By Joshua Tyler
| Revealed 4 seconds in the past
The horrors of World Battle 2 and the unleashing of atomic vitality had the facet impact of opening up a brand new world of creativity and hypothesis. The consequence was the start of contemporary science fiction, as filmmakers explored the brand new concepts, fears, and scientific prospects that had been all of the sudden thrust upon them. Dwelling within the Nineteen Fifties meant dwelling in a world the place something and all the things felt attainable, and nobody knew what was going to occur subsequent.
When you may assume the restricted particular results of the period would make its motion pictures dated and irrelevant, nothing could possibly be farther from the reality. One of the best of them made essentially the most of what they’d, and the tales these 50s sci-fi motion pictures informed turned the muse for a lot of what you now take as a right while you hit play on a brand new streaming present.
So seize your ray gun and hop in your flying saucer. These are the 9 Nineteen Fifties sci-fi motion pictures which might be nonetheless price watching. We all know as a result of, in contrast to corporate-owned websites making lists like this one, we actually watched all 9 of them!
The Battle of the Worlds (1953)
The world has seen quite a few diversifications of HG Wells’s basic alien invasion novel, each earlier than and after the 1953 launch of director George PAL’s model, but none have executed it higher. Particularly not that Steven Spielberg model. Sorry, Dakota Fanning.
The film takes the e-book and contemporizes it, setting The Battle of the Worlds within the Nineteen Fifties. It additionally modifications the alien ships from Tripod walkers into glossy, floating ships with heat-spitting cobra heads.
The film initially deliberate to make use of tripods, however it will definitely selected one thing extra possible for the period’s restricted sensible results. The change offers this model of the story a novel look, and the film stays as successfully tense and suspenseful now because it ever was.
It’s additionally an ideal window into America of the Nineteen Fifties, full with all of the innocence of weekly sq. dances and the hard-edged dedication introduced again by troopers who’d simply survived a world struggle and now discovered themselves in one other one.
Godzilla (1954)
What began as a Japanese allegory for the horror of World Battle 2 has since grow to be the longest-running film franchise in movie historical past. It was this 1954 Japanese function that began all of it.
Godzilla is named Gojira in his house nation. However no matter you name him, this nuclear fire-breathing Kaiju is the last word sci-fi icon.
Positive, it’s only a man in a lizard go well with stomping on miniatures, however you received’t thoughts. Godzilla is beautifully shot, and the story is the unique template for the entire big creature assault motion pictures you’ve ever seen. You must see it to benefit from the city-stomping motion and to realize a greater understanding of what the world was like as humanity tried to cope with the post-nuclear horrors of World Battle 2.
20,000 Leagues Underneath the Sea (1954)
In 1954, Walt Disney turned Jules Verne’s basic 1869 novel, 20,000 Leagues Underneath the Sea, right into a big-budget, blockbuster film. The film was a success, and nobody else has made a big try to adapt the e-book since.
It starred Kirk Douglas as harpooner Ned Land and certainly one of Hollywood’s basic main males, James Mason, as Captain Nemo. Mixing components of The Mysterious Island, the underappreciated sequel novel, with the unique novel 20,000 Leagues Underneath the Sea, the movie faithfully adapts the groundbreaking story.
Nemo’s tough, nihilistic edges are softened, however Mason does a unbelievable job with the advanced Jules Verne character, who’s each a hero and a villain, relying on who you ask.
The Day the Earth Stood Nonetheless (1951)
Launched throughout the opening years of the Chilly Battle, The Day The Earth Stood Nonetheless explores what occurs when an alien named Klaatu arrives in peace, solely to find a fractured world rife with divisions.
There’s little motion, and the particular results are rudimentary, however Michael Rennie’s efficiency as Klaatu is haunting and establishes a template for aliens Hollywood nonetheless makes use of at present. This basic story has been retold again and again in a method or one other since, however the unique 1951 film stays the very best and serves as a reminder that humanity hasn’t superior as a lot as we’d prefer to assume.
This Island Earth (1955)
This Island Earth was created to raise the Sci-Fi style past the realm of B-movie standing. It didn’t fairly obtain that goal; the movie’s manufacturing is a combined bag, and the story is uneven. Finally, it might go on to be considered a cult basic.
