Science fiction is usually defined as fiction that is set in the future, or which demonstrates major technological, or environmental change. It is often set in space, or on an alternative version of earth, and might take place in the near or distant future. This definition is necessarily unspecific, because, in fact, sci-fi can be set on Earth, on any other planet, or in the farthest reaches of space. It can be set in the past, present or future.

The sci-fi world created in the movie may be vastly different from our own, or almost exactly the same. It may feature aliens, or robots or cool gadgets. But, then again, maybe not. In fact, there are dozens of sub-genres within the sci-fi category of movies, and that is before you even begin to consider the sci-fi/fantasy hybrid movies. Back in 2007 we presented a broad-strokes list of Top 15 Science Fiction Movies. Here, in 2020, we have tried to define 10 broad categories of science fiction. Maybe your favorite sci-fi film will fit into one of them. And maybe not. Be sure to let us know.

10 Time Travel

Time travel movies have a whole set of their own sub-genres. You can have romantic time travel, (The Time Traveler’s Wife), funny(-ish) time travel, (Hot Tub Time Machine), nostalgic-teen-coming of age time travel, (Back to the Future), and “boy, I wish I was older/younger” movies, where a nondescript Chinese person with a mop/fortune cookie makes their wish come true by means never disclosed.

And, of course, there are the action time travel movies like Terminator, where the time travelers have mastered Traveling Through The Time Portal/Vortex/Gate, but have yet to get out of the kiddie class in How To Beat The Good Guy In A Car Chase.

Sometimes, time-travel is just a convenient plot device to get the writers out of a sticky situation. Avengers Endgame, for example. Cinema goers sat through 21 non-time travel related movies, and then Thanos wiped out half the population of the universe. How do you get out of that one? Well, you could travel back in time, prevent Thanos from collecting some stones, then click your fingers and presto change-o! And if that doesn’t work, you could always call that gal with the laser eyes to thump him (why didn’t they call her earlier? Oh yeah, busy).

Like End Game, many movies quickly gloss over the actual mechanics of time travel. If we attach this MacGuffin to that Flux Capacitor and turn the dial all the way up to 11, that should do it.

The reason for this, of course, is that time travel is impossible. The math on that is also likely to be pretty complicated, and, let’s be honest, dull. The most ‘realistic’ time travel movie, though, is probably Primer, a low budget movie that refused to pander to the non-mathematical geniuses in the audience. It won a Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Festival, and is said to have gained a cult following. Among mathematicians. Enough said. Except that we shouldn’t forget that sometimes math is actually awesome! Proof: Top 10 Coolest Mathematics Results.

9 Steampunk

Steampunk manages to have the best of both worlds. It’s futuristic, but set in the past. So it has lots of crazy gadgets, and really big guns, all powered by steam, and a million shiny cogs. Usually set in the late Victorian era, these movies wear their science lightly, and are more interested in looking cool than being in any way realistic.

Take Wild West West, for instance. Starring Will Smith and Kevin Kline, the movie featured everything you would expect in a western, plus bicycle powered airplanes and giant mechanical spiders. Plus magnets. Lots of magnets. The movie wasn’t great, to be honest, and did win 5 Razzies, including Worst Picture and Worst Original Song, for Smith’s horrible rap-based theme tune.

A better steampunk movie was Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese, the charming story of an orphaned boy who tries to repair his father’s automaton. The film also featured a tribute to Georges Méliès, a pioneer in cinematography, and his 1902 fantasy movie A Trip to the Moon. Which is kinda nice.

If steampunk makes your cogs whir faster, The Mysterious Geographic Explorations Of Jasper Morello is a treat. It may be an animated movie, and a short one, but it has everything a steampunk fan could desire – moody lighting, great costumes, plenty of dirigibles, and fantastical steam-powered machinery. And while we’re on the subject of ancient technology and – well, weird stuff in general, take a look at Top 10 Facts About The Pyramids That Could Prove Advanced Ancient Technology.

