British Science Fiction cinema has always lived in the shadow of its American counterpart, either as a result of a direct effort to emulate an American style to enable the films to reach broader markets or as an indirect consequence of the fact that, since the 50’s, Science Fiction cinema has been associated with America, drawing on its rich heritage of comics and magazines.

But British Science Fiction cinema has in fact a much greater legacy than is often given credit to. Since the beginning of the 20th century, various British directors and producers have explored the genre, often taking it into new directions, pushing its boundaries, and drawing on the wealth of ideas and masterful works which British Science Fiction writers like H.G Wells, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Arthur C. Clarke, John Wyndham and Michael Moorcock have produced over the years.

However, these serious works have been undermined by the high number of pulp and B-movies that Britain has produced since the 50’s, contributing to a reputation often linked with these hybrids of Science Fiction. Whether Gothic horror or Sexploitation films, they reflected a taste for more tasteless material, while offering socio-cultural comments that were different in nature from the content of their American counterparts.

Science Fiction cinema, like Science Fiction literature, has always been an ideal medium for sociological, cultural and psychological insights on societies and groups of individuals, while packaging these concepts into entertaining and imaginative experiences, high on production values. While visual effects and production design have resulted in several wonderful films over the years, they have also unfortunately contributed to the reputation of Science Fiction as a not so serious genre, geared mostly towards entertainment. And the birth of the blockbuster in the US in the mid 70’s accelerated the reliance on special effects at the expense of plot and character development, making Science Fiction cinema forever synonymous with cheap thrills.

Yet, this was not always the case. While British filmmakers were exploring Science Fiction themes as early as the first decade of the 1900’s with the work of, for example, Walter R. Booth, serious Science Fiction cinema in Britain really started in the 1920’s, fuelled by the growing popularity of Wells’ writings and by the solid works coming out of German cinema, notably Fritz Lang’s films. Britain decided to make an attempt at creating their own Metropolis (26) with High Treason (29), directed in 1929 by Maurice Elvey. The film was a solid effort depicting the absurdity of war and had a strong pacifist propaganda message. A series of serious entries followed in the 30’s with films like The Tunnel (35), FPI (33) and The Man who Could Work Miracles (36). But it is Things to Come (36), based on Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come, that represented the epitome of pre WWII British Science Fiction cinema. Produced by Alexander Korda’s London Films, and heavily supervised by Wells himself, the film was the most expensive British film to date and the result of cooperation between many leading designers and futurists of that time, highlighting the seriousness of the intentions behind the film.

Post WWII and throughout the 50’s and early 60’s, British Science Fiction started to follow the American model, with B-movies becoming increasingly popular. Paranoia, fear and the Cold War were the underlying themes, but unlike American films, where paranoia was directed mainly towards communism and reflected an apprehension by certain groups in society towards ‘different thinking’, British paranoia was much more focused on Britain’s loss of dominance in world affairs and the changes taking place in a post WWII society. Invasion narratives like The Quatermass Xperiment (55), a serious film that propelled Hammer towards success, or The Day of the Triffids (62) became quite popular and portrayed the reactions and dynamics of a society whose cohesion and unity is under attack. Another prominent theme in the 50s and early 60’s was uneasiness at the increasing dominance of women in society. Films like Devil Girl from Mars (54), Unearthly Stranger (63) or even Invasion (66) portrayed women with power as a threat to the traditional role of the male and to the structure of British society as a whole.

Aside from a few other solid entries such as The Damned (62), The Day the Earth caught Fire (61) and Fahrenheit 451 (66), this period became associated with pulp and gothic horror, mostly through the films produced by Hammer. These films provided an alternative and paradoxical antidote to the gritty realism of Britain’s other cinema of that time.

In 1968, Stanley Kubrick, who had moved to England a few years earlier, injected a much-needed dose of seriousness and gravity into British and science fiction cinema as a whole with 2001: A Space Odyssey (68). But in spite of its brilliance and relative success, the film, along with a few other interesting later pictures such as A Clockwork Orange (71), The Final Programme (73) and The Man who fell to Earth (76), did not succeed in creating a renewed and lasting desire by audiences for serious science fiction cinema and the 70s saw the development of more pulp and sexploitation B-movies, most of which with little to offer in terms of quality and value.

Ridley Scott’s Alien (79) marked an important step in British science fiction cinema as it masterfully combined the horror and science fiction genres and showed that both could co-exist to produce serious and enthralling cinema. Unfortunately, it also seems to be the last time a British science fiction film aroused the interest of audiences worldwide on such a large scale.

Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, in a post modernistic society where cheap thrills and an insatiable thirst for visual and unchallenging entertainment have become the norm, few trends have emerged in the world of British science fiction cinema. The films of Terry Gilliam have found a consistent and devoted audience, Richard Stanley’ Hardware (90) provided an interesting vision of a post-apocalyptic future, while Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon (97) and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (02) were much more horror focused, reminding us that pure and serious science fiction cinema is now more than ever a rarity in British cinema.