Best Science Fiction Movies of 1984

George Orwell's novel of a totalitarian future society in which a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

Documentary style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England; and the eventual long run effects of nuclear war on civilization.

Admiral Kirk and his bridge crew risk their careers stealing the decommissioned Enterprise to return to the restricted Genesis planet to recover Spock's body.

In the year 10,191, the world is at war for control of the desert planet Arrakis—the only place where the space-travel substance Melange 'Spice' can be found. But when one leader gives up control, it's only so he can stage a coup with some unsavory characters.

When an alien takes the form of a young widow's husband and asks her to drive him from Wisconsin to Arizona, the government tries to stop them.

When young Victor's pet dog Sparky (who stars in Victor's home-made monster movies) is hit by a car, Victor decides to bring him back to life the only way he knows how. But when the bolt-necked "monster" wreaks havoc and terror in the hearts of Victor's neighbors, he has to convince them (and his parents) that despite his appearance, Sparky's still the good loyal friend he's always been.

A down and out young punk gets a job working with a seasoned repo man, but what awaits him in his new career is a series of outlandish adventures revolving around aliens, the CIA, and a most wanted '64 Chevy.

While planet Earth poises on the brink of nuclear self-destruction, a team of Russian and American scientists aboard the Leonov hurtles to a rendezvous with the still-orbiting Discovery spacecraft and its sole known survivor, the homicidal computer HAL.

A video game expert Alex Rogan finds himself transported to another planet after conquering The Last Starfighter video game only to find out it was just a test. He was recruited to join the team of best Starfighters to defend their world from the attack.

Two girls from the Valley wake up to find that a passing comet has eradicated their world and left behind a mysterious red-dust and a pack of cannibal mutants. With the help of a friendly truck driver, the girls save the earth from a villainous "think tank," karate chop their way through flesh-eating zombies, and, of course, find time to go to the mall.

A government funded project looks into using psychics to enter people's dreams, with some mechanical help. When a subject dies in their sleep from a heart attack, Alex Gardner becomes suspicious that another of the psychics is killing people in the dreams somehow and that is causing them to die in real life. He must find a way to stop the abuse of the power to enter dreams.

Tromaville has a monstrous new hero. The Toxic Avenger is born when mop boy Melvin Junko falls into a vat of toxic waste. Now evildoers will have a lot to lose.

As youths, Andy McGee and his future wife, Vicky, participated in secret experiments, allowing themselves to be subjected to mysterious medical tests. Years later, the couple's daughter, Charlie, begins to exhibit the ability of setting fires solely with her mind. This volatile talent makes the youngster extremely dangerous and soon she becomes a target for the enigmatic agency known as "The Shop."

Based on an "actual event" that took place in 1943. About a US Navy Destroyer Escort that disappeared from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and sent two men 40 years into the future to 1984.

Adventurer/surgeon/rock musician Buckaroo Banzai and his band of men, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, take on evil alien invaders from the 8th dimension.

In the near future, a police officer specializes in malfunctioning robots. When a robot turns out to have been programmed to kill, he begins to uncover a homicidal plot to create killer robots... and his son becomes a target.

A rash of bizarre murders in New York City seems to point to a group of grotesquely deformed vagrants living in the sewers. A courageous policeman, a photo journalist and his girlfriend, and a nutty bum, who seems to know a lot about the creatures, band together to try and determine what the creatures are and how to stop them.

In the not too distant future, where by far the most precious commodity in the galaxy is water. The last surviving water planet was somehow removed to the unreachable centre of the galaxy at the end of the galactic trade wars. The galaxy is ruled by an evil emperor presiding over a trade oligarchy that controls all mining and sale of ice from asteroids and comets.

Miles buys himself a state-of-the-art computer that starts expressing thoughts and emotions after a having champagne spilled on him. Things start getting out of hand when both Miles and Edgar, the computer, fall in love with Madeline, an attractive neighbour.

