50s + 60s Sci-fi, Fantasy, Creature Features on Blu-ray

Excuse the representative banner title. We've strayed outside the boundaries of our initial 1950s + 60s science-fiction / fantasy / creature-feature Blu-ray and 4K UHD entries - expanding to include many new titles that deserve acknowledgment - a few horror. We've only briefly ventured outside the date range. The appeal remains inherent from the innocence of childhood - overflowing with campy nostalgia - to inspiring imaginative future-esque adventures or mythical fantasies recognized by inventive, alluring titles, frequently set in isolated islands, outer space, distant planets or quaint, small towns steeped in tradition.

'Creatures' remain a strong focus of many of the chosen films - preferably of the Ray Harryhausen, claymation, variety - they are often dinosaur or dinosaur-like, sometime alien, fable-deviations, or accidentally man-made (enter wayward scientists or mad doctors etc.). There can be human-hybrids of animals (from a fly to an alligator). Automatons are appealing; robots utilized as potentially dangerous and unreadable tertiary characters - powerful and inscrutable.  Both Universal and Japanese monsters are mainstays.

We've added some 'Republic Serials' and avoided comedy/satire (Jerry Lewis films Visit to a Small Planet and The Nutty Professor or Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine and The 10th Victim) and intentionally neglected movies that are primarily occult and horror - notably Gothic period films, although we have included a few very worthy Hammer Studio titles.

Our rational is indefensibly thin, excluding Frankenheimer's socially-probing and deep Seconds, the Thunderbirds series with their delightful Supermarionation process. Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey deserves it's own category. Alain Resnais' Je t’aime, je t’aime (1968) is a great film but doesn't fit-in here. What about Hitchcock's The Birds? Science-fiction? creature feature? Committee says 'yes' - it's added.

Some of the most desirable titles are still not available on Blu-ray; The Day of the Triffids, 1953's Invaders From Mars, The Amazing Colossal Man, 51's When Worlds Collide and Five, 1958's Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, plus Monsters on Campus, Cult of the Cobra, Dr. Cyclops, The Leech Woman, The Cosmic Man, The Flying Saucer, Stranger From Venus, Invasion of the Saucer Men, Day the World Ended, The She-Creature , The Flesh Eaters, and many more. Perhaps Criterion will upgrade their Monsters And Madmen set with The Haunted Strangler, Corridors of Blood, The Atomic Submarine and First Man into Space or their Fiend Without a Face. We have added some posters of the most coveted below, and a few book recommendations.

We remain flexible in our selections and look forward to updating the list with more titles as they are upgraded to the Blu-ray format. Please tell us your preference! P.S. Thanks again to Gregory!

The listing is in alphabetical order (click review buttons to also see comparisons where applicable):