8 Generation Ship

One of the lesser known sci-fi sub-genres, Generation Ship is an Interstellar Ark concept, where a large population from Earth journeys to Outer Space in order to find a new home. Although the original passengers will be long dead by the time they make it to their destination, they hope that their children’s children will be able to start over and ruin another planet.

One example of this genre is Pandorum, a 2009 Sci-Fi/Horror movie where 60,000 people flee the dying Earth to make the 123-year trip to a planet with a similar atmosphere. The passengers are supposed to be put into hyper-sleep, awaking every couple of years to take their turn crewing the ship.

But, of course, there are faulty computers, unstable nuclear reactors, space-induced insanity and some kind of monster hiding on the ship, which interrupts their sleep. You get the drift. The rest gets a little silly.

Passengers, starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, had a similar initial premise, and a crazy android barman, played by Michael Sheen, who out-acts them both (not hard, we know). Passengers resists the horror tropes of Pandorum, and, while it does go a little nuts, it opts for a more optimistic resolution.

And what happens to Earth after it has been evacuated? They send a Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth class (or WALL-E) to clean up the mess. And that’s cute too. Now, can movie journey compete with real life, like these 8 Worst Journeys Ever Undertaken?

7 Alien Invasion

The Alien Invasion is a staple of Sci-Fi films, and there are hundreds to choose from. If you enjoy alien invaders coupled with ridiculously jingoistic over-acting you might go for Independence Day. Or if you want something a little more beautiful, you might choose Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim, where gigantic alien reptiles emerge from the sea to battle human-controlled robots. OK, it’s still a little bit silly and a little bit jingoistic, but it is much easier on the eyes.

Not all Alien Invasion movies are action-techno blockbusters, however. If you want an alien invasion movie that is a little more down to earth, you could go for Attack the Block. “What kind of alien would invade some shitty council estate in South London?” “One that’s looking for a fight.” Attack the Block didn’t spend much money on its special effects, but the script is out of this world.

Or, if you prefer the zany angle, you could try Mars Attacks A parody of 1950’s B-movies (it is a Tim Burton movie after all), Mars Attacks wins the award for Best Looking Evil Alien. It has an all-star cast, from Jack Nicholson as the self-serving president, Glen Close as the first lady and Pierce Brosnan as a particularly annoying Brit who ‘interprets’ for the Martians whilst sucking a briar pipe.

He thinks they come in peace. He’s wrong. “Nice Planet. We’ll Take It”. But let’s not be too bleak. After all, the real aliens are actually quite helpful, as evidenced in top 10 Signs That Aliens Could Be Contributing To Our World.

6 Colonization

Sometimes the aliens don’t just want to invade the planet, they want to live on it. That’s when you get Colonization movies. The 1950’s seemed to abound with movies of this sort. The 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers is probably the best-known example. Aliens replicate the bodies of humans, and take their place. But they are unable to simulate human emotions. And so they must be stopped. However, should we wish to colonize another planet, that is perfectly OK.

Christopher Nolan’s, 2014 movie, Interstellar sees mankind, having trashed the eco-system of their own planet, set out to steal someone else’s. When a convenient wormhole opens up, Matthew McConaughey dons a space helmet in search of a planet that will sustain life. No one thinks to wonder whether that planet is already sustaining lifeforms of its own, or how those lifeforms will feel about a mass invasion of creatures who will rape the land and destroy the planet. Presumably they are fine with it. Let’s hope so eh Elon? 10 Things We Know About Elon Musk’s Future Colony On Mars.

5 Human as Slaves

The future is a foreign land, and no one knows what happens there. While humans are the most advanced creature on Earth now, who knows what evolution has in store for us?

Which, of course, is the premise of Planet of the Apes. Charlton Heston plays an astronaut who crash lands on a ‘strange planet’, eerily similar to our own, where
the apes have evolved to be the top dog, as it were, and the humans are slaves/pets/curiosities. The film was a smash-hit, and spawned four sequels, a TV series, an animated series, a successful remake and an even more successful reboot of the entire Ape v Man genre in which the Ape was not only the top dog, but the hero.

