4. Flight Of The Navigator (1986)
Seeing Flight Of The Navigator on this list is bound to ruffle a few feathers, but re-watch it yourself and you'll see just how warranted its inclusion really is. This is the story of David Freeman, a 12-year-old boy who knocks himself unconscious playing in the woods near his home in 1978 and awakens to find he's been officially missing for eight years. While NASA officials determine that he must have been abducted by aliens during his blackout, David answers a strange call and boards a hidden spaceship hoping to retrace the steps of his abductors and find a way back to his own time. While this intergalactic adventure seemed immense in scope to its intended audience at the time, a re-watch of Flight Of The Navigator today reveals that, sadly, it flies on autopilot for the majority of the 90 minute runtime. While many remember it with fondness, the truth is that Randal Kleiser's film plays it far too safe throughout. The Spielberg formula is relied upon heavily, though unlike a classic Spielberg film it fails to explore the outermost reaches of its own in-film universe while also ignoring the human element of the story.