SCI-FI
by isobelcox | created - 17 May 2017 | updated - 22 Mar 2021 | PublicMy pick of the best/my fave sci-fi films out there
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1. Ad Astra (2019)
PG-13 | 123 min | Adventure, Drama, Mystery
Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens the universe.
Director: James Gray | Stars: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Donald Sutherland
Votes: 260,396 | Gross: $50.19M
2. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
PG-13 | 146 min | Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
A highly advanced robotic boy longs to become "real" so that he can regain the love of his human mother.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, Sam Robards
Votes: 322,946 | Gross: $78.62M
3. Akira (1988)
R | 124 min | Animation, Action, Drama
A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath who can only be stopped by a teenager, his gang of biker friends and a group of psychics.
Director: Katsuhiro Ôtomo | Stars: Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama, Tesshô Genda
Votes: 205,126 | Gross: $0.55M
4. Alien (1979)
R | 117 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
The crew of a commercial spacecraft encounters a deadly lifeform after investigating a mysterious transmission of unknown origin.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright
Votes: 950,065 | Gross: $78.90M
5. Aliens (1986)
R | 137 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Decades after surviving the Nostromo incident, Ellen Ripley is sent out to re-establish contact with a terraforming colony but finds herself battling the Alien Queen and her offspring.
Director: James Cameron | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser
Votes: 762,760 | Gross: $85.16M
6. Attack the Block (2011)
R | 88 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
A teen gang in South London defend their block from an alien invasion.
Director: Joe Cornish | Stars: John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Alex Esmail, Leeon Jones
Votes: 111,410 | Gross: $1.02M
7. Avengers: Endgame (2019)
PG-13 | 181 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
After the devastating events of Avengers: Infinity War (2018), the universe is in ruins. With the help of remaining allies, the Avengers assemble once more in order to reverse Thanos' actions and restore balance to the universe.
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo | Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth
Votes: 1,265,102 | Gross: $858.37M
8. Brazil (1985)
R | 132 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A bureaucrat in a dystopic society becomes an enemy of the state as he pursues the woman of his dreams.
Director: Terry Gilliam | Stars: Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond
Votes: 211,181 | Gross: $9.93M
9. Cloud Atlas (2012)
R | 172 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.
Directors: Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski | Stars: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving
Votes: 374,336 | Gross: $27.11M
10. The Congress (2013)
Not Rated | 122 min | Animation, Drama, Sci-Fi
An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.
Director: Ari Folman | Stars: Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel, Jon Hamm, Kodi Smit-McPhee
Votes: 19,904 | Gross: $0.14M
11. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
PG | 138 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
Roy Neary, an Indiana electric lineman, finds his quiet and ordinary daily life turned upside down after a close encounter with a UFO, spurring him to an obsessed cross-country quest for answers as a momentous event approaches.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon
Votes: 216,803 | Gross: $132.09M
12. The Endless (I) (2017)
Not Rated | 111 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
As kids, they escaped a UFO death cult. Now, two adult brothers seek answers after an old videotape surfaces and brings them back to where they began.
Directors: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead | Stars: Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson, Callie Hernandez, Tate Ellington
Votes: 49,371 | Gross: $0.27M
13. The Fifth Element (1997)
PG-13 | 126 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
In the colorful future, a cab driver unwittingly becomes the central figure in the search for a legendary cosmic weapon to keep Evil and Mr. Zorg at bay.
Director: Luc Besson | Stars: Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm
Votes: 505,988 | Gross: $63.54M
14. Forbidden Planet (1956)
G | 98 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
A starship crew in the 23rd century goes to investigate the silence of a distant planet's colony, only to find just two survivors, a powerful robot, and the deadly secret of a lost civilization.
Director: Fred M. Wilcox | Stars: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens
Votes: 53,173 | Gross: $3.00M
15. Gattaca (1997)
PG-13 | 106 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A genetically inferior man assumes the identity of a superior one in order to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel.
Director: Andrew Niccol | Stars: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law, Gore Vidal
Votes: 323,120 | Gross: $12.34M
16. The Host (2006)
R | 120 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A monster emerges from Seoul's Han River and begins attacking people. One victim's loving family does what it can to rescue her from its clutches.
Director: Bong Joon Ho | Stars: Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-Bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doona
Votes: 132,675 | Gross: $2.20M
17. High Life (2018)
R | 113 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A father and his daughter struggle to survive in deep space where they live in isolation.
Director: Claire Denis | Stars: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André 3000, Mia Goth
Votes: 41,002 | Gross: $1.23M
18. Interstellar (2014)
PG-13 | 169 min | Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
When Earth becomes uninhabitable in the future, a farmer and ex-NASA pilot, Joseph Cooper, is tasked to pilot a spacecraft, along with a team of researchers, to find a new planet for humans.
Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Mackenzie Foy
Votes: 2,098,447 | Gross: $188.02M
19. Logan (2017)
R | 137 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
In a future where mutants are nearly extinct, an elderly and weary Logan leads a quiet life. But when Laura, a mutant child pursued by scientists, comes to him for help, he must get her to safety.