While man may have been a slave in the Planet of the Apes, at least he wasn’t a battery. In The Matrix, the Wachowski’s ground-breaking movie in which ‘bullet-time’ became a thing, the function of mankind is even less attractive.

Unless your name is Neo you will be doomed to spend your life asleep in a slimy egg-shaped capsule. And if Neo comes along to rescue you, it gets a whole lot worse. Should’ve taken the blue pill. Just don’t take the black pill . . . 10 Ways The World Could End Today.

4 Utopia

Science fiction isn’t always about people in shiny uniforms and big guns, or devastated wastelands and starving people, created by man’ rampant over consumption. Usually it is, of course, but just occasionally, we have a different sort of future to look forward to. Take Avatar, for instance.

OK, humans have ruined their planet, but there is another one nearby, that is really really nice. It’s air is also poisonous to humans, which is a good thing for the inhabitants of Pandora. But, even if we can’t live there, there must be some way we can monetize it, surely?

The people of Pandora like to live in harmony with nature. They are a gentle race. They are bound to be easy marks. Using technology to create avatars, humans remotely control the avatars to scout the planet to find a rare mineral, with the entirely plausible name of unobtainium.

If you try and focus on the beautiful world of Pandora, you have found Utopia. It can’t last, of course, because people are going to come along any moment to try and muck it up. This, unfortunately, seems to be a recurring theme of Utopian movies.

Whenever there is a beautiful planet, where the sun shines, and nature flourishes, you can expect some jack-booted human to appear at any moment and begin trampling the flowers in order to find oil/treasure/minerals with silly names.

Thankfully, however, there is always one, and occasionally as many as six, people who understand the true riches the planet has to offer, and they are allowed to stay. If the idea of a utopian society warms your heart, prepare to be let down: 10 Failed Attempts To Create Utopian Cities.

3 Dystopia

If Utopia sounds a bit too saccharine for you, you could try dystopia instead. There are way more of those kinds of films. Shot either in a desert, or a deserted shopping mall, dystopian movies show us what the world will be like if we don’t mend our planet-destroying ways. The only problem is that the dystopian movies are way usually more exciting than the Utopian ones.

I mean, sure, Avatar has got flowers and trees and stuff, but Mad Max, for instance, has got armored vehicles. And, despite the apparent fuel shortage, you can drive at whatever speed you want, on the wrong side of the road, and no one will stop you.

In Avatar you have a bow and arrow. In Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, you can fix a flame thrower to the roof of your truck. And by the time you get to Mad Max: Fury Road, you can even have that flame thrower attached to the neck of your guitar.

So what if the shops are empty, the water is poisoned, and the only available food is Soylent Green? (What’s in that, again?) And really who cares if the end of the world is nigh? Flame throwers are cool. If you can’t get enough of the dystopian genre: 10 Sci-Fi Dystopias That Are Everyday Realities Today.

2 First Contact

First contact movies are not really about aliens. They are about people meeting aliens. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, for example, the aliens only appear in the final seconds of the movie. In Contact, Jodie Foster stars as a woman who, perhaps, has an alien encounter, though she might be making it all up.

Arrival, 2016’s blockbuster first contact movie, was also more about people than aliens. The film, which starred Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner (in a movie where he barely overacted at all), was about how we make contact with beings with whom we do not share a common language, or even the building blocks of language. The aliens themselves are a minor feature of the movie. What is more important is the cooperation of governments, or lack of it, and their willingness to try to understand those different from themselves.

Arrival was a commercial and critical success. It was widely considered to be the most intelligent film about aliens ever made, and certainly the best one where the heroes are a physicist and a linguist. There isn’t a single Evil Overlord or Intergalactic laser gun/sword in the entire film; weird. Even the Chinese are heroes! Though maybe that can be explained by Top 10 Things Hollywood Does To Kowtow To The Chinese.

