A long flight is one of the few times you have no choice but to sit still and actually watch a film - no phone calls, no errands, nothing to do but commit. Use it wisely.
Great sci-fi uses the impossible to illuminate the real. Distance from the present is what allows these films to say things that otherwise couldn't be said.
After hundreds of years doing what he was built for, WALL•E- a robot designed to clean up the earth-discovers a new purpose in life when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL•E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, and races back to space to report to the humans. Meanwhile, WALL•E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets into motion one of the most imaginative adventures ever brought to the big screen.
Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, a place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers, and where the normal laws of physics are victim to frequent anomalies. A stalker guides two men into the Zone, specifically to an area in which deep-seated desires are granted.
Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.
These films use the grammar of science fiction â the technology, the strangeness, the distance â to say things that couldn't be said any other way.
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.
When an unexpected enemy emerges and threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins!
A wealthy entrepreneur secretly creates a theme park featuring living dinosaurs drawn from prehistoric DNA. Before opening day, he invites a team of experts and his two eager grandchildren to experience the park and help calm anxious investors. However, the park is anything but amusing as the security systems go off-line and the dinosaurs escape.
The untold origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron, better known as sworn enemies, but once were friends bonded like brothers who changed the fate of Cybertron forever.
A lonely dog's friendship with his robot companion takes a sad turn when an unexpected malfunction forces him to abandon Robot at the beach. Will Dog ever meet Robot again?
The best hopeful films aren't naive. They acknowledge the difficulty and find the humanity anyway. These do that.
These films earn their place in the canon not through spectacle but through the seriousness with which they treat their ideas. The wonder is a bonus.