'70s Sci-Fi Movies That Still Hold Up Today In the 1970s, sci-fi was starting to evolve into the commercial genre it would eventually become. Thanks to the success of films like Steven Spielberg 's " Close Encounters of the Third Kind " and George Lucas' " Star Wars ," sci-fi transformed from an occasionally visited cinematic genre into a source of full-blown mainstream blockbusters. Throughout the '60s and throughout the '70s, though, some successful sci-fi franchises were already at work, squeaking open the doors that " Star Wars " would eventually kick. Multiple " Planet of the Apes " movies, for instance, were raking in money, while companies like Toho and Daiei found great success with their latter-day Godzilla and Gamera films in Japan. Source: https://www.imdb.com/news/ni65585827/?ref_=nwc_art_perm