Angel City trooper Jack Deth is sent back in time from 2247 to 1985 L.A. to inhabit the body of his ancestor. Deth's assignment is to find his archenemy, Whistler, who turns people into zombies, before the fiend is able to kill all the ancestors of the future's governing council.

After losing a powerful orb, Kara, Superman's cousin, comes to Earth to retrieve it and instead finds herself up against a wicked witch.

An alien slave crash-lands in New York City while being pursued by two Men in Black bounty hunters. His attempt to find a place for himself on Earth parallels that of the immigrant experience.

G.I. Joe: The Revenge of Cobra is the second G.I. Joe miniseries based on the successful Hasbro Toys and Marvel Comics property. Using a laser core stolen from G.I.Joe, Cobra activates the Weather Dominator, an incredible weapon which controls the forces of Nature itself, Cobra Commander targets Washington for destruction, but the Joe team repels the attack and the Weather Dominator explodes into three parts setting off a chain reaction of natural disasters around the world. Can G.I.Joe recover the Weather Dominator in time to beat Cobra and save the world. It aired in 1984 and most of the 1984 and even some 1985 products are given plenty of screen time. Like the first miniseries, A Real American Hero, The Revenge of Cobra was written by Ron Friedman who created the series for television, and wrote all four miniseries.

Sheena's parents are killed while on Safari. She is raised by the mystical witch woman of an African tribe. When her foster mother is framed for the murder of a political leader, Sheena and a newsman, Vic Casey, are forced to flee while pursued by the mercenaries hired by the real killer, who hopes to assume power. Sheena's ability to talk to the animals and knowledge of jungle lore give them a chance against the high tech weapons of the mercenaries.

The 60-second ad - which has been named the greatest TV commercial of all time by TV Guide and Advertising Age magazines - aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII in 1984, just two days before Apple would change the world with the introduction of the Mac.

Airwolf is capable of supersonic speeds, invisible to radar and armed with ultra state-of-the-art hardware. Airwolf is the most awesome aerial weapon ever developed. When the helicopter is stolen by Libyan mercenaries, Michael Archangel, Project director for the CIA, enlists the help of Vietnam veteran Stringfellow Hawke and his closest friend Dominic Santini, to attempt to recover the Airwolf. The mission throws them into the midst of Middle Eastern violence and destruction, where they come face to face with danger, romance and intrigue in their battle to re-possess the deadliest aerial weapon ever used.

A team of Arctic researchers find a 40,000 year-old man frozen in ice and bring him back to life. Anthropologist Dr. Stanley Shephard wants to befriend the Iceman and learn about the man's past while Dr. Diane Brady and her surgical team want to discover the secret that will allow man to live in a frozen state.

The heroes of futuropolis are Captain Garth, Spud, Liutenant Luna and Cosmo. These four space cadets are sent to investigate series of mutations and destructions of peaceful worlds. The brain behind this chaos is Lord Egghead, the inventor of the "mutation ray".

After a small earthquake in a small and quiet town, local citizens start to have a bizarre, violent and self-destructive behavior...

On a distant planet, descendants of a crashed spaceship are subjected to mysterious forces that cause them to age and die in just eight days. They must also live in caves to escape the bitter cold of night and the killing heat of day. One young boy is determined to find his way back to the ship that brought them there. But how will accomplish this in the short time left to him?

An artist fails a test and is required to direct traffic in New York City's Holland Tunnel. He winds up falling in love with a beautiful woman, who takes him to the moon on a Lunar Cruiser.

When two brothers, Josh and Mike, go to a small southern town for a vacation, they find most of the residents either dead or missing. When Mike himself goes missing, Josh teams up with the local sheriff and an attractive school teacher to find him until Josh discovers that the whole town and most of it's people have been infected by a form of toxic waste, and they have all turned into toxic vampires whom prowl the streets at night for human blood!

Aliens land in the mythical town of "Speelburgh, U.S.A" searching for the source of rock & roll. What they find is a gang of teenagers, led by Dee Dee and Frankie, along with Frankie's posse/rock band, the Pack. The leader of the aliens takes a shine to Dee Dee and all sorts of trouble breaks out.

