• Danny Boyle chose to make Sunshine instead of the sequel to 28 Days Later, because he's not a custodian, he's an innovator. (Although he's hinted lately he may make 28 Years Later.) Boyle has alternated between science fiction movies and "realistic" films with surreal touches. Trainspotting and Shallow Grave are both set in the real world, but a veil of unreality clings to both of them. (Not just the ceiling baby, but Ewan McGregor's unraveling characters in both films.) Zombie movie 28 Days Latermanages the near-impossible: it actually manages to feel post-apocalyptic without killing off its entire cast in the first half hour. But Sunshine is Boyle's greatest achievement. The story of a small crew on a desperate mission tor reignite the sun, it manages to blend the horror thriller with the trippy cosmic film. But both genres have a steel underpinning of hard science and psychological complexity, and everything feels like it's happening for a real reason. Upcoming project: Boyle's next film is Slumdog Millionaire, about an illiterate kid who tries to become a contestant on a Hindi game show.
• Guillermo Del Toro is best known for the acclaimed Pan's Labyrinth, one of the most powerful — and darkest — explorations of escapism ever filmed. But he also made two of the best genetic-engineering thrillers of all time: Blade II and Mimic. (Mimic was originally supposed to be a 30-minute segment in an "anthology" film featuring a segment from Boyle.) Both films feature monsters created by science. In Mimic, a scientist creates a super-insect to destroy cockroaches that are carrying disease. But the super-insect evolves into a giant monster that can assume human form. And in Blade, vampires hack their own genome to create near-invincible creatures. Upcoming projects: Del Toro is filming Hellboy 2. He's also working on 3993, a ghost story about the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and At The Mountains Of Madness, an HP Lovecraft adaptation set in Antarctica.

• Charlie Kaufman has only been a writer up to now. But he's managed to create a more consistent vision in his films than most directors. Films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovitch have a shared set of surreal concerns: characters journey into someone's head and discover, to your horror, that identity is always a first draft. Kaufman's characters are always revising their personal narratives and confronting different versions of themselves, like Kaufman and his twin in Adaptation. It's also worth hunting down the little-known Human Nature (directed by Eternal Sunshine's Michel Gondry) in which a mad scientist tries to train a mouse to use a salad fork. Upcoming project: Kaufman's directing his first film, Synecdoche, New York, due out next year. (It's about a director (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his cast, creating ever-stranger New York stories inside a theater which is a scale model of New York.)
• Kathryn Bigelow. Her best-known science fiction film is 1995's Strange Days, about a former cop who sells bootlegs of people's memories on data discs. And then one of those discs turns out to contain someone's memories of murdering a prostitute. But Bigelow's CV is full of claustrophobic thrillers with weird touches, from 1987's vampire romp Near Dark and 1990's cop drama Point Blank to 2002's K19: The Widowmaker. As with Boyle, even her real-world stories are so unnerving they feel like alternate reality. Upcoming project: Her next film is an Iraq war drama, The Hurt Locker.

Famous names: Matt Groening's followup to The Simpsons.

Crunchy goodness: 5

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: Five years after the show kinda petered out on FOX ("cancelled" is almost too strong a word; it's more like the show died of neglect), Futurama is being revived in 2007 as a series of straight-to-DVD movies.

Stunt casting: Though celebrities frequently made cameos as heads in jars, in the single greatest casting coup of all time, the original Star Trek cast (minus James Doohan) play themselves in the episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before."

Most painfully dated moment: Every work of art is a reflection of the time it was made, but for a show set a thousand years in the future, Futurama is way too obsessed with late-nineties alt-rock.

The Leela Zone: Futurama Madhouse

Famous names: Created and written by Douglas Adams.

Crunchy goodness: 3

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: It's taken many forms, all of Adams worked on: a radio show, books, a record, a text-based video game, stage productions, and a big-budget Hollywood film (whose existence is justified by the expression on Arthur Dent's face from 1:22:48 to 1:22:53).

Design breakthrough: The pages of the computerized Hitchhiker's Guide were created via animation designed to resemble wireframe computer graphics; then and now, actual computer graphics would be lucky to look as good.

Deadliest spoiler: What the hell is a digital watch, and why would you need both hands to operate it?

BBC Guide to the Hitchhiker's Guide

Famous Names: Rod Serling (Creator/Writer/Host); Stars who spent time in the Zone include Robert Redford, Burgess Meredith, Dennis Hopper, William Shatner and many more.

Crunchy Goodness: 4

Sequels: A 1983 movie, a 1985 TV re-launch that ran for three seasons and a single-season TV run in 2002.

Bang for Your Buck: No, not every episode's a keeper, and even Serling would admit that. But when Twilight Zone episodes work, they still have big-idea power nearly 50 years later. ...

