Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Sci-Fi Movie Tier List

Which ranking do you disagree with? 🤔

The original Matrix script had the humans being used for cloud computing; it got changed to batteries because the executives thought audiences wouldn’t understand the concept. The directors even explained exactly Neil’s point, but the execs got it their way

The Thing, Alien, Aliens, Event Horizon, Predator, Sunshine, Abyss, Blade Runner…? Cmon Neil, lots of gold left in those hills.

Neo: "Doesn't harvesting human body heat for energy, violate the laws of thermodynamics?" Morpheus: "Where'd you learn about thermodynamics, Neo?" Neo: "In school." Morpheus: "Where'd you go to school, Neo?" Neo: "Oh." Morpheus: "The machines tell elegant lies."

I thought Arrival was a masterpiece because the main plot of the story really isn’t about the aliens, it’s more about life and how time is perceived as being non linear. It got a ton of things right especially on how humanity would react to aliens visiting earth. Just for them to ask humans for help in 3000 years in return knowing they will help because they can see into the future and giving humanity the gift of also seeing into the future by learning their language. No typical Hollywood aliens either, these had no mouth, no ears, no eyes, I feel like that is the best way that extremely advanced aliens from a far away galaxy would really accurately look like. As well as the main character’s story Dr.banks aka Amy Adams acting skills were incredible. Probably my favorite sc-fi movie of all time.

Putting Armageddon and Arrival in the same tier sounds criminal to me!

Arrival comment: They had hundreds or thousands of people involved with alien communication at dozens of sites around the world. We only follow the linguist and physicist. They also had mathematicians and biologists consulting. In the short story, there were hundreds of sites and it implied there were thousands of people involved.

Worth mentioning: Kip Thorne published a peer-reviewed research paper based on the visualisation of the black holes in Interstellar (only major film that can claim such a feat) and several years later got the Nobel Prize for his work on black hole physics.

So glad you pointed out the tether problem in “Gravity.” I remember seeing that scene for the first time and thinking, “Uhhh…Neil’s not gonna be cool with this.”

Interstellar and Gravity being ranked the equally is unsettling

“Anytime people are fighting each other to look through a telescope, that’s a good day for me”😂 Love it!

One of my favorites of the 21st Century is DISTRICT 9 - brilliant first contact tale with enough difference to keep it interesting.

Wasn’t the interstellar robot named TARS?

Putting Arrival on the same tier as Armageddon is WILD.

The force that pulled George Clooney into deep space in Gravity was the script.

A lot of other movies have already been mentioned so I'd like to throw "Logan's Run" and 1960s "The Time Machine" into the pool.

Back to the Future, one of my favorite movies of all time - BUT, you didn't mention the problem that bothered me since I saw it as a kid in the 80s. If the Delorean was to disappear and reappear from the same point on the earth, the rotation of the earth is going to have Marty reappear anywhere on earth relative to its rotation possibly inside of the ground. Then I got even older and realize the expansion of the universe is going to poof them in the middle of space. Great Scott!

As a former cryptographer and current linguist, I disagree with Arrival needing a cryptographer. A cryptographer deciphers code, but there's much more fine nuance to a language than there is to a code. There are a lot of linguistical concepts conveyed in that film that go beyond the science of cryptography.

John Carpenter's The Thing should get an honorable mention for it's alien depiction and the tension between a small group of scientists when it gets loose.

Ranking Interstellar and gravity in the same tier is so criminal 😢 Interstellar is probably the greatest movie of all time