This list was impossible to do. I'm surprised I did it. And I'm sure I'll be flamed not only for the films I didn't include, but for the ones I did. E.T. isn't on the list? No it isn't on the list. Donnie Darko was included?! Yes, it was. If you don't like my list, make your own. And there's no way I could have included every great sci-fi film every made. The list would be closer to fifty instead of ten.

1) Blade Runner: Director's Cut.

This is far and away my favorite science fiction film. I'm a sucker for humanistic sci-fi, and there's an abundance of that here. Harrison Ford is paid to hunt down and kill replicants, sentient robots who have escaped their life of slavery and are seeking their maker to stave off the short life span that he has placed on them. Great performances by Ford, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young (as two replicants). The director's cut is definitely the way to go here. It's actually shorter than the theatrical release, eschewing the unnecessary voice-over and the "happy ending."

2) Donnie Darko.

Great time-travel movie filled with paradoxes and cryptic, unexplained happenings, at turns confusing, refreshing and wholly original. Jake and Maggie Gyllenhall star as brother and sister (what a stretch!), and also stars Drew Barrymore, Jena Malone and Noah Wyle, as well as a great turn by Patrick Swayze as a motivational speaker. I could explain the plot, but it would ruin the film. (If you're interested, Wikipedia has a great point-for-point dissection of the plotline.)

3) The Matrix.

I feel sorry for anyone who hasn't seen this amazing film. (animal, I'm lookin at you, buddy.) One of the best movies--sci-fi or otherwise--of the last ten years. The plot seriously makes you question reality, not so much because it's plausible that we all live in "the matrix" but because we all ARE being lied to about the world we live in, the wool HAS been pulled over our eyes, we are all asleep and it is both suicide and murder not to wake up from it. If we need any sort of reminder of this, think of the events of 9/11. That's what happens when you ignore the world around you. The Matrix taps into the latent paranoia that we all feel, knowing in our hearts that we're being duped on a daily basis. Keanu Reeves is perfect here, his deadpan delivery reaching Zenlike heights; Lawrence Fishburne is sublime as his mentor, wise yet human, who lets his desire to find a savior cloud his judgement to disasterous results; and Joe Pantolioni is spot on as the embodiment of our natural desire to stay complacent and compliant, our inherent drive towards inertia. But the show-stealer has to be Hugo Weaving, playing one of the "agents" whose task it is to ferret out those who've discovered the truth and to put an end to them. His monologue near the end of the film is definitely the highlight, where he likens human beings to a virus, a cancer, and explains that man's brain couldn't comprehend a utopian society, that man must encounter strife in order to fully function.

4) Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

I had a very hard time deciding whether or not to include any of the Star Wars films on this list. I loved them as a child, and they still have a warm place in my heart, but let's face the facts: the writing and acting in many places is nothing short of atrocious. However, there is a great story wrapped up in bad acting and cheesy dialogue, and this is the film that has the most surprises and the best plot out of the original trilogy. (We will make no mention of the new Star Wars films beyond this simple pronouncement: they suck.) For anyone who has somehow escaped seeing this movie, the plot is this: The rebel alliance scored a major victory in the first film, blowing up the death star, a weapon/space station the empire (the evil empire?) used to destroy a planet. In this film, the empire then... wait for it... strikes back. The good guys are roundly defeated at every turn and the major players are either physically or emotionally wounded (in the case of Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker, both). Harrison Ford, once again, outshines everyone else on screen, has the best dialogue, and is ultimate frozen in carbonite.

5) Artificial Intelligence: A.I.

An emotionally resonant retelling of Pinocchio with a robot instead of a puppet? Not quite, but you get the picture. Haley Joel Osment stars in this collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg, completed after Kubrick's death. He plays the part of David, a robot given the ability to feel emotions, in particular, love, to act as a substitute for a son stricken with an incurable disease. When a cure is actually found and their real son returns, everything goes awry. Like a robotic Hansel, David is left in the forest to fend for himself. He meets up with Gigolo Joe, played by Jude Law, a robot built for loving of another kind. The two decide to search for the Blue Fairy who turned Pinocchio into a real boy.

6) Twelve Monkeys.

Another great time-travel film, this one by master of the bizarre sci-fi, Terry Gilliam. Bruce Willis is a convict who travels back in time to find out about a man-made virus that nearly wipes out the population of Earth. However, the methods of time travel aren't perfected, and he is sent to several different time periods before ending up in the right year. What really makes this compelling is the way that time paradoxes are handled and how the story gradually unfurls. Madeleine Stowe is terrific as the love interest and Brad Pitt puts in one of the best performances of his career as a highly disturbed mental patient.

7) City Of Lost Children.

It might be stretching things a bit to call this classic French film science fiction, but I'm including it anyway, since it's a great movie, and does feature a mad scientist. Daniel Emilfork plays said scientist, who has prematurely aged due to his inability to dream. In order to have dreams again, he devises a method of extracting dreams from children, and employs a cult of blind men to kidnap them for this purpose. Ron Perlman embarks on an adventure to save an orphan from this fate, and is aided in his quest by a nine-year-old girl played by Judith Vittet.

8) Akira.

It was very difficult to only pick one anime to include on this list, but I felt it necessary, so that the list wasn't simply overrun with anime films. I would have picked one of the Neon Genesis Evangelion films if they actually stood on their own; unfortunately, they only work in the context of the television series or while viewed as a whole. And I'm not about to include two films in the place of one. Akira is mind-blowingly good anyway. Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo and based on his popular manga series, the film deals with a group of "children" who are prematurely aged due to their psyonic abilities (telekinesis, telepathy, etc). The government wants to harness their powers as a weapon, but when it grows out of control, the very future of the world hangs in the balance. To tell more of the plot would spoil this great film.

9) Alien.

Pitch-perfect fear-of-birth film dealing with the discovery of a vicious alien race. One of the scariest sci-fi movies ever made, filled with face-sucking, stomach disgorging, acid-dripping aliens and one tough bitch named Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver).

10) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

A hilarious adaption of Douglas Adams' hilarious novel, starring Martin Freeman, Mos Def and Alan Rickman. Did I mention it's hilarious? When the Earth is destroyed to make way for a hyperspace highway, Arthur Dent (Freeman) is rescued by resident alien Ford Prefect (Def) by hitchhiking a ride on one of the destroyers, a Vogon battleship. This leads to a quest to discover the answer to the question, the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. (It's 42.)