Deadliest Spoiler: It's a cookbook! He breaks his glasses! She's not ugly, but everyone else is! The spaceship's from earth! And many, many more.

The Twilight Zone Museum

Famous Names: Patrick McGoohan (Creator/Star).

Crunchy Goodness: 4

Spin-Offs: A big-screen adaptation's been rumored for years; DC Comics published a graphic-novel 'sequel' in 1988.

Bang for Your Buck: The killer weather balloon, 'Rover.'

Deadliest Spoiler: He gets out! Or does he?

The Anorak's Guide to The Prisoner

Famous Names: J.J. Abrams (Creator), Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Dominic Monaghan (Cast).

Crunchy Goodness: 3

Elevator Pitch: "It's Survivor meets The X-Files! With really hot people!"

Life Lessons: Always check the passenger manifest.

Bang for Your Buck: The twisty, flashback-based narrative style — which gets thrown for a big loop in the Season 3 finale.

4815162342 — a guide to the digits that rule the Lost universe

Famous names: Written and produced by Kenneth Johnson, who would go on to produce the highly badass Alien Nation teevee series.

Crunchy goodness: 3

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: V: The Final Battle, V: The Series, Alien Nation, Independence Day

Stunt casting: Robert Englund of Freddy Krueger fame as a slow but sweet alien; the first Nightmare on Elm Street film was released the following year while V: The Series was on the air.

Sights you'll never unsee: During an industrial accident involving liquid nitrogen, a guy's hand shatters into a bloody stump. Ouch!

The Visitors - Fansite with Episode Guide, Gallery, Technical Guide, Downloads and more.

Famous names: Produced and co-created by Rick Berman, who rescued Star Trek: The Next Generation from painful, Roddenberry mediocrity; while Voyager was mediocre more often than not, even its worst episode was better than most of the clunkers fromThe Next Generation's first season.

Crunchy goodness: 3

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: The next series, Star Trek: Enterprise, took the basic premise of a ship on its own and added more potty jokes and a male captain who manages to say "ass" in almost every episode.

Stunt casting: After Cronenberg vet Genevive Bujold didn't work as the captain (see the extras disc on the Season One Voyager DVD set for fascinating outtakes), the producers cast ex-Mrs. Columbo and Remo Williams girlfriend Kate Mulgrew.

Design breakthrough: The intentional use of Art Deco motifs on the bridge and other sets meant that even if the episode sucked, there was still eye candy, 'cuz Art Deco rules.

Star Trek Voyager Encyclopedia

Famous names: Chris Barrie, Craig Charles, Danny John-Jules, Robert Llewellyn

Crunchy goodness: 3.5

Elevator pitch: The Office meets Star Trek.

Sights you'll never unsee: The women of Rimmerworld. The Gelf mating ritual.

Life lesson: When the computer says everybody's dead, everybody's dead. No need for follow up questions.

Official Red Dwarf Site

Famous names: Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, Jeff Conaway, Harlan Ellison, Walter Koenig, Bill Mumy, Andrea Thompson

Crunchy goodness: 4.5

Elevator pitch: Lord of the Rings meets From Here to Eternity...IN SPACE!!!

Sights you'll never unsee: Claudia Christian "doin' it human style" with alien diplomat.

Deadliest spoiler: If you go to Z'ha'dum, you'll only mostly die.

Official Warner Bros. Babylon 5 Site

Famous names: John Carpenter, Rowdy Roddy Piper

Crunchy goodness: 4

Elevator pitch: "It's The Manchurian Candidate meets No Holds Barred!"

Stunt casting: Wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, whose wooden acting is oddly perfect for the now-classic line: "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum."

Sights you'll never unsee: The final shot of the film: one of the formaldehyde-faced aliens having sex with a topless woman.

Life lesson: If a friend tells you to put on a pair of sunglasses, you'll have to kick each others' asses for five and half minutes if you refuse, so put the glasses on!

John Carpenter's They Live Site Must See by Sherilyn Connelly.

Famous names: Directed by Nick Castle, a John Carpenter alum who started out strong playing Michael Myers in the first Halloween film and writing Escape from New York, but then directed three movies in the mid-nineties which are so foul, we dare not speak their name.

Crunchy goodness: 4

Stunt casting: Since both Mary-Louise Parker and Mary Stuart Masterson were unavailable to play the girlfriend, the filmmakers had to settle for third-tier triple-namer Catherine Mary Stewart—and Mary isn't even her first name, for Chrissakes!

Memorable product tie-in: Failing to learn from the success of the Tron video game two years earlier, Atari (the king of vaporware) produced an arcade game which was never released, and a computer game which was eventually released several years later, but not called The Last Starfighter.

