The 40 most popular 1960s science fiction movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


2001: A Space Odyssey
1968 · 2h 29m · UK
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.


Night of the Living Dead
1968 · 1h 36m · US
A ragtag group barricade themselves in an old Pennsylvania farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls ravaging the Northeast.


Planet of the Apes
1968 · 1h 52m · US
Astronaut Taylor crash lands on a distant planet ruled by apes who use a primitive race of humans for experimentation and sport. Soon Taylor finds himself among the hunted, his life in the hands of a benevolent chimpanzee scientist.


Invasion of Astro-Monster
1965 · 1h 36m · JP
Astronauts Glenn and Fuji investigate Planet X and encounter mysterious aliens known as the Xiliens, who ask Earth's people to help save their world from "Monster Zero". In exchange for borrowing Godzilla and Rodan, the Xiliens offer a cure for cancer. As Glenn investigates, he develops a romance with Miss Namikawa and uncovers the Xilien's true intentions.


Barbarella
1968 · 1h 38m · FR
In the far future, a highly sexual woman is tasked with finding and stopping the evil Durand-Durand. Along the way she encounters various unusual people.


The Time Machine
1960 · 1h 43m · US
A Victorian Englishman travels to the far future and finds that humanity has divided into two hostile species.


Frankenstein Conquers the World
1965 · 1h 30m · JP
During WWII, Germans obtain the immortal heart of Frankenstein's monster and transport it to Japan to prevent it being seized by the Allies. Kept in a Hiroshima laboratory, it is seeming lost when the United States destroys the city with the atomic bomb. Years later a wild boy is discovered wandering the streets of the city alone, born of the immortal heart.


The Last Man on Earth
1964 · 1h 27m · US
When a disease turns all of humanity into the living dead, the last man on earth becomes a reluctant vampire hunter.


Che, OVNI
1968 · 1h 32m · AR
A porteño tango singer is kidnapped by a UFO and taken to Madrid, London and Paris.


Time of Roses
1969 · 1h 51m · FI
In the year 2012 historian Raimo Lappalainen wants to illustrate how life was 50 years earlier. He becomes obsessed with the fate of a 1970s nude model Saara Turunen, and finds a perfect actress to reconstruct her life and death in front of a TV camera. Meanwhile, a strike at a nuclear plant is covered up by the media.


Left-Handed Fate
1966 · 1h 25m · ES
Gim, an attractive advertising model, decides to face her destiny and confront a mysterious serial killer who relentlessly pursues the most beautiful women in a disturbingly empty city.


Mysterious Island
1961 · 1h 41m · UK
During the US Civil War, Union POWs escape in a balloon and end up stranded on a South Pacific island, inhabited by giant plants and animals. They must use their ingenuity to survive the dangers, and to devise a way to return home. Sequel to '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' .


Switchin' Kitten
1961 · 9m · US
Tom becomes fearless when he feels like going into the eerie castle.


King Kong vs. Godzilla
1962 · 1h 37m · JP
The advertising director of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, frustrated with the low ratings of their sponsored TV program, seeks a more sensationalist approach. He orders his staff to Faro Island to capture King Kong for exploitation. As Godzilla re-emerges, a media frenzy generates with Pacific looking to capitalize off of the ultimate battle.


Stay Tuned for Terror
1965 · 1h 25m · AR
A succession of television broadcasts has unexpected and terrifying effects on the minds of viewers.


Seconds
1966 · 1h 47m · US
An unhappy middle-aged banker agrees to a procedure that will fake his death and give him a completely new look and identity; one that comes with its own price.


The Curse of the Fly
1965 · 1h 26m · UK
The son of the inventor of a matter-transporter, which turned him into a monster when he tried to transport himself along with a tiny housefly, continues to pursue his father's experiment, while his own two sons attempt to extricate him, themselves and the family name from further disaster and scandal.


The Power
1968 · 1h 48m · US
One by one members of a special project team are being killed by telekinesis - the ability to move things with the power of the mind alone. The race is on to determine which of the remaining team members is the murderer and to stop them.


Fahrenheit 451
1966 · 1h 53m · UK
In the future, the government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers, known as “firemen,” to perform the necessary book burnings. Fireman Montag begins to question the morality of his vocation…


Hibernatus
1969 · 1h 22m · FR
Hubert de Tartas' life becomes a complete muddle when his wife's grandfather is unearthed after having spent 65 years in frozen hibernation in the polar circle. After being de-frosted, the Hibernating Man believes it is still the beginning of the century. Nothing is spared to keep that illusion alive. At the end of his rope, Hubert blurts out the truth and takes the man from Edwardian times on a crazy spree through an ultramodern Twentieth Century.


Destroy All Monsters
1968 · 1h 29m · JP
At the turn of the century, all of the Earth's monsters have been rounded up and kept safely on Monsterland. Chaos erupts when a race of she-aliens known as the Kilaaks unleash the monsters across the world.


Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
1964 · 1h 33m · JP
After a meteorite unleashes a three-headed beast upon Tokyo, Mothra tries to unite with Godzilla and Rodan to battle the extraterrestrial threat.


