Some all-time classics:
The first two
Alien movies, the first two
Terminator movies,
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, and
Brazil were already mentioned.
Predator (1987) is Arnold Schwarzenegger and director John McTiernan (
Die Hard;
The Hunt for Red October) and a tanker-truck of testosterone (also a rare onscreen appearance by writer-director Shane Black). It's sometimes hard to tell how much of this film is tongue-in-cheek, but I think that's part of its charm. Truly a classic of the macho Summer action film genre.
A Paul Verhoeven Mini Film Festival:
Robocop (1987)
Total Recall (1990)
Starship Troopers (1997)
Robocop was Verhoeven's peak, and is a movie that deserves to be on an "all-time best" list. If you're only going to watch one, it must be that one; if you're going to watch more than one, make it the feature. One of the highlights is Kurtwood Smith as Clarence Boddicker, one of my all-time favorite movie villains. I could never take Smith seriously as a suburban dad, he'll always be Clarence Boddicker to me.
A John Carpenter Mini Film Festival
Escape from New York (1981)
The Thing (1982)
They Live (1988)
You could easily do a full, 24-hour John Carpenter Film Festival, but I'm restricting us to his science fiction. Also, Kurt Russell is far-and-away the most underrated movie star of the '80s and early '90s. He's having a little bit of career renaissance lately, and James Gunn cast him in
Guardians of the Galaxy II. If you want to watch just one of these, I'd say
The Thing but other people can surely make cases for either of the other two.
A David Cronenberg Mini Film Festival
Scanners (1981)
Videodrome (1983)
The Fly (1986)
The Fly is the one you want here, if you only want to watch one, but the other two are cult classics and have their devoted fans (I'm a
Videodrome guy, myself). Again, a full-length Cronenberg festival would be totally worth it, imo, and his more recent, less "Cronenbergian"* films are totally worth checking out.
And some recent favorites:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, dir. Michel Gondry.
Children of Men (2006) Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor, dir. Alfonso Cuaron.
WALL-E (2008) A bunch of voice actors I'd never heard of, dir. Andrew Stanton.
Moon (2009) Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, dir. Duncan Jones.
Monsters (2010) Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able, dir. Gareth Edwards.
Her (2013) Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, dir. Spike Jonez.
Guardians of the Galaxy Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, dir. James Gunn.
* If you've seen Cronenberg, you know what I mean by that. If you haven't, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you.
