There are no limits when it comes to hard sci-fi. The following movies are proof of the essence of the genre, which allows us to see the inexplicable.

We took a trip through decades of the genre and came up with a list of the most important and best hard science fiction movies of all time. They are the essence and the foundations of the book of sci-fi rules that’s still being written as we, the audience, become much more self-aware of our relationship with technology, the future, and whatever those two will bring.

  • Rolando@lemmy.world
    1·
    11 months ago

    Their list:

     15 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

 14 Interstellar (2014) 

 13 Gattaca (1997) 

 12 Solaris (1972) 

 11 Ex Machina (2015) 

 10 Coherence (2013) 
 
 9 Sunshine (2007)  

 8 Primer (2004) 
 
 7 Stalker (1979) 

 6 Gravity (2013) 

 5 THX 1138 (1971) 
 
 4 Ad Astra (2019) 
 
 3 Contact (1997) 
 
 2 The Martian (2015) 

 1 Blade Runner (1982)

    doesn’t contain Arrival (2016) wtf.

    • Troy@lemmy.ca
      1·
      10 months ago

      Conspicuous in its absence: anything animated, like Ghost in the Shell (1995), which I’d argue is harder than quite a few things on this list.

    • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      Great movie, but I’m not sure it’s considered “hard SF.” There’s no real basis to anchor much of the science in it.

      • toddestan@lemm.ee
        1·
        11 months ago

        I’d say the same thing about “Sunshine” and “Interstellar”.

        Some movies I might consider including, in no particular order:

        • Moon (2009)
        • 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)
        • Silent Running (1972)
      • Rolando@lemmy.world
        0·
        11 months ago

        Both the book and the screenwriting required the invention of a form of alien linguistics which recurs in the plot. The film uses a script designed by the artist Martine Bertrand (wife of the production designer Patrice Vermette), based on scriptwriter Heisserer’s original concept. Computer scientists Stephen and Christopher Wolfram analyzed it to provide the basis for Banks’s work in the film.[32][33] Their works are summarized in a GitHub repository.[34] Three linguists from McGill University were consulted. The sound files for the alien language were created with consultation from Morgan Sonderegger, a phonetics expert. Lisa Travis was consulted for set design during the construction of the scientist’s workplaces. Jessica Coon, a Canada Research Chair in Syntax and Indigenous Languages, was consulted for her linguistics expertise during the review of the script.[35]

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)

        • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          0·
          11 months ago

          If you’re trying to say that the fact that they invented a realistic language for the film makes it hard SF, I think that’s quite a stretch. What’s the basis for

          spoiler

          a language changing a human’s concept of time and allowing them to remember the future

          ?

            • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
              0·
              11 months ago

              I don’t think we’re connecting here. Hard science fiction is science fiction with an emphasis on scientific accuracy or plausibility. It’s sort of a subgenre, and this list is about movies in that subgenre. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t great SF movies outside of that subgenre, but this isn’t about those.

              • mateomaui@reddthat.comEnglish
                1·
                11 months ago

                Although now I have to question the inclusion of Interstellar on this list, because it gets pretty far out there as well, especially at the end.