Best Sci-fi Movies

  • District 9

    District 9 (R, 2009)

    Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, David James, Vanessa Haywood, Mandla Gaduka
    Director Neill Blomkamp teams with producer Peter Jackson for this tale of extraterrestrial refugees... read more stuck in contemporary South Africa. It's been 28 years since the aliens made first contact, but there was never any attack from the skies, nor any profound technological revelation capable of advancing our society. Instead, the aliens were treated as refugees. They were the last of their kind, and in order to accommodate them, the government of South Africa set up a makeshift home in District 9 as politicians and world leaders debated how to handle the situation. As the humans begin to grow wary of the unwelcome intruders, a private company called Multi-National United (MNU) is assigned the task of controlling the aliens. But MNU is less interested in the aliens' welfare than attempting to understand how their weaponry works. Should they manage to make that breakthrough, they will receive tremendous profits to fund their research. Unfortunately, the highly advanced weaponry requires alien DNA in order to be activated. When MNU field operative Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is exposed to biotechnology that causes his DNA to mutate, the tensions between the aliens and the humans intensifies. Wikus is the key to unlocking the alien's technology, and he quickly becomes the most wanted man on the planet. Ostracized and isolated, Wikus retreats to District 9 in a desperate bid to shake his dogged pursuers. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
    • garettkofoed1
      garettkofoed1: This is a sweet scifi movie. ORIGINAL story. Watch the short film that started it.
      Reviewed 2 months days ago
    • phantomfharlock
      phantomfharlock: It was refreshing to see a SciFi movie that turns the genre on it's ear. The movie is fantastic in
      Reviewed 2 months days ago
    • fb100001961209899
      fb100001961209899: One of the best scifi films of recent years. It fulfills all the best scifi genre features while pr
      Reviewed 15 months days ago
  • Sunshine

    Sunshine (R, 2007)

    Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada
    As the sun begins to dim along with humankind's hope for the future, it's up to a desperate crew of ... read moreeight astronauts to reach the dying star and reignite the fire that will bring life back to planet Earth in this tense psychological sci-fi thriller that re-teams 28 Days Later director Danny Boyle with writer Alex Garland and producer Andrew Macdonald. The skies are darkening, and the outlook for planet Earth is grim. Though the encroaching darkness at first seems unstoppable, scientists have concocted one desperate last-ditch plan to buy the human race a temporary reprieve from the grim future that looms just past the horizon. A crew of eight men and women has been given a nuclear device designed to literally reignite the sun and sent hurtling through infinity on the most crucial space mission ever attempted. Suddenly, as the crew loses radio contact with mission control, everything begins to fall apart. Now, in the farthest reaches of the galaxy, the men and women who may hold the key to ultimate survival find themselves not only struggling for their lives, but their sanity as well. Rose Byrne, Chris Evans, Cillian Murphy, and Michelle Yeoh star in a film that asks audiences just what would become of humankind if the sky suddenly went black. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
    • finlaybuchanan
      finlaybuchanan: Quite an enjoyable and interesting scifi adventure. Got a little boring and silly towards the end b
      Reviewed 2 months days ago
    • fb537048174
      fb537048174: This movie is Danny Boyle at his best (Screw Slumdog Millionaire) hot off the success of 28 Days La
      Reviewed 2 years days ago
    • fb1590630023
      fb1590630023: This movie is one of the best scifi movies I have ever seen. A gripping story and a cast to pull i
      Reviewed 3 years days ago
  • Blade Runner

    Blade Runner (R, 1982)

    Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh
    A blend of science fiction and noir detective fiction, Blade Runner (1982) was a box office and crit... read moreical bust upon its initial exhibition, but its unique postmodern production design became hugely influential within the sci-fi genre, and the film gained a significant cult following that increased its stature. Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard, a retired cop in Los Angeles circa 2019. L.A. has become a pan-cultural dystopia of corporate advertising, pollution and flying automobiles, as well as replicants, human-like androids with short life spans built by the Tyrell Corporation for use in dangerous off-world colonization. Deckard's former job in the police department was as a talented blade runner, a euphemism for detectives that hunt down and assassinate rogue replicants. Called before his one-time superior (M. Emmett Walsh), Deckard is forced back into active duty. A quartet of replicants led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) has escaped and headed to Earth, killing several humans in the process. After meeting with the eccentric Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel), creator of the replicants, Deckard finds and eliminates Zhora (Joanna Cassidy), one of his targets. Attacked by another replicant, Leon (Brion James), Deckard is about to be killed when he's saved by Rachael (Sean Young), Tyrell's assistant and a replicant who's unaware of her true nature. In the meantime, Batty and his replicant pleasure model lover, Pris (Darryl Hannah) use a dying inventor, J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson) to get close to Tyrell and murder him. Deckard tracks the pair to Sebastian's, where a bloody and violent final confrontation between Deckard and Batty takes place on a skyscraper rooftop high above the city. In 1992, Ridley Scott released a popular director's cut that removed Deckard's narration, added a dream sequence, and excised a happy ending imposed by the results of test screenings; these legendary behind-the-scenes battles were chronicled in a 1996 tome, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner by Paul M. Sammon. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
    • fb515304826
      fb515304826: Very interesting, scifi film. Not deserving of half a million re-edits and releases, but definitely
      Reviewed 13 months days ago
    • fb100001961209899
      fb100001961209899: This epic scifi had great depth based on Philip k Dick's novel 'Do androids dream of electric sheep
      Reviewed 12 months days ago
    • Brentompkins1
      Brentompkins1: This movie has amazing special fx that's it. This movie freaking sucks horribly bad, it's boring as
      Reviewed 9 months days ago
  • Serenity

    Serenity (PG-13, 2005)

    Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin
    A band of renegades on the run in outer space get in more hot water than they anticipated in this sc... read morei-fi action-adventure adapted from the television series Firefly. In the 26th century, the galaxy has been colonized by a military force known as the Alliance, but its leadership has not gone unquestioned. The Alliance was once challenged by a league of rebels known as the Independents, but the Alliance emerged victorious after a brutal civil war, with the surviving Independents scattering around the galaxy. Also wandering the edges of the galaxy are the Reavers, who have won few allies due to their violent behavior and habit of ripping apart their enemies and eating them before they're dead. Capt. Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), who fought as an Independent in the galactic war, is the head of Serenity, a rogue frieghter ship whose crew includes Mal's first mate, Zoe (Gina Torres), who fought alongside him in the war, her husband, hotshot pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), sunny but dependable mechanic Kaylee (Jewel Staite), and hard-nosed gunman Jayne (Adam Baldwin). The crew of Serenity wander the galaxy, taking on whatever work they can get, from criminal activities like smuggling and stealing to legitimately offering transport to travelers. Passengers aboard Serenity include professional "companion" Inara (Morena Baccarin) and holy man Shepherd Book (Ron Glass), but the real trouble aboard the ship comes with the arrival of Simon (Sean Maher) and his teenage sister, River Tam (Summer Glau). In time, the crew discovers that River has remarkable psychic powers and was being held captive by Alliance forces until Simon came to her rescue. Now the Alliance is hot on the heels of Serenity and its passengers, with The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a sinister Alliance tracker, leading the chase. Serenity was written and directed by Joss Whedon (in his directorial debut), creator of Firefly, which only lasted 11 weeks on the air but gained a powerful cult following who rallied to get the show released on DVD after its cancellation, leading to impressive home-video sales and and an eventual motion picture deal. A couple of months prior to Serenity's theatrical release, reruns of Firefly were picked up by the Sci-Fi channel, adding even more fans to its cult following. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
    • fb172001716
      fb172001716: I honestly think that's there's literally nothing to not like, unless you just hate fun but serious
      Reviewed 21 days days ago
    • fb564417638
      fb564417638: Let me state this I love Whedon from Buffy to Angel to this Firefly which besides Babylon 5 and Bla
      Reviewed 6 months days ago
    • dlopez8a
      dlopez8a: Awesome movie sequel to the TV show Firefly.
      A strange but pleasant mixture of old west meets scif
      Reviewed 15 months days ago
  • Moon

