It's never been a more exciting time to be a fan of science fiction, and this genre has been able to truly thrive in cinema over the past decades. The ballooning budget of studio blockbusters allows for greater levels of grandiose spectacles, some of which work best when in a sci-fi setting.
Sci-fi is a versatile and evergreen genre because it covers such a wide range of ideas, all of which come down to mankind's desire to build and improve upon a world that they don't want to accept. There are some unavoidable tent pole sci-fi films like the Star Wars and Transformers franchises or most of the filmography of Christopher Nolan. However, there are also some hidden sci-fi gems out there that audiences deserve to give a shot.
10 Upstream Color
Release Date: 2013
Upstream Color explores the wildly dense idea of parasitic organisms and the tidal waves of cause and effect that can be experienced through synergy. Kris and Jeff are two individuals who find themselves often subjected to strange behavior and feelings that are beyond their comprehension, only to learn that their test subjects are in a complex experiment that gets into complicated questions of identity and destiny.
In many ways, Upstream Color feels like the spiritual successor to Shane Carruth's previous sci-fi film, Primer, which tackles comparable ideas with the same no-nonsense hard sci-fi mentality. Both Upstream Color and Primer deserve a lot more attention as modern sci-fi classics.
9 Triangle
Release Date: 2009
Triangle is a tight, tense, overlooked sci-fi thriller that came out of the United Kingdom in 2009. A group of friends is forced to abandon their idyllic boating trip and come aboard a dour ocean liner that appears to contain as many corpses as it does secrets.
Triangle engages in a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game with its audience, but it also leans into the limitless sci-fi possibilities that accompany the nebulous Bermuda Triangle. It's an effective exploration of this creepy urban legend that also becomes one of the more unique deconstructions of clones and time paradoxes.
8 The Visitor
Release Date: 1979
The Visitor is the perfect midnight movie that must be seen to be believed and it immediately gained cult status during its obscure release in 1979. The Visitor looks at an apocalyptic battle between good and evil where a conflicted girl with telekinetic powers holds the key to victory.
The Visitor is like The Bad Seed or Carrie mixed together with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, all while presented with a vibrant visual flair that's reminiscent of Alejandro Jodorowsky or Terry Gilliam. The Visitor wasn't available in its full, uncut form in North America until 2010, which helped the film rise in popularity, but it retains its cult status.
7 Timecrimes
Release Date: 2007
Nacho Vigalondo is a brilliant Spanish genre filmmaker who frequently fluctuates between science fiction and horror. Timecrimes is Vigalondo's breakout feature film that confidently blends these two genres in what feels like Rear Window meets Back to the Future, all with a heightened sense of style and color.
A man's earnest attempt to stop an assault on a stranger becomes a prolonged duel against himself again and again and again. Timecrimes is one of the smartest modern time travel movies that respect both the genre's tropes and its audience.
6 Alphaville
Release Date: 1965
Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville from 1965 is easily the oldest sci-fi movie on this list, but it greatly benefits from its decade's exaggerated predictions of what the future would hold and what it will resemble. Godard's Alphaville is an ambitious film noir and science fiction hybrid that's an early example of cyberpunk sensibilities, albeit through an old-fashioned filter.
A government agent is tasked to investigate crimes in the titular Alphaville, a dystopian mecca on the outskirts of the galaxy where a dangerous computer begins to exert mind control over its compliant population. Despite being made in the '60s, Alphaville's ideas remain relevant.
5 The Endless
Release Date: 2017
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are visionary directors who have recently entered the Marvel machine after directing episodes of Moon Knight and some of Loki's upcoming second season. Many of this duo's movies share some cinematic throughline, but The Endless is their strongest film and the densest in rich sci-fi themes.
Moorhead and Benson star as two brothers who apprehensively find themselves returning to the alien conspiracy cult where they used to belong. A reckoning of faith is experienced by these brothers as they get caught in a time loop and are subjected to other paranormal activity that forces them to question their perceptions of the universe.
4 Beyond the Black Rainbow
Release Date: 2012
Panos Cosmatos is a wild director who's most famous for his gonzo psychedelic Nicolas Cage horror film, Mandy, which is really the perfect cinematic calling card. Cosmatos has since collaborated with Guillermo del Toro and he has a bright future as a genre filmmaker. Cosmatos' feature film debut is Beyond the Black Rainbow, a hallucinogenic tale of psychic human test subjects.
Beyond the Black Rainbow actually bears shocking similarities to Stranger Things, despite predating the popular Netflix series. A psychically-advantaged young girl does whatever she can to escape the secret facility that's turned her into their personal experiment.
3 Coherence
Release Date: 2014
There is a rich subgenre of science fiction movies where a rare comet or meteor passes through the Earth's orbit and leaves the population impossibly affected. Coherence is small-scale, low-budget sci-fi cinema at its very best that centers around a simple dinner party among eight friends.
The passing of a comet warps these individuals in diverse ways that are frightening. However, the movie is also psychologically rich and explores the causal whims of the universe and ideas of nature versus nurture. Coherence is also another inventive use of cryptic doppelgängers that force the characters to question who they really are.
2 The One I Love
Release Date: 2014
The One I Love feels like a vintage Twilight Zone episode that's extended into a feature-length affair. Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss play Ethan and Sophie, a couple who have been going through the motions and head away to a cottage for the weekend as a way to reconnect with each other.
Ethan and Sophie find themselves put in an unusual situation when they realize that they have seemingly perfect doubles that exist in this cottage. The couple is forced to reckon with which of these individuals they're interested in if they can ultimately even tell them apart.
1 Existenz
Release Date: 1999
David Cronenberg is a prolific genre filmmaker whose frequent forays into "body horror" helped the director make a subversive name for himself during the '80s. Movies like The Fly, Videodrome, and the recent Crimes of the Future are some of Cronenberg’s most memorable films, but eXistenZ is an overlooked prescient exploration of virtual reality from '99.
Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh play a reluctant bodyguard and video game designer who find themselves on the run from fatal forces as the lines between reality and eXistenZ's world get increasingly blurred. Hitting theaters weeks after The Matrix, eXistenZ gets lost in the shuffle even though it's a smart evolution of Cronenberg's themes.