Monday Begins on Saturday
1965 · 1h 3m · SU
Set in a fictional town in northern Russia, where highly classified research in magic occurs, the novel is a satire of Soviet scientific research institutes, complete with an inept administration, a dishonest, show-horse professor, and numerous equipment failures. It offers an idealistic view of the scientific work ethic, as reflected in the title which suggests that the scientists' weekends are nonexistent. (Wikipedia)


The Nutty Professor
1963 · 1h 47m · US
A timid, nearsighted chemistry teacher discovers a magical potion that can transform him into a suave and handsome Romeo. The Jekyll and Hyde game works well enough until the concoction starts to wear off at the most embarrassing times.


Village of the Damned
1960 · 1h 17m · UK
In a small English village everyone suddenly falls unconscious. When they awake every woman of child bearing age is pregnant. The resulting children have the same strange blond hair, eyes and a strong connection to each other.


Mothra vs. Godzilla
1964 · 1h 29m · JP
Journalists Ichiro Sakai and Junko cover the wreckage of a typhoon when an enormous egg is found and claimed by greedy entrepreneurs. Mothra's fairies arrive and are aided by the journalists in a plea for its return. As their requests are denied, Godzilla arises near Nagoya and the people of Infant Island must decide if they are willing to answer Japan's own pleas for help.


Alphaville
1965 · 1h 39m · FR
Lemmy Caution is on a mission to eliminate Professor Von Braun, the creator of a malevolent computer that rules the city of Alphaville. Befriended by the scientist’s daughter Natasha, Lemmy must unravel the mysteries of the strictly logical Alpha 60 and teach Natasha the meaning of the word “love.”


The Face of Another
1966 · 2h 2m · JP
A businessman with a disfigured face obtains a lifelike mask from his new doctor, but the mask starts altering his personality and causing him to question his identity.


Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
1966 · 1h 27m · JP
Searching for his brother, Ryota stows away on a boat belonging to a criminal alongside two other teenagers. The group shipwrecks on Letchi island and discover the Infant Island natives have been enslaved by a terrorist organization controlling a crustacean monster. Finding a sleeping Godzilla, they decide to awaken him to defeat the terrorists and liberate the natives.


Mouse Trek
1967 · 7m · US
A cat is made General of an alien planet's army and put in charge of hunting a giant mouse.


Son of Godzilla
1967 · 1h 26m · JP
Reporter Goro Maki stumbles upon scientists conducting weather experiments on Sollgel Island in the South Seas. He discovers the island is inhabited by giant mantis and a woman named Saeko who's been cast away since the death of her father. The pair soon find a helpless infant monster that Godzilla must adopt and learn to raise as one of his own.


Crack in the World
1965 · 1h 36m · US
Dr. Steven Sorenson plans to tap the geothermal energy of the Earth's interior by means of a thermonuclear device detonated deep within the Earth. This experiment causes a crack to form and grow within the Earth's crust, which threatens to split the earth in two if it is not stopped in time.


Quatermass and the Pit
1967 · 1h 37m · UK
A mysterious artifact unearthed below a London Underground station proves to have powerful psychic effects on the people around.


Mission Mars
1968 · 1h 35m · US
Three American astronauts who land on Mars discover the body of a frozen Russian cosmonaut and a mysterious talking orb.


Fantastic Voyage
1966 · 1h 41m · US
In order to save an assassinated scientist, a submarine and its crew are shrunk to microscopic size and injected into his bloodstream.


La Jetée
1962 · 29m · FR
A man confronts his past during an experiment that attempts to find a solution to the problems of a post-apocalyptic world caused by a world war.


All Monsters Attack
1969 · 1h 10m · JP
Ichiro Miki is a child living in the industrial district of Kawasaki, where his parents' constant struggle to make ends meet often leaves the schoolboy alone. Constantly teased by a bully nicknamed Gabara, his only friends are toy consultant Shinpei and fellow classmate Sachiko. Ichiro turns to escapist dreams of Monster Island where he befriends the equally bullied Minilla.


King Kong vs. Godzilla
1963 · 1h 36m · US
When an underhanded pharmaceutical company goes to a remote tropical island to steal King Kong for advertising purposes, they get more than they bargained for when the gigantic ape attacks an unsuspecting village and an enormous octopus.


The Bed Sitting Room
1969 · 1h 31m · UK
In the hazy aftermath of World War III, the fallout from a 'nuclear misunderstanding' is producing strange mutations amongst the survivors, and the noble Lord Fortnum finds himself transforming into a bed sitting room.


Governor
1965 · 25m · PL
Mad scientist Professor Frogg invites an unsuspecting friend into his futuristic mansion. He begins to tell him about plans to control Earth with the help of invaders from another planet.
The 1960s broke the old rules everywhere at once — the French New Wave, the collapse of the Hollywood Production Code, and new waves across Europe and Japan reshaping what a film could show and say.
Science fiction uses the future — or a plausible alternative present — to think through the current moment. It's produced some of cinema's most influential images, and the genre's biggest leaps have usually followed leaps in effects technology.