How do some of the most revered sci-fi classics hold up against Neil’s judgement? You think you know how Neil will rank movies like Interstellar? Armageddon? Think again.
Neil deGrasse Tyson takes us through a catalog of some of the most important sci-fi films of the last century, ranks them against each other. Who will end up on the top of the pile? There’s only one way to find out…
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0:00 – Introduction
0:09 – The Black Hole
0:58 – The Matrix
2:27 – The Martian
4:09 – The Blob
5:55 – Contact
6:48 – Interstellar
9:19 – Gravity
12:54 – Back to the Future
14:39 – A Quiet Earth
16:48 – Arrival
19:44 – The Europa Report
21:10 – Armageddon
22:20 – Close Encounters of The Third Kind
24:54 – Deep Impact
26:02 – The Day the Earth Stood Still
26:55 – Independence Day
28:58 – The Terminator
32:03 – 2001: A Space Odyssey
33:25 – Closing Notes
One of my favorites is Cosmos. Did you ever see this Neal? So inspiring.
I just realized E.T. can apparently use both ramps and stairs. lol. His spaceship had a ramp, but he obviously climbed up and down the house stairs even though it wasn't shown.
RIP Bill Paxton.
Didn't they liquefy the bodies of the dead to feed the vine-grown humans? It's been a while since I've watched The Matrix, so please pardon me if I'm remembering incorrectly.
Bladerunner???
No alien? No andromeda strain?
Personally the martian is a s tier
Is you liberal? You supported these WOKEs?
Maybe the baby is a step up transformer
Neil graded The Arrival and Armageddon the same? (C) Just… no. Armageddon is barely watchable.
clearly most scientifically accurate media is "media"
You should include the movie "Don't Look Up", I'd love to know your opinion on that one.
Sooooo Primer is the best time travel movie
Ex-machina , apollo 13, promothesus, life , Elysium, children of men , looper ,edge of tomorrow, blade runner 1,2 , Don't look up , lucy , passengers , inception.If you haven't watched these may be you are missing a lot..
The One thing I like most in Armageddon is the Song, I don't want to miss a thing.
Dude. Open contact in 2026 or so, maybe sooner. You'll remember this comment.
❤2001 the space Odyssey,classic ones are weirdos of all time
This old gal really enjoyed seeing 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' getting some love. It is still one of my favorite movies.
I’m gonna have to severely disagree with the hoverboard comment. Imagine riding downhill and not having to worry about the death pebble. Genius
Where is the best of them all – Blade Runner?
Neil, ur list is a joke
Arrival had Amy Adams. "Nuff said.
My list
1- 2001 space Odyssey
2- Solaris
3- 0n the silver globe
4- arrival
5- martian
Too bad “mars attacks” wasn’t on this
Interstellar is an S, get over yourself
Valerian, John Carter, Star wars, Total recall.. independence day, Last Starfighter, Tron. Some of my Faves Sci Fi maybe starship troopers
NDT has become insufferable.
Nothing mataches Interstellar when it comes to space moveis
Just for Lucy
2001: A Space Odyssey, no questions, no explanations, just ‘The Masterpiece from the Master’❤
One thing that always bothered me about the whole premise of The Matrix: if the machines were so intelligent, why bother with juicing humans? Why not create fusion energy? Or build superstructures to capture energy from the sun? 4
I'm surprised John Carpenter's "The Thing" wasn't mentioned for having a unique alien that infects and controls the host. Not to mention, it had more practical effects than nearly any other movie.
It’s criminal that he doesn’t talk about district 9
8:30 The point of interstellar wasn’t to just to find a way to help humanity survive…it was to explore and understand the black hole and how the universe works and other dimensions…this is shown as John Brand dies and tells Murph that he was lying and he wanted humanity to go to another galaxy.
Shocked by Arrival rank but good point about the Cryptographer. Also, you didn´t include Stalker nor Solaris from Tarkovsky, Did you watched them? Good ranking though
Gravity: atronaut joy – riding 'space chair '
Anyone ( Bullock ) with a manual can fly a spaceship.
