When you think of the greatest science fiction movies by the decades, the 2010s might not come to mind at first. But what if I told you that the 2010s just might have some of the best sci-fi movies made, ever?
While the 1970s saw sci-fi in exclusively dark terms and the 1980s is fondly remembered for its generational hits and classics, the 2010s just might deserve better recognition as perhaps the greatest decade in sci-fi. (Even if we never made contact.) In a period marked by profound existential uncertainty and political divide, as well as an era that saw streaming take off( with algorithms engulfing us all), the sci-fi genre evolved in ways few could ever dream of. With filmmakers like Matt Reeves, Christopher Nolan, and Denis Villeneuve, science fiction has honestly never been better than it was in the second decade of the new millennium.
35. Logan
Year: 2017
Director: James Mangold
When superhero movies were unstoppable at the box office, director James Mangold imagined the invincible Wolverine at his most vulnerable. In Mangold's sequel to his own 2013 movie, The Wolverine, Hugh Jackman plays an aging (and dying) Wolverine who takes up one final mission involving the protection of his clone "daughter," named Laura (Dafne Keen). Although the complicated Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline eventually brought back Jackman and Patrick Stewart (as Professor Xavier), the neo-Western Logan still exists as a moving send-off for two actors whose characters set the tone for Hollywood's superheroes in the 21st century.
34. Color Out of Space
Year: 2019
Director: Richard Stanely
During Nicholas Cage's late-career renaissance/freak era, he starred in what is perhaps the greatest movie adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft tale ever made. Color Out of Space, based on Lovecraft's short story from 1927, stars Nicolas Cage as a family man whose rural home is struck by a meteorite carrying a hostile alien organism that slowly seizes control over their minds and bodies. Stanley's Color Out of Space is an arresting sci-fi horror that devolves into a neon technicolor nightmare, going far out with a gonzo Cage at the center.
33. Chronicle
Year: 2012
Director: Josh Trank
A fusion of The Blair Witch Project, Akira, and Marvel's X-Men movies, Josh Trank's indie sci-fi Chronicle is a coming-of-age action thriller that breathed new life (however brief) into the found footage genre. Chronicle stars Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, and pre-Creed Michael B. Jordan as high schoolers who "joy ride" around town with newfound telekinetic superpowers until the power dangerously begins to corrupt one of them. Before Trank helmed the disastrous 2015 reboot of Fantastic Four, he was a rising visionary due to Chronicle.
32. Safety Not Guaranteed
Year: 2012
Director: Colin Trevorrow
A time travel sci-fi unlike any other, Colin Trevorrow's Safety Not Guaranteed is an emotional indie comedy about placing trust in the impossible. Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnston, and Deadpool's Karan Soni star as local magazine journalists who look into a bizarre classified ad asking for time travel companions. The ad belongs to a socially awkward grocery clerk, played by Mark Duplass, who claims to have a working time machine. While Plaza's character becomes emotionally attached to Duplass' DIY inventor, the rest of the characters learn how to actually live in the present. While mileage varies for how much one can tolerate its sweetness, Safety Not Guaranteed previewed what Trevorrow would later pull off on bigger-scale blockbusters like Jurassic World.
31. About Time
Year: 2013
Director: Richard Curtis
While it sacrifices hard science for heart, About Time can surprise just about anyone as a romantic comedy with unsuspecting depth. Domnhall Gleeson stars as an ordinary man who inherits his family's secret power to travel backward in time. Determined to use his abilities to find love, Gleeson soon falls for Mary (Rachel McAdams), only to realize the wide-reaching impact of messing with time. Though About Time isn't as focused on temporal physics as other sci-fi movies, it remains a picturesque romance that reveals how time is the only thing we can never have enough of.
30. Never Let Me Go
Year: 2010
Director: Mark Romanek
Kazuo Ishiguro's award-winning sci-fi novel Never Let Me Go is turned into an emotional drama by director Mark Romanek. The movie follows a group of boarding school graduates - played by Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightley - who find out their true nature as clones whose organs are to be harvested for other people until they die. (Almost like Michael Bay's The Island, with far fewer car chases.) After leaving the school and entering the outside world for the first time, the clones struggle to adapt to the real world whilst navigating feelings like love and jealousy. There are no flying cars or high-tech gadgets, but Never Let Me Go lives up to sci-fi tradition as a movie that probes what it means to be human.
