I’m a big fan of science fiction movies. Some of my favorite films take place in the desert. Here are my top 10.

1. It Came from Outer Space (1953) -An astronomer and his school teacher girlfriend see an object crash into the California desert. He explores and finds a spacecraft buried in the sand. Soon, the townspeople start acting strangely. Are the aliens here for good purposes or bad?

2. The Bone Snatcher (2003) – A team of scientists are sent to investigate disappearances in the South African desert. After bodies, stripped of their bones, are found it becomes clear that something terrible is in the desert. But what?

3. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) – The post-apocalyptic Australian desert is a pretty strange place. Max does to Bartertown, which is ruled by a not-so-nice Aunty Entity (Tina Turner) and fights in a big cage.

4. Tremors (1990) – Giant worm-like creatures attack a small isolated desert town, and Kevin Bacon and others. This movie holds up well nearly 30 years after its release.

5. Oblivion (2013) – Years after an alien invasion turned much of Earth into a wasteland, and the inhabitants have been shuttled onto Titan, Tom Cruise is one of a very few maintenance men on the planet who monitor machines that generate power for the colonies. But all isn’t what it seems.

6. Them! (1954) – Combine atomic bomb tests in the New Mexico desert with ordinary ants and you get big ants. Very big ants. This movie was the first of many giant-you-name-it films of the 1950s.

7. Tarantula (1955) – Two scientists, working in the Arizona desert, are experimenting with ways to make animals larger. Bad idea. Unlike many 1950s movies, this one moves at a good clip; a surprisingly entertaining film.

8. The Black Scorpion (1957) – A team of American scientists is sent to the Mexican desert to investigate strange disappearances of cattle — and ranchers — following a big earthquake. The quake released a lot of very big scorpions from their underground world.

9. Phase IV (1974) – Ants in the Arizona desert get really smart, really quickly. A team of scientists sets up a research station to study the ants. It doesn’t turn out well for the scientists.

10. The Monolith Monsters (1957) – A meteorite crashes into the California desert. When water touches crystalline fragments of the meteorite, the crystals grow big. Unless scientists can figure out a way to stop the phenomenon, the Earth will be doomed.