1 Space opera

Nothing to do with singing, space operas are all about grandeur. And scale. Epic stories of adventure, melodrama and romance across the universe. Usually set in deep space or on distant and exotic planets, space operas almost always have good-looking good guys facing an Evil Overlord, who is usually dressed in black. Basically, we are talking Star Wars.

Space operas often come in several installments. Flash Gordon is an early example of the genre. The 1936 serial for the cinema, staring Buster Crabbe, came in 13 episodes, and saw Flash battle Emperor Ming the Merciless. The episodes ran in Saturday morning cinema for years and did marvels with cardboard sets and ropey special effects.

The main characteristic of Space Opera seems to be Noble Quests against Evil Empires. They also feature stirring music, long speeches in which someone explains the plot, and grand, if futile, gestures. In other words, it is just the sort of thing that gets made into a parody movie. Like Space Balls.

Written and directed by Mel Brooks, who also played Yogurt, the pointy-eared alien guru, and Rick Moranis as Black Helmet, a short bobble-headed bad guy, the movie spoofed every space opera movie you ever saw. If you don’t really enjoy the sci-fi bits of a sci-fi movie, this film is for you. And may the Schwartz be with you. If you are interested in more lists about movie effects, check out Top 10 Amazing Movie Sound Effects Made With Animals.

About The Author: Ward Hazell is a freelance writer and travel writer, also currently studying for a PhD in English Literature.

It’s a pretty big deal being first, but it’s an even bigger deal to be the one credited with launching a genre. In our top 10 list for today, we’ll be looking at movies that weren’t necessarily the first of their kind but were, rather, influential enough to standardize industry-genre standards. We’re talking about everything from themes to industry practices. And of course, all of these movies hyped up audiences, producers, and directors enough that their legacies would result in a series of mainstream and cult-status films that we still enjoy today. 

10 Metropolis (1927)

Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic Metropolis remains relevant in the science fiction (sci-fi) genre of futuristic possibilities. While it wasn’t the first sci-fi film, with the short film A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès released in 1902, it was the first feature-length film that transcended filmmaking during its time. 

The film’s futuristic approach included superhighways, large skyscrapers, robots, and underground machines, which set a standard for what sci-fi should involve. It has influenced multiple films and comic book artists following it. For example, the robot-woman in Metropolis inspired Star Wars’ beloved C-3PO droid. The creators of Superman, Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster, loved the film so much they credited Metropolis’ creative futuristic cityscape as the inspiration for Superman’s home. 

Metropolis’ social message and characters are also relatable nearly 100 years later. We’re reminded of the importance of empathy and mediation by exploring how one can have good intentions to help without the right information to create change. The Thin Man character also manipulates information for personal gain – similar to modern social media trolls. It seems this film really did project into the future.

9 Frankenstein (1931)

Sometimes dubbed “The King of All Monsters,” Dr. Frankenstein’s monster is a slightly misunderstood iconic image. 

Unlike most famous Halloween monsters, Frankenstein’s monster originates from an 1818 book by Mary Shelley. The original Frankenstein monster was sensitive and intelligent, only becoming murderous after Dr. Frankenstein refused to create him a companion. 

While the book’s first film adaptation was in 1823, we owe it to Universal Studios for Frankenstein’s explosion of popularity. In 1931, James Whale (“The Invisible Man”) directed Frankenstein with Boris Karloff (“The Mummy”) playing the monster. 

Narratives involving “monsters” with emotions and the relationship of a creator and their “monster” inspired multiple filmmakers years following. For example, the 1987 cult classic RoboCop by Paul Verhoeven (“Hollow Man”) is about a dead police officer turned cyborg whose memories start haunting him. In the 1982 Blade Runner, we see creations rebelling against an uncaring creator. The list of movies influenced by Frankenstein goes on with Edward Scissorhands in 1990 and Upgrade in 2018.

