Trancers (1984)

Directed by Charles Band

Excellent sci-fi adventure movie taking influence from Terminator and Bladerunner. Clearly low budget but the story and acting in the main roles are well done. The main role is played by veteran B actor, Tim Thomerson, who largely carries this movie, he is so good in this part.  Playing opposite is Helen Hunt in one of her earliest roles (funny that both Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser who later played together on the sit-com Mad About You, both started in sci-fi movies in the early careers). There have been a whopping FIVE (and a half) sequels.  I'm not going to say I've seen them, the impressions of others seem fairly poor.  Director Charles Band and Helen Hunt (good sport that she is) returned for the second one but had nothing to do with the increasingly poor follow-ups.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

Directed by George Miller

The third of George Miller's Mad Max movies, it's definitely not as bad as the fanboys regard it today. Modern fans may be surprised that the contemporary reviews were all very positive for this movie which makes sense given that it basically provides much of the style and thrills similar to The Road Warrior. It suffers mostly from a limp second act that seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the movie. But it's made up for fairly well in the third act with a return to a Road Warrior style chase sequence.  It's most successful in the unique post-apocalyptic world it creates further fleshing out ideas from the previous movies.

Interstellar (2014)

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Clearly influenced by 2001: A Space Odyssey, and other space epics. Actually does a fairly good job; it's one of the best sci-fi epics in recent years. There are some fantastic cinematic moments. Kind of bungles the ending by drawing it out way too long, stretching suspension of disbelief well beyond the breaking point, all just to drive home some mawkish sentimental nonsense.  But the actual space adventure portion is pretty great.

Flash Gordon (1980)

Directed by Mike Hodges

Very much a spiritual successor to campy space adventure Barbarella with a little bit of Star Wars influence thrown in the mix.  The link would be producer Dino De Laurentiis.  Fun Fun Fun.  Loads of great people in here and a soundtrack by Queen!  One of the films mentioned in the documentary on Jodorowsky's Dune.

Planet of the Vampires (1965)

Directed by Mario Bava

Has the distinction of having some plot elements that seemed to influence Dan O'Bannon when working on Alien.  Even though some like to claim Ridley Scott "ripped off" this movie, in reality it's in no way as similar as that and it's not clear that he was aware of this obscure film (he was not really a sci-fi fan).  Alien must be considered a highly original work any way you look at it.

Other than that, this is a somewhat plodding, dull sci-fi suspense thriller.  Very low budget, and looks it.  Although it does have some half-way interesting production design.  If you want to see an older sci-fi film that still stands up today, I would recommend Forbidden Planet.  It's almost 10 years older than this movie and looks far better.

Marooned (1969)

Directed by John Sturges

Massively underrated and largely forgotten movie.  Directed by the dependable John Sturges shortly after the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Nowadays, the reputation of this film seems largely formed by science fiction fans watching it and their subsequent massive disappointment that it's not Star Wars.  There's no swash-buckling space operatics to be found here, this is a tense ship wreck drama set in space.  It is a realistic sort of science fiction with effects done to the standards of the time.

It was later recut and re-released by some purveyor of ultra-budget home video movies.  This version was later on MST3K.  This probably didn't help the movie's reputation.

Cherry 2000 (1987)

Directed by Steve De Jarnatt

I really wanted to like this movie, it has a decent plot idea and I love Melanie Griffith but .... it's like it can't decide what it wants to be.  A kitschy spoof of 50s sci-fi and culture?  Or a grim and gritty post-apocalyptic future?  It's attempt to marry these two ideas makes for a fairly incongruous result.

It's a shame because with a little more post-production polish you can imagine it could have been at least like B-movie classic level. It's like they ran out of money towards the end of the production. So many scenes just fall flat or are almost surreal in how little sense they make.