Go see District 9. There's a short film intro, Alive in Joberg, which will set some expectations, but the movie is far more impressive.

District 9 is the only really great science fiction I've seen in a decade. Science fiction, real science fiction and not moronic "sci-fi", not fantasy, has been almost completely absent from the theatres, because Hollywood is composed entirely of subhuman morons who know nothing of science. They think shit like Armageddon and Transformers is acceptable, and it is not.

District 9 only got made because Peter Jackson gave Neill Blomkamp $30 million on the strength of "Alive in Joburg", and it was made in South Africa and New Zealand, where Hollywood's poisonous contagion couldn't reach it. If there were any justice, this would sweep the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Special Effects, and Best Actor for Sharlto Copley. But there is no justice or competence in Hollywood, and it will instead get nominated for "Best Foreign Film", and probably lose.

So, only great SF in a decade. That got me thinking, and so I collected some data. I went through Wikipedia's List of science fiction films for completeness, and added several not listed there. These is my own personal list of "Real Science Fiction" movies of the last 60 years or so. My list, my tastes, my idea of what's "real SF" and what isn't, my ratings (given as X/10, and ignoring anything less than 8). If you disagree, that's fine, but do so on your own blog.

It's nearly impossible to judge older movies by any modern standard; when I rewatched The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), I spent most of the film fascinated by the stiff, sterile, alien culture of the 1950s, not the movie itself. Still, there are some older films that are just as "real" SF as modern, so I list them. I don't include many bad (or actively malicious in some cases) adaptations of the works of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Richard Matheson, etc. I would include Tarkovsky's Solaris and Stalker if only someone would edit them into 90-120-minute films with some pacing. I would love to list The Fountain, but it was maliciously maledited by meth-crazed monkeys, so it's unwatchable. Sequels are almost never any good, SF sequels especially not; the sequels to Mad Max, Alien, & Terminator are trash.

1920s

1. Metropolis (1927) 9/10

1950s

1. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) 8/10
2. Gojira (1954) 9/10 — The Japanese original, NOT the Americanized version.
3. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) 9/10
4. This Island Earth (1955) 8/10
5. Forbidden Planet (1956) 10/10

1960s

1. The Time Machine (1960) 8/10
2. Planet of the Vampires (1965) 8/10 — Mario Bava's haunted planet epic
3. Planet of the Apes (1968) 8/10
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 9/10
5. Gamera vs. Guiron (1969) 8/10 — The one with the brain-eating alien women

1970s

1. Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) 8/10
2. A Clockwork Orange (1971) 8/10
3. THX 1138 (1971) 9/10
4. The Final Programme (1973) 8/10 — Adaptation of Michael Moorcock's "Jerry Cornelius" stories
5. Soylent Green (1973) 8/10
6. Westworld (1973) 8/10
7. Dark Star (1974) 8/10
8. A Boy and His Dog (1975) 8/10
9. Rollerball (1975) 8/10
10. Logan's Run (1976) 8/10
11. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) 9/10
12. Star Wars (1977) 10/10
13. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) 8/10
14. Alien (1979) 10/10
15. Mad Max (1979) 8/10
16. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) 8/10

1980s

1. Altered States (1980) 8/10
2. Empire Strikes Back (1980) 10/10
3. Flash Gordon (1980) 8/10
4. Escape from New York (1981) 8/10
5. Scanners (1981) 8/10
6. The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (1981) 9/10 — The BBC TV miniseries production
7. Blade Runner (1982) 10/10
8. E.T. (1982) 8/10
9. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) 10/10
10. The Thing (1982) 10/10
11. TRON (1982) 10/10
12. Brainstorm (1983) 8/10
13. V (1983) 8/10
14. Videodrome (1983) 9/10
15. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) 9/10
16. The Last Starfighter (1984) 8/10
17. Repo Man (1984) 8/10
18. Runaway (1984) 8/10
19. The Terminator (1984) 8/10
20. Back to the Future (1985) 8/10
21. Brazil (1985) 9/10
22. Enemy Mine (1985) 8/10
23. Lifeforce (1985) 8/10
24. Bubblegum Crisis (1987) 8/10
25. The Hidden (1987) 8/10
26. RoboCop (1987) 8/10
27. Akira (1988) 9/10
28. Appleseed (1988) 9/10
29. They Live (1988) 8/10
30. The Abyss (1989) 8/10
31. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) 8/10
32. The Blood of Heroes (1989) 8/10 — aka Salute to the Jugger
33. Moontrap (1989) 8/10 — Cheesy, but interesting as SF *and* for Bruce Campbell & Walter Koenig

1990s

1. Hardware (1990) 8/10
2. The Rocketeer (1991) 9/10
3. Until the End of the World (1991) 9/10 — I wish I could get this on DVD
4. Split Second (1992) 9/10 — We're gonna need bigger guns.
5. The Wicked City (1992) 8/10 — Disturbing live-action Hong Kong adaptation of the 1987 anime
6. Demolition Man (1993) 8/10
7. Nemesis (1993) 8/10
8. Wild Palms (1993) 8/10
9. Stargate (1994) 8/10
10. Ghost in the Shell (1995) 10/10
11. Screamers (1995) 8/10 — One of the few half-decent P.K.Dick adaptations
12. Species (1995) 8/10
13. Strange Days (1995) 8/10
14. Twelve Monkeys (1995) 8/10
15. The Arrival (1996) 8/10
16. Cube (1997) 9/10
17. The Fifth Element (1997) 10/10
18. Gattaca (1997) 8/10
19. Dark City (1998) 9/10
20. Pi (1998) 10/10
21. Soldier (1998) 8/10
22. eXistenZ (1999) 9/10
23. Galaxy Quest (1999) 8/10
24. The Thirteenth Floor (1999) 10/10

2000s

1. Impostor (2000) 8/10 — Short film only, the "extended" film is awful
2. Pitch Black (2000) 8/10
3. Titan A.E. (2000) 8/10
4. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) 8/10
5. The One (2001) 9/10
6. Equilibrium (2002) 9/10
7. Returner (2002) 8/10
8. Natural City (2003) 9/10
9. The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) 8/10
10. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) 8/10
11. Serenity (2005) 8/10 — I would rate Firefly higher than the movie
12. Sunshine (2007) 8/10
13. WALL-E (2008) 9/10
14. District 9 (2009) 10/10
15. Moon (2009) ??? — I haven't seen it yet, hear good things

Look at the per-year distribution of this list:

1950s:  05: *****
1960s:  05: *****
1970s:  16: ****************
1980s:  33: *********************************
1990s:  24: ************************
2000s:  15: ***************

It'd be considerably worse if I removed all the non-Hollywood movies; there'd be a giant spike in the '70s and '80s, not much else. I believe what that curve is mapping is the rise and fall of the U.S. educational system, 10-20 years offset. If Hollywood writers, directors, and producers were educated with more than an inner tube and a banana, they might make real science fiction movies again. Barring that, I say we just wall off Hollywood and let cannibalism run its course.