    Moon (R, 2009)

    Sam Rockwell, Kaya Scodelario, Benedict Wong, Matt Berry, Malcolm Stewart
    An astronaut miner extracting the precious moon gas that promises to reverse the Earth's energy cris... read moreis nears the end of his three-year contract, and makes an ominous discovery in this psychological sci-fi film starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey. For three long years, Sam Bell has dutifully harvested Helium 3 for Lunar, a company that claims it holds the key to solving humankind's energy crisis. As Sam's contract comes to an end, the lonely astronaut looks forward to returning to his wife and daughter down on Earth, where he will retire early and attempt to make up for lost time. His work on the Selene moon base has been enlightening -- the solitude helping him to reflect on the past and overcome some serious anger issues -- but the isolation is starting to make Sam uneasy. With only two weeks to go before he begins his journey back to Earth, Sam starts feeling strange: he's having inexplicable visions, and hearing impossible sounds. Then, when a routine extraction goes horribly awry, it becomes apparent that Lunar hasn't been entirely straightforward with Sam about their plans for replacing him. The new recruit seems strangely familiar, and before Sam returns to Earth, he will grapple with the realization that the life he has created may not be entirely his own. Up there, hundreds of thousands of miles from home, it appears that Sam's contract isn't the only thing about to expire. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
    • ian753
      ian753: A really great film. Went into it knowing nothing about it other than it being a non-action scifi f
      Reviewed 2 months days ago
    • fb100001961209899
      fb100001961209899: An amazing low budget science fiction film. Carried by an amazing story with excellent performance
      Reviewed 13 months days ago
    • mikekirk
      mikekirk: Good old fashioned scifi movie in the vein of 2001 or Silent Running. No aliens, no guns, no explos
      Reviewed 5 months days ago
  • Star Trek

    Star Trek (PG-13, 2009)

    Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood
    Mission: Impossible III director and Alias creator J.J. Abrams resurrects the classic science fictio... read moren franchise created by Gene Roddenberry with this feature film that embraces the rich history of the influential television and film series while also exploring some uncharted territory. Heroes star Zachary Quinto assumes the role of the Federation Starfleet lieutenant and Vulcan made famous in the original series by Leonard Nimoy (who also appears in an older incarnation of his original role), Spock, with Anton Yelchin stepping into the role of USS Enterprise navigator Pavel Chekov, Zoe Saldana assuming the role of communications officer Uhura, Simon Pegg keeping the ship in top shape as chief engineer Montgomery Scott (aka "Scotty"), and Eric Bana tormenting the benevolent space explorers as the villainous Nero. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle co-star John Cho also boards the Enterprise as Hikaru Sulu, with Chris Pine and Karl Urban assuming the legendary roles of Captain Kirk and Leonard "Bones" McCoy, respectively. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
    • fb1436194880
      fb1436194880: Rebooting one of (if not the) most iconic scifi series of all time is no small task. Star Trek mana
      Reviewed 10 months days ago
    • fb100000074541463
      fb100000074541463: I saw a sneak preview of this on wednesday.....on IMAX. My eyes are still recovering from the awso
      Reviewed 13 months days ago
    • jrescorla1
      jrescorla1: Very good! Action and story keep me on the edge of my seat. A must see if you like scifi.
      Reviewed 16 months days ago
  • The Matrix

    The Matrix (R, 1999)

    Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Gloria Foster
    What if virtual reality wasn't just for fun, but was being used to imprison you? That's the dilemma ... read morethat faces mild-mannered computer jockey Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) in The Matrix. It's the year 1999, and Anderson (hacker alias: Neo) works in a cubicle, manning a computer and doing a little hacking on the side. It's through this latter activity that Thomas makes the acquaintance of Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), who has some interesting news for Mr. Anderson -- none of what's going on around him is real. The year is actually closer to 2199, and it seems Thomas, like most people, is a victim of The Matrix, a massive artificial intelligence system that has tapped into people's minds and created the illusion of a real world, while using their brains and bodies for energy, tossing them away like spent batteries when they're through. Morpheus, however, is convinced Neo is "The One" who can crack open The Matrix and bring his people to both physical and psychological freedom. The Matrix is the second feature film from the sibling writer/director team of Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski, who made an impressive debut with the stylish erotic crime thriller Bound. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
    • fb502188518
      fb502188518: An amazing experience when it was first released (I hadn't seen anything like it before) and still
      Reviewed 11 months days ago
    • siobahn1987
      siobahn1987: Not my knid of film although the graphics were amazing and Keanu Reeves was excellent. Its a true
      Reviewed 2 years days ago
    • AlaineB
      AlaineB: I love scifi, but I'm lukewarm to the series. Don't know why.
      Reviewed 2 years days ago
  • The Fifth Element

    The Fifth Element (PG-13, 1997)

    Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm, Gary Oldman, Chris Tucker
    Good and evil battle for the future of 23rd century Earth in this visually striking big-budget scien... read morece fiction epic. In the movie's prologue, which is set in 1914, scientists gather in Egypt at the site of an event that transpired centuries earlier. Aliens, it seemed, arrived to collect four stones representing the four basic elements (earth, air, fire and water) - warning their human contacts that the objects were no longer safe on Earth. A few hundred years later (in the 23rd century), a huge ball of molten lava and flame is hurtling toward Earth, and scientist-holy man Victor Cornelius (Ian Holm) declares that in order to prevent it from destroying the planet, the same four elemental stones must be combined with the fifth element, as embodied by a visitor from another world named Leeloo (Milla Jovovich). However, if the force of evil presents itself to the stones instead, the Earth will be destroyed, and an evil being named Zorg (Gary Oldman) will trigger the disaster. Despite her remarkable powers, Leeloo needs help with her mission, and she chooses her accomplice, military leader-turned-cab driver Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), when she literally falls through the roof of his taxi. Writer and director Luc Besson began writing the script for The Fifth Element when he was only 16 years old, though he was 38 before he was able to bring it to the screen. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
    • fb100001961209899
      fb100001961209899: Luc Besson's French quirkiness coupled with Hollywood scifi/action conventions is beautifully meshe
      Reviewed 8 months days ago
    • fb16805297
      fb16805297: One of my favorite scifi action movies. Gary Oldman at his bazaarist, gotta love him.
      Reviewed 9 months days ago
    • fb126200290
      fb126200290: It's a movie that knows how dumb it is. It's a failed attempt of making a scifi satire. Not horribl
      Reviewed 23 months days ago
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey

    2001: A Space Odyssey (G, 1968)

    Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, Douglas Rain
    A mind-bending sci-fi symphony, Stanley Kubrick's landmark 1968 epic pushed the limits of narrative ... read moreand special effects toward a meditation on technology and humanity. Based on Arthur C. Clarke's story The Sentinel, Kubrick and Clarke's screenplay is structured in four movements. At the "Dawn of Man," a group of hominids encounters a mysterious black monolith alien to their surroundings. To the strains of Strauss's 1896 Also sprach Zarathustra, a hominid invents the first weapon, using a bone to kill prey. As the hominid tosses the bone in the air, Kubrick cuts to a 21st century spacecraft hovering over the Earth, skipping ahead millions of years in technological development. U.S. scientist Dr. Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester) travels to the moon to check out the discovery of a strange object on the moon's surface: a black monolith. As the sun's rays strike the stone, however, it emits a piercing, deafening sound that fills the investigators' headphones and stops them in their path. Cutting ahead 18 months, impassive astronauts David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) head toward Jupiter on the spaceship Discovery, their only company three hibernating astronauts and the vocal, man-made HAL 9000 computer running the entire ship. When the all-too-human HAL malfunctions, however, he tries to murder the astronauts to cover his error, forcing Bowman to defend himself the only way he can. Free of HAL, and finally informed of the voyage's purpose by a recording from Floyd, Bowman journeys to "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite," through the psychedelic slit-scan star-gate to an 18th century room, and the completion of the monolith's evolutionary mission.With assistance from special-effects expert Douglas Trumbull, Kubrick spent over two years meticulously creating the most "realistic" depictions of outer space ever seen, greatly advancing cinematic technology for a story expressing grave doubts about technology itself. Despite some initial critical reservations that it was too long and too dull, 2001 became one of the most popular films of 1968, underlining the generation gap between young moviegoers who wanted to see something new and challenging and oldsters who "didn't get it." Provocatively billed as "the ultimate trip," 2001 quickly caught on with a counterculture youth audience open to a contemplative (i.e. chemically enhanced) viewing experience of a film suggesting that the way to enlightenment was to free one's mind of the U.S. military-industrial-technological complex. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
    • fb803030313
      fb803030313: The first and most important SciFi film ever made at a A film of realism and future reality level a
      Reviewed 3 years days ago
    • placeinthesun455
      placeinthesun455: a very obscure film that was, excuse the pun, lightyears ahead of its time. The characters are a li
      Reviewed 5 years days ago
    • firstamb
      firstamb: Stanley Kubrick and Arthur Clarke defined space opera long before Harve Bennet coined it for Star T
      Reviewed 4 years days ago
  • Avatar

