'2001' voted most realistic sci-fi film

Scientists have voted 2001: A Space Odyssey as the science fiction film with the most likely vision of the future.

Ridley Scott movie Blade Runner was also placed highly in the poll of 50 experts from top international universities.

One of 2001's supporters was Professor Mark Brake from the University of Glamorgan.

"2001 raised science fiction cinema to a new level," he said. "The unfolding four-million-year filmic story brilliantly portrays Arthur C. Clarke's disturbing man-machine encounter with HAL, a computer turned murderer.

"This unsettling scenario is not something we would ever want to imagine happening in reality, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that artificial intelligence could turn on its creators."

Professor Stephen Hsu, of the University of Oregon, said of Blade Runner: "There is every reason to believe that technology will someday permit us to genetically engineer human-like life forms like the 'replicants'. Let's hope we don't exploit them for dirty and dangerous tasks as depicted in the movie."

The poll was carried out by Sky Movies.