Basic Books and Anthologies on Science Fiction Film

Reference Sources

Hardy, Phil, ed. The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction. Woodstock NY: The Overlook Press, 1994. (See especially "The Science Fiction Film in Perspective," pp, ix-xv and the one-page intros to each decade.)

Nichols, Peter. Entry on "Cinema " in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New YorK :St. Martin's Griffin, 1993.

Histories and Overviews

Brosnan, John. The Primal Screen : A History of Science Fiction Film. Little Brown & Co, 1995. Updated edition of Future Tense. 1978
Chapters:
• When nobody could hear you scream: sf films of the silent era
• Things that never came ( early utopias)
• Big bangs and small bangs
• Stop the World
• We want to get off
• (50's space exploration)
• The sky is full of ships ( 50's alien invasion films)
• The metaphor that ate Tokyo: monster movies of the fifties
• Why everyone has stopped worrying about he bomb. . .again
Telotte, J.P. Replications : A Robotic History of the Science Fiction Film. U of Illinois P, 1995.

Sobchack, Vivian Carol. Screening Space : The American Science Fiction Film. 2nd Edition. 1987; Rutgers UP, 1997.

Warren, Bill. Keep Watching the Skies: American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties. Vol 1, 1982; Vol. 2 1986; rpt. MacFarland & Co., 1997.

Biskind, Peter. Seeing Is Believing: How Hollywood Taught Us to Stop Worrying and Love the Fifties. NY: Pantheon, 1983. Chapter 3, A Pods and Blobs @ has sections on several classic fifties SF movies: Them!. The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and It Came from Outer Space

Pohl, Frederik and Frederik Pohl IV. Science Fiction Studies in Film. NY: Ace Books, 1981.Very good chronological survey, written with wit, loaded with good quotes and obscure facts.

Chapters:
• Sci-Fi and SF, Exploring the Bright Continent
• From Melies to Metropolis: The Silents
• Imagining Things: The Thirties
• The Fearful and Fecund Fifties
• Dr. Kubrick = s Clockwork Odyssey
• Reeling Around the World, 1964-72
• Tooling Up for the Big Bang, 1973-76
• Hyperspace, Hypergrosses, Hype
• Toward a More Nearly perfect Science Fiction Film

Strick, Philip. Science Fiction Movies. London: Octopus Books, 1976.

Chapters on:
• Watching the Skies (early alien invasion films)
• Men Like Gods (Frankenstin, mad scientists, robots)
• The Mark of the Beast (creature features)
• Armageddon and Later (end of the world scenerios)
• Out of Our Minds (reflections of politicl concerns, dystopias)
• Taking Off (films about travel in space and time)
• Far Out (space opera)
• Time Twisters (Time Travel)

Menville, Douglas. A Historical and Critical Survey of the Science-Fiction Film. NY: Arno Press, 1975. Stops at 1958 as the last year when a significant SF film was made.