A bit late to this one.

You can't really count "future history" in this, I think. So "2001" is out. As has previously been pointed out, there's nothing in there that's incompatible with space investment at the time it was written, or with physics. Even now, if we were to send astronauts long distances, the 2001 system is still one of the best bets (nuclear-powered propulsion for speed/power, mounted at the end of a long shaft to keep it away from the astronauts, and keep the astronauts in some kind of cold-storage to solve provisioning problems).

The best you can do is ask for some compatibility with physics. So yeah, points to "Babylon 5" for spacefighters following regular physics and designed sensibly for space combat (it doesn't need to be aerodynamic and you do need to be able to see everything, so pilots are strapped in upright and look out of a full-length flat window). On that theme, "Apollo-13" deserves points for attention to details like a cluster of fragments continuing to follow the module after the accident (no air resistance to get rid of them).

Ironically, the films that got it most right for me were the Lord of the Rings series. (Ignoring CGI elves and stuff, of course.) OK, they were in a fictional world, but they managed to add the details that turned it from pure fantasy into a world that you could live in. (Helped no doubt by Viggo Mortensen's tendency to sleep outdoors in costume, complete with sword.) So costume doesn't just include armour and a big sword, but also a utility knife for day-to-day use, sewing kit, tinderbox, proper layered outdoor clothing (convincingly used instead of clean and ironed), and so on. The specials on the DVDs are hugely impressive in showing the lengths they went to to make this a living world, as opposed to the "Conan the Barbarian" or "300" version of fantasy with under-equipped men wandering around in loincloths.

"Saving Private Ryan" is a slightly different case, being fiction set in a real past. I don't think there was much wrong with it historically. OK, it didn't reflect the real-history facts of withdrawing a soldier after his brothers were killed, but the fictional elements are set in a pretty much historically-accurate situation. From memory, I think a lot of British-made war films from the 50s and 60s also fall into this category, because many of the actors (and certainly the extras and crew) would have been in the war and on principle wouldn't have taken liberties with the facts, although censorship at the time would have prevented the "bodies-blown-apart" reality of SPR.

Graham.