Neil's statements on Close Encounters not being inclusive during the end sequence is factually incorrect. Most of the scientists present are white men but there were some black scientists (not just one token black scientist, but enough to easily notice they're there in the foreground) and there were some female scientists. There were even black astronauts and a female astronaut bording the alien ship before it took off. I appreciate and respect and completely agree with his concern about representation in the scientific community, that is important, but he's being cavalier criticizing Close Encounters for this.
I'd love to see more of this, there are tons of scifi films Neil could rate, other than the most known ones. I mostly agree with his ratings. And I liked how his ratings were not only based on science, like say Armageddon is a cult film, even if completely silly, so yeah it deserved some good grades. I also liked how he rated Europa report as a decent film, it was really surprisingly good, for those who haven't seen it, despite the low budget. CE3 and Arrival should be a grade above I think, they were good films, Ind day should be bottom tier, it's not a WotW copy, the latter is a decent film. The Martian, maybe a grade or 2 below… other than that, I pretty much agree with his critique and ratings, very accurate for a scientist, I'd like to see more if he wanted to.
Ive pribably heard this from an incorrect aource but.im pretty sure earth plants (potatoes) wouldnt be abke to grow in the martian soil, due to ph levels abd general composition of the soil. And if they did geow like that, it isnt a good idea for him to be neae the soil wothout a suit on
I’ve got two physics based problems with NdGT’s comments.
1. He said the physics in The Martian were very well executed. I agree with one HUGE, GLARING exception: when Matt Damon’s character cannot be reached in space to be rescued, there are a bunch of “rocket principle” errors. Fuel (eg., compressed gas) does not give a body distance, it gives a body “delta v”, a change in velocity. Simply wait a little longer & you travel further (subject to the gravitational change in direction caused by the nearby planet, Mars). Most egregious is the concept that you could punch a hole in a glove & let out a few grams of air (at a low velocity, because the suit is inflated to the low, low pressure of about 5 psia of pure O2, in order to maintain flexibility for the astronaut) could push a perhaps 400 Kilogram (?) person plus pressure suit “like iron man”. Momentum is far, far, FAR from conserved in this scene. Big mistake.
Second, when talking about the movie “Gravity”, Neil says _it should have been called ‘zero Gravity’ because there is no gravity in a LEO spaceship. This is WRONG. Take the ISS as an example. At the height of the ISS (about 260 miles altitude), there is about 90% of the gravity as there is on the surface of the earth. Specifically, with a 3960 mile radius of the earth, there is (3960)^2/ (3960+260)^2 = 88.06% of “earth normal” gravity. They are weightless, NOT because there is no gravity. They are weightless because they are in free fall, just like a skydiver at much, much lower altitude.
A technicality, but, like Vulcans, NdGT seems to “embrace technicalities”.
Mr. Nobody, District 9, shall be among top tier
Any time I want to make my patients vomit, I don't use Ipecac. I put on "Armageddon"
You’ve got to watch Tenet. I enjoyed it but I had to watch it 3 times to fully understand it.
missed District 9 – great movie
Where is Don’t Look Up with Decaprio?
What about mission to Mars
Need to hear his take on Life with Jake Gyllenhaal '
Where would Look Up land on this list?
What about "KOI MIL GAYA "
Blade Runner??? Gattaca???? Please Mr Tyson… Really???
Armageddon, 20, 30 minutes into the show and you could figure out exactly all the rest of the show. i still watched, shame on me.
Neil Literally does not know what a woman is.. why should we trust him on anything??
The humans in The Matrix were supposed to be used by the machines for processing power, using their brains as CPUs. The studio said that this would be too complicated for the audience to understand, so humans were used as batteries instead…
I say nerd as a nerd and with love, but have you ever noticed all nerds have those hyper bendy thumbs?
no ALiens or alien movie? or the Thing with Kurt Russel? invasion of the body snatchers ? not Even Mars attacks? I think they must be to scary for him
I wonder what your take is on District 9…I know it's heavy on the action but still the science fiction aspect of alien refugees is there…
Great list, but no love for Ripley or Deckert?
Capricorn one was probably the most realistic lol
Doesnt it say that the food fed to humans in the matrix is synthesized from the ones that die..
umm the movie "Them", how about the black lagoon? , how about it came from outer space?
Solaris? Sunrise?
You mentioned War of the Worlds, but not the movie with Tom Cruise !? It's really cool !
