Early Science Fiction Films: Wonder, Future Cities and Uneasy Discoveries

Science fiction can begin with a journey into the unknown, an imagined society or an object that refuses to fit what people think they know. Those starting points create different pleasures: wonder, speculation and suspense.

These three films offer an approachable route through those possibilities. They are selected examples, not a complete history or a claim that one movie invented everything that followed.

A Trip to the Moon (1902): the pleasure of the impossible

Georges Méliès turns a lunar expedition into a succession of fantastical sights. The spacecraft landing in the Moon's eye captures the film's invitation: accept the impossible and see what the next scene can make of it. The BFI's film entry identifies its director and 1902 date.

Watch how a scene is arranged for you to take in the action. Instead of judging the film by whether its imagined journey matches real space travel, look for the pleasure of transformation and surprise. It is a useful reminder that science fiction can make a spectacle out of an idea without pretending to be a prediction.

Metropolis (1927): making a society visible

Fritz Lang's Metropolis imagines a future city divided between wealthy inhabitants and workers underground. The Museum of Modern Art's collection record describes the film's built environment, machinery and crowds.

Here the viewing exercise is to read the spaces as part of the argument. Who lives above, who works below and who gets to move between them? Compare the scale of a machine with the people operating it. An imagined city can express a social relationship before anyone explains that relationship in words.

Quatermass and the Pit (1967): the unknown beneath familiar streets

A discovery during work on the London Underground brings Professor Quatermass into an investigation with unsettling implications. This 1967 film was directed by Roy Ward Baker and written by Nigel Kneale, as the BFI credits record confirms. The BFI also includes it in its guide to British science fiction films.

Notice how a familiar place becomes strange as explanations change. The tension comes partly from interpretation: what evidence would persuade someone to abandon a comfortable explanation? It makes an effective contrast with a film that begins in an openly fantastical world.

View the Quatermass and the Pit DVD listing for the edition available in our catalog.

Choose by the kind of experience you want

• For visual invention: start with Méliès and the lunar expedition.
• For an imagined society: choose the architecture and machinery of Metropolis.
• For a mystery that grows more troubling: try Quatermass and the Pit.

For more viewing possibilities, browse our science fiction DVDs. Check each product page for availability and edition details; a film's inclusion in this guide does not establish which versions are currently sold.