Video-shot on studio sets, Stars of the Roller State Disco borders on science fiction of the dystopian variety. Unemployed youngsters spend their days at the roller disco of the title, circling round and round, before being called to take up low-paid jobs as they become available. They leave the building in a wash of light, though we do not go through that door with them. For others it's a subsistence existence of vending machine food, video games, with sex and drug freely available as distractions. (Television @ The Digital Fix)

The Angler claims he will use a toxin which will kill sea life unless a ransom is paid. Aquaman races to stop him.

Because of a small navigation mistake Lord Buckethead lands on Earth instead of "in a galaxy far, far away". But he is still looking for the princess and the secret transmissions.

Based on a book of the same name, depicting events in a Welsh valley after a nuclear holocaust, in which almost everyone has dies, leaving just two families. Eventually just one girl and one man are left, and the majority of the film is about how they cope with the situation and each other.

Apple and Ridley Scott presented the most awaited event of 1984: the introduction of Apple Macintosh personal computer to the world. With a concept directly influenced by George Orwell's classic novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four", Scott offers a heroine who destroys the repressive present led by the Big Brother in order to bring a future full of new perspectives.

Paul, a computer whiz who spends more time with his machine than with his girlfriend, finds that he has been chosen as a worthy opponent for Mestema, an evil wizard who has spent centuries searching for a challenging foe. After having his computer changed into a wristband weapon, Paul does battle with a variety of monsters before finally coming face to face with the ultimate adversary.

A short documentary that was originally produced to promote the film at conventions and publicity events in the lead-up to its release.

It is 1984. Jeffrey Jones is an 11-year-old orphan entrusted to his uncle and aunt. One evening, Phineas Bogg crashes through his bedroom window. As the young boy's dog rushes to the intruder, he bites into the book in Bogg's hand. In the ensuing panic, while trying to snatch the book from the fangs of the animal, Jeffrey swings out the window. Bogg jumps into the void to catch him and both are projected into time. Phineas Bogg is part of a group called the "Travellers". As they try to return Jeffrey to his own time, they encounter famous people from the past — while trying not to alter the path of history.

Mesmerist Jonathan Sage escapes Nazi Germany via a cryogenic tube. In the 1980s, a group of Fascist Americans thaw him out, hoping to use him as a way to rid their community of homosexuals, free-thinkers, and other "radicals." The story is interspersed with many rock dance numbers. -Joe Arthur(via imdb)

A mysterious and invisible alien presence has landed in rural Texas and has started turning the nearby townspeople into white-faced, bloodthirsty killers. As the local authorities begin to investigate the strange and violent goings on, a photographer and his girlfriend find themselves trapped in the midst of an unexpected rural bloodbath, which seeks to turn them into another pair of bloodsuckers from outer space...

This is the original "movie" version of the first three episodes of Macross before Harmony Gold edited the series into Robotech.

A scientist who is obsessed with creating life finally does it, with tragic results.

An astronaut's widow and her young son meet a stranger from the future on a Greek island.

Two Australian children chase a cat and a dog into a swamp near thier homes. Here they find a treehouse which they never noticed before. Inside the treehouse is a trapdoor which brings them to a wild and wonderful world with pirates, talking trees and bunyips!

The US military is running a test for a special type of radio transmitter, to be used to communicate with submarines, in a deep system of underground caves in Central America. When the signal from one of the transmitters suddenly disappears, a team of soldiers led by Major Elbert Stevens and cave specialists led by Rupert 'Wolf' Wolfsen including scientist Leslie Peterson are sent in to find out what happened. Exploring deep underground, they stumble upon a tribe of albino cave-dwellers who have apparently been isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years. The cave-dwellers are hurt by radio frequencies and are able to see in infra-red frequencies, tracking the explorers by their body heat.

Matthew Gore is an intelligent boy chosen by a mysterious extraterrestrial visitor to be a source of information about life on Earth. As his schoolwork and artistic talent improve dramatically he arouses the suspicion of powerful groups who wish to tap into the amazing fund of knowledge to which he is now party.