29. Tron: Legacy
Year: 2010
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Admittedly, the soundtrack by Daft Punk is doing overtime when it comes to this sci-fi film, picking up the slack when the action and plot halt to a maddening crawl. But Joseph Kosinski's Tron: Legacy succeeds as a long-awaited follow-up to Disney's cult 1982 hit Tron, bringing audiences back to "The Grid" where the protagonist Sam (Garrett Hedlund) must stop the malevolent A.I. Clu (Jeff Bridges, in a dual role where he also reprises his original Tron character Kevin Flynn) from entering the real world. Though Tron: Legacy didn't live up to all expectations, there's no denying it looks good – and sounds great.
28. Guardians of the Galaxy
Year: 2014
Director: James Gunn
Just when you thought the Marvel Cinematic Universe was nothing but heroes with armored suits, magical hammers, and perfect teeth, in came the universe's biggest band of misfits – the Guardians of the Galaxy. Directed by Troma graduate James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy sees the assembly of galactic outlaws (led by Chris Pratt as Star-Lord) who try to keep a powerful relic from the hands of the warmongering conqueror, Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace). With a Jack Kirby-inspired vision of space and a curated soundtrack of supermarket pop, Guardians of the Galaxy can get you hooked on a feeling.
27. Super 8
Year: 2011
Director: J.J. Abrams
After rebooting Star Trek but before continuing the Star Wars timeline with a new trilogy, filmmaker J.J. Abrams invited moviegoers back to a bygone Americana in his sci-fi thriller Super 8. The 2011 movie follows a group of suburban kids in '70s Ohio whose work on a homemade zombie movie – filmed on a Super 8 camera, hence the title – is interrupted by a train disaster that unleashes an alien monster. Feeling like a Steven Spielberg film merged with Stranger Things, Super 8 feels timeless in its celebration of youthful summers and the intrepid spirit of making movies with your best friends.
26. Source Code
Year: 2011
Director: Duncan Jones
Jake Gyllenhaal is a man on a mission in Duncan Jones' 2011 sci-fi Source Code. Gyllenhaal stars as a soldier who enters a virtual reality simulation that recreates a disastrous train explosion that took place earlier that day. Although the damage is already done, there's still time to analyze the crime scene to track down the terrorists responsible before they trigger another detonation. All the while, Gyllenhaal's protagonist falls for a fellow passenger (Michelle Monaghan) and tries desperately to reverse fate. A cross between Groundhog Day and The Matrix, Source Code is a dizzying thrill ride.
25. A Quiet Place
Year: 2018
Director: John Krasinski
Silence is not only golden; it's a life-saver. In 2018, former sitcom star turned director John Krasinski won acclaim for his sci-fi horror smash A Quiet Place. Set in a post-apocalyptic reality where blind monsters target human prey by sound, A Quiet Place follows the survival efforts of a traumatized family (led by Krasinski and his real-life spouse, actress Emily Blunt) who overcome their grief to keep on living to see the morning sun in silence. A modern monster classic exploring themes of parenthood, grief, and breakdowns in communication, A Quiet Place set a new standard for mainstream popcorn horror. It launched a franchise that continued with a direct sequel in 2022 and an acclaimed prequel – A Quiet Place: Day One – in 2024.
24. Under the Skin
Year: 2013
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Michel Faber's dark sci-fi novel Under the Skin, which tells of an alien who stalks and kidnaps men in Scotland to be harvested by her home planet, became an acclaimed indie movie by Jonathan Glazer in 2013. In contrast to Faber's novel, Glazer's film divulges in more explicit gender politics, revealing the disastrous appetite of young men while relishing in female revenge. Scarlett Johansson stars as the movie's unnamed but eerily attractive alien who lures unsuspecting men before devouring them whole. Hailed by critics for its mystifying atmosphere and psychological storytelling, Under the Skin really gets in your skin thanks to an otherworldly Johansson capturing your attention.
23. Prometheus
Year: 2012
Director: Ridley Scott
Some 35 years after changing the game with Alien, Ridley Scott returned to his landmark sci-fi franchise for the standalone spin-off/prequel Prometheus. Set in the year 2089, Prometheus follows a spaceship of archaeologists who seek to figure out the origins of mankind. This leads the crew to a distant and hostile world where a threatening secret awaits them all. While an argument could be made that Scott's later sequel, Alien: Covenant from 2017, might be the better outing in the Alien timeline, Prometheus is an arresting piece of sci-fi horror in its own right.
