The vast and wondrous genre of science fiction spans some of the greatest stories we’ve ever told on screen. But exactly what makes the very best sci-fi movies? Everyone’s got their own answers, but we’ll hazard a guess that what separates the greats from the mids is quite simple: a limitless imagination that gazes at the stars (or monsters, or aliens, or parallel universes) to glean some truth about what it means to be human here on earth.
The best part: you can step through their portals anytime, with a whole universe of excellent sci-fi ready to be discovered or revisited on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Scroll below for our list of 20 eclectic favs, available to stream right now. And if you want to catch our list of the best sci-fi TV shows of all time? Look no further – we've ranked them too.
20. Minority Report (2002)
Great things happen when a master behind the camera (Steven Spielberg) teams up with a master in front of it (Tom Cruise). The pair joined forces in 2002 for Minority Report, a movie that imagines a near future where crimes can be prevented before they even happen. With the help of ‘pre-cogs’ (humans with precognitive function to read the thoughts of would-be murders), the police can save the day before they need to, but when the pre-crime department's chief Anderton (Cruise) is accused of killing someone soon, he turns from hunter to hunted. There are big, ethical ideas wrapped up in this classic Cruise action caper, and because it's Spielberg, who is a master of mixing the cerebral with the visually arresting, it's like a perfect stew of great cinema. You can watch Minority Report on Channel 4.
19. Blade Runner (1982)
Making a list of essential sci-fi without including Blade Runner would be like baking a cake without including flour – incomplete and sloppy. Ridley Scott's iconic film is probably, next to 2001: A Space Odyssey, the picture that comes to mind when you hear the phrase “sci-fi movie” – from its neon scenescapes and retro-futuristic costumes to its overall themes of pervasive and suspicious technology. In it, Harrison Ford is a cop tasked with finding rogue replicants – bio-engineered artificial people – who have escaped from their holding base and infiltrated the real world and are now hiding in plain sight. The film is as much a vehicle for solving a mystery as it is a showcase of what we thought the future could look like (let's not think about how 2020 actually looked). You can watch Blade Runner on Amazon.
18. Children of Men (2007)
The thing about movies is they used to have Clive Owen in them. In 2007, he starred in Children of Men, a tale of post-ecological and political disaster that's left humanity in shatters, bolstered further by the fact that no one has given birth in 18 years. He's technically the hero of this saga, as he, along with a ragtag band of rebels, attempts to traverse a civil war-torn Britain to get to the coast, but his hero isn't infallible to being rattled or three steps ahead; instead, he's a man burdened under the weight of trauma, laying the tracks as the train cart he's on speeds wildly. Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, presents a dystopia whose desperation and grime are palpable, and one where humanity loses its empathy by the second (it also includes one of the best one-shot action sequences in history!). You can watch Children of Men on Amazon.
17. Under the Skin (2013)
So many sci-fi classics make alien worlds out of the unknown, but in Under the Skin, Jonathan Glazer's unsettling masterpiece loosely inspired by the 2000 novel of the same name by Michael Faber, makes alien worlds of the mundanity of the known. Scarlett Johansson plays an extra-terrestrial masking in the body of a beautiful woman. She meanders across Scotland picking up men and feeding them to an inky void, all along the way scrutinising with curiosity and intriguing disgust the minutia of humanity - our relationships, our love, our scenery, our animalistic urges. It's not glossy, it's grimy and gnarled; with most of its scenes made up of hidden camera shots of real people in Glasgow. This film is not for everyone (it certainly wasn't when it was released to a critic-audience divide you could fit a double-decker bus in), but it's one of the finer expansions of the genre in modern times. You can watch Under the Skin on Amazon.
16. Her (2013)
Vintage science fiction – your Blade Runners, your Back the the Futures, your 2001: A Space Odysseys – are looked back on now with a sense of hubristic ambition ('You really thought we'd have flying cars now?!'). But Her, Spike Jonze's 2013 rumination on love and technology, feels almost eerily prophetic. In it, a man named Thomas (Joaquin Phoenix) enters a relationship with an AI operating system named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) on his phone. He shuns the possibility of human love (and with it the possibility of human pain) for a life with a piece of tech constantly adapting to be his perfect partner. It's a tragic look at loneliness and the desire for connection in a world that seems almost too cruel to open yourself up to sometimes. Post-pandemic, where technology was an essential crush that still has lingering effects on our IRL communication and companionship, and in an era of ever-looming AI fears, Her has evolved from a cautionary tale into a piece of slice-of-life relatability in just a decade. You can watch Her on Amazon.
