8. “Back to the Future Part II” (1989)
Robert Zemeckis and Michael J. Fox‘s first ride in the Delorean wasn’t quite all wide-eyed idealism, but the first sequel becomes downright bleak once bully Biff Tannen takes his own ride in the time-hopping coupé, gets hold of a sports almanac and uses it to amass enough wealth to become a Donald Trump-like figure in 2015. And yet Marty McFly’s manic attempts to contain Biff’s effect on his timeline end up playing like screwball comedy thanks in no small part to the work of Fox and Christopher Lloyd. Zemeckis dances through the film’s maze of colliding timelines and characters with a rare aplomb and high energy, and his strangely accurate comic vision of 2015 was so inescapable when that year finally rolled around we had to put this movie on the shelf for twelve months. This sequel doesn’t have the clear emotional center of the original film, but it’s an entertaining clockwork.
7. “The Road Warrior” (1981)
George Miller‘s post-apocalyptic series emerges from a tradition of ’70s science fiction that uses bare materials to create futuristic visions of our world, and “Mad Max 2,” aka “The Road Warrior,” pushes the low-key aesthetic of Miller’s 1979 “Mad Max” to dusty, fetishistic extremes. Miller’s sci-fi, for all its visualization, hits closer to home than most, built on the concept of humanity scrambling to survive among the ruins of society and technology, desperate to preserve old tools even in the face of their total obsolescence. Everyone in this movie would be better off if they just left the cars and gasoline behind, but few are willing to cut ties with the old world. That’s good for us, as “The Road Warrior” races off as one of the best piston-churning chase stories ever put to film.
6. “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan” (1982)
“Star Trek: The Motion Picture” revived Gene Roddenberry‘s pioneering science fiction TV series for live-action a decade after it went off the air, but its quiet, hardcore science fiction tone wasn’t quite the barn-burning big-screen entertainment in vogue after “Jaws” and “Star Wars.” To complete the revival, “The Wrath of Khan” rethought ‘Trek’ as, essentially, a submarine movie, with a rousing James Horner score to propel the action. Director Nicholas Meyer pushed the script and performances just to the edge of camp, and using the framework of a revenge plot built around minor TV baddie Khan (Ricardo Montalban, chewing his scenery in toothy, deliberate bites) explored the relationship between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock with gruff sensitivity. Other ‘Trek’ films are more successful in some mission aspects, but no other has the raw ability to rouse an audience like ‘Khan.’