Director: James Mangold | Stars: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook
Votes: 830,997 | Gross: $226.28M
20. Life (I) (2017)
R | 104 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A team of scientists aboard the International Space Station discover a rapidly evolving life form that caused extinction on Mars and now threatens all life on Earth.
Director: Daniel Espinosa | Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada
Votes: 253,747 | Gross: $30.23M
21. Mandy (I) (2018)
Not Rated | 121 min | Action, Fantasy, Horror
The enchanted lives of a couple in a secluded forest are brutally shattered by a nightmarish hippie cult and their demon-biker henchmen, propelling a man into a spiraling, surreal rampage of vengeance.
Director: Panos Cosmatos | Stars: Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache, Ned Dennehy
Votes: 89,457 | Gross: $1.21M
22. Melancholia (2011)
R | 135 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with Earth.
Director: Lars von Trier | Stars: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Alexander Skarsgård
Votes: 195,824 | Gross: $3.03M
23. The Matrix (1999)
R | 136 min | Action, Sci-Fi
When a beautiful stranger leads computer hacker Neo to a forbidding underworld, he discovers the shocking truth--the life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber-intelligence.
Directors: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski | Stars: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving
Votes: 2,052,275 | Gross: $171.48M
24. Monsters (2010)
R | 94 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
Six years after Earth has suffered an alien invasion, a cynical journalist agrees to escort a shaken American tourist through an infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the U.S. border.
Director: Gareth Edwards | Stars: Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able, Mario Zuniga Benavides, Annalee Jefferies
Votes: 97,622 | Gross: $0.24M
25. Moon (2009)
R | 97 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Astronaut Sam Bell has a quintessentially personal encounter toward the end of his three-year stint on the Moon, where he, working alongside his computer, GERTY, sends back to Earth parcels of a resource that has helped diminish our planet's power problems.
Director: Duncan Jones | Stars: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott, Rosie Shaw
Votes: 376,637 | Gross: $5.01M
26. Planet of the Apes (1968)
G | 112 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
An astronaut crew crash-lands on a planet where highly intelligent non-human ape species are dominant and humans are enslaved.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans
Votes: 193,081 | Gross: $33.40M
27. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
PG-13 | 133 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire's ultimate weapon of destruction.
Director: Gareth Edwards | Stars: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen
Votes: 686,248 | Gross: $532.18M
28. Serenity (2005)
PG-13 | 119 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
The crew of the ship Serenity try to evade an assassin sent to recapture telepath River.
Director: Joss Whedon | Stars: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alan Tudyk
Votes: 305,625 | Gross: $25.51M
29. Slither (2006)
R | 95 min | Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
A small town is taken over by an alien plague, turning residents into zombies and all forms of mutant monsters.
Director: James Gunn | Stars: Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rooker, Don Thompson
Votes: 88,834 | Gross: $7.77M
30. Southland Tales (2006)
R | 145 min | Comedy, Drama, Mystery
During a three-day heat wave just before a huge 4th of July celebration, an action star stricken with amnesia meets up with a porn star who is developing her own reality TV project, and a policeman who holds the key to a vast conspiracy.
Director: Richard Kelly | Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Carlos Amezcua
Votes: 40,622 | Gross: $0.28M
31. Solaris (1972)
PG | 167 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A psychologist is sent to a station orbiting a distant planet in order to discover what has caused the crew to go insane.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Jüri Järvet, Vladislav Dvorzhetskiy
Votes: 98,217
32. Starfish (2018)
Not Rated | 101 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A unique, intimate portrayal of a girl grieving for the loss of her best friend, which just so happens to take place on the day the world ends.
Director: A.T. White | Stars: Virginia Gardner, Christina Masterson, Eric Beecroft, Natalie Mitchell
Votes: 3,659 | Gross: $0.01M
33. Starship Troopers (1997)
R | 129 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Humans, in a fascist militaristic future, wage war with giant alien bugs.
Director: Paul Verhoeven | Stars: Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer, Jake Busey
Votes: 321,012 | Gross: $54.81M
34. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
PG | 131 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
After rescuing Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, the Rebel Alliance attempt to destroy the second Death Star, while Luke struggles to help Darth Vader back from the dark side.
Director: Richard Marquand | Stars: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams
Votes: 1,121,096 | Gross: $309.13M
35. Star Trek (2009)
PG-13 | 127 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
The brash James T. Kirk tries to live up to his father's legacy with Mr. Spock keeping him in check as a vengeful Romulan from the future creates black holes to destroy the Federation one planet at a time.
Director: J.J. Abrams | Stars: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Leonard Nimoy
Votes: 620,175 | Gross: $257.73M
36. Sunshine (2007)
R | 107 min | Sci-Fi, Thriller
A team of international astronauts is sent on a dangerous mission to reignite the dying Sun with a nuclear fission bomb in 2057.
Director: Danny Boyle | Stars: Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Chris Evans, Cliff Curtis
Votes: 267,348 | Gross: $3.68M
37. The Terminator (1984)
R | 107 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
A human soldier is sent from 2029 to 1984 to stop an almost indestructible cyborg killing machine, sent from the same year, which has been programmed to execute a young woman whose unborn son is the key to humanity's future salvation.