Does nuclear bomb testing interest you at all? The best documentary I’ve ever seen is “Radio Bikini,” which only uses genuine radio & video from that time period. It’s absolutely fascinating. I hope you take the time to watch it!
Very Interesting ratings. In fact, kind of coincides with my own personal rankings. Would love to watch a ranking of sci-fi web/tele series.
I saw 2001 at 4 years old when it came out. Blew my tiny mind and made me a life-long space enthusiast and science nerd ever since.
If Neil thinks Back to the Future is the best time travel movie, I suspect he has not had the opportunity to see Primer.
2001: A Space Odyssey, the best ever.
B for interstellar and the nitpick for the movie is crazy.
lol, the ONLY time i saw THAT movie WAS on Lsd, lol
For the Interstellar one, I feel like it was very well explained that there was never actually a plan to move humans from earth out. Thats like the whole twist of the movie.
Gravity next to Interstellar is a tragedy. Martian should be S tier. Interstellar A or S tier. Gravity C or B tier.
hey neil poop fart ass my firend jerm want know how aaas
neil, do you think it is POSSIBLE to fly with rotors in the martian atmosphere.?
do you think water can be liquid or solid in vacuum/near-vacuum.?
do think a substance that is denser than water can become a 'frozen' layer On Top Of water.?
do you acknowledge the fact that the strength of the earth's geomagnetic field is reducing.?
if so, how would YOU expect that to affect Everything on earth, including the global climate.?
Part 2 please.
The only reason THE BLOB has an alien that is so conceptually different than humans (no mouth) wasn't, I don't think, because of any great creative minds understanding that in the fastness of the universe, the chances of aliens turning out to look exactly like us is absurd, but using jello was the cheapest effect in what was a very low budget "B" picture on double features and Drive-Ins — I'm just sayin. But if you want to see a time travel movie that will blow your mind, find a film called PRIMER, written and directed by Shane Carruth; it is the ultimate time-travel film. And while BACK TO THE FUTURE is a top Hollywood film with a multimilion dollar production budget so it has to be lots of things for a broad swath of movie goers, it's primarily a fun story with a mixture of comedy and fantasy. PRIMER on the other hand is a dead serious story that's laser focused on time travel, its implications and consequences and the very multi-layered nature of time travel itself. If you haven't see it, I say it is a must for anyone interested in that subject matter. But be warned, time travel as a concept is VERY complicated and so is this film. Many of my friends could not follow it and not for nuthin as we say here in Brooklyn, that is the way it should be — see it more than once if it befuddles you the first time since once you "get it," it is very satisfying and you will than yourself for sticking with it.
Interstellar was NEVER about relocating the planet’s population. That was the lie Brand sold his team. It was about plan B (panspermia).
14:41: I saw it! Lol. And I was surprised at how the filmmaker and performers played it out! It’s a rare gem of an 80s indie film!
This helps pick movie nights movie
The Black Hole has the weird problem of being influenced by every kind of contemporary sci-fi. There's attention to detail paid by the requirements of actual space travel a la 2001 or Alien, but then you also have raygun battles with robots a la Bick Rogers or Flash Gordon, and then you have reilgious allegory a la Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica. Like it starts by acknowledging gravity fields and oxygen leaks, and by the mid point of the film they're rescuing Kate from evil robots by shooting them with lasers, and then by the third act they're running around on the outside of the ship without spacesuits and dodging giant fireballs that are supposed to be meteors wrecking everything. It's going in so many directions it'll short out your brain.
Interstellar being below The Martian AND beside Gravity IS HELL OF A CRIME! C'mon
The back to the future disrespect was on called for!
I LOVED Europa Report.
Ha, thanks Neil, just got 3 suggestions of films I haven't seen yet, cheers!
You missed one of the "GREATEST" SCIFY movies, 1959 The Forbidden Planet, most people today still won't understand that movie
What about 1972 Solaris? In my opinion one of the greats!
Contact is an underrated film
Also in the Mike TV scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is that same monkey scene in space odyssey!
Terminator, only things covered with living tissue can go through fact. So when Neil says no living tissue can go through, why then does he say the hair and fingernails are not living tissue?
Starman 1984