La Jetée: French New Wave's 1962 Sci-Fi Classic
Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*
Release Date: 09/14/2025
X-Ray Eyes: Roger Corman’s 1963 Psychedelic Sci-Fi
Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*
As always there are spoilers ahead! You can follow the podcast on social media on , and . If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. Roger Corman produced hundreds of films in his lifetime and directed dozens. X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes is a colourful, psychedelic, 1960s extravaganza with aspirations of transcendence. If you wanted to join in, you can watch the film X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes from 1963 first. DVDs of the film are available, but it is also...
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The Manchurian Candidate 1962: Politics, Power & Paranoia
Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*
As always there are spoilers ahead! You can follow the podcast on social media on , and . If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. In 1959 at the cusp of a new and exciting decade Richard Condon wrote a book that is largely described as a political thriller. And it is a political thriller. But it also fits neatly into my concept of science fiction. To learn more about what is and isn’t science fiction you can head to the heady days of the first episode where the topic...
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The Day of the Triffids: Wyndham vs Sci-Fi Spectacle
Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*
There are spoilers ahead for all versions of The Day of the Triffids and also for the film Signs. You can follow the podcast on social media on , and . If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. This episode had been edited down to a more digestible length of under an hour but a longer (audio only) version is available for Patreon subscribers (alongside the shorter option). We are doing things a little differently and discussing the 1963 film along with the source material...
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Panic in Year Zero: Nuclear Apocalypse & the Nuclear Family
Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*
As always there are spoilers ahead! You can follow the podcast on social media on , and . If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. There is a trigger warning for discussion of rape in this episode. I have marked the beginning of that part of the discussion with a beep and the discussion lasts for four minutes and four seconds after the beep if you wanted to skip past it. Last week we told you “” but this week we focus in on the panic. ...
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Don't Panic: The Hitchhiker's Guide Phenomenon
Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*
As always there are spoilers ahead. You can buy the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book in most bookshops and you can listen to the radio play on YouTube and also on the Internet Archive. You can follow the podcast on social media on , and . If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show and be revered amongst both the G'Gugvuntts and the Vl'Hurgs: As mentioned elsewhere this is not an analysis of the film or any kind of review of the book but more like a chat...
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La Jetée: French New Wave's 1962 Sci-Fi Classic
Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*
As always there are spoilers ahead! A quick note that I shall be at the London Film Festival on October the 16th giving a whistlestop tour of sci-fi cinema. It is a free event but you have to reserve tickets so if you happen to be in London and wanted to attend . Translation for the beginning of the podcast: “Later, he knew he had seen a man die. And sometime after came the destruction of Paris.” You can follow the podcast on social media on , and . If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a...
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The Day the Earth Caught Fire: Britain’s 1961 Apocalypse
Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*
As always there are spoilers ahead! If you’d like to join in on more conversations and keep up to date on what I’m working on you can follow me on social media: , and . After last episode’s UK village setting we stay in the country but head to London for a newsroom apocalyptic drama. We have more hints that we are heading into the 60s with a surly hero and a sultry ex-Disney heroine. The Day the Earth Caught Fire was finally released in 1961 after eight years of director Val Guest trying to get the film made. Perhaps the mid-50s Britian wasn’t...
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Village of the Damned: Creepy Kids & the Cosy Catastrophe
Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*
As always there are spoilers ahead! You can follow the podcast on , and . If you want to support the podcast you can get ad free versions at . In 1956 the film The Bad Seed was a big hit for Warner Bros featuring a blond-haired evil child. One blond scary child sometimes isn't enough! Writer John Wyndham published The Midwich Cuckoos in 1957 which had already sold to MGM before he’d completed it. The film tells the story of a different kind of alien invasion. Midwich village is infested with pregnancies affecting the female population who all give birth to blonde...
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The Silent Star: 1960 East German Sci-Fi & the Space Race
Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*
As always there are spoilers ahead! In 1951 Poland, during its Stalinist era, acclaimed science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem released his first book: The Astronauts. (He had already written the novel The Man from Mars which was serialised). In 1960 The Astronuats would go on to become the basis of East Germany’s ambitious communist sci-fi film Der schweigende Stern or The Silent Star. The script would go through 12 drafts before filming by which time Lem had removed his name from the project. Although the script lacks focus it is full of historical and cultural significance...
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The Time Machine: HG Wells’ Legacy in 1960s Sci-Fi
Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*
As always there are spoilers ahead! You can follow the podcast on , and . HG Wells shadow is a long one and his seminal work on time travel was published in 1895. But well over a half a century later Hollywood was still hooked on Herbert (George Wells). The Time Machine was directed by George Pal and released 1960. From the turn of the century to the beginning of a new decade my amazing guests break down the themes and influences on this mid-century steampunk precursor. Keith Williams is a Reader in English Literature at the University of Dundee where he runs the...
info_outlineAs always there are spoilers ahead!
A quick note that I shall be at the London Film Festival on October the 16th giving a whistlestop tour of sci-fi cinema. It is a free event but you have to reserve tickets so if you happen to be in London and wanted to attend here is the information.
Translation for the beginning of the podcast:
“Later, he knew he had seen a man die.
And sometime after came the destruction of Paris.”
You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.
If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm
La Jetée is very different from the science fiction films I have covered so far. A 28-minute art film mostly made of still images that went on to inspire many films as well as the 1995 12 Monkeys. The filmmaker, Chris Marker was an elusive French multimedia journalist, artist, writer, filmmaker, photographer who very rarely did interviews. He was part of the Left Bank group in Paris which was part of the larger French New Wave movement.
My amazing science fiction authorities today are Lisa Yaszek who is Regents' Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech and has written/edited multiple books on science fiction and Mark Bould who is a professor of Film and Literature at the University of West England, Bristol. He has also written/edited numerous books on science fiction.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:15 The French New Wave
08:50 The New Wave of science fiction literature
13:00 The New Wave science fiction films
17:53 Vertigo’s influence
21:10 Eros and Thanatos: Love and death (and time loops)
23:55 A very different science fiction film: Un photo-roman, sound and reliable narrators
32:00 The darker future: gritty retrofuturism and echoes of WWII
36:59 What is real? (And why is it so beautiful?)
40:52 Distressing distortions and more death
46:03 The one moving image
48:33 12 Monkeys
51:47 Legacy of the film
55:30 Recommendations for the listener
NEXT EPISODE!
Next episode is episode 42 and it seems patrons on Patreon would like a detour to cover the meaning of life the universe and everything. So we shall be talking about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You do not need to watch the film but if you felt like reading the book , listening to the original radio play, watching the TV series or indeed watching the film either as a new experience or to refresh your memory you absolutely can!