Director: James Cameron | Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Paul Winfield
Votes: 923,863 | Gross: $38.40M
38. They Live (1988)
R | 94 min | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They live.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster, George 'Buck' Flower
Votes: 145,409 | Gross: $13.01M
39. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
PG-13 | 130 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
Imprisoned on the planet Sakaar, Thor must race against time to return to Asgard and stop Ragnarök, the destruction of his world, at the hands of the powerful and ruthless villain Hela.
Director: Taika Waititi | Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Mark Ruffalo
Votes: 815,750 | Gross: $315.06M
40. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
R | 137 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
A cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her ten year old son John from an even more advanced and powerful cyborg.
Director: James Cameron | Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick
Votes: 1,173,608 | Gross: $204.84M
41. The Void (I) (2016)
Not Rated | 90 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Shortly after delivering a patient to an understaffed hospital, a police officer experiences strange and violent occurrences seemingly linked to a group of mysterious hooded figures.
Directors: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski | Stars: Aaron Poole, Kenneth Welsh, Ellen Wong, Kathleen Munroe
Votes: 41,638 | Gross: $0.15M
42. Under the Skin (I) (2013)
R | 108 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A mysterious young woman seduces lonely men in the evening hours in Scotland. However, events lead her to begin a process of self-discovery.
Director: Jonathan Glazer | Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Lynsey Taylor Mackay, Dougie McConnell
Votes: 158,153 | Gross: $2.61M
43. Upgrade (2018)
R | 100 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Set in the near-future, technology controls nearly all aspects of life. But when the world of Grey, a self-labeled technophobe, is turned upside down, his only hope for revenge is an experimental computer chip implant.
Director: Leigh Whannell | Stars: Logan Marshall-Green, Melanie Vallejo, Steve Danielsen, Abby Craden
Votes: 206,723 | Gross: $11.98M
44. Watchmen (2009)
R | 162 min | Action, Drama, Mystery
In a version of 1985 where superheroes exist, the murder of a colleague sends active vigilante Rorschach on the trail of a conspiracy that will change the course of history.
Director: Zack Snyder | Stars: Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Malin Akerman
Votes: 582,350 | Gross: $107.51M
45. X: First Class (2011)
PG-13 | 131 min | Action, Sci-Fi
In the 1960s, superpowered humans Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr work together to find others like them, but Erik's vengeful pursuit of an ambitious mutant who ruined his life causes a schism to divide them.
Director: Matthew Vaughn | Stars: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Bacon
Votes: 723,468 | Gross: $146.41M
46. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
G | 149 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
After uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins: a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer HAL 9000.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter
Votes: 719,228 | Gross: $56.95M
47. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
PG-13 | 88 min | Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
Aliens who look like clowns come from outer space and terrorize a small town.
Director: Stephen Chiodo | Stars: Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder, John Allen Nelson, John Vernon
Votes: 45,455 | Gross: $15.63M
48. Phenomena (1985)
R | 116 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A young girl who has an amazing ability to communicate with insects is transferred to an exclusive Swiss boarding school, where her unusual capability might help solve a string of murders.
Director: Dario Argento | Stars: Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence, Daria Nicolodi, Dalila Di Lazzaro
Votes: 30,032
49. Strange Days (1995)
R | 145 min | Crime, Drama, Sci-Fi
A former cop turned street-hustler accidentally uncovers a conspiracy in Los Angeles in 1999.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow | Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore
Votes: 78,411 | Gross: $7.92M
50. Palm Springs (2020)
R | 90 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Mystery
Stuck in a time loop, two wedding guests develop a budding romance while living the same day over and over again.
Director: Max Barbakow | Stars: Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, J.K. Simmons, Peter Gallagher
Votes: 182,578
51. 12 Monkeys (1995)
R | 129 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet.
Director: Terry Gilliam | Stars: Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, Joseph Melito
Votes: 646,539 | Gross: $57.14M
52. Underwater (2020)
PG-13 | 95 min | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
A crew of oceanic researchers working for a deep sea drilling company try to get to safety after a mysterious earthquake devastates their deepwater research and drilling facility located at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Director: William Eubank | Stars: Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, Mamoudou Athie, T.J. Miller
Votes: 97,094 | Gross: $17.29M
53. Critters (1986)
PG-13 | 86 min | Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
A group of small but vicious alien creatures called Crites escape from an alien prison transport vessel and land near a small farm town on earth, pursued by two shape-shifting bounty hunters.
Director: Stephen Herek | Stars: Dee Wallace, M. Emmet Walsh, Billy Green Bush, Scott Grimes
Votes: 39,299 | Gross: $13.17M
54. Color Out of Space (2019)
Unrated | 111 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A secluded farm is struck by a strange meteorite which has apocalyptic consequences for the family living there and possibly the world.
Director: Richard Stanley | Stars: Nicolas Cage, Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur, Elliot Knight
Votes: 56,209
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