Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010) is a difficult film to categorize. It partakes of various genres, blurring the distinctions between them. Yes, it is science fiction but it does not contain many of the ingredients associated with that genre. It can also be identified as a kind of heist film, and there are shades of film noir as well, not only because of the heist motifs but also due to its character types. It can also be described as psychological thriller, telling the story of one man's attempt to flee his past and regain access to his family, of his coming to terms with the death...

12 Monkeys (1995) was a commercial and critical success, but is Terry Gilliam's least understood film. This 'Constellation' examines it in the context of post-apocalypse movies and with an eye to the film's major themes, including mental illness, conspiracy theories, the impossibility of human closeness, and the nature of reality.

For many, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE3K) is not so much a movie as a religious experience. On its release in 1977, CE3K virtually redefined the science fiction film, shifting it away from spaceships, laser guns, and bug-eyed monsters into a modified form of science fiction that John Wyndham once called 'logical fantasy'. What would it be like if extra-terrestrials made contact with people on Earth? How would it feel? Like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Steven Spielberg's primary inspiration, CE3K is concerned with mankind's evolution towards the stars,...

Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner is now widely recognized as an undisputed masterwork of science fiction cinema and one of the most influential films released in the last forty years. Yet on its original release it was both a critical and commercial failure, criticized for its perceived prioritizing of style over content and a narrative that did not deliver the anticipated high octane action that its star casting and large budget normally promise. How did a film that was removed from circulation within a month of its premiere come to mean so much to modern audiences and provide...