A grandfather (Peter Falk) comes by to read his grandson (Fred Savage) a story on a day when he's home sick from school. The story's called the Princess Bride, and it follows the tale of Buttercup (Robin Wright), a beautiful country girl who falls in love with stable boy Westley (Cary Elwes). After Westley is rumored to be killed by a legendary marauder known as the Dread Pirate Roberts, Buttercup is betrothed to Prince Humperdink (Chris Sarandon). But, as we come to find out, death cannot stop True Love. Director Rob Reiner's adaptation of William Goldman's fairy tale about fairy tales is a movie essential, filled with swashbuckling swordplay, cliffs of insanity, a scheming Sicilian, a six-fingered man, rodents of unusual size, and a rhyming giant. Anybody want a peanut?
After fighting on the losing side of a civil war, Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his crew of the ship Serenity scrape by as a small-time crooks and transportation for hire, laying low on the outskirts of a galaxy ruled by the Universal Alliance. When Reynolds and his crew pick up a young doctor, Simon (Sean Maher), and his telepathic sister, River (Summer Glau) they get a lot more than a couple of passengers. It seems River stumbled onto a secret the Alliance doesn't want anyone to know, and now they'll stop at nothing to bring her in. Pursued on two sides by the Alliance and another harrowing enemy, the Reavers (crazed savages who've descended into cannibalism), Reynolds soon realizes the greatest danger might already be on his ship.
After years of sending messages into space, a government project receives a transmission back. The message details a strand of alien DNA and how to fuse it with human genetic material. The recipe results in Sil (Natasha Hestinridge), a human/alien hybrid who matures at an alarmingly fast rate. Stunningly beautiful but strikingly deadly, Sil escapes from the government lab. She's on the loose, and all she wants to do is mate. If she does, it could spell doom for life as we know it. Xavier Finch (Ben Kingsley) is the government agent charged with tracking her down. He assembles a team of lab-types and mercenaries (including Michael Madsen) to find Sil before it's too late in this seductive sci-fi thriller. If men can't resist her, mankind may not survive her.
Star Trek Nemesis pushes the fabled franchise in new directions with a shocking ending that rocked the Star Trek universe. The Enterprise is sent to Romulus, where Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) receives an offer of peace from Shinzon (Tom Hardy). The new Romulan leader is a genetically engineered Picard clone, once created in a plan to give the Romulans control of a Federation cruiser. Peace talks begin and tensions between the sides begin to mount. Meanwhile, Data (Brent Spiner) goes to work on a clone of his own: a prototype of himself discovered on a desert planet. Shinzon captures Picard in hopes of stealing the captain's genetic material. The talks dissolve into all-out battle, and the crew must thwart Shinzon's plan for revenge that threatens to destroy the entire Federation.
A mysterious device unearthed in the Egyptian desert has puzzled scientists for decades. Language expert Dr. Daniel Jackson (James Spader) deciphers the device and activates it, unlocking an interstellar portal to a distant planet. Colonel Jack O'Neil (Kurt Russel) leads a team, including Jackson, through the Stargate and into the unknown. The group finds themselves on a distant planet, in an Egyptian-like alien civilization that worships the sun god Ra. Problem is, the Stargate's locked again, and they'll need to figure out how to reopen it. To make matters worse, the aliens are planning to send a bomb through the portal and destroy our planet. Jackson, O'Neil, and their team find themselves trapped, a million light years from home. And who knows how much longer that home will exist...
Paul Verhoeven's twisted brilliance takes us into outer space in the cult classic Starship Troopers. The director of RoboCop casts Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer and Neil Patrick Harris in this humorous, thought-provoking sci-fi action movie where Beverly Hills 90210 meets Aliens! Inspired by Robert Heinlein's classic sci-fi novel of the same name, Verhoeven and co-writer Ed Neumeier create an ironic war between earth and a giant bug civilization bent on destroying humanity. The movie is a thoughtful satire of fascist Nazi propaganda and World War II war movies that endlessly entertains with jaw-dropping special effects and over-the-top, graphic insect violence.