15. Arrival
Starring Amy Adams in what many consider to be the performance of her career, Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival follows linguist Louise Banks as she is approached by the United States military to aid them in developing a way to communicate with twelve extraterrestrial spacecraft that have mysteriously arrived, hovering over Earth. A film adaptation of Ted Chiang’s short story Story of Your Life, Arrival is the platonic ideal of a science-fiction movie: an unendingly gorgeous, deeply moving reflection on time, language, and what non-humans can teach us about ourselves. You can watch Arrival on Amazon.
14. The Matrix
What more is there to be said about The Wachowskis’ legendary The Matrix than “thank you for changing the game”? Their groundbreaking cinematic reimagination of Plato’s Cave – a.k.a., what if we were all plugged into a simulation? What if our bodies were being used as batteries for a robot population that’s taken over the earth? – The Matrix hacked into our collective consciousness like nothing else. Think bullet time, think Keanu Reeves, think latex and leather, think “I know kung-fu”. Honestly, stick the three sequels on here as well. Masterpieces, plural! Exhilarating blockbuster perfection, a beautifully allegorical tale of trans liberation, and just the sexiest franchise ever. You can watch The Matrix on Amazon.
13. Annihilation
Alex Garland’s Annihilation is one of the most visually arresting sci-fi ventures in recent years: a creepy, trippy voyage into “The Shimmer”, a quarantined area encased by a mysterious barrier in the air that shines like an oil spill. Here, plants and animals mutate, all communication with the outside world is closed off, time passes in strange ways, and no one, so far, has made it back out alive – until Kane (Oscar Isaac) does. Starring Natalie Portman as army biologist Lena, Kane’s wife, Annihilation follows her eerie journey into the Shimmer alongside a group of researchers: and soon becomes a journey deep into the trauma of her marriage. The kind of watch that buries itself under your skin. You can watch Annihilation on Netflix.
12. The Host
We’re just gonna say it now: Bong Joon-ho’s The Host is one of the best creature features of all time. A brilliant example of the director’s penchant for blending genre elements with biting social commentary, Director Bong’s romp through the gutters of Seoul, where a huge, amphibious, murderous creature has spawned after the American military dumps formaldehyde into the Han River, is an endless crowd-pleaser. It’s a tender story about family, starring the always-excellent Song Kang-ho (Parasite), and a searing indictment of neocolonialism – while being as boisterously stylish and fun a monster movie as you could ask for. Big fish. You can watch The Host on Amazon.
11. Brazil
A deliciously absurd satire at the expense of capitalist bureaucracy and industrialism, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil is a cult classic, unforgettably whimsical dystopian sci-fi. Jonathan Pryce plays pen-pusher Sam Lowry, a government employee under an Orwellian, totalitarian regime, but don’t let that sound dreary to you: Brazil is vehemently the opposite. The kind of film where every frame is an utter joy to behold, it thrums with infinite wondrous imagination: transforming a series of events that begins with, er, some mail lost in the post, into a quest of deliriously epic proportions. There’s a samurai made out of switchboards. Come on! You can watch Brazil on Amazon.
10. District 9
Who doesn’t love a good bug alien action movie? Neill Blomkamp’s grimy, South Africa-set District 9 scratches that itch while still making the most of sci-fi’s allegorical power to excoriate apartheid and racial segregation. The titular District 9 is essentially a ghetto where millions of aliens – treated as sub-human, and given the derogatory name ‘Prawns’ – have been imprisoned in Johannesburg. But the borders between man and alien begin to break down as Wikus (Sharlto Copley) begins to slowly mutate into a Prawn. Sci-fi allegory at its most heavy-handed yet effective. You can watch District 9 on Amazon.
9. High Life
Claire Denis’ space prison movie, starring an excellent Robert Pattinson (as a hot and sad dad! R-Patz stans, make some noise!), horror queen Mia Goth, and legendary French actress Juliette Binoche, follows a group of death row criminals exiled to space as scientific experiments (of the sex variety) are performed on their bodies. Incredibly horny, incredibly beautiful, and incredibly feel-bad, High Life is everything in a space movie you never knew you needed. Including Binoche saying the words “big booty” in a film. You can watch High Life on Amazon.
8. Akira
The definitive cyberpunk masterpiece, Akira is one of the greatest animated films of all time. Following a red-hot biker gang in the dystopian 2019 city of Neo-Tokyo after a motorcycle accident bestows a boy with telekinetic powers, Katsuhiro Otomo’s stylistic giant is a wildly imaginative, full-octane, neon-lit ride through the city at night. An exhilarating, body horror sci-fi feast for the senses. You can watch Akira on Amazon.