Design breakthrough: All the special effects (except for the starcar on Earth) are CGI, and unlike Tron, they're meant to represent real, physical objects.

Cold Fusion Video Reviews: The Last Starfighter

Crunchy goodness: 4

Elevator pitch: "It's Star Wars meets Forbidden Planet...but a lot more Star Wars, what with the robots the kids are into these days."

Stunt casting: Roddy McDowall and Slim Pickens as the voices of the robots V.I.N.C.E.N.T. and Bob, respectively.

Design breakthrough: Though the filmmakers decided to use more traditional techniques for the models rather than the newfangled motion-control systems, the opening titles used CGI.

Black Hole official site

Famous names: Woody Allen's fifth feature film as director.

Crunchy goodness: 3

Sights you'll never unsee: It's the comic centerpiece of the movie and featured on the posters and boxes, but there's something about Woody as the robotic butler that's troubling and unpleasant.

Design breakthrough: Woody's first film to be scored with jazz and blues music; though subsequent films would use pre-existing recordings largely culled from his own library, for Sleeper he composed the bouncy ragtime score himself, and played the clarinet.

Most painfully dated moment: A tie: the Howard Cosell references (he's unknown in the 21st century, let alone the 22nd), and Diane Keaton's hairstyle, which is somehow more of its time than her entire wardrobe in Annie Hall.

Filmsite Review

Famous names: The gorgeous electronic score by Wendy Carlos proves (much as Jerry Goldsmith's did with Star Trek: The Motion Picture a few years earlier) that a good soundtrack can help compensate for narrative flaws.

Crunchy goodness: 5

Stunt casting: Pac-Man, at 45:21.

Memorable product tie-in: While the movie didn't do as well as expected (it wasn't a huge flop, but it wasn't the blockbuster Disney needed), the tie-in video game was a huge hit, grossing more than the movie itself.

Bang for your buck: Between the groundbreaking CGI environments and extensive rotoscoping work done on each 65mm frame set inside the computer and whole lot of other techniques and tricks, every penny is on the screen—though, admittedly, it wouldn't have hurt to have lost a few seconds of bells and whistles to pay for one more draft of the script, or at least a technical advisor to make sure the computer terminology being tossed around was remotely accurate.

Tron Sector

Famous names: Director Dean Parisot had previously worked with Steven Wright, and went on to direct episodes of The Tick and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Screenwriter David Howard has no other credits, and is presumed to be in his mother's basement playing World of Warcraft.

Crunchy goodness: 5

Stunt casting: Alan Rickman, who obviously hates the latex thing on his head as much as his character does.

Sights you'll never unsee: Your heart can't help but break for the Galaxy Quest cast as they stand in an empty parking lot for the grand opening of an electronics store.

Design breakthrough: The hallway of chompy crushy things, which Lucas also used in Attack of the Clones, though at least Galaxy Quest had the temerity to acknowledge that there's no reason for them to exist aside from bad writing.

Onion AV Club review

Famous names: The first film by Darren Aronofsky, who would go on to heretofore untold levels of squick with his followup, Requiem for a Dream.

Crunchy goodness: 5

Memorable product tie-in: Every techno DJ alive has the soundtrack.

Sights you'll never unsee: Drill plus cranium equals super happy mirror splatter!

Design breakthrough: Many pre-DV indie films were shot in black and white for budgetary reasons, but Pi's gorgeous, high-grain chiaroscuro cinematography is vital to the mood; though it's never mentioned in the dialogue, I've always suspected the character is color-blind, as it feels like we're seeing the world through his eyes.

Official Pi site

Famous names: Inspired by a Philip K. Dick story and directed by Paul Verhoeven; during the mid-80s, David Cronenberg (yay!) was attached to direct what would have likely been a much more faithful adaptation.

Crunchy goodness: 4

Memorable product tie-in: The Nintendo game based on the movie frequently appears on "Worst Game Ever" lists.

Sights you'll never unsee: Schwarzenegger pulling a glowing golf ball out of his nose.

Life lesson: Get your ass to Mars.

I-Mockery: The Ten Best Things About Total Recall!

Famous Names: Sam Raimi (Director); Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Larry Drake.

Crunchy Goodness: 3

Bang for Your Buck: Neeson's carnival-induced freak-out, where the sight of a stuffed pink elephant kicks off a 3-D zoom-tour through his short-circuiting brain.

Most Painfully Dated Moment: Larry Drake's crimelord tortures people with ... his cigar cutter. Tres, tres early-'90s.

Sequels: The Neeson-free Darkman II: The Return of Durant and Darkman III: Die, Darkman, Die.

The Darkman Database