This Island Earth is the story of a scientist who begins receiving mysterious deliveries of fantastical units, accompanied by directions on find out how to assemble them. When he’s completed placing all of it collectively, he discovers he’s created a communication system and in addition accomplished a take a look at. It’s a take a look at to see if he’s worthy of serving to out a race of aliens beneath assault from a malevolent drive.
Crucial and lasting legacy of This Island Earth is the affect it has had on the sci-fi style since then. The film is now considered a cult basic, and its DNA might be clearly present in trendy Sci-Fi hits like Jodie Foster’s Contact and even The Final Starfighter.
By the way, although it wasn’t the film’s intention, The Final Starfighter might simply be seen as a sequel to This Island Earth. Not solely is the premise comparable, however so are the big-headed, white-haried aliens behind the occasions of the movie.
Them! (1954)
Following World Battle 2, atomic-era paranoia was in all places, not simply in Japan but additionally in the US. Nobody was positive what to anticipate subsequent, leading to motion pictures like Godzilla and, in the US, Them!
Them! is a really completely different story from Godzilla, regardless of additionally being about big creatures created by atomic bombs. It operates on a smaller scale, beginning in a distant desert with two cops investigating a sequence of murders.
Them! step by step broadens in scope, however slowly and methodically. It’s the story of big ants, sure, nevertheless it’s additionally the story of competent and courageous individuals doing all the appropriate issues to guard the world from the unattainable.
Godzilla is a catastrophe film, however Them! is a detective story, and it’s price seeing for the performances and well-thought-out writing as a lot as it’s price seeing for the large ants.
Forbidden Planet (1956)
Greater than half a century after its launch, Forbidden Planet nonetheless stands as a monumental pillar within the subject of science fiction cinema. With an unprecedented finances and progressive storytelling strategies, it was really forward of its time.
Directed by Fred M. Wilcox, it stars Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen—sure, that Leslie Nielsen. Forbidden Planet’s sizeable funds had been extensively used for inventive set design, groundbreaking particular results, and its progressive rating.
The movie is notably rooted in Shakespeare’s fantasy, The Tempest, with parts of the plot and character dynamics mirroring the Bard’s timeless play. In Forbidden Planet, the crew of the starship C-57D travels to the distant Altair IV to uncover the destiny of a misplaced expedition, ignoring ominous warnings alongside the best way.
As the one survivors, Dr. Edward Morbius, his daughter Altaira, and their robotic servant Robby, current a thriller that grows extra advanced with the invention of an unseen planetary drive.
Plan 9 from Outer House (1959)
Within the legendary phrases of Jerry Seinfeld, “Only a film?! You don’t perceive. This isn’t Plans 1 via 8 from Outer House, that is Plan 9, that is the one which labored. The worst film ever made!”
Plan 9 From Outer House deserves it’s fame as one of many worst motion pictures ever made. It’s so unhealthy, Johnny Depp made an Oscar successful movie about how horrible its director, Ed Wooden, was at his job.
So why watch it? This isn’t an excellent film checklist; it’s a listing of films price watching, and something this uniquely unhealthy is unquestionably price watching.
Initially titled Grave Robbers from Outer House, this unhealthy film’s plot entails an alien race, and their try to reanimate hordes of just lately deceased people to march into the entire world’s Capitals.
Regardless of its poor high quality and laughably unhealthy particular results, most followers of unhealthy motion pictures cite Plan as probably the greatest unhealthy motion pictures of all time. See the alien craft for your self, and let this movie occur to you.
The Blob (1958)
There have been remakes and sequels since, nevertheless it’s onerous to high the unique. Launched in 1958, the primary model of The Blob, directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr., is legendary for its easy but efficient premise and contribution to the creature function style.
The Blob (1958) begins when a meteorite crashes close to a small city, and an aged man discovers a gelatinous substance connected to it. The blob-like creature rapidly engulfs the previous man, absorbing him and rising in dimension.
An adolescent named Steve Andrews, performed by a really younger Steve McQueen, witnesses the assault however faces skepticism from the authorities when he tries to warn them. Because the Blob continues to develop and eat all the things in its path, it turns into a risk to everybody.
