I agree. Resident Evil is an awesome movie. Oh wait, I guess your friends would want to put that in “Horror”. Oh well.

Stalker

Colossus: The Forbin Project

The forbidden planet

Terminator 1 and 2

Alien and Aliens

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the eighth dimension

Robocop

Westworld

Jurassic Park

Close encounters of the third kind

I may just be crazy but, I do believe piece of epic sci-fi has been overlooked here…

Resident Evil

This has been the only game to movie that has been done well and they just keep going. The success of the movies is not because Milla Jovovich has a body that won’t quite(although I’m not complaining ;)), it’s due the fact the writers and producers recognised the amazing indepth story the games had laid out and only changed it in ways that didn’t take much away from that. Kinda like the book to movies, ya tend to miss out on alot if ya only see the movie. Not so much with this franchise.

Popping in with an obscure movie:

Timecrimes.

It’s foreign to boot!

Dune. Enuf said. But if you need more:
Sunshine
Pitch Black
Chronicles of Riddick
Pandorum
Avatar
Solaris
2010
Deep Impact
2012
Outlander
Alien 1-3
Predator1-2
AvP 1-2
Close encounters of the Third Kind
Tron
The Thing
The 5th Element
The Abyss
The Fountain
Dark City
Event Horizon
12 Monkeys
Altered States
Serenity
Stargate

NOTE: I wanted to comment earlier, but my summer employer has me behind a proxy so I was prohibited from doing so. If this posts, then the being behind a proxy no longer prevents posting, thanks. Anyway, here’s my comment, maybe it’ll help you open your friends mind a bit:

I’m actually not a huge fan of what is traditionally labeled sci fi (or should I say syfy – yuck). I’m lukewarm on the first 3 starwars and hated the last 3, I never liked any of the star trek variations, I think firefly is blase and totally forgettable, and I’ve not seen battlestar galactica.

I think the problem is that everyone tends to think of sci fi as only outer space & time travel movies. Most of which I’m not a big fan of, time travel is hard to do right – 12 monkeys did, as did primer, but most just muck it up – like back to the future, terminator movies, etc.

The problem is sci fi is embedded in tons of movies we might not call science fiction. Like Dr Strangelove, x-men, etc. Some of which use it very poorly – like waterworld or armageddon.

However, there are lots of good ones apart from blade runner & gattaca – like 5th element, planet of the apes (the original of course), brazil, dark city, the abyss, minority report (which wears poorly with time IMO), eternal sunshine, and others. There are family friendly ones like jurassic park, independence day, ET, the incredibles, wall-e; and funny ones like mars attacks

@Ricardo: As I said before – I knew beforehand that she has only seen the prequels. So mentioning it was pointless. :)

@Marcus: Oh wow. That’s a good list – I haven’t seen many of these. Thanks.

I have the Stalker on my hard drive right now, but I’m waiting till I read the Roadside Picnic by Strugatski brothers first. My dad commandeered the book though cause I got the Polish translation. I figured it was a Russian story and Polish is probably closer to Russian – if not in syntax, then in spirit. I just didn’t want to run into translation glitches like in Night Watch.

@copperfish: Oh man! Strange Days was such a good and unappreciated movie. The funniest thing was that I saw it for the first time in like 2001 or something like that. Also, interestingly enough the movie never mentioned Y2K which I guess was not yet on our radar in 95 when it was released.

@icebrain: Shit! I saw altered states when I was a kid. I remember that it freaked me out quite a bit back then, and I didn’t really understand what was going on. I should re-watch it now – I’ll probably get much more out of it. :)

@Jakob: Well… A lot of Anime is like that. I guess the thing about Akira is speculation as to what would happen if a man would suddenly gain superpowers. I is a counterpoint to what we have seen in the Watchmen.

Dr. Manhattan’s powers turned him into a god like being – his brilliant mind, logic and scientific training allowed him to rein in and control all this power and become something more than human.

In Akira the main character is just a teenager and the power that is suddenly bestowed upon him (which is not much unlike the powers of Dr. Mantattan btw) overwhelms him. He uses it reflexively and eventually loses control.

As to why and how this happens – well that is mostly left out. This is not an unheard of tactic in SF.

People keeps mentioning Akira as a good sci-fi movie and I just don’t see what makes good. I agree that the animation and art style is truly great to look at and does create an atmosphere, but there seems to lack an explanation for why the things are happening. Please enlighten me to Akira.

One more vote for Bladerunner, 12 Monkeys and Planet of the Apes. I have also heard good things about Altered States (1980), but never saw it.

Okay maybe some on those list aren’t “worthwhile” but then I’m hard pressed to think of “normal” movies that fit that description.

I know that “gag reflex” well. It happens with books too. Strangely enough fantasy is always an easier sell. But that will get me started on the fact that most mainstream book stores have a Sci-Fi section which is 80% fantasy and 80% of fantasy is rubbish.