Film

Flash Gordon

Name: Flash Gordon
Genre: Science Fiction, Adventure, Action, Family
Released: 1980
Cast: Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max von Sydow, Chaim Topol, Ornella Muti

Other titles called Flash Gordon: the 1936 film.

Action
Space opera
Relentless

This is Saturday-morning-serial pulp blown up to arena-rock scale: gold lamé, hockey pads as spacesuits, Max von Sydow chewing every inch of scenery as Ming, and Queen's soundtrack thundering under it all. It never winks — it plays every ridiculous beat completely straight, which is exactly why it works as gorgeous, guileless spectacle. Watch it drunk on nostalgia or stone sober; either way, it's a blast.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love swashbuckling comic-strip excess played with a straight face and a rock-opera wink, where colour, costume and campy villainy matter more than logic.

Skip it if you need tight plotting or sincere, grounded drama, since the dialogue is stilted and the story moves in broad, cheerfully silly strokes that can feel thin.

What it asks of you: Under two hours of brisk, unembarrassed nonsense, with a willingness to let the rousing score and garish sets carry the weight.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Guardians of the Galaxy2014

Same DNA — a scrappy, wisecracking crew saving the galaxy to a killer soundtrack, played with real heart under the jokes. James Gunn clearly grew up loving exactly this kind of gaudy space opera.

But It's slicker and more polished than Flash Gordon's deliberate cheese — some of that lovable B-movie rawness is gone.

The Fifth Element1997

Luc Besson's operatic, candy-colored future has the same unembarrassed maximalism — outrageous costumes, a supreme villain, a save-the-world plot nobody takes too seriously.

But Milla Jovovich's chosen-one plot and Chris Tucker's grating radio host divide people hard; you'll love or loathe the tone fast.

Barbarella1968

The godmother of camp space adventure — Jane Fonda in a skintight suit, gleeful bad taste, and a sense that sincerity and silliness can coexist beautifully.

But Its pacing is baggy and very much a product of its psychedelic era; the plot barely holds together.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Flash Gordon

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Dune1984

Produced by the same man in the same handful of years, both are big-swing attempts to turn beloved pulp mythology into a blockbuster — one chose glitter and Queen, the other chose dread and Toto. Watching them back to back shows how far the same ambition can stretch.

Same producer, same handful of years of pulp-mythology ambition — Dino De Laurentiis's other big 1984 gamble, this time grim, baroque, and genuinely strange rather than gleeful.

But It's dense, slow, and famously divisive; the tone is the polar opposite of Flash Gordon's romp.

Krull1983

A fantasy cousin from the same era — a glaive instead of a rocket ship, but the same earnest, big-swing spectacle and a young cast fighting an alien tyrant.

But The effects have aged rougher than Flash Gordon's, and the story sags noticeably in the middle.

Jupiter Ascending2015

The Wachowskis go full opera-glam space fantasy — bee-based space royalty, reptile bureaucrats, a wedding-dress fight scene. It's committed to its own lunacy in a way that feels kindred.

But Critics savaged it, and the plot barely survives contact with itself; go in for the visuals, not the story.

John Carter2012

Same pulp-hero-on-an-alien-planet bones — Edgar Rice Burroughs source material, warring princesses, a man out of his depth doing derring-do among strange creatures.

But It plays its adventure mostly straight-faced rather than campy, so the fun is quieter and slower to build.

Masters of the Universe1987

Cheap, sincere, and gloriously '80s — a toy-line hero and a scenery-devouring villain (Frank Langella's Skeletor) fighting it out with the same guileless spandex energy.

But It's genuinely a lesser film — thinner plot, smaller scale, and the budget shows constantly.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century1979

The exact contemporary TV cousin — a frozen-in-time hero, disco-futurism, a robot sidekick, and the same wide-eyed pulp-adventure sincerity stretched across a whole series.

But The episodic format means lower stakes each week, and some seasons lean harder into camp than others.

Big Trouble in Little China1986

Trade outer space for San Francisco's Chinatown, but keep the swaggering hero out of his depth, the gaudy villain, and total commitment to its own absurdity.

But It's earthbound and much more comedy-forward — no rockets, no space princesses, just a different flavor of pulp joy.

Forbidden Planet1956

Strip away the spandex and the Queen soundtrack and Flash Gordon's plot is basically Forbidden Planet's bones — the mad ruler, the isolated world, the doomsday device. This is the same pulp architecture built for grown-ups instead of gleeful teenagers.

A quarter-century earlier, MGM built essentially the same skeleton — marooned crew, isolated planet, godlike ruler, a secret weapon nobody understands — and played it as prestige, Shakespeare-inflected sci-fi.

But It's slower and more talky, and takes itself completely seriously; there's no camp wink anywhere in it.

Space Adventure Cobra1982

Same macho-pulp-hero engine, same era's neon space-opera swagger, just rebuilt in a completely different animation tradition — proof the disco-era spandex spaceman was a genuinely global mood, not just an Anglo one.

A Japanese anime from the same disco-space-opera moment — a swaggering, cigar-chomping pulp hero blasting through the galaxy with a laser arm and a permanent smirk.

But It's a different medium and sense of humor entirely — animated, more overtly sexy and jokey, and little known outside anime circles.