A glance into the future

Blessed with many of the most inventive pioneers of science fiction literature, from Mary Shelley to H.G. Wells, Britain seemed perfectly placed to create a rich heritage of science fiction cinema. But Britain's SF films have struggled to escape the shadow of their literary forebears.

All the same, from the early 'trick' films of G.A. Smith and W.R. Booth, via Things to Come (1936) and The Quatermass Xperiment (1955, pictured) to the grim dystopia of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) and on into the 21st Century, British science fiction has frequently been as ambitious, imaginative and bold as its Hollywood rival, and often satisfyingly darker.

Science Fiction