Film

The Three Fantastic Supermen

A 1967 Italian action-sci-fi film where three crime-fighting heroes in experimental super-suits investigate radioactive counterfeit money and bizarre gemstone-based villainy. It's campy, earnest, and gloriously unhinged—part spy thriller, part science fiction fever dream. For anyone who loves B-movies with genuine ambition and practical effects that strain believably against impossible ideas.

TMDb rating2.7

If you liked this

Barbarella1968

Jane Fonda in a space-age bikini battling absurd sci-fi threats with the same cheerful sincerity. Campy, visually wild, and genuinely inventive about its own silliness. You'll have a better time than you expect.

But The plot barely exists and the sexual politics feel dated. Some find the relentless kitsch exhausting rather than fun.

Barbarella poster

Danger: Diabolik1968

Italian crime-caper with a master thief in a rubber suit, garish colours, and practical gadgetry played completely straight. Same era, same sensibility, same willingness to be gloriously weird without winking at the camera.

But The pacing meanders and the dubbing is occasionally rough. It's deliberately artificial in a way modern audiences sometimes mistake for incompetence.

Danger: Diabolik poster

The Italian Job1969

A slicker heist film with charm, humour, and that same swinging European cool. Mini Coopers, gold bars, and a cast having obvious fun. Proof the era could balance spectacle with genuine storytelling.

But It's far more conventional than the Supermen. If you want genuine weirdness, this is the palate-cleanser, not the main course.

The Italian Job poster

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Eolomea1972

Both are non-American sci-fi from the late 1960s/early 1970s using practical effects to imagine futures, but where the Supermen embrace colour and camp, Eolomea pursues austere beauty and genuine alienation. Seeing them together reveals the full spectrum of what non-Hollywood sci-fi could be.

A Yugoslavian science-fiction film about a woman from a future society visiting Earth. Slow, meditative, visually stunning practical sci-fi that feels like it's from a completely different planet. A corrective to kitschy spectacle—proof the era could do sci-fi with genuine mystery.

But It's extremely slow and philosophical where the Supermen are kinetic and ridiculous. The pacing will feel glacial if you're not already into experimental cinema. No plot in the conventional sense.

Eolomea poster
More like this (5)

Modesty Blaise1966

A pulp spy-adventure that commits entirely to its comic-strip aesthetic: Pop Art colours, deadpan violence, a hero who's genuinely clever, and a tone that floats between parody and earnestness. Wilfully strange and confident about it.

But The plot is thin and the comedy doesn't always land. Some find the aesthetic exhausting rather than charming.

Modesty Blaise poster

Captain Nemo and the Underwater City1969

Submarine adventure with weird science, practical effects pushed to their limits, and that same cheerful commitment to impossible ideas. Jules Verne adapted for an era that believed anything could be a spectacle.

But The dialogue is wooden and the pacing uneven. It's more interesting in fragments than as a sustained watch.

Captain Nemo and the Underwater City poster

The Spy with a Cold Nose1966

A British spy-comedy where a dog becomes a secret agent. It shares that same spirit of absurdist adventure-pulp, played with a straight face and genuine practical ingenuity.

But It's gentler and breezier than the Supermen. The joke wears thin if you're not already charmed by the conceit.

The Spy with a Cold Nose poster

Thunderball1965

A Bond film from the peak of spy-movie mania, with elaborate gadgets and globe-trotting stakes. It shows how a similar era and sensibility could be executed with unlimited budget and studio control.

But It's 130 minutes and the underwater sequences drag. The gender politics are cringe and the pacing occasionally stalls.

Thunderball poster

The Spy in the Green Hat1967

A Man from U.N.C.L.E. spin-off that escalates its own absurdity until it barely makes sense. A document of an era's spy-fever at its most unmoored and delightful.

But It requires patience with 1960s pacing and some truly baffling story choices. Not every scene justifies its runtime.

The Spy in the Green Hat poster

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