Le voyage dans la lune (1902)
French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès' silent classic is generally considered the first great sci-fi film, with the first great indelible image in movies, of the rocket ship hitting the moon smack in the eye. With his tale of scientists who shoot a rocket from a cannon to the lunar surface, where they meet hostile aliens, Méliès knew he had a hit; alas, Thomas Edison pirated the movie and made a mint from it in America before Melies could taste that sweet overseas box office. Watch the whole silent film below; it's only eight minutes.

Cat-Women of the Moon (1953)
The early 1950s saw a spate of movies built around lunar expeditions. This is one of the silliest — and, in the right light, the most fun. Did you know that there were giant spiders on the moon, or that in lunar caves the air is breathable enough to take off your space mask? The tale of a race of hot chicks on the moon planning to take over the earth has been parodied often, most notably in 1987's Amazon Women on the Moon (which often apes this film shot for shot), but for campy laughs, it's hard to top the original.

2001: A Spacy Odyssey (1968)
It's hard to come up with enough praise for the lunar segment of Stanley Kubrick's mind-expanding space opera. Plotwise, very little happens, save for the discovery of the monolith on the moon that sends Dave Bowman hurtling toward destiny But oh, those visuals! Even while trying to depict commercial space flight as an ordeal as mundane as airline travel, Kubrick still makes it look graceful and lovely. Same thing on the moon's surface, where eerie quiet coexists with beautiful desolation.

Space: 1999 (1975-77)
The whole series (shot in Britain for ITV and syndicated in America) took place on the moon, though not in our solar system. The premise of the show saw the moon sent careening out of earth's orbit and into deep space after a nuclear waste dump on the far side of the moon exploded (oops!), leaving the crew of Moonbase Alpha to fight for survival in hostile encounters with strange creatures. The season 2 opening credits told the story economically, as you can see.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)
Terry Gilliam's overstuffed fantasy did have one minimalist sequence: its trip to the moon. That's because the production ran out of money, so Gilliam's plan for a vast set and a cast of thousands was canceled. Instead, Gilliam settled for a cast of five and a lunar city that consisted of little more than the former Monty Python animator's production sketches shuffled about. The changes worked, however, resulting in an austere yet enchanting sequence in which the human characters encounter the king and queen of the moon, two giants with detachable heads. As the jealous king, Robin Williams brings his usual bagful of crazy, but just imagine the sequence if Gilliam's first choice, Sean Connery hadn't bailed when the money got tight.

A Grand Day Out (1989)
The short that introduced the world to Wallace & Gromit (and to claymation king Nick Park) features a wonderfully daffy story that has the tweedy inventor and his silently suffering dog building a rocket in their basement in order to fly to the moon to satisfy their jones for cheese. This 20-minute short is as brilliant and hilarious as the rest of the Wallace & Gromit tales, and if you haven't seen it, or can't remember the unique nature of the creature our heroes meet on the moon, you must watch now.

Space Cowboys (2000)
Clint Eastwood's adventure about four oldtimers — NASA also-rans who didn't quite have the right stuff — who get another chance to blast off as seniors is a surprisingly sentimental story. But the finale, in which an ill-fated member of Clint's team finally gets his wish to reach the moon, gives the movie an unexpectedly lyrical and moving final shot.

The Time Machine (2002)
This update of the H.G. Wells story (and the 1960 George Pal film) isn't that great (even if it was directed by H.G.'s great-grandson, Simon Wells), but it's on this list for its striking sequence of lunar destruction. Time traveler Guy Pearce learns that, in the early 21st century, we sent demolition teams to level the lunar landscape in order to build condos on the moon, and, well, we broke it. D'oh! Watching the moon crumble over the heads of panicky earthlings is an awesome and horrifying sight.

Bruce Almighty (2003)
Given God-like powers, Jim Carrey emulates Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life, except his ability to lasso the moon to give it to his gal is literal. Who wouldn't swoon the way Jennifer Aniston does to see such a magnificent moon, almost close enough to touch? Unfortunately, Carrey learns the next day, his moon-yanking stunt caused tidal waves in Asia. Gravity's a bitch.