22. Attack the Block
Year: 2011
Director: Joe Cornish
Before he became the face of Star Wars, John Boyega was just a punk kid fighting aliens in Attack the Block. From director Joe Cornish – who was creatively inspired by his own real-life mugging – this buzzy cult indie from 2011 follows a gang of London teenagers who team up with a hospital nurse (Jodie Whittaker) to defend their home against an invasion of freaky beasts from outer space. While there are a lot of sci-fi movies where scrappy underdog kids are pitted against stronger forces, Attack the Block's distinct mise en scèneof working-class South London lend it an identity that is unlike anything seen in mainstream Hollywood.
21. Upgrade
Year: 2018
Director: Leigh Whannell
Artificial intelligence is threatening, but can it be scary? That question lies at the heart of Leigh Whannell's blood-soaked sci-fi thriller Upgrade, released in 2018. The movie stars Logan Marshall-Green as a paralyzed mechanic who is implanted with a cutting-edge computer chip that allows him to regain control of his motor skills. But soon enough, the A.I. in his brain starts to reveal its own motives, inviting its host the chance to exact revenge on the men who killed his wife and left him for dead. Like a cross between John Wick and Ex Machina, Upgrade is sharp as a knife, offering equal parts thrills and chills.
20. Aniara
Year: 2018
Director: Pella Kågerman
In this criminally overlooked Swedish-language sci-fi movie (based on Harry Martinson's 1956 poem), a spaceship full of colonists – leaving a post-climate apocalypse Earth on their way to Mars – veers way off course, leaving them all stranded to float aimlessly in a claustrophobic tin can and towards an uncertain fate. While the movie takes place on a futuristic spaceship, Aniara's naturalistic aesthetic grounds the very real and relatable paranoia that quietly plagues the millions of desperate souls. Its haunting ending is one you won't easily forget.
19. Edge of Tomorrow
Year: 2014
Director: Doug Liman
Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt make one heck of a team in Doug Liman's adrenaline-pumping time-loop action movie Edge of Tomorrow. Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel All You Need is Kill, Cruise plays a public affairs officer who, after failing to blackmail a general, is demoted from Major to Private and is forced onto the frontlines of humanity's war against a ruthless alien race. However, his inevitable death ignites a time loop, forcing him to live his last day over and over again. While he slowly gains the combat experience he needs to survive, he also works with a more capable soldier (Blunt) to break the loop and save mankind. Although Edge of Tomorrow had a middling box office run, it effortlessly earned cult classic status.
18. Get Out
Year: 2017
Director: Jordan Peele
After years of making America laugh, comedian Jordan Peele instilled fear with his smash hit sci-fi horror Get Out (also his debut as a director). Daniel Kaluuya plays a photographer who suspects something is amiss when he meets the parents of his upper middle-class white girlfriend (Allison Williams). As it turns out, his suspicions are correct, as the family hides a terrible secret. While Peele doesn't completely abandon his comic sensibilities, his freshman feature ingeniously weaponizes science fiction tropes to explore the systemic exploitation of Black people. It's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner by way of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
17. The World's End
Year: 2013
Director: Edgar Wright
"Ever had one of those nights that starts out like any other, but ends up being the best night of your life?" So begins Edgar Wright's tribute to all our golden nights with his sci-fi comedy The World's End. Years after they've outgrown their raucous youth, a group of grown men reunite in their sleepy hometown to appease their former leader (Simon Pegg) and complete a legendary bar crawl. It just so happens their town is secretly overrun by an alien species. While partially a hilarious sci-fi where rowdy men engage in a bathroom brawl with alien robots, The World's End is also one of Wright's most emotional pictures, a movie about how some of us run to adulthood while others stumble along the way.
16. Pacific Rim
Year: 2013
Director: Guillermo del Toro
What do you get when you combine the imagination of Guillermo del Toro with sick riffs by Tom Morello? The answer is Pacific Rim, simply one of the coolest sci-fi movies of the 2010s. In a future where humanity is locked in a battle of survival against colossal alien monsters ("Kaiju"), Charlie Hunnam plays a pilot of humanoid mechs ("Jaeger") who comes out of retirement to carry out one final mission that might end the war for good. A love letter from del Toro to the Japanese tokusatsu media of his youth, Pacific Rim, packs a mighty punch that morphs your face to leave it in perpetual awe.
15. Black Panther
Year: 2018
Director: Ryan Coogler
Wakanda Forever! A seismic billion-dollar hit, Marvel's Black Panther brought Afrofuturism to mainstream attention in a way no Hollywood tentpole had ever done before. In this spin-off of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise and a direct sequel to 2016's Captain America: Civil War, Prince T'Challa (the late Chadwick Boseman) wrestles with his responsibilities as both Black Panther and the new king of Wakanda as he stands against a violent rival, Kilmonger (Michael B. Jordan). A monumental release, Black Panther remains one of the sci-fi crown jewels in Marvel's exhaustive canon.
