The 25 best science fiction movies of all time

What are the best movies about mysterious planets, visitors from other worlds, and the future on our very own Earth? Check out our picks!

10. 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day'

This 1991 action blockbuster directed by James Cameron continues the story of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and her son John (Edward Furlong), previously terrorized by a German-accented time-traveling robot bent on killing the future savior of mankind while he is still a child. The film begins with Sarah confined to a mental institution and John facing down an upgraded Terminator robot called T-1000 (Robert Patrick).

To vanquish this dangerous threat, the previous film's villain, the Terminator T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), is sent back through time by an older John to battle the nearly indestructible T-1000. One of the most compelling parts of the movie is the way it humanizes the T-800, who becomes a father figure to young John Connor. And, predictably, the face-offs between two powerful robots are mesmerizing. 

According to Entertainment Weekly, Hamilton's identical twin, Leslie Gearren, portrays a cyborg Sarah Connor in the film.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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