10 Most Influential Sci-Fi Films Of All Time

10. Metropolis (1927)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%

During the 1920s, science fiction in the US was almost exclusively based on existing literature, though across the Atlantic in Europe the genre was being used as a means for social commentary and predicting the future of the human race.

The most important European filmmaker of the day was German expressionist Fritz Lang, a pioneer of sci-fi whose film Metropolis was the most expensive ever released when it came out in 1927. The movie is set in a futuristic city where the rich live in luxury in their high rises and the poor work their fingers to the bone below, praying for the coming of a saviour who can mediate their differences and put an end to class division.

Universally accepted as one of the greatest achievements of the silent film era, Lang's movie also introduced the idea of a dystopian society to cinema, a staple of the sci-fi genre as we know it today. Metropolis was also the first film to make use of autonomous robots as well as elaborate, futuristic sets.

Lang is also credited with influencing NASA after he became the first filmmaker to introduce a countdown-to-launch sequence in 1929's The Woman in the Moon.