8 Peeping Tom (1960)

When it comes to slasher movies characterized by killers using blades to slash a group of people, Peeping Tom takes the cake. It’s terrifyingly creepy, features themes ahead of its time, and has multiple people dying from a bladed camera tripod. 

While Halloween, released in 1978, was mainstream and helped popularize the slasher genre, it’s far from the first slasher. The 1960 Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock (“Vertigo”) isn’t really slasher enough. It is more akin to a psychological horror drama. 

In Peeping Tom, the cameraman Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Böhm, “Sissi”) closes in on his female victims and films their expressions as they die. Although this film is iconic today and had great camera work and scenes looking more like a 70s creation, it actually ended Michael Powell’s (“Stairway to Heaven”) directing career.

How? Not because it was bad. In fact, even Hitchcock had shots inspired by the film in his sequence of Vertigo. It was because Powell introduced the voyeurism theme to the big screen. Viewers just weren’t ready to accept his showcasing of a taboo but human trait: the curiosity of watching others’ lives.

7 Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Since George A. Romero’s (“Monkey Shines”) feature debut of Night of the Living Dead (NOTLD) in 1968, horror movies were never the same again. Why? Because it introduced a new kind of monster and triggered a whole new subgenre of horror known as zombie films.

From the 1974 Let Sleeping Corpses Lie to The Walking Dead TV series and Resident Evil game and film, NOTLD has influenced entertainment for decades. People’s reactions to these nearly unstoppable flesh-eating monsters are also part of what makes NOTLD so interesting, inspiring, and scary. 

Let’s not forget, the film represents more than just zombies by being one of the first independent films to earn success outside a Hollywood studio. It provided an early example of crowdfunding that remains a model for indie horror filmmaking. A revolution so many owe thanks to. 

6 Enter the Dragon (1973)

Yes, other martial arts movies came before Enter the Dragon in 1973. However, the plotlines and dialogue were typically weak and there was no fascination with the lead man. Robert Clouse’s directing (“Dragon”) and Bruce Lee’s (“Fist of Fury”) screen presence and stunning fight sequences changed all this. 

With yowls, shrieks, knuckle-cracking, and inflating torsos, Bruce Lee captured the audience’s attention and launched the popularity of the Kung Fu film globally. Enter the Dragon earned $350 million worldwide, which is over $1 billion today if you consider inflation! This is especially significant since Wuxia, a genre of martial artist adventures, was banned in China for around 50 years until 1980. 

Stars such as Jackie Chan (“Rush Hour”) often talk about their respect for Bruce Lee and how he influenced them in their careers. Lee also gave Chuck Norris’ (“The Expendables 2”) his movie debut in 1972 and Norris has since starred in multiple martial arts films, including Enter the Dragon. It’s hard to imagine action martial art films without these stars!

5 Snow White (1934)

Disney’s Snow White was risky, it was colorful, and it was groundbreaking. In 1934, Walt Disney got up in front of his cohort and proposed creating 80-minutes of animation. The subject was none other than “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” No other studio had attempted it and Hollywood was entirely skeptical of the project.

Disney raised ten times the amount of money than a studio would get for a short; he sent his animators back to school to study motion. The studio brought in live actors, filmed their motion, and painstakingly traced each frame. They even created over 1000 shades of paint for the project.

The entire project went insanely over-budget and so many people doubted its success. But we all know how it turned out: really well.

Because of Snow White, studios ventured out into new territory. We saw an increasing interest in the princess, specifically, the Disney princess. It not only launched a genre, it launched an entire empire!

4 Connery Era James Bond (1960s)

“Shaken, not stirred.” That’s how James Bond likes his cocktails, and essentially what the early James Bond films did to the world of action. They introduced the car chases, the technology, the sexy spy and the even sexier female leads. Not consent, though. Yeah…definitely not that.

