We took a trip through decades of the genre and came up with a list of the most important and best hard science fiction movies of all time. They are the essence and the foundations of the book of sci-fi rules that’s still being written as we, the audience, become much more self-aware of our relationship with technology, the future, and whatever those two will bring.
To clarify: Yes, you’re absolutely correct that Blade Runner was genre defining. However, my reference was regarding the list itself…referencing the other films it’s like it was chosen because “of course” it has to be chosen, not because the list creator actually tried to define the quality of the rest of the list to match the impact had on filmmaking or the genre like Blade Runner did.
You’re not wrong there, plenty of the choices seem like what a casual person who doesn’t even really seek out Sci Fi would think of as “genre defining.”
I mean really, arrival? It’s basically just Slaughterhouse 5’s Tralfamadorians but without the existential non-meaning attached. It wasn’t a bad movie, but it’s just another good enough film from the last decade.