District 9, unlike all the gore fests about come follow it for the fall movie season, was a brutal analogy to South Africa's apartheid era and racial segregation around the globe in general. Definitely get your friends to watch it, even if the only things that get them interested are guns that shoot exploding pig carcases or shoot lightning and makes the victim exploded into giblets.
Galaxy Quest is a must for Star Trek fans. I think George Takei even called it "chillingly accurate." It's also the funniest thing on this list. "OH, that's not right!"
The Abyss was a better remake of The Day the Earth Stood still than the Keanu Reeves atrocity. Aliens come to Earth to try and stop the wars of man, interact with a small group of people and decide not to wipe out civilization (any of it, unlike the grey goo nano machines wreaking destruction across the US in the remake.) Also, it's a James Cameron film with Michael Biehn. Can't go wrong with a movie those two make.
The Predator franchise doesn't get enough love. The first one is excellent. The second is also pretty good. Forget the crossovers exist unless you're a fan of both franchises and have to see everything. Predators bring back the glory days, with gusto.
Alien. Best horror movie ever. No dudes chasing random dumb teens through rural Texas, suburbia, or dreams over again for multiple movies. Just a crew of space truckers obligated to search a crashed ship and unluckily brought a friend back with. And, said friend becomes a parent while hitchhiking. Things snowball from there. The design of the sets and the alien are so great that you can spot it hiding in plain sight before it's first true appearance. That's much better than the supernatural guy in a mask punching through a wall. If you can't watch this one at least watch Aliens, arguably the best action movie ever. That one also is a James Cameron film with Michael Biehn and has the hottest catfight that can be shown on cable tv at the end.
Nick Vargish said:
Just to be pedantic, it wasn't "liquid oxygen" in Abyss. That would have killed Ed right quickly. It was "hyperoxygenated flourocarbon" and based on real-world technology.
Come on, drinking cryonic liquid totally won't freeze your heart within a second./jk
But really, the rat they dunked in the liquid really was was breathing through the liquid, like in the story. It just tears your diaphragm apart trying to breath a fluid several times denser than air for long time. Tvtropes says it's used on newborns without fully developed lungs, so there's that.
