There’s this serious listing craze going around these days, with Michael Marshall’s May 11 post on ABCNews.com about five science fiction movies that get the science right, PC World May 12 post on science fiction’s goofiest gadgets, and io9 seeming to do one every few days – my favorites being the Greatest Space Cocktails post from May 9 and Tastiest Food Moments on May 12.

So here’s my shot, a list of movies that get the sociology, the cultures, right.  Top Five.

5.  Blade Runner.  This is perhaps my favorite science fiction movie of all time, whichever version I’m watching, but it has several misses on the social ecology side along with its many hits.  Hits: the streets of L.A., taxis of the future, the misery of living in tiny spaces with credits eaked out like the gold stars second-grade teachers give their students.  Misses: the whole replicants side of life, and the fact that I somehow can’t believe that the future is just going to be one giant Western.

4.  Bubba Ho-Tep.  This might not qualify on some people’s lists because it’s a mummy movie, but it’s a stunningly good portrayal of social relationships in retirement homes.  The two lead characters (Sebastian Haff and John F. Kennedy, played by Bruce Campbell and Ozzie Davis respectively) do an incredible job representing the loneliness inherent in old age, while even the minor characters — the woman who steals things from other patients as they lie dead or dying — are fleshed out.  So to speak.

3.  Gattaca.  This dystopian society takes genomic information to the nth degree, selecting people for its space program based solely on their genetic perfection.  Vincent (a terrific Ethan Hawke) lacks the requisite DNA, while genetically perfect Eugene (an equally wonderful Jude Law) has been paralyzed in an accident.  They swap spit, although not in the way that high school kids do.  A very precise depiction of the dangers inherent in knowing everything about your DNA.

2.  The Fifth Element.  This is something of an odd choice, I admit, given how far out of touch with reality this movie is — but the oddness is entirely because director Luc Besson brought a sensibility that’s lacking in American films.  Mr. Zorg (Gary Oldham) is great and his evil allies delightfully stupid, while the monastic order that’s preserving the Element’s place in the world is utterly believable.  Throw in Bruce Willis’s attitude and Milla Jovovich’s infantilistic confusion, then deduct a few points for Chris Tucker’s performance while adding back a couple for the idea of a universe-wide ‘reality show,’ and you’ve got the formula for an utterly believable societal structure. 

1.  Alien.  What is there to say?  Assume that everything that can go wrong with society has gone wrong, and you have the social structures and interactions displayed in Alien.  The military-industrial complex really is running everything, and is willing to sacrifice all in the search for new weapons.  The interactions between crew members stuck interminably together in space rings true; the inches-from-crazy crew member Lambert (Veronica Cartwright’s best performance ever) portrays the edgy kind of person we all run into in our jobs; while the ship’s generalized state of disrepair reflects the reality of an industrial workplace.