Science-fiction would be nothing without the determined scientist. Central to many sci-fi narratives, the scientist remains an ambiguous figure: are their perilous experiments contributing to the furtherance of our species or are they an obsessive grasp for the glory of immortality?
In an age of celebrity quacks and Big Pharma, these films eschew the wide-eyes of discovery and choose to put scientific ethics under the microscope instead.
Altered States
A Harvard scientist, Edward Jessup (William Hurt), conducts experiments on himself in an isolation chamber, using a hallucinatory drug that may be causing him to regress genetically. Ken Russell's aggressive, psychotropic derangement of pop culture is exhilaratingly delirious.
The Man Who Changed His Mind
Dr Laurience (Boris Karloff) is a scientist who has devised a way to put one person's mind into another's body. When smitten Laurience discovers that his assistant Clare is in love with another man, he selects him as the victim for his experiments. Now Clare must stop the scientist's murderous intentions.
Amazing Transparent Man
From cult director Edgar G. Ulmer, a crazed ex-army Major has schemes to take over the world with an invisible army, and coerces a scientist into creating an experimental invisibility serum.
6th Day
Human cloning technology has fallen into corrupt hands, but one man refuses to be a pawn in the deadly conspiracy. The perfect excuse to see Arnold Schwarzenegger do battle with his cloned self.
Ahead of their Time: Literary Sci-fi adaptations
Dystopian Destiny: Addressing mankind's unsavoury future
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