Science fiction is a genre that typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. It has been called the literature of ideas, and often explores the potential consequences of scientific, social, and technological innovations. If you enjoy watching science fiction movies, then you probably don’t want to miss any of these. You may notice that we have left out some great films that fit in better in other genres like fantasy or superhero movies.
20. Annihilation
Released: 2018
Director: Alex Garland
Stars: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson
It’s been already twelve months since his last covert operation, and the rugged military, Kane, is still missing in action, presumed dead. With his wife–the successful academic biology professor, Lena–still grieving him, an unprecedented phenomenon in the swamplands of Florida will soon have her following in Kane’s footsteps, as a member of a strong all-women team. So many theories try to explain the mysterious ever-expanding iridescent membrane which swallows the area; however, none was able to yield facts. What kind of startling biological transmutations lurk behind this bright and colourful kaleidoscope of horrors? In the end, what did Kane see?
19. Oblivion
Released: 2013
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Stars: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough
Jack Harper is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack’s mission is nearly complete. Living in and patrolling the skies from thousands of feet above, his existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands.
18. Never Let Me Go
Released: 2010
Director: Mark Romanek
Stars: Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield
As children, Ruth, Kathy and Tommy spend their childhood at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. As they grow into young adults, they find that they have to come to terms with the strength of the love they feel for each other, while preparing themselves for the haunting reality that awaits them.
17. Snowpiercer
Released: 2013
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Stars: Chris Evans, Jamie Bell, Tilda Swinton
Set in 2031, the entire world is frozen except for those aboard the Snowpiercer. For seventeen years, the world’s survivors are on a train hurtling around the globe creating their own economy and class system. Led by Curtis (Chris Evans), a group of lower-class citizens living in squalor at the back of the train are determined to get to the front of the train and spread the wealth around. Each section of the train holds new surprises for the group who have to battle their way through. A revolution is underway.
16. Looper
Released: 2012
Director: Rian Johnson
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt
Joe is classified as a “looper”, a job in which his employers use time travel to send men from the future to be killed into the past, where Joe can properly dispose of their bodies. However, to tie up loose ends and erase the evidence of his ever being a looper, Joe knows that one day his future self will be sent back for him to kill. When this day comes, Joe’s future self is prepared and escapes, and the two men struggle separately in the past trying to evade capture and attempting to fulfill their own personal agendas.
15. Upgrade
Released: 2018
Director: Leigh Whannell
Stars: Logan Marshall-Green, Melanie Vallejo, Steve Danielsen
Director/writer Leigh Whannell presents a vision of a Utopian future where technology is supremely ubiquitous. In that future, technophobe Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) embraces an experimental computer chip implant named STEM after a mugging incident leaves him paralyzed and his wife dead. STEM proves to possess its own agency, making for an unpredictable ally in Trace’s vendetta.
14. Predestination
Released: 2014
Directors: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig (as The Spierig Brothers)
Stars: Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor
Predestination chronicles the life of a Temporal Agent sent on an intricate series of time-travel journeys designed to ensure the continuation of his law enforcement career for all eternity. Now, on his final assignment, the Agent must pursue the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time.
13. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Released: 2014
Director: Matt Reeves
Stars: Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Andy Serkis
Ten years after the events of “Rise”, Caesar remains happy in peace being the leader of an ape armada. Now sure that the humans are no more on Planet Earth due to the Simian flu the humans have passed on. Then they are proved wrong when a small group of humans encounter the apes in the forest. Caesar attempts to make peace with them only if they follow the rules. But Koba, one of the apes makes an attempt to kill the group of humans. This act of treason alerts an entire army of human survivors and the war for peace begins. But this is the question that all are asking: Will the humans reign supreme or the apes?
12. Ex Machina
Released: 2014
Director: Alex Garland
Stars: Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac
A junior programmer working at the company that runs the world’s most popular search engine wins a company lottery. The prize is a week at the CEO’s estate/research facility. When he gets there he discovers that the boss has been working on androids with superior Artificial Intelligence. The programmer’s job is to test how “human” the android is. What develops is a manipulative game between the android and the programmer.
11. Star Trek Into Darkness
Released: 2013
Director: J.J. Abrams
Stars: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch
When the USS Enterprise crew is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction. As our space heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.
10. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Released: 2016
Director: Gareth Edwards
Stars: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Alan Tudyk
All looks lost for the Rebellion against the Empire as they learn of the existence of a new super weapon, the Death Star. Once a possible weakness in its construction is uncovered, the Rebel Alliance must set out on a desperate mission to steal the plans for the Death Star. The future of the entire galaxy now rests upon its success.
9. Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens
Released: 2015
Director: J.J. Abrams
Stars: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Harrison Ford
The Empire is no more. In its place, The First Order has risen from the ashes of Darth Vader’s legacy and aims to consolidate its power across the galaxy. However, The First Order is trying to find Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi, and wipe him off the face of the galaxy. In a desperate bid to bide time for Luke, The Resistance sends veteran X-Wing pilot Poe Dameron to find out Skywalker’s location. In a race against time and tyranny, The First Order and The Resistance are trying to find the galaxy’s greatest Jedi before it’s too late. The fate of the universe hangs in the balance.
8. Edge of Tomorrow
Released: 2014
Director: Doug Liman
Stars: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton
An alien race has hit the Earth in an unrelenting assault, unbeatable by any military unit in the world. Major William Cage (Cruise) is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously dropped into what amounts to a suicide mission. Killed within minutes, Cage now finds himself inexplicably thrown into a time loop – forcing him to live out the same brutal combat over and over, fighting and dying again…and again. But with each battle, Cage becomes able to engage the adversaries with increasing skill, alongside Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Blunt). And, as Cage and Vrataski take the fight to the aliens, each repeated encounter gets them one step closer to defeating the enemy!
7. Arrival
Released: 2016
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Stars: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker
Aliens have landed on Earth, in 12 different locations. Language professor Louise Banks joins a US army team at one of the locations, in Montana. Her job is to try to learn the aliens’ language and enable communication with them. Through regular meetings with two of the aliens, she starts to compile a record of the aliens’ “language” – a series of drawn symbols. The important question is – are they friend or foe? Other nations with alien landings are starting to view them as a threat, making it a race against time as war with the aliens could erupt at any moment.
6. Blade Runner 2049
Released: 2017
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Stars: Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
5. Her
Released: 2013
Director: Spike Jonze
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson
Sensitive letter writer Theodore has just ended his marriage. Lonely, he goes out to buy an artificially intelligent Operating System that promises to give him everything he needs. Samantha is more than his average OS. She does secretarial work for him but also becomes his friend whenever he’s lonely. They go out on adventures and travel together. He becomes the physical feet to get them places, and she the new eyes in which to see the world. Their intimate moments soon turn into love and they start an unusual relationship between OS and human. Things get complicated as they deal with Theodore’s complex emotions and Samantha’s inability to provide physical comfort. What happens to an OS when its consciousness is altered? Or to a sensitive man who doubts his emotions?
4. The Martian
Released: 2015
Director: Ridley Scott
Stars: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig
During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring “the Martian” home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible, rescue mission. As these stories of incredible bravery unfold, the world comes together to root for Watney’s safe return.
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
Released: 2015
Director: George Miller
Stars: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult
An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, and almost everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life. Within this world exist two rebels on the run who just might be able to restore order. There’s Max, a man of action and a man of few words, who seeks peace of mind following the loss of his wife and child in the aftermath of the chaos. And Furiosa, a woman of action and a woman who believes her path to survival may be achieved if she can make it across the desert back to her childhood homeland.
2. Interstellar
Released: 2014
Director: Christopher Nolan
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain
In the near future around the American Midwest, Cooper, an ex-science engineer and pilot, is tied to his farming land with his daughter Murph and son Tom. As devastating sandstorms ravage Earth’s crops, the people of Earth realize their life here is coming to an end as food begins to run out. Eventually stumbling upon a N.A.S.A. base near Cooper’s home, he is asked to go on a daring mission with a few other scientists into a wormhole because of Cooper’s scientific intellect and ability to pilot aircraft unlike the other crew members. In order to find a new home while Earth decays, Cooper must decide to either stay, or risk never seeing his children again in order to save the human race by finding another habitable planet.
1. Inception
Released: 2010
Director: Christopher Nolan
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page
Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible, inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea, but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.