7. Tenet
If you enjoy working for your pleasure, Christopher Nolan’s head-scratcher of a good time Tenet is for you – the kind of film that leaves you smug for getting it, like a deeply satisfying puzzle to piece together. Perhaps the first big blockbuster to grace our pandemic-cursed cinemas, Tenet was an exhilarating, ambitious mind-fuck for even the most dedicated Nolan-heads: but this time-reversing, ultra-slick heist still stands the test of time. Or times? Lots of time for this one. You can watch Tenet on Amazon.
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
A list of the greatest sci-fi will probably never be complete without Stanley Kubrick’s awe-inspiring 2001: A Space Odyssey – also known as the prequel to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Massive in its scope and spanning all of human history in its sombre, elegant investigation into the human compulsion to look to space for answers, it remains perhaps one of the most chilling stories ever told about artificial intelligence: and how the walls between human and technological consciousness continue to bleed much too thin. You can watch 2001: A Space Odyssey on Amazon.
5. Snowpiercer
Bong Joon-ho's Parasite has deservedly been hailed one of the best portrayals of class and privilege, but his sci-fi exploration six years earlier, Snowpiercer, took those same themes and laced them into a high-concept future world where the haves-and-have-nots are distinguished on a hurtling train to the centre of the earth. Starring Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell and Parasite's Song Kang-Ho, Snowpiercer does what all great sci-fi movies do: tell us something confronting and bleak about the state of our current world through the lens of future tech and dystopia. There's action, comedy and drama (the Bong Joon-ho special) as the paupers at the back of the train seek to overthrow the status-quo richy-riches preserving the front carriages, all with the threat of sudden, frozen death at any moment. You can watch Snowpiercer on Amazon.
4. Donnie Darko
Sure, Donnie Darko may have been co-opted by early aughts film bros as the ultimate ‘You just wouldn't get it' pretentious litmus test, but underneath its many calcified layers is a great sci-fi take on the simple, existential horrors of adolescence. Jake Gyllenhaal, back when he was cinema's favourite weird emo, plays Donny, a troubled teen who finds himself in the midst of an end-of-year prophecy that also includes time travel and a man dressed as a creepy rabbit. Donnie Darko's nihilistic, sci-fi overtones highlight its merits as a not-your-average-coming-of-age movie that is as much about navigating growing up as it is about the threat of total global annihilation. You can watch Donnie Darko on Amazon.
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Like so many great sci-fi conceits, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind grapples with the tumultuous nature of trying to run away from what makes us human for the sake of erasing pain. The alternate-future tech of this film is a procedure that lets you erase memories, and Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet star as an ex-couple trying to get rid of any trace of their relationship in their minds. As the pair cycle through the good and the bad parts of their time together, they reckon with the reality that love often comes with pain, and sacrificing one often means missing out on the other. You can watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on Amazon.
2. Sunshine
This i supposedly Chris Evans' favourite film throughout his whole career. Danny Boyle's space odyssey sends Cillian Murphy's steely blue eyes and harsh cheekbones into the great unknown with Evans, Michelle Yeoh, Benedict Wong and Mark Strong as astronauts tasked with restarting the sun to save a slowly freezing Earth. Now, most space movies get into sticky territory, but this is Danny Boyle we're talking about here. Naturally, there's a bit more girly brutality and realistic horror attached as a result. Sunshine is often left out of conversations about great space movies – not as flashy as Interstellar or as slick as Gravity. But there's a charm to this smaller exploration of the galaxy, with the confronting humanity of its explorers lit and exposed like they're standing 3 feet from the sun. You can watch Sunshine on Disney+.
1. Ex-Machina
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Ex-Machina is a movie about robots. But really it's a movie about humans. Or is it a movie about human robots? Long before M3GAN and Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1, Ex-Machina brought the grisly villainy of AI to the forefront with a tech CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac) who builds a humanoid robot Ava (Alicia Vikander) as some sort of billionaire god complex play. Our emotional proxy is Alex (Domnhall Gleeson), who finds himself falling in love with the beautiful robot before him and becoming increasingly suspicious of his own humanity in the process. Ex-Machina is stunning visually, thanks to its direction by Alex Garland, and it's one of those films that, especially with AI becoming a more and more pervasive topic of conversation and threat, will sit with you long after the credits roll. You can watch Ex-Machina on Amazon.
