Our Favorite Retro Movies & Videos

We thought you might enjoy an off-the-cuff and somewhat random list of quirky retro movies and TV shows, as compiled by the Retro Thing elves. It's heavily slanted toward sci-fi (this is a gadget blog, after all). Our apologies if we've missed your favorites - let us know in the comments (Blade Runner, the original Battlestar Galactica, anything by Hitchcock, Soylent Green, 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Planet of the Apes, Hardware Wars, etc).

Metropolis on Kino Video: This is the authorized restoration that was pristinely digitally remastered (I saw a 35mm print of it - breathtaking), with the correct score. There are a lot of cheapie versions out there, but this is the most complete. -bohus

Brazil: Terry Gilliam's wickedly strange fun tragic tale is set in a future that never was. -james

Forbidden Planet (Ultimate Collector's Edition): Robby the robot is often credited with stealing the show, but there is a lot more going on than an insane mechanical man costume. A retelling of Shakespeare's "The Tempest", this was one of the earliest high budget sci-fi films (SF was usually relegated to 'B' movie status), and it actually had something to say. The effects remain amazing (Disney loaned the production some of their best animators to realize many of the painstaking effects sequences), and I also love the all-electronic score. It doesn't take an astute pupil of Star Trek to see that the entire premise for the TV series is taken from this film. -bohus

Casablanca (Two-Disc Special Edition): This remastered 60th Anniversary Edition absolutely shines. It features a state of the art digital transfer with amazing contrast and clarity (and absolutely no dust, frame damage or jitter). Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. -james

Blakes 7 - Series 1: My favorite SF series, hands down. Shows how successfully you can realize an SF show even on a BBC budget. Virtually unknown in the USA, B7 consistently tops lists of the best SF series of all time.  The BBC has been slow to release these discs, and hasn't yet released them in NTSC - so these are a listing for the PAL discs. -bohus

The Prisoner - Complete Series Megaset: I found this series incredibly unsettling as a child and have always regarded rogue weather balloons with deep suspicion. No. 6 finds himself held in a Kafkaesque community, where the viewer is encouraged to consider personal identity and freedom, democracy, education, scientific progress, art and technology. Whew. -james

Thunderbirds Megaset (Complete 12 Volume Set): Thunderbirds, the complete collection - not the abysmal children's movie from a few summers ago. Rather this is a collection of the Thunderbirds action-adventure television show. It ostensibly starred a family of puppets who went on rescues missions all around the world, but the real stars were the family of vehicles that thundered into action every week. Nothing could make me get up at six in the morning, but as a kid Thunderbirds rousted me out of bed every weekday to check out the spooky emotionless adventures of puppets who shot guns, smoked cigars, and bled a lot. -bohus

Firefly - The Complete Series: Josh Whedon (Buffy) turned the sci-fi world on its ear with this wonderful 'Cowboy serial in space.' One of the best series to hit the airwaves in modern history. -james

Cult Classics 20 Movie Pack (4 DVD): I’d recommend this DVD set to any movie aficionado out there. Many of these films have been impossible to find for years. The collection combines alarmist pseudo-science films with seedy exploitation movies, with enough material for several evenings of fun viewing. -bohus

Red Dwarf - Series 1 & 2: Sci-fi TV is usually only accidentally funny when things come across as campy or implausible. Red Dwarf throws those preconceptions out of the airlock and succeeds as a brilliantly clever tongue-in-cheek British sci-fi sitcom. -james

Doctor Who - Genesis of the Daleks: This story is the Citizen Kane of Who, pitting the at-the-time new Doctor (Tom Baker) against his mortal enemy the Daleks at the moment of their creation. The Doc grapples with a lot of interesting questions as he seeks to vanquish his foe, suddenly questioning whether it's his right to decide whether an entire race lives or dies - evil or not. It's a typically BBC looking production, yet though skillful use of camera angles, and uncharacteristically dramatic lighting, you'd be forgiven to think that you were watching a feature film. Great starting point for those out to discover Who. -bohus

THX 1138 - The Director's Cut: Yes, I wish George Lucas would stop revisiting and tweaking his classics. However, this Director's Cut features a wonderful new digital transfer and the digital additions aren't nearly as offensive as the oddities that slithered into Star Wars. -james

Gamera Limited Edition Box Set: A lot of folks don't realize that the rubber suited monster movies weren't just made in the 1950's and 60's. "Suitmation" movies are a solid genre in Japan, and production on many of the lovable monsters has never really gone away. Gamera is a favorite of mine, and while the concept of a giant fire-breathing flying turtle may seem insane, the 1995 productions posit a lot of interesting ideas to bring the Gamera back to a modern audience. WAY better than it should have been. -bohus