PROMO: The 10 Best Science Fiction Movie Face-Offs

"If it bleeds, we can kill it." Truer words were never spoken, Arnold. The movie's ultimate showdown is between the Predator and Arnold Schwarzenegger's character, Dutch (we know, it's a strange nickname for an Austrian). The intergalactic game hunter actually faces off with a gaggle of recognizable faces throughout the film, including Apollo Creed himself, Carl Weathers, Shane Black (the man who made action movie history with his sale of the script for Lethal Weapon) and former-wrestler-cum-Minnesota-governor Jesse Ventura. "The Body," as Jesse used to like to be called, titled his memoir after one of his character's most memorable quotes from the movie: "I ain't got time to bleed."

How do you improve upon a Ridley Scott classic that changed the face of sci-fi? Have James Cameron write and direct the sequel. Oh, and make the "Alien" in question plural. Nicely done. Along with a certain other part II (er, part V) later on this list, this epic 1986 sequel could qualify as the Godfather II of sci-fi action films in that many feel it's better than the original. Whatever your stance on Aliens, when Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), defending her little pal Newt, screams "get away from her, you bitch!" at the mother of all aliens (literally), you know it is on.

OK, so maybe the Wachowski siblings went completely off the rails with the second and third installments of this ill-advised trilogy, but the promise of the original chapter—those 360-degree fight scenes and slow-mo bullet shots that would be ripped off ad nauseum for a decade to come—was fulfilled with the Neo vs. 1,000 Agent Smiths fight in The Matrix Reloaded. Honorable mention here goes to the first Neo vs. Smith showdown from The Matrix that led to Neo's death and resurrection (spoiler alert from 13 years ago!).

1984 was not a good year to be named Sarah Connor in Los Angeles. At least not in James Cameron's epic time-travel/artificial intelligence/pending nuclear holocaust blockbuster. The film was Cameron's directorial debut (well, unless you count Piranha Part Two: The Spawning… and, really, you should) and though it features a number of face-offs between Arnold Schwarzenegger's shotgun-wielding robot-from-hell and Michael Biehn's futuristic resistance fighter, none of those is our battle of choice. The ultimate showdown is between the Terminator and Sarah herself. Sarah ultimately lives to kick ass another day, but not without her scars (spoiler alert for later on in this list).

Paul Verhoeven's 1987 film aspired to be as much satire as it did sci-fi/action movie and it succeeded, partially, at both. The film's protagonist, cyborg-cop-to-be Officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller, perhaps cast because of his robotic tendencies) squares off against a who's who of creep all-stars, played by Ronnie Cox, Miguel Ferrer, Ray Wise and Kurtwood Smith, whose pre-That 70s Show menace is deeply unsettling. The film is now being remade (of course) but there's still time to enjoy the original untainted.

Long live Van Damme. This film was JCVD's highest grossing film at the box office, and (relatively speaking) his best reviewed. In it, Jean Claude plays a federal agent who works for the Time Enforcement Commission, a government branch that regulates time travel, which is now possible in the film's futuristic setting (the future here being 2004). JCVD is also mourning the loss of his murdered wife (played by the always attractive Mia Sara, who you might remember best as Ferris Bueller's girlfriend), and the bad guy he squares off against here is a far cry from his usual martial arts foes. It's instead a crooked politician, played by the late Ron Silver, who is using time travel for his own personal gain (perish the thought!). The film takes some rather fun liberties with atomic physics, but as far as time travel flicks go, it's surprisingly good.

We're bending the rules of the "sci-fi" category here a bit, but feel justified in doing so as Tom Hardy's Bane in this year's The Dark Knight Rises is as otherworldly as any creature on this list (with the possible exception of Peter Weller). As the fate of Gotham City (nay, the world!) hangs in the balance, Christian Bale's crime fighting caped crusader must come out of retirement to take on his most ferocious opponent to date. Hardy's Bane, hidden behind a mask for nearly every frame of the film, manages to be vividly menacing while only having a portion of his face visible. Much like The Joker in The Dark Knight, Bane's origins are left intentionally murky, making him that much more of an enigma (also aided by the fact that you have no clue what he's saying half the time).

We told you Cameron was good at sequels! This 1991 follow-up managed to improve upon its own initial conceit, with Arnold's T-800 now being an antiquated model that's been reprogrammed and sent back from the future to protect the since-been-committed-to-a-mental-facility Sarah Connor and her now-teenage son, John Connor (who, as legend has it, will someday grown up to lead the resistance against the machines).The face-off this time is between Arnold and the T-1000, a new and improved "liquid metal" Terminator (played by the ever-creepy Robert Patrick) that can take the shape of anything it touches, and is seemingly impervious to any sort of gunshot. If only Skynet would send a cyborg back in time to tell Christian Bale not to do Terminator: Salvation.

This is where we make it up to Ridley for saying Aliens was better than Alien. Based on a Philip K. Dick story (before he was the de rigueur Hollywood primary source) this classic pits Harrison Ford against another creep hall of famer, Rutger Hauer, in a dystopian futuristic setting (aka 2019). The film also stars a pre-repeated-public-meltdown Sean Young as a very realistic android (or "replicant") and a possible love interest for Ford.

Okay, so we made a crack about Star Wars in the intro, but that was about Ewoks, which don't show up until part III (er, part VI). But before that, Empire had one of the greatest face-offs in cinematic history: Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader. If you don't know the piece of information that gets revealed in their epic lightsaber duel, then you must be from a pretty remote part of Tatooine. It pains us to say it, but this face-off is the sci-fi champ.