14. Ad Astra
Year: 2019
Director: James Gray
Mesmerizing, muscular, and meditative – these are but a few words that describe the majesty of James Gray's Ad Astra. Brad Pitt stars in the movie as an astronaut who ventures into space to locate his formerly presumed dead father (Tommy Lee Jones) when his space station near Neptune may be the source of dangerous power surges that threaten all life on Earth. Ad Astra is a gorgeous movie about fatherhood, manhood, and the fallacy of hero worship, with some jaw-dropping set-pieces to boot (including a shoot-out rover chase on the Moon). If John Ford's The Searchers was a space movie instead of a Western, it might look like Ad Astra.
13. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Year: 2014
Director: Matt Reeves
Picking up where the reboot/prequel Rise of the Planet of the Apes left off in 2011, Matt Reeves' sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes pinpoints the precise moment when humanity lost its supremacy to apes forever. Andy Serkis returns as Caesar, who tries in vain to keep the peace between increasingly intelligent apes and the remnants of humanity who are desperately trying to keep their species alive. While alliances between the species are forged, they are delicate, and mistrust and misunderstandings become the sparks that ignite the fires of war. An enthralling sequel that towers over its predecessor, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is pure top-shelf science fiction.
12. Shin Godzilla
Year: 2016
Director: Hideaki Anno
When disaster strikes, the worst thing Japan has to endure isn't a mutating nuclear lizard – it's the government bureaucrats who hide behind red tape. The first of Hideaki Anno's "Shin" remakes of iconic Japanese franchises, Shin Godzilla, lives up to the spirit of the 1954 original Gojira as a political allegory. But instead of nuclear war, Shin Godzilla condemns modern day governance where elected officials care more about optics and protocol than actively addressing an urgent situation. While Anno's other Shin movies – 2022's Shin Ultraman and 2023's Shin Kamen Rider – are nostalgic superhero epics, 2016's Shin Godzilla is a sober, rage-inducing disaster movie where the political fallout just might be worse than Godzilla's atomic breath.
11. Ex Machina
Year: 2015
Director: Alex Garland
The underbelly and perverse psychology of Silicon Valley's so-called geniuses are finally exposed in Alex Garland's seminal 2015 sci-fi Ex Machina. Domnhall Gleeson stars as a young programmer named Caleb who meets his company's reclusive boss, Nathan (Oscar Isaac), at his remote estate. There, Caleb learns his true purpose in his visit: To be the human element in a Turing test for an eerily beautiful lifelike android (Alicia Vikander). While Caleb tries to help Vikander's Ava get away from her maker, no one is prepared for what she is actually capable of. Ex Machina exists in the tradition of sci-fi classics like Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey, exploring the tension between artificial intelligence and true consciousness.
10. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Year: 2017
Director: Rian Johnson
After J.J. Abrams awoke the Force, Rian Johnson took Star Wars to the edge. In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Daisy Ridley returns as Rey to learn the ways of the Force from a reclusive and reluctant Jedi, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Meanwhile, members of the Resistance race against time to find an advantage over the First Order. Introspective and meditative about the role stories play in creating legacies, Star Wars: The Last Jedi split the fandom in half, but time will ultimately reveal what Johnson's sequel means in the end.
9. Annihilation
Year: 2018
Director: Alex Garland
Following the acclaim of his 2015 sci-fi Ex Machina, Alex Garland adapted for the screen the first of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach book series, Annihilation. Natalie Portman plays a biologist whose soldier husband (Oscar Isaac) returns home seemingly out of nowhere. She soon learns he's been part of a mission investigating "The Shimmer," a dangerous area full of alien life whose increasing size threatens to engulf all of Earth. Mesmerizing and monstrous, Annihilation is a modern sci-fi horror classic that deals with themes of guilt and grief.
8. Blade Runner 2049
Year: 2017
Director: Denis Villeneuve
As enigmatic as Ridley Scott's original sci-fi classic, Denis Villeneuve’s legacy sequel Blade Runner 2049 flips the script with K (Ryan Gosling), who is both a Replicant and a Blade Runner who conducts an investigation into a potentially game-changing truth. The case forces him to confront the possibility that he might be human – or, at the very least, a miracle. A sci-fi noir about hope in a hopeless world, Blade Runner 2049 was celebrated for a lot of things, among them its surprising feminist bent that commented on the commodification and consumption of women and its explicit exploration of the prized value of fertility.
