»Scientists vote Bladerunner top sci-fi flick!«

British director Ridley Scott's Bladerunner is the best science fiction film ever made, according to a poll of 60 of the world's top scientists.

The 1982 movie came top in a Guardian newspaper poll of scientists, including British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and Canadian-born psychologist Steven Pinker.

In the film, a retired cop portrayed by Harrison Ford hunts down renegade human replicants amid a dark futuristic vision of Los Angeles.

Stephen Minger, stem cell biologist at King's College, London, says Bladerunner is the best he has seen.

"It was so far ahead of its time and the whole premise of the story - what is it to be human and who are we, where we come from? It's the age-old questions," he said.

US director Stanley Kubrick's epic, 2001: A Space Odyssey came a very close second in the vote.

It has been followed by the first two films of the Star Wars trilogy, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, which were directed by another American, George Lucas.

The scientists also voted for their favourite sci-fi authors.

Russian-born writer Isaac Asimov topped the list for his Foundation Trilogy and the book I, Robot, which has just been made into a film starring Will Smith.

Englishman John Wyndham, author of Day of the Triffids and Chocky, came second.

The scientists have been polled by The Guardian as part of a science fiction special to be published in Life, the newspaper's weekly science supplement.