gattica, which would be high on my list. AI would be on mine too, although not in the top 5.

I agree with most of your picks just curious about two of them, The Explorer, what is it about , and operation takedown. If you are refering to movie about Kevin Metnick then how is that sci-fi?

Of course, “Blade Runner”.
“Dark City”
“Brazil”
“Kolchak: The Night Stalker (and) The Night Strangler

I would have to rank “001: A Space Odyssey” and “Alien” in my top five. Many may condiser Alien as a horror movie, but it’s sci-fi creds are stellar.

What? No ‘Close Encounters’ or ‘Alien’?. Or what about ‘2001′ or ‘The Andromeda Strain’ or ‘Silent Running’ or ‘Star Trek II - Thr Wrath of Kahn’. There is at least a halfdozen titles in your list that I’ve never even heard of??????

How can you leave out Forbidden Planet? And This Island Earth? yeah - They were made a long time ago (in the 50’s) - but classics and movies to benchmark all the predecessors against! Oh yeah - 2001? Come on! Maybe you meant great Sci-Fi movies from 1977 forward?? In that case, you left out Close Encounters!

Labyrinth a SciFi movie??? You gotta be kidding!