Star Wars: A New Hope, 1977

It’s hard to realize today, in 2024, just how huge the original Star Wars film was and how it completely changed sci-fi forever. So much of the science fiction we see now is directly inspired by Star Wars or other projects that were inspired by the original 1977 film. The original movie presented a rusty, lived-in, and beat-up universe filled with broken robots and old bases. It’s main hero wasn’t a suave, chiseled man clad in a silver suit who punched people and always knew what to do. Instead, Luke is a young farm boy, lost, looking for guidance, and unaware of his power and future.

And if you only watch A New Hope, you’ll be treated to a completely self-contained story of that young man meeting a scoundrel, saving a princess, leading a scrappy rebellion against an evil empire’s big weapon, and stopping the bad guys before they can kill more people. Sure, there are many more movies after this, but you don’t need to watch them to enjoy A New Hope. — Zack Zwiezen