This page will look at our Top 100 Science Fiction Movies….statistically speaking. Since 2011 we have been collecting movie stats and ranking movies. For this page we researched 100s and 100s of science fiction movies from 1902 to 2016.
During that research we found box office grosses, critic reviews, audience voting and award recognition on 625 science fiction movies. The following table lists the Top 100 Science Fiction Movies that have the BEST COMBINATION OF BOX OFFICE, REVIEWS AND AWARDS.
Top 100 Science Fiction Movies rules: (1) Superhero, King Kong and Godzilla movies would not be included in the study…..why? To us they fall into the fantasy category versus the science fiction category. (2) To be included in the page the movie’s box office grosses needed to be known. (3) The movie needed to have played in North American theaters. To help find all of these movies two books were a big help: Chris Barsanti’s The Sci-Fi Movie Guide and Tom DeMichael’s Modern Sci-Fi Films FAQ. If your favorite science fiction movie did not make the Top 200 then there is a good chance you can find it on our massive 625 Science Fiction Movies page.
Top 100 Science Fiction Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Top 100 Science Fiction movies by stars of the movie
- Sort Top 100 Science Fiction movies by adjusted domestic box office using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Top 100 Science Fiction movies by domestic box office rank
- Sort Top 100 Science Fiction movies by how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort Top 100 Science Fiction movies by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each movie received.
- Sort Top 100 Science Fiction movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Didn’t see your favorite science fiction movie? Want more science fiction movie stats? Then our 640 Science Fiction Movie Page is just for you.
Just saw Valderan and the 9000 Planets. Visually stunning but ultimately disappointing. It was impossible not to compare it to The Fifth Element.
Hey Helakoski…..thanks for the mini-review of Luc’ Besson’s latest movie. When I saw the trailer I thought the same thing…..this is a relative of Fifth Element. Sorry it was disappointing…which is exactly what the producers are feeling at it’s first domestic weekend of release.
I have always enjoyed The Returner. I saw it in theaters many years ago. But it has all elements of science fiction. Aliens, spaceships, time travel. A fun movie it should at least make your list.
Hey Norm….I saw that movie many years ago….you are right it should make the list. I will have to see if it earned any money at the box office. Thanks for the suggestion.
Children on Men is way too low. It is one of the greatest science fiction movies period! And here are the reasons why. (1) It deals with timely with the issues. (2) Has an effective religious element but without being heavy handed about it. (3) The long take where Julianne Moore has her problem is great filmmaking. (4) The zika virus now makes this a very scary movie. Who knows it could already be happening. Despite my complaining I am glad Children of Men made your Top 200.
Hey Frawly……you have made some great points on Children of Men……I loved that movie but it was not a huge draw at the box office which in my statistical rankings hurt the movie. If you sort by critic audience ratings Children of Men jumps all the way to 23rd place. Thanks for checking out our science fiction movie page.
Trite.
Hey Edward…..gotta disagree with you on that….but I still respect your thoughts….thanks for checking out our Sci-Fi page.
Adjusted for inflation the very first Star Wars 1977 is still the sci-fi movie to beat in the US, even the mega success of the recent Star Wars The Force Awakens couldn’t match it. Spielberg’s ET was the number one movie of all time in 1982, but when you start counting tickets instead of dollars it’s a different story.
Least successful on the chart is Moon with just 5 dollars, Bruce? Only one person saw that? Oh sorry, 5 million dollars, okay that’s pretty low. Moon was critically acclaimed and directed by David Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones. His new film Warcraft bombed in the US but was very successful in China.
Hey Steve….Star Wars is king….looking at tickets sold….only Gone With The Wind has sold more. As big as Star Wars 7 was….it opened in theaters in December 2015…..and 8 months later….and it has already had it’s box office run….been released to home entertainment….and is already considered an old movie compared to the newest DVD releases. Meanwhile…Star Wars 8 months later was still bringing in lots of people to the cinema. And more people went to the cinema back then than today.
I loved Moon….if you sort by critic audience Moon jumps all the way to 33rd place (using the massive table on the other page)….I think being a smash in China will get more Warcrafts made…the China movie market will pass the USA market very soon….if it has not already done it.
As always….greatly appreciate your input.
Any star wars film is insulting crap.
Hey Edward…well I agree with you about the second trilogy….but the first trilogy is a classic….and the third trilogy is starting off promising….thanks for checking out our Sci-fi page.
1 Until the mid sixties cinema ticket prices inflated at a much faster rate than general prices but the difference gradually narrowed until in 1977/78 there was little difference.
2 This means that a 1950s film for example will obtain a much lower adjusted gross by the general inflation calculation method than under ticket price inflation calculations; but whichever method s is used for a 1977 or 1978 film the result will be s almost the same.
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958)
Cogerson Actual Gross/$25.1 mil
Cogerson Adjusted Gross by Ticket Price Inflation Calculation Method/$352.7 mil
Purchasing Power of 25.1 today using general inflation calculation method/$205.85 mil
Difference $146.85 mil
GREASE (1978)
Cogerson Actual Gross/$185.98 mil
Cogerson Adjusted Gross by Ticket Price Inflation Calculation Method/$670.0 mil
Purchasing Power of $185.98 mil today under general inflation calculation method/$676.08
Difference $6.08 mil
3 Different All time Box Office Champions tables adjusted for Inflation have used both methods of calculation and where the general inflation method is used the shorter tables tend to show fewer pre-1960 films than would be the case under ticket price inflation.