Anyway…

After the premiere of Dr. No, action films became the way we worked out political tensions. The bad guys were our Cold War enemies, the inventions our badass technology. The good guy only sort of followed the rules and our villains held us captive with near-ridiculous schemes. 

James Bond made action exciting, and that is a major understatement.

3 The Maltese Falcon (1941)

The Femme Fatales, the curling of cigarette smoke, Humphrey Bogart…it must be a film noir. The Maltese Falcon, released in 1941, is considered by many film enthusiasts to be the film that shaped “film noir.” 

It has the cynical, quick-talking characters, the mood lighting, the um, questionable, moral backbone? There really is no moral accuracy in a film noir. It’s a sultry, messy, black-and-white mystery, with our protagonist stuck between what is right and wrong.

The story of The Maltese Falcon is a simple one. Detective Sam Spade (Bogart) takes on the case of a mysterious woman. Shortly after she enters the scene, Sam’s partner is killed and he winds up on a search for the Maltese Falcon, a much-desired jewel.

But a film noir isn’t always a detective story. Historically, we bundle the occupation with the genre…because of…*wait for it*…The Maltese Falcon, yes, that’s right! The movie gave us the formula, the mood; it shifted the detective movie genre and showed us that the way to Hell is, in fact, paved with good intentions.

2 Broadway Melody (1929)

When it comes to “talkies,” 1929’s Broadway Melody is not the first. We can thank 1927’s culturally relevant and problematic The Jazz Singer for that. But “The Jazz Singer” isn’t the movie we usually equate with big, bawdy show tunes, flashy choreography, and happy-go-lucky endings. 

That belongs to Broadway Melody.

Broadway Melody is chock-full of recognizable music, including “Give My Regards to Broadway” and “Broadway Melody” and “You Were Meant for Me,” both used for the classic musical Singin’ in the Rain. 

The movie musical steers through its plot in true theatrical production fashion, centering around creating a Broadway musical revue. It may not be the most enthralling piece of cinema compared to everything we have access to today, but it certainly celebrates the best and the worst of those early Broadway days. It was the first talking picture to win an Oscar for Best Picture and a huge feat in film innovation with sound.

1 Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)

If you want a deep-cut experimental film that paved the way for any subsequent avant-garde undertaking, 1943’s Meshes of the Afternoon is your movie. The 18-minute short is filled to the brim with symbolism, dream-like imagery spilling into reality, and endless possibilities of interpretation.

Major filmmakers, most notable among them Kenneth Anger (“Lucifer Rising”), Ingmar Bergman (“Wild Strawberries”), and Stanley Kubrick (“The Shining”), site “Meshes” as a direct influence on their works. 

Written by Maya Deren and created with the help of her husband, cinematographer Alexander Hammid, “Meshes” doesn’t just document an incident, it explores the emotions surrounding the incident. And with emotions being what they are, the rise in popularity of Jungian and Freudian critical theory at that time, and the absence of dialogue, it makes for the perfect “trance film.”

Deren is now considered the godmother of avant-garde cinema and leaves behind a legacy of weird, trippy cinematic masterpieces that may be best watched under the influence of existential duress, caffeine-induced insomnia, and hipster-driven interest.

Since the dawn of the silver screen, people have argued over the best movie soundtracks of all time. Now and then, a movie comes out that seems to capture a moment in cultural history. The 1970 movie Woodstock was a pivotal cinematic release for the U.S. hippie movement of the late ’60s. Likewise, 1983’s Style Wars summed up the burgeoning graffiti and B-boy scene found in downtown New York.

But for this list, we have decided to focus on motion pictures over documentaries. Ten feature films that, along with their soundtracks, perfectly evoke an era of music. Here are ten brilliantly realized movies that came to define a genre.

Related: Top 10 Crazy And Unconventional Music Genres

10 Quadrophenia (1979)

The Who is widely considered to have written some of the greatest rock operas of all time. Although Quadrophenia did not hit the silver screen until 1979, it remains the archetypal movie for the British mod movement of the mid-1960s. Pete Townsend and Co. first released Quadrophenia as a studio album in 1973, and six years later, director Franc Roddam brought their vision vividly to life.

Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) was initially in the running for the lead role, but for some reason, the notorious rabble-rouser was unable to get the insurance. In the end, Phil Daniels was cast as the main character. He plays the loveable rogue Jimmy, a hedonistic young Londoner whose scooter gang is often found brawling with local bikers.

Decades after its release, the movie is now viewed as a cult classic.^[1]

9 Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982)

Many directors have attempted to capture the reckless abandon and anarchic energy of the punk era, but none have pulled it off with quite as much panache as Lou Adler. Unlike the makers of Quadrophenia, Adler managed to find room for two Sex Pistols members in his movie. Paul Cook and Steve Jones appear alongside Ray Winston and The Clash’s Paul Simonon as the confrontational British punk band The Looters.

The Looters embark on a tour of the United States, accompanied by aged glam-rock has-beens The Metal Corpses and proto-riot grrrls The Fabulous Stains, who proudly state that they “do not put out.” The soundtrack is almost exclusively made up of tracks by the fictional bands, and it encapsulates the age of glue-sniffing and safety-pin piercings in a way no movie had done before—and none has managed since.^[2]

8 Kidulthood (2006)

The birth of grime music was a key milestone in British cultural history. The genre first emerged around the start of the millennium, and within a few years, it had captured people’s imaginations across the country. It was around that time that the first British hood movies started to appear. Of course, the UK was no stranger to gangster flicks. Directors like Guy Ritchie had brought white-collar London crime to a global audience. But it was Bullet Boy and Kidulthood that captured the reality of poverty in inner-city London and displayed it on the big screen.

Described as “the definitive UK hood movie,” Kidulthood was a pivotal moment for grime music and youth culture. Again, it followed the violence and hedonism of Britain’s free-spirited teens, all based around one day in West London. The movie is renowned for its aggressive, high-energy soundtrack, featuring some of the breakout stars of the nascent grime scene.^[3]

One song in particular, “Pow” by Lethal Bizzle, would inspire such lunacy on the dancefloor that nightclub owners had to ban DJs from playing it.^[4]

7 Super Fly (1972)

If Kidulthood was the era-defining hood movie for mid-2000s London, then Super Fly was the same but for early-1970s New York. The movie came out amidst the Blaxploitation boom that emerged following major victories for the civil rights movement. Gordon Park released one of the first great movies of the period: Shaft, whose theme song is almost as iconic as Super Fly’s. But it was his son, Gordon Parks Jr., who directed this seminal piece of African-American cinema.

Critics praised Super Fly for many reasons: its stylish costumes, its daring cinematography, its nuanced critique of the American dream. But it was Curtis Mayfield who stole the show. His soundtrack combined soul, funk, R&B, and jazz in a way that was completely revolutionary at the time. When the album was reissued in 2002, the sleeve notes read: “In a way, Superfly is the black Sgt. Pepper’s.”^[5]

6 Akira (1988)

Japan is known for its wild, boundary-pushing approach to electronic music. Few captured that experimental spirit quite like the makers of Akira. The story first appeared as manga in 1982, describing a post-apocalyptic Tokyo rife with corrupt politicians and deranged scientists. Director Katsuhiro Otomo brought the tale to the silver screen, creating a cyber-punk masterpiece that is said to have inspired everything from The Matrix to Kanye West.

Otomo entrusted the score to Geinoh Yamashirogumi—an avant-garde music collective with over a hundred members. As well as creating the soundtrack for Akira, the group is known for its pioneering use of non-Western tuning in synthesized music.^[6]

5 La Planète Sauvage/Fantastic Planet (1973)

On the subject of pioneering works of cinema, it would be remiss not to mention La Planète Sauvage. Although it, like Akira, is a cartoon, the movie acts as a vibrant capsule for the psychedelic and prog-rock scene of early-1970s France. The acid-trip visuals created by René Laloux and Roland Topor have been described as something out of a nightmare, drawing comparisons to Salvador Dalí and Terry Gilliam.

