British comedian Peter Sellers may be most well-known for his remarkable portrayal of Dr. Strangelove, the ex-Nazi turned Head of U.S. Weapons Research. Strangelove is a quirky, tittering scientist whose bionic right arm has a mind of its own, leading to some decidedly awkward moments throughout the duration of the film.

The wheel-chair bound Strangelove can’t seem to control his cybernetic limb; as society teeters on the edge of World War III, the arm begins to develop fascist tendencies, spontaneously and unpredictably rising into a Nazi salute.

While Strangelove doesn’t fight off mutants or try to conquer the galaxy, his misbehaving robo-limb qualifies him as one of film’s most iconic cyborgs.

As Trekkies know, Resistance is Futile. The Borg are by and far the greatest baddies (beside Khan, duh) ever introduced in the Star Trek universe; these hive-minded Cyborgs are actually a monster mash of numerous alien species spliced together with nanobots. The terrifying Borg are always trying to assimilate new races into their Collective, and even get their claws on Picard for a short period of time.

What makes the zombie-like Borg so great is their willingness to splice more and more tech into their body, creating uniquely powerful and terrifying drones. Their Queen, Alice Krige, continues to haunt our memories some twenty years later.

Since the Dawn of Man, the human race has looked to the stars. Our earliest civilizations created entire religions and myths based upon the cosmos, telling tales of powerful beings that shaped our world and ruled from above. The tales of our ancestors are the roots of modern science fiction; stories that struggle to comprehend the unknown, to explain those burning points of light so far overhead. We apply whatever worldly knowledge we possess in a pitiful attempt to grasp the inner workings of an infinitely-complex universe.

It is our destiny, some argue, to leave this Earth behind and explore the endless depths of space. They believe that man should strive to master and subvert the universal laws, bending them to our will with astounding technological achievements. It is our duty to create, to improve, to move forward. And so we do – if only in literature or film.

The science fiction genre offers us a voyeuristic glance beyond the veil of time, into a future where anything is possible. The very best sci-fi films speculate about the technological, medical, and societal advancements that man will make decades before those feats are possible; it should come as no surprise that they are, many times, unsettlingly accurate. The worst of these films tend to feature more fiction than science, driving us to painstakingly detail all the ways $140 million could have been better spent. (I’m looking at you, Armageddon.)

Here are the most believable science fiction movies ever produced, in absolutely no particular order…

Kubrick’s classic is considered by many rocket scientists to be one of the most scientifically accurate films of all time. Every detail is nailed; the oppressive silence of space, the soundless movement of spacecraft, the positioning of Earth’s satellites, the centrifugal force used aboard the Discovery One. Even the astronaut’s systematical and deliberate approach to their space travel duties and the food they eat is right.

Oh – and you’re not going to like this part – HAL 9000’s slow descent into murderous insanity is (borderline) plausible. The supercomputer’s decision to kill the astronauts aboard Discovery is motivated by a sense of self-preservation and a desire to comply with conflicting mission directives.

“You can’t train [artificial intelligence] for every problem it might have to solve,” roboticist Daniel H. Wilson told Popular Science. “Different levels of classified information are exactly the wrench that could turn a predictable learner into a murderer.”

Mind = blown.

This is one of those “I wish it weren’t here” entries. The fact that 1971’s Andromeda Strain is considered scientifically accurate and even remotely plausible should scare the living hell outta you.

The premise is simple: US government uses a satellite to capture what they believe to be an extraterrestrial virus, said satellite crashes into New Mexico town, everyone in aforementioned town dies.

Why is that relevant to this article, you ask? Because everything we know (and theorize) about bacteria and pandemics and the origins of life indicates that this could really happen. We know that bacteria actually can survive the deadly vacuum of space. We know that space flight can actually alter the structure of bacteria, turning it into a more infectious and deadly pathogen.

We also know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the US government is dumb enough to try and capture an extraterrestrial virus with a satellite. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No, this entry isn’t here because of the Replicants, so relax. I don’t think that we’ll be engineering (or hunting) synthetic humans anytime soon. Nor do I believe that we’ll discover a way to genetically engineer and implant false memories in the human brain. Although now that you mention it, that would be preeeetty sweet. Almost as sweet as a Blade Runner sequel. Almost.

Ridley Scott’s 1982 neo-noir sci-fi masterpiece was actually scientifically accurate from an entirely different standpoint. The bleak dystopian setting of the film, might have actually predicted the fate of our world. At least, that’s what the science nerds say. The perpetually-blackened skies seem to hint at an atmosphere suffering from carbon excess, and some of the technology in the film kind exists today. Those futuristic Spinner transport crafts? Yeah, we’ve got that. And they’re about the get a whole lot cooler, too. WEIRD, RIGHT?

Best of all, European tech company Aeromobil has a flying car that will apparently be available to the public very, very soon. Toyota’s been trying to build a hovercraft-type car but….eh. Not as exciting when you’ve got the real thing!

Fun Fact: Philip K. Dick, author of the 1968 novel that inspired Blade Runner, made some eerily accurate predictions; he wrote of nuclear meltdown in the Soviet Union by 1985 (Chernobyl blew up in 1986), and artificial life by 1993 (Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997).

If you haven’t read it, do it now. It’s called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?