Honorable Mention—Blade Runner
(aka “The most alternately dull, stylistic, and intense sci-fi film ever released with a notoriously-terrible voice over and recut, and recut again, and again, and again…”) ;)
10. “In the Pale Moonlight” (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine…Everything that made this show great contained in one 45-minute masterpiece, all the murky morals and grey areas and character complexity and depth, wrestling with an impossible dilemma—the risk of losing a war and countless more lives without foreign help vs. the morally murky, Machiavellian, and ultimate murderous ends that are needed for that help to be attained—and so on; it’s an episode that breaks out of the normal pat Star Trek-style optimism and deals with people not as absolute angels or demons, and not as platitudes, but just as people, with many layers, and Sisko’s ending monologue, wrestling with his guilty conscience, is wrenching even after repeat viewings.)
9. Star Wars
(ANH…I rank it pretty low as I really don’t care for it anymore and the prequels somewhat ruin the memory, but I’d be lying if I didn’t pretend I watched the original hundreds of times as a kid, had the action figures and games…and even took a repetitive name for a forum identity from it!)
8. “Tapestry”
(Star Trek: The Next Generation…TNG is my favorite of all the Treks, Picard my favorite captain, and Q my favorite non-main-cast recurring character in all Trek, so this one takes all three and throws them in there, so it’s a no-brainer; I also like how it’s essentially a Star Trek version of “This Is Your Life” or “It’s A Wonderful Life” but in place of melodrama there’s actual substance, and given how many mistakes and stupid statements I’ve made over the years—some of them posted for all eternity on this site!—I like Q’s implication that you need those stupid moments in order to learn and grow beyond them.) :)
7. “The Late Philip J. Fry” (Futurama…I thought of putting “Where No Fan Has Gone Before” here instead, but there’s already enough Trek on this list, and while it’s odd my Futurama choice is one from the revived series, one which has had some good episodes but isn’t as good as the old ones, I do genuinely love the time travel references jokes in this one, and the heart as well between Fry and Leela, and how the relationship between them is explored…and then, of course, Fry, the Professor, and Bender toasting the end of the universe with a 6-pack only to discover time is cyclical…TWICE…here’s to shooting Hitler out the window, Professor!)
6. “All Good Things…” (Star Trek: The Next Generation…an absolutely perfect end to the show, a fantastic series finale that’s leaps and bounds the best of all the Trek series finales…and while First Contact was fun and Nemesis, for all its flaws, wasn’t as terrible in hindsight as I thought it was at the time, it’s still somewhat of a shame things couldn’t have ended as gloriously as this for the TNG crew…rather than have Captain Kirk die the most pointless death ever and give the most whiny, nonsensical, New Age Trek film ever with Insurrection…but still, this is a gem.)
5. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy TV SERIES”
(THHGTTG…Capitalizing TV SERIES here—aside from Stephen Fry as the Guide, the 2005 film was a waste unworthy of the THHGTTG name…Vogon poetry is better crafted than that piece of garbage—I’ll cheat a bit and count all 6 episodes as 1 over-large, “real” THHGTTG movie or TV movie as it were, as choosing one out of the six in isolation just doesn’t feel quite right…as for why I’d pick it…it’s THHGTTG, it’s the original Arthur Dent and Co., it’s Douglas Adams, and all the twisted philosophic and science fiction jokes you could ask for…so good…well, still not good enough to cheer up Marvin, maybe, but still damn good.)
4. “Genesis of the Daleks” (Doctor Who…Here for being the one that got me into Doctor Who and for genuinely being a brilliant piece…someone more qualified to speak of DW lore could probably sum it up better than me, but since I’m already far into a verbose list, I may as well give it my own shot and say that I loved how the episode used the origin of the Daleks to examine how war not only is not only destructive in terms of body counts and buildings toppled but what it can do to an entire people’s psyche and how it can warp society overall, and what seem the secure choices can end up the most deadly…that, and then of course the fact it’s Tom Baker and he’s of course perfect, and his “Do I have the right?” speech was a very refreshing surprise when so many other shows and movies would have killed the enemy without a second thought in that position, and it ties in nicely with the whole theme, the proto-Dalek people start down that slippery slope of justifying destruction, and the Doctor recognizes it as a slippery slope, and brings humanity to the situation rather than merely explosions.)
3. “The Best of Both Worlds Parts I and II” (Star Trek: TNG…It’s usually touted as TNG’s best episode, and with good reason—everyone gives a great performance, the Borg become the iconic threat they’re known as now, the drama builds, the guest stars work perfectly, Picard as Locutus is chilling, the cliffhanger is probably the best in sci-fi TV history, and the ultimate resolution both defeats this enormous, seemingly-invincible threat without feeling like a cheat or cop-out or anti-climax, it feels like a victory well-earned…it gives Riker a chance to really grow as a leader and character, and the scarring influence it has on Picard will lead to even more great moments for the character in the show and movies dealing with those psychological scars and trying to overcome them, simply put, it’s everything that made TNG great in an episode, and then some, and then some more on top of that.)
2. “The City on the Edge of Forever” (Star Trek: TOS…Well, the best, most critically-celebrated episode of the classic series, and with good reason—it’s probably the best stand-alone Star Trek episode ever made…if someone asked for one episode to make them a Trek convert, I’d choose this one hands down: Kirk and Spock are at their best and show why their legendary names and partnership is linked so, Joan Collins is fantastic as Edith Keeler, the romance natural feeling and, perhaps, the one time in classic Trek where it feels more like Kirk actually genuinely loves someone rather than her just being the Alien Girl of the Week, and the dramatic, tragic ending is as perfect as they come.)
1. “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (This is the Star Trek film that transcends Star Trek and really is something of a cinematic masterpiece in its own way…every last character gets their moment in this film, every one of the Seven Main Stars, Carol Marcus, David, and then Khan and his crew have at least one shining moment, and for most of them, far more than one…it’s a film that feels BIG, not just a Trek film with some fun discussions and explosions, it’s a film that feels very PERSONAL, and that stems so much from the villain and, of course, from the overtones they gave him…and being a literary nerd, I LOVE that “Moby Dick,” “The Inferno,” “Paradise Lost,” and “King Lear” all occupy a place on Khan’s bookshelf—all of course giving a thematic tint to the Ahab/Satan/Lear figure of Khan in the swirling Inferno-like hell of a planet that he’s been stranded in all these years—and that Khan even quotes Ahab’s famous, rage-filled lines against the White Whale…and on the flip side of all that, what does Kirk get as a present in the film but “A Tale of Two Cities,” so while Kirk is enjoying “the best of times,” Khan is suffering “the worst of times,” and just as Sydney Carton takes another man’s place to save his life on the guillotine platform, so too does Spock sacrifice to save Kirk and his friends from death…EVERYTHING feels epic about the movie, the musical score, the battles, the depth to all of the characters, especially Khan as the antagonist, the quotes—“How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn’t you say?” “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one” and of course “KHAAAAAAN!”—the literary references, Kirk/Khan/Spock as a sort of 3-headed main cast in a grand bittersweet epic, it’s simply a work so brilliant with its cast of characters and so magnificent in scope that it almost feels at times, dare I say…Shakespearean, in a very Star Trek sort of way.)

Well, that was overlong, I’m sure, but ah well…it's over now--roll the end credits. :)