Science fiction cinema changed a lot throughout the 1970s. It’s a genre that has always used speculative concepts and futuristic settings to explore contemporary social issues, and with the Vietnam War raging on and the Watergate scandal rocking the American political landscape, there was plenty to explore in the ‘70s.
The runaway success of George Lucas’ Star Wars, a movie that everyone including its financiers expected to fail, led to a surge of films set in outer space in the late ‘70s — some good, some bad. Here are the five best and five worst sci-fi movies from the 1970s.
Best: Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)
Steven Spielberg has never been interested in making movies about alien visitors who want to total major U.S. cities and dominate the globe. Instead, his films about humans making with alien life explore deeper concepts than that.
In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg told a story about aliens arriving on Earth as a government conspiracy, which drew parallels to the then-recent Watergate scandal.
Worst: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
When Star Trek boldly went into multiplexes to turn its TV franchise into a movie franchise, it got off to a very rocky start. While the franchise would go on to produce greats like The Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home, its first entry is a total dud.
Like a lot of the worst Star Trek: The Motion Picture feels more like an extended episode than a movie. And it’s not even a good one, with a script hashed together from various conflicting drafts.
Best: Star Wars (1977)
George Lucas’ Star Wars changed everything. Throughout production, studio executives dismissed it as a weird little space movie that would tank at the box office and even tried to bury its theatrical release. But when the film hit theaters, it quickly became still hasn’t worn off.
Hollywood has since copied the timeless artistic genius of Lucas’ futuristic samurai western fairy tale.
Worst: Futureworld (1976)
Michael Crichton adapted his own novel Westworld for the screen in 1973, and while it’s far from perfect, it’s a riveting thriller anchored by Yul Brynner’s portrayal of a relentless killing machine.
Its 1976 sequel, Futureworld, has a plot with little connection to the original, and a fraction of the thoughtfulness and excitement.
Best: Solaris (1972)
Along with Akira Kurosawa and Jean-Luc Godard, Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the untouchable gods of world cinema. Many of Tarkovsky’s greatest works, like Stalker, brought an arthouse sensibility to sci-fi spectacle.
1972’s Solaris is the finest example of this, set on a space station where an important mission is stalled because the scientists onboard are losing their minds. It’s a thought-provoking masterpiece.
Worst: Tentacles (1977)
John Huston is pitted against a mutant octopus in Tentacles, a movie that is completely devoid of suspense, excitement, entertainment, or creativity of any kind.
The production team reportedly plunked down a huge chunk of the budget for a giant octopus prop that sank immediately and got lost at sea on the first day of filming. This behind-the-scenes disaster is a pretty apt metaphor for the movie itself.
Best: Alien (1979)
Upon being hired to direct a haunted house movie set in space that they could use to capitalize on the unprecedented success of Star Wars. The director was expected to phone in a B-movie.
However, he went a few steps further and helmed one of the cornerstones of both sci-fi and horror cinema; a masterclass in pacing and suspense-building. Plus, Sigourney Weaver’s performance as Ellen Ripley was integral in giving rise to female action heroes.
Worst: Zaat (1971)
With a raft of alternative titles including Blood Waters of Dr. Z and Attack of the Swamp Creatures, Zaat is a pillar of schlocky sci-fi cinema. It’s about a mad scientist turning himself into a fish monster, and the result is just as crummy as it sounds.
The film went virtually unnoticed by moviegoers until it was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, which isn’t the best way for your movie to get exposure.
Best: A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Martin Scorsese once said that Stanley Kubrick’s work is so dense and detailed that the depth of one of his films is equal to the depth of 10 of another director’s films. Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ dystopian masterwork A Clockwork Orange exemplifies that brilliantly.
The film is mostly ed for its graphic violence, which got it banned in certain countries, but there’s a lot of thematic substance and social commentary attached to that violence.
Worst: Rollerball (1975)
After Roger Corman provided low-budget thrills with Death Race 2000, United Artists decided to give moviegoers a big-budget alternative starring James Caan. The movie’s social commentary is muddled and banal, while its action is uninspired.
Worldbuilding should never be taken lightly. You’re creating a whole new world and transporting audiences there; you have to really think it through. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with Rollerball.