Bruce And Grace Romantic Evening - The funniest movie is here. Find it

Watchmen (2009)
During the revisionist-superhero saga's celebrated opening-credits montage, there's a brief moment that pays homage to a celebrated urban legend. When Neil Armstrong lands on the moon, Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) is already there, taking his picture. Armstrong can be heard saying, "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky!" It's a reference to the old joke (which some believe came from an actual Armstrong utterance), in which Armstrong supposedly followed up his boffo "That's one small step for man..." line with a reference to something he'd heard a neighbor's wife say years before, that she wouldn't give her husband a blow job until the kid next door walked on the moon. Alas, it's not true. Armstrong never said it. Snopes says so.

In case you hadn't figured it out yet, Rorie is an artist who just made all that stuff up about Pipewell. It's a great story, though, isn't it?

If you want more steam craziness, there is also a great video of Xeni Jardin from BoingBoing TV interviewing the guys from Kinetic Steam Works, who helped out with the Chromaether. She tours their steam engine workshop, and at one point winds up inside a (dormant) steam engine and asks one of the artist/engineers, "So we would be on fire right now?" Pure gold.

The Dihemispheric Chromaether Agitator [Almost Scientific]

SRK's movie will start shooting towards the end of the year, and in the meantime he'll be asking the world's greatest special effects technicians to help make it the greatest effects movie of all time. He tells Variety, "It will madcap, over the top. I want it to be as beautiful as Spider-Man in terms of effects." The movie will be about kids who wish for bad things, but "get a reality check when they come true." SRK reportedly jumped ship from Robot because he felt its storyline, about a companion robot that turns deadly, wasn't realistic enough.

Hollywood hasn't courted SRK yet, and he says he's waiting for the right opportunity for his quirky persona:

I'm waiting for someone like Steven Spielberg or James Cameron or some other great person like Ang Lee to make a film a film about a brown, thin, scrawny Indian guy who doesn't speak English too well. If they ever have a character like that and Google it, I'm sure they'll find me... Seriously, it would have to be character-specific. I'd love to do an action-comic film like Chris Rock and Jackie Chan.

[Variety]

Mr. India (1987). A cheesy sci-fi comedy with song-and-dance numbers. Arun discovers his scientist dad created a special wristband that turns the wearer invisible. He uses this to stop the mad genius Mogambo, who wants to take over India. (Mogambo's evil schemes weirdly include cutting off Arun's line of credit at the grocery store, but also launching nuclear missiles at India.) Here's a clip that shows Mogambo's evil lair and his giant gold epaulets:

Kol... Mil Gaya (2003). Maybe the most famous Bollywood science fiction film ever. An ET-esque alien named Jadoo befriends a mentally challenged boy and cures him. But then it turns out the alien's spaceship crash actually killed the kid's father. Here's one of the song-and-dance sequences involving Jadoo (wearing an orange hoodie and bling around his neck.) The little Kraftwerk sample gets bonus points:
Krrish (2006) is a quasi-sequel to Kol... Mil Gaya, about a small-town kid who gets superpowers and fights evil. It uses many of the superhero conventions, including the secret identity and the nosy girl reporter.

We're anxiously awaiting 2008's Love Story 2050, which takes place partly in a dark future Mumbai and partly in the present day. The future Mumbai will be mostly CGI, but the film will also feature an animatronic character, a robot named Boo. And lead actor Harman Bajewa learned Parkour, the art of jumping from rooftop to rooftop, for the movie.

Also fervently awaited: S. Shankar's Robot, starring South India's darling Rajnikanth. It'll have a billion-rupee budget and tons of special effects. It's the story of a scientist who creates a robot companion for his disabled child. But the robot goes berserk and starts killing people. Like robots always do.

India hasn't produced much original science fiction in the past, but there are two reasons why India will rule the genre in the future. First, India is ground zero for computer animation and special effects. There were only 27,000 professionals working in computer animation in India in 2001, but there will be 300,000 people in the industry in 2008. Also, Bollywood films have always had extensive "fantasy sequences" where realism suddenly goes out the window and bizarre stunts happen. Just imagine if some of that same cinematic language gets applied to science fiction.