IDS 101: Exploring Mind, Brain, and Behavior through Science Fiction: Films and Websites

In this exciting blend of crime thriller and sci-fi drama, tough American detective Lemmy Caution must destroy the supercomputer that runs Alphaville, a dictatorial state where love and poetry are banned. (In French with English subtitles)

Nuclear war has destroyed almost all civilization. A group of women has gone to primal barbarity to survive. They go in search for men to help them have children. (In Czech with English subtitles)

It's also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama made in Japan at a time when the country was still reeling from nuclear attack and H-bomb testing. Its rampaging radioactive beast, the poignant embodiment of an entire populations fears, became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning more than twenty sequels and spinoffs. (In Japanese with English subtitles)

A man named Rantes appears in a Buenos Aires psychiatric hospital. He claims to be an alien vistor and becomes a source of hope to the other patients. (In Spanish with English subtitles)

Ground control has been receiving strange transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to investigate, he experiences the strange phenomena that afflict the Solaris crew, sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his own consciousness. (In Russian with English subtitles)

A powerful psychic force known only as Akira resurfaces in Neo-Tokyo in the 21st century.

Theodore, a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive and unique entity in its own right.

A vision of a totalitarian England.

Plan 9 from outer space follows the alien-led zombie invasion as the aliens attempt, for the 9th time, to take over earth

The Road Warrior: In the post-nuclear outback of Australia, a battle is raged by a tiny band of civilized survivors and a group of barbarians over a precious cache of gasoline.

A couple of ordinary kids have car trouble one dark and rainy night and knock on the door of a looming gothic mansion. They are stunned to learn that they have stumbled into an ongoing convention of kinky characters, hosted by Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a mad scientist from the planet Transylvania.

A sinister thriller from the fractured 1960s that concerns a middle-aged businessman dissatisfied with his suburban existence, who is urged (and blackmailed) to undergo a strange and elaborate procedure that will grant him a new life as a reborn.

Miles Monroe enters the hospital in 1973 for a minor ulcer operation only to wake up 200 years later after being defrosted.

An engineer living in Moscow dreams of the Queen of Mars and builds a spaceship to take him to her.
From the Soviet Union.

In "The end of the world" (1916) the rumour spreads that a comet is on a collision course with Earth. "A trip to Mars" (1918) is a lavishly produced space-travel picture and a milestone in the science fiction genre." From Denmark.

The story of a 21st century city run by a "super trustee" and his collaborators who live in a paradise-like garden. Workers are totally enslaved by machines and condemned to live underground. From Germany.

Includes Le voyage dans la lune = A trip to the moon (1902) (12:46)