    Avatar (PG-13, 2009)

    Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez
    A paraplegic ex-marine finds a new life on the distant planet of Pandora, only to find himself battl... read moreing humankind alongside the planet's indigenous Na'vi race in this ambitious digital 3D sci-fi epic from Academy Award-winning Titanic director James Cameron. The film, which marks Cameron's first dramatic feature since 1997's Titanic, follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a war veteran who gets called to the depths of space to pick up the job of his slain twin brother for the scientific arm of a megacorporation looking to mine the planet of Pandora for a valued ore. Unfortunately the biggest deposit of the prized substance lies underneath the home of the Na'vi, a ten-foot-tall, blue-skinned native tribe who have been at war with the security arm of the company, lead by Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang). Because of the planet's hostile atmosphere, humans have genetically grown half-alien/half-human bodies which they can jack their consciousnesses into and explore the world in. Since Jake's brother already had an incredibly expensive Avatar grown for him, he's able to connect with it using the same DNA code and experience first-hand the joys of Pandora while giving the scientific team, led by Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) and Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore), some well-needed protection against the planet's more hostile forces.On a chance meeting after getting separated from his team, Jake's Avatar is rescued by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a Na'vi princess, who brings him into her tribe in order to give the humans a second chance at relating to this new environment. When word gets out of his increasing time with the alien species, Quaritch enlists Jake to do some reconnaissance for the company, as they'd like to persuade the tribe to move their home before taking more drastic measures to harness the treasure hidden below. Yet as Jake becomes one with the tribe and begins to understand the secrets of Pandora, his conscience is torn between his new adopted world and the wheelchair-bound one awaiting him when the psychic connection to his Avatar is broken. Soon battle lines are drawn and Jake needs to decide which side he will fight on when the time comes. The film was shot on the proprietary FUSION digital 3D cameras developed by Cameron in collaboration with Vince Pace, and offers a groundbreaking mix of live-action dramatic performances and computer-generated effects. The revolutionary motion-capture system created for the film allows the facial expressions of actors to be captured as a virtual camera system enables them to see what their computer-generated counterparts will be seeing in the film, and Peter Jackson's Oscar-winning Weta Digital visual-effects house supervises Avatar's complex special effects. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
    • fb1639010420
      fb1639010420: Maybe I should have seen this in 3D because this was not a good movie in 2D.Since when has magic wo
      Reviewed 3 months days ago
    • joshuaowen
      joshuaowen: Much has been said about the cost of making Avatar, and make no mistake that the money spent is all
      Reviewed 15 months days ago
    • twoolsey670
      twoolsey670: Let me start by saying that I am not a SciFi type movie guy. But, this was an awesome movie!
      Reviewed 16 months days ago

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