For a Friday with friends, you need a film that doesn't require perfect silence to work. Something engaging enough that it holds attention even in a room with people in it.
The 80s and 90s are where a lot of cinema's DNA was written. Films that set the templates still running today.
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.
The Borg, a relentless race of cyborgs, are on a direct course for Earth. Violating orders to stay away from the battle, Captain Picard and the crew of the newly-commissioned USS Enterprise E pursue the Borg back in time to prevent the invaders from changing Federation history and assimilating the galaxy.
A lone drifter stumbles upon a unique pair of sunglasses that reveal aliens are systematically gaining control of the Earth by masquerading as humans and lulling the public into submission.
Richard Martin buys a gift, a new NDR-114 robot. The product is named Andrew by the youngest of the family's children. "Bicentennial Man" follows the life and times of Andrew, a robot purchased as a household appliance programmed to perform menial tasks. As Andrew begins to experience emotions and creative thought, the Martin family soon discovers they don't have an ordinary robot.
As the president of a trashy TV channel, Max Renn is desperate for new programming to attract viewers. When he happens upon "Videodrome," a TV show dedicated to gratuitous torture and punishment, Max sees a potential hit and broadcasts the show on his channel. However, after his girlfriend auditions for the show and never returns, Max investigates the truth behind Videodrome and discovers that the graphic violence may not be as fake as he thought.
A scientist in a surrealist society kidnaps children to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process.
Great sci-fi asks impossible questions and then sits with them honestly. No easy answers. No tidy resolutions. Just the question, placed carefully in front of you.
While the Saiyan Paragus persuades Vegeta to rule a new planet, King Kai alerts Goku of the South Galaxy's destruction by an unknown Super Saiyan.
After a police chase with an otherworldly being, a New York City cop is recruited as an agent in a top-secret organization established to monitor and police alien activity on Earth: the Men in Black. Agent K and new recruit Agent J find themselves in the middle of a deadly plot by an intergalactic terrorist who has arrived on Earth to assassinate two ambassadors from opposing galaxies.
When two bumbling employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air, the vapors cause the dead to rise again as zombies.
When a huge alien probe enters the galaxy and begins to vaporize Earth's oceans, Kirk and his crew must travel back in time in order to bring back whales and save the planet.
Mr. Money is holding another World Martial Arts Tournament and Mr. Satan invites everyone in the world to join in. Little does he know that Bojack, an ancient villain who has escaped his prison, is competing. Since Goku is currently dead, it is up to Gohan, Vegeta, and Trunks to defeat Bojack and his henchman.
The films that change cinema are rarely the ones trying to. They're usually just trying to be great - and accidentally redrawing the map.
The best sci-fi films feel more relevant with time, not less. The future they imagined turns out to be a map of now.