One of the movie’s standout features is the jazz-inspired soundtrack of composer Alain Goraguer. The cosmic animation first came out in 1973 and was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix at that year’s Cannes Film Festival.^[7]

4 Human Traffic (1999)

The release of Human Traffic was a pivotal moment in the growth of the British rave scene. Danny Boyle’s 1996 movie Trainspotting had briefly touched on areas of Scotland’s nightclub counter-culture, but Human Traffic was a movie with strobe lights and party drugs seared into its veins.

Director Justin Kerrigan crafted a singular vision, taking the audience from the first few rounds at a traditional English boozer into the drug-addled euphoria of a ’90s nightclub. Pete Tong and Carl Cox, renowned British DJs, both pop up in cameo roles, and the soundtrack acts as a mixtape of some of the era’s defining club classics. Fatboy Slim, Orbit, and Underworld (whose music was also featured in Trainspotting) all make an appearance before the credits roll. Although several similar movies followed in its wake, none quite possessed the same raw energy as Human Traffic. It is a testament to the power of the movie that, over twenty years later, festival-goers are still screaming its catchphrases across the mud-trodden fields of northern England.^[8]

3 Belly (1998)

The 1990s were a golden age for hip-hop cinema. Movies like Menace II Society, Boyz n the Hood, and Juice all narrowly missed out on a place on this list. But when it comes to African-American culture, there is one man whose visuals came to define the decade more than any other: Hype Williams.

Hype Williams is one of the most iconic music video directors of any era, but the ’90s were his golden period. Throughout the decade, his work with the likes of Notorious B.I.G., Missy Elliott, and Busta Rhymes was on heavy rotation across the music channels. Toward the start of the millennium, Williams decided it was time to create a movie about the New York projects that raised him. Enlisting a cast of hip-hop royalty, including Nas and DMX, as the two lead roles, Williams created what is still considered one of the greatest U.S. movies in history. A considerable part of that status comes from the soundtrack, which features some of the most eminent performers of the time, including Jay-Z, D’Angelo, and Ja Rule.^[9]

2 24 Hour Party People (2002)

The British city of Manchester is renowned for its musical heritage. From Joy Division to The Smiths and from The Stone Roses to Oasis, that strange corner of England is thrumming with talent—past and present. For almost twenty years, from the punk movement of the mid-to-late-1970s through to the raves that lit up the early-1990s, music mogul Tony Wilson was at the cutting edge of the Manchester scene.

24 Hour Party People is a fitting homage to Wilson and to the city’s cultural lineage. Every bit as rough-edged and rebellious as the music itself, Michael Winterbottom’s 2002 biopic serves a vibrant depiction of a time and place that is now ingrained in musical history. The soundtrack bristles with some of the era’s best-remembered artists. And while the role of Wilson is taken by Steve Coogan, most famous for playing Alan Partridge, the real Tony Wilson does appear in a brief cameo, as do members of The Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays, and one of the most notorious figures in musical history, Mark E. Smith from The Fall.^[10]

1 The Harder They Come (1972)

It is nigh on impossible to chart the history of reggae without mentioning Jimmy Cliff. The Harder They Come, the movie where he starred and performed the theme tune, was instrumental in bringing Jamaican culture to a global audience. Now a classic of Jamaican cinema, the ’70s gangster flick features Cliff as Ivan Martin, a budding musician who becomes mired in a life of crime.

Most striking of all is the soundtrack. The action of The Harder They Come is backed by a compilation of top-tier talent from the Caribbean island that includes The Maytals, Desmond Dekker, and, of course, Jimmy Cliff himself. Songs like “You Can Get It If You Really Want It” and the title track are still instantly recognizable all these years later.^[11]