4 Anyway given the enormous amount of work that went into producing these sci-fi pages ti is great to see them trending aso well.
BOB
Hey Bob….thanks for sharing those very interesting stats on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Grease….that is a huge difference for Cat. Originally we used the inflation number but after studying 1000s of grosses….we decided the ticket sold equation was more accurate.
That does not mean we are 100% sure our way is right. Heck a year ago we were still using a multiplier of 2.2 for every year for every movie when looking at rental and gross numbers.
Yep glad that both sci fi pages are doing well…hopefully in time many people will discover those pages….as well as Bob’s Tiger Theater one….as always thanks for sharing your movie thoughts.
BRUCE:
1 Many movie statisticians regard as set in stone an average domestic rental/grosses ratio of 2.18 though nobody that I’ve seen has ever quoted a rentals/grosses ratio for foreign earnings of movies; and indeed I gather that ratio contracts with foreign markets can at times markedly differ from those with domestic cinemas.
2 In fact I remember reading in US Newsweek that to raise capital for the massive budget over-run of Apocalypse Now Coppola had to sell off in advance to foreign markets a large % of whatever overseas earnings he would get from that movie.
3 Certainly the Ticket Inflation Calculation Method is THE BEST one available to us for comparing the popularity of different films over the years with each other. However as you rightly emphasise when you are looking back at markets that existed as long ago as the early decades of the last century you are in a “best guess” game.
4 One drawback that statisticians highlight with the Ticket Inflation Calculation Method is
that it is based on average ticket prices whereas I can well remember epics like The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben Hur (1959) being marketed at much higher than average prices because that hurt my pocket severely as I had very little money in those days !
5 The consequence of course in using average prices for your multiple is you could be using a higher multiple than the film’s precise ticket price warrants and therefore albeit in good faith be exaggerating the effects of inflation on its actual gross, a proportion of that inflation having already been inadvertently built into the ticket prices at the time.
6 Given such uncertainties I feel that it says a lot for you that when you realised that you were being over-presumptuous about the 2.2 ratio you altered course whereas many others would have dogmatically stuck with that figure rather than put in the hard revision work that you have done.
Hey Bob.
1. Well I used to be in the group…that felt 2.18 was the best multiplier…..until I saw the light….lol.
2. Back in the 1940s and 1950s….the average I had was a movie earned 62.5% from North America and 37.5% from the rest of the world. With the growth of China and other countries….I imagine those numbers are getting close to reversing themselves. After seeing some of the documentaires on Apocalypse Now…I can easily see Coppola doing that with foreign rights.
3. I agree…..all of the numbers and all of the websites are in the “best guess”
4. Yep movies like Ben-Hur and 10 Commandments….make figuring out the average movie ticket price very difficult. I think another factor that could have influenced box office reporting would be theater owners skimming from the ticket sales….without modern technology I imagine studios had to take the word of the theater owners….and if times got tough seems an owner would at least be tempted to get a bigger piece of the pie.
5. Good point.
6. Well…..it took awhile before I decided to make the switch….but now that I am more than halfway finished…..I am glad I did….lol.
🙂
1 As he came from another planet Superman is by formal dictionary definition an extra terrestrial and his films would therefore come under the dictionary’s description of the science fiction genre. However we have to respect the need to draw a line somewhere in this massive task.
2 It will take me personally some time to fully analyse the list but my initial impression is that only about five 1950s films in it broke the Cogerson magical domestic $100 million barrier and one of them is the Thing from Another World (1951) which has the distinction of having been directed by Howard Hawks ‘The Thing’ was played by James Arness who later portrayed Matt Dillon in the TV series Gunsmoke which running from 1955-1975 broke longevity records in the 20th Century.
3 In an interview before his death Arness said that it was Duke Wayne whom he had supported in a number of movies (eg Hondo in 1953) who approached the Gunsmoke producers and got him the iconic and lucrative part of Dillon. [Now how the heck did John Wayne breach Bruce’s demarcation line and get into comments about science fiction movies?]
4 I view this page as a valuable reference document that I can dip every time I want stats for many films about whose box office performance I would probably otherwise have remained ignorant. The gross for Them (1954) starring Spencer Tracy lookalike James Whitmore is for example one that immediately interests me. My sincerest thanks Bruce.
BOB
Hey Bob.
1. Wow I responded to this comment last night….and this morning it is gone…..not sure how that happened.
2. You make a good point about Superman being science fiction…..and maybe one day I will add all of those superhero movies to the page.
3. I wish I could have found more classic sci-fi movies….many of the ones I researched either had no box office information or they fell into the classic monster category…Frankenstein, Dracula and such…..maybe one day I will add those to the page too…..Steve feels I can easily reach 1000 movies for this page…. that might happen….but right now I have had enough science fiction research to last me awhile…lol.
4. I guess with Brando not making the page with Superman….you had to get the Wayne in somehow…lol. Actually the connection is not hard to follow. Arness was The Thing…Arness got his first big breaks in some Wayne movies…Big Jim McClain and Island In The Sky…..at one point the producers of Gunsmoke dreamed of Wayne in the role….Arness became famous for that tv role.
5. I think these two pages will give fans of science fiction lots of stuff to read….and shake their heads out….lol. Thanks for the kind kind words. They are greatly appreciated. 🙂