Arnold Schwarzenegger makes his star-making turn as a relentless, time-traveling, cyborg assassin in James Cameron's essential 1984 sci-fi classic. Skynet, an AI-based military command system turns on its human creators and annihilates the world. A 30-year war between machines and what's left of mankind rages in the post-apocalyptic rubble. A soldier named John Connor eventually rises to lead the humans to victory. The machines send a terminator, a cyborg killer with remarkably human characteristics, back in time. His mission in mid-'80s Los Angeles: Find and kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) so John will never be born and the machines will never be defeated. The humans send crafty soldier Reese (Michael Biehn) to protect Connor. The two will need to defeat a seemingly invincible foe to insure humanity's survival.
What is the Matrix? That is the question - it's the answer that drives us. Neo (Keannu Reeves) is a hacker, searching for something. That something finds him in the form of Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne), who brings Neo into the "real world" where he learns just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Machines have taken control by creating a false reality, lulling humans into a dreamlike state so they can be used as batteries. One human city, Zion, remains, where what's left of mankind gathers on the verge of extinction. The ultra-hip, post-apocalyptic world created by the Wachowski Brothers made The Matrix one of Hollywood's landmark achievements, and its revolutionary special effects set new standards for cinematic wizardry and blew the collective mind of audiences around the world.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone star in Total Recall, Paul Verhoeven's interpretation of a Phillip K. Dick story that deals with identity theft and mind wiping. In the year 2084, Mars is colonized and the oxygen trade is huge business among the enclosed cities. Back on Earth, a construction worker named Quaid (Schwarzenegger) has disturbing dreams of Mars. Against his wife's (Stone) wishes, Quaid gets his mind implanted with fake memories of a vacation on Mars from the Total Rekall Corporation. When it goes horribly wrong, Quaid suspects a dark secret and races to Mars to seek the truth about an interplanetary conspiracy full of double agents. And when ancient aliens are uncovered, things get explosive for Quaid on the red planet!
At the end of the 21st Century, a group of genetically enhanced humans emerges. Known as Hemophages, this new evolution of man is blessed with high intelligence, remarkable stamina, and blinding speed. As more of the population mutates into this super-race, the government steps in to crush what it views as a rising threat and plans to eliminate the Hemophages. One of them, Violet (Milla Jovovich), a ruthless warrior with a chameleon-like gift for disguise, sets out to stop the government's plan and get revenge on those who made her mutate. She'll have to find a government-made death device, a ticking time bomb that will destroy all Hemphages. Violet's task gets even trickier when she learns that the bomb is actually a nine-year-old boy (Cameron Bright).
In the not-too-distant future, the human race stands on the brink of its next evolution. Mutants represent a growing segment of the population, and "regular" humans are becoming uneasy. As a reactionary Senator (Bruce Davidson) begins to rally America against the mutants, a teenage girl, Rogue (Anna Paquin), and a mysterious mutant with no memory and no past, Logan (Hugh Jackman), come to the home of Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). Xavier runs a school for mutants, those born with the "X factor" that gives them all kinds of unbelievable powers. Logan and Rogue soon find themselves caught in a battle between Xavier's group of heroic X-Men and a group of evil mutants led by Magneto (Sir Ian McKellan), with the fate of all humanity hanging in the balance.
The delicate coexistence between mutants and humans is shattered when a mutant attempts to assassinate the President. With paranoia running high, calls for the elimination of mutants begin, led by high-ranking general William Stryker (Brian Cox). Stryker launches an attack on Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, sending the young mutants and their babysitter Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) scattering into the night. With Cyclops (James Marsden), the Professor (Patrick Stewart), Storm (Halle Berry), and Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) off on various missions, the X-Men must first reunite, then form an unlikely alliance with Magneto (Ian McKellan) and Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) in order to stop Stryker's plans. The second installment of the comic-book superhero saga brings more mutants, more action, more twists, and a deeper look into Wolverine's past.