7. The Martian
Year: 2015
Director: Ridley Scott
Matt Damon is always in need of rescuing, it seems. Based on Andy Weir's self-published best-selling novel, Ridley Scott helms the adaptation of The Martian where Matt Damon stars as an astronaut and botanist who is left behind on Mars. As NASA works to get a team back to save him, Damon's Dr. Watney uses his resourcefulness and knowledge to survive on the red planet. Where Weir's novel was celebrated for its accurate scientific detail and humor, Ridley's movie version translates its prose for a mainstream audience, with none other than Matt Damon soaking up the spotlight as a man who needs to be rescued yet again.
6. Inception
Year: 2010
Director: Christopher Nolan
Between installments of his Batman trilogy, Christopher Nolan threw audiences for a loop with his cerebral heist thriller Inception. Set in a world where dreams have become weaponized, Leonardo DiCaprio plays an expert in corporate espionage who is tasked with assembling a team to infiltrate the dreams of an executive (Cillian Murphy) in order to implant the idea of breaking up a dangerous corporate empire. Full of trippy sequences and unforgettable visuals, Nolan's Inception proved that blockbusters don't have to be big, loud, and dumb to become a hit. The sci-fi movie also pairs well with Satoshi Kon's Paprika, another kaleidoscopic movie about the eerily powerful worlds of our dreams.
5. Snowpiercer
Year: 2013
Direcotr: Bong Joon-ho
Here's a fun piece of trivia: Rewatch the post-credits scene of The Avengers. Look closely at Chris Evans and how he's trying to obscure his face in the shawarma restaurant. That's because Evans was hiding his beard, which he grew out for the production of Bong Joon-ho's acclaimed sci-fi Snowpiercer, based on the French graphic novels. Set in a frozen future where the last of humanity lives on a massive train, Evans stars as a revolutionary who seeks to equalize the class order and bring the oppressed from the back to enjoy the luxuries of the front. Logical worldbuilding be damned, Bong Joon-ho's movie hits harder than a front charge of Cap's shield.
4. Her
Year: 2013
Director: Spike Jonze
A love story unlike any other, Spike Jonze's Her takes place in a near future that seems to become our present reality with every passing day. Joaquin Phoenix plays a divorced man who falls in love with his new cutting-edge virtual assistant, Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). A deeply moving romance (and loosely based on Jonze's own divorce), Her raises uncomfortable questions about what it will mean to love in an increasingly dehumanizing reality. Her boldly eschews the cold color palettes of other conventional sci-fi movies to bask in the warm hues of the heart and fosters a safe place to finally let go of your emotions.
3. Interstellar
Year: 2014
Director: Christopher Nolan
In concert with an all-time masterful score by Hans Zimmer, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is a journey through the cosmos propelled by unknown forces, including love. Set in a near future where mankind faces extinction on Earth due to widespread dust storms and the withering of crops, Matthew McConaughey plays a widower and former NASA test pilot who is recruited for a secret mission to find a new home for humanity. Easily one of Nolan's most emotionally stirring movies, Interstellar muses on the power of love and our place in the universe against the menacing blackness of infinite space.
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
Year: 2015
Director: George Miller
Thundering before our eyeballs and booming in our eardrums in 2015 was George Miller's rip-roaring Mad Max: Fury Road, a sequel to the Mad Max series. The eternal wanderer Max (Tom Hardy) returns to the sand-blasted wasteland, kidnapped by a fearsome warlord whose greed has dried up the world. Teaming up with a traitorous soldier, Furiosa (Charlize Theron), the two try to smuggle Immortan Joe's harem before realizing the world they deserve can be forged back where they left off. A sinewy sequel with operatic flair, Mad Max: Fury Road earns its place in cinematic Valhalla. Witness it.
1. Arrival
Year: 2016
Director: Denis Villeneuve
As if anticipating the world's imminent inability to communicate with each other, Denis Villeneuve's Arrival relishes in the thrilling terror of first contact. In this acclaimed sci-fi drama, Amy Adams plays a linguistics professor recruited by the military for a top-secret job: establishing communication with aliens following their arrival on Earth. Villeneuve's movie is magnificent as it is compassionate, with its circular plot ending with a gut-punch twist. While there are many sci-fi movies about alien invasions and first contact, Arrival towers above them all as an intelligent and moving picture about the importance of understanding one another.
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