Best Science Fiction Movies of 1961

During the US Civil War, Union POWs escape in a balloon and end up stranded on a South Pacific island, inhabited by giant plants and animals. They must use their ingenuity to survive the dangers, and to devise a way to return home. Sequel to '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' .

Bumbling professor Ned Brainard accidentally invents flying rubber, or "Flubber", an incredible material that gains energy every time it strikes a hard surface. It allows for the invention of shoes that can allow jumps of amazing heights and enables a modified Model-T to fly. Unfortunately, no one is interested in the material except for Alonzo Hawk, a corrupt businessman who wants to steal the material for himself.

Adam Grant is trapped in a recurring nightmare, in which he is sentenced to death by execution. He tries to convince the people around him that they are imaginary and that they will cease to exist if the execution is carried out.

British reporters suspect an international cover-up of a global disaster in progress... and they're right. Hysterical panic has engulfed the world after the United States and the Soviet Union simultaneously detonate nuclear devices and have caused the orbit of the Earth to alter, sending it hurtling towards the sun.

Jimmy, Clark Kent and Lana Lang's friend, is ashamed that his father works as a doorman at the Smallville theater. His opinion changes when Superboy is able to thwart a robbery with Jimmy's father's help.

The crew of an atomic submarine battle to save the world from global destruction.

American GI Ernie Williams, admittedly weak-kneed, has an uncanny resemblance to British Colonel MacKenzie. Williams, also a master of imitation and disguise, is asked to impersonate the Colonel, ostensibly to allow the Colonel to make a secret trip East. What Williams is not told is that the Colonel has recently been a target of assassins. After the Colonel's plane goes down, the plan changes and Williams maintains the disguise to confuse the Nazis about D-Day.

A Greek Fisherman brings an Atlantean Princess back to her homeland which is the mythical city of Atlantis. He is enslaved for his trouble. The King is being manipulated by an evil sorcerer who is bent on using a natural resource of Atlantis to take over the world. The Atlanteans, or rather the slaves of Atlantis, are forced to mine a crystalline material which absorbs the suns rays. These crystals can then be used for warmth. The misuse of science has created weapons out of the crystals that can fire a heat ray to destroy whatever it touches.

When an undersea volcano sends tremors throughout the Atlantic, aquatic creatures come out of hiding. Merchant seamen Joe Ryan and partner Sam Slade harness the most unusual of the lot, a massive beast that looks like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The enterprising sailors deliver their quarry to a British circus, but it turns out that the animal is a newborn. And, when his much larger mother arrives in London to rescue her son, the city feels her wrath.

Following a frantic phone call about a crashed spaceship, two policeman try and determine who among the passengers of a bus at a snowed-in roadside diner is from another world.

A toy telephone becomes the link between a young boy and his dead grandmother.

Two survivors of an apocalyptic battle, a man and a woman from each opposing sides, approach each other suspiciously.

While headed home, a Confederate soldier meets an anguished woman at the end of the Civil War.

In 1881 Algeria, an American soldier and a French aristocrat are about to have a duel over a woman when a comet hurtling past the Earth draws them into its gravitational pull. The men find themselves transported to the moon, where they discover a prehistoric civilization inhabited by reptiles and humans.

Federal aviation investigator Grant Sheckly must deal with a mystery when a plane lands at an airport without pilots, passengers or luggage.

Dr.Decker comes back from Africa after a year, presumed dead. During that year, he came across a way of growing plants and animals to an enormous size. He brings back a baby chimpanzee to test out his theory. As he has many enemies at home, he decides to use his chimp, 'Konga' to 'get rid of them'. Then Konga grows to gigantic proportions and wreaks havoc all over the city of London!!

A compulsive gambler cajoles his friend to use his telekinesis to affect the results of the gambling tables in Las Vegas.

A cross-country airliner, whose passengers include a nuclear physicist, a rocket expert, and a mathematical genius, is drawn beyond radar range by an unknown, unbreakable force.

After an asteroid draws an astronaut and his ship to its surface, he is miniaturized by the phantom planet's exotic atmosphere.

An escaped, but framed, prisoner escapes prison during a cobalt explosion and soon discovers he has grown a special power that makes his body impervious to everything. Learning this, he seeks vengeance on the bad guys who framed him for jail.

A rich rocket scientist organizes an expedition to the moon, which they discover is inhabited by nude women.

A refugee Soviet scientist arrives at a desert airport carrying secret documents, but is attacked by a pair of KGB assassins and escapes into the desert, where he comes in range of an American nuclear test and is transformed into a mindless killing beast ... There is no dialogue track on this film, only ongoing narration.

The unusual death of a dancer at the Flamingo Club prompts the dancer's husband to dig deeper into the case. What he uncovers is a tangled web of blackmail, drug trafficking, and mad science.

During a Civil War battle, a soldier is transported through time, landing in New York City's Central Park in the year 1961. He then explores Manhattan and goes to Yankee Stadium in an attempt to locate other Civil War soldiers. (IMDb)

On an isolated family farm, a young boy with vast mental powers, but lacking emotional development, holds his terrified family in thrall to his every juvenile wish.

A Central American revolutionary comes into the possession of a mirror that shows him his potential assassins.

A mad genius tries to bomb the world into peace.