The Sci-fi Movie to Beat this Century?

I like most of the movies listed, but they're kinda all movies I like with reservations. Can't really say any of them are exceptional. Moon and District 9 would probably be among the highest ranked on my list though.

Interstellar (which wasn't listed) and Sunshine were half amazing movies but also had large chunks I had big issues with.

I know I'm in a minority for even considering it, but I'd also say Babylon A.D. had a fucking amazing first half, while the second half of the movie is some of the worst garbage I've ever seen, that in the moment kinda makes you forgot just how good the first half was.

Children of Men was really good, but I really can't help but love the 1993 "American Cyborg: Steel Warrior" which basically had the same plot but with terminators and some really silly fight scenes more.

You must really hate Avatar to not put it up there. As for what I think, I don't know. I just love sci-fi, so I'd rather not choose. Also, you don't have the new Alien films up there either. That's a lot missing. Some of those are much better than others, though when it comes to the sci-fi movies I'm looking for, some of those better ones isn't that. Like Her, I really liked that movie a lot, but I don't really compare it to something like Blade Runner. I have yet to see Blade Runner 2049. My favorite movies on there are Gravity, Moon, Looper, Wall-E and I guess Her. The other ones range from okay to merely good to me but not great. Well, I might also add District 9. That's only to name what's on your list.

The Martian and Gattaca are odd omissions from this list, especially since there are a few movies on that list that I personally wouldn't classify as sci-fi. I bring this up because I would put Gattaca as the movie to beat for the 2000's and The Martian as the movie to beat so far in the 2010's.

I just want to put my vite out for Automata. Great movie with stellar acting all around, with a really good vibe for a post-apocalyptic world. But... I also live Paprika! I recommend this movie to everyone I see, glad to see it on the list.

I'd vote for Interstellar if it were on here. You say we don't get many good sci-fi movies, but I would argue that we get plenty. What's really missing these days is hard science fiction, and that's what Interstellar provided. That was a movie that put science and scientists up on a pedestal.

Granted, Nolan went all Nolan on the script in the last twenty minute and did his best to derail the whole thing, but if even with that it's still a really fantastic movie.

@fisk0: Moon and District 9 are both fantastic. Interstellar is pretty much the epitome of half amazing. There's some great stuff in that movie, but there's also a lot of straight-up insufferable nonsense.

I really like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Gravity. Also, Wall-e is probably my favourite Pixar movie.

Yah where is Interstellar? I wouldn't really classify Inception as "sci fi" either.

I'd go with Children of Men. Inception and Ex Machina were great too. Sunshine would be one of my favorite movies if the last 1/4th didn't randomly turn into slasher movie. Interstellar also dropped the ball during its last act. Mad Max was great, but I'd hardly call it sci-fi. If that's the case, I probably like The Road more. I couldn't stand Blade Runner 2049, probably the least entertained I've been in a movie theater. Avatar shouldn't be mentioned it's a pretty basic/generic story just dressed up.

@fisk0: I've been meaning to check out Babylon AD and lol, perhaps, American Cyborg: Steel Warrior now as well.

@ntm: @borgmaster: I considered all those but like I said in the OP, I had to cut some 'cause the list is already too big. I enjoyed Avatar and The Martian, just don't feel as strongly about them. Gattaca is from 1997? Maybe were thinking of different movies. The new Alien movies I haven't seen but the people I talk to did not have kind things to say about those.

@aviont: I do want to see Automata.

Oh god, I don't wanna be thinking about the next century.

Of that list either Blade Runner 2049 or Her, with special shout-outs to The Fountain, Eternal Sunshine, and A Scanner Darkly.

I voted for Moon. I love that movie. If you know nothing about it you should keep it that way and watch movie.

Other movies from that list that are must watch are snowpiercer and time crimes. Time Crimes is a great time travel movie. I really enjoyed the Planet of apes remakes too. The only movie I that list I didn't care for getting votes is Arrival. Something about that movie really bugged me, I think it was the aliens.

Eternal Sunshine is almost a perfect movie, so that gets my vote, but Children of Men was absolutely fantastic too.

As a sci fi movie? Probably Arrival. As an Action Movie Mad Max or Edge of Tomorrow, as some anime shit Edge of Tomorrow or Snowpiercer. Eternal Sunshine is an awesome movie but very little of what makes it good has anything to do with traditional Sci Fi. As far as pre 2000 Total Recall and Starship Troopers are probably still better than anything on the list (as total package since Mad Max is the best Action movie period), and the Running Man certainly more influential as of yet. Russian Solaris is probably my overall pick.

I'm not sure, but this may have been more interesting as a multi-choice poll. If only it could be limited to "pick 3" or something.

I picked Eternal Sunshine. The Planet of the Apes Trilogy was close. But there are lots of greats here.

edit: MAN Fury Road IS on the list! That was my first thought before seeing the options. It may be my favorite MOVIE of the bunch, but more as an action movie than a Sci-Fi. Kind of glad I missed it, that would have been a tough choice.

I voted for Blade Runner 2049. There is something to be said about how the film is so new that it is still in my mind, but it provided everything that I truely enjoy in film and I can't think of another film on the list that did that. Maybe, Ex Machina or Arrival might come close to 2049 but for now they are 2nd and 3rd.

@fredchuckdave: Snowpiercer is Korean.

Mad Max: Fury Road is the only thing I feel really strong about here, though there are tons of good movies on the list. In retrospect I’m not sure if it’s the best representation of the Science Fiction genre, but... I mean it was there so my lizard brain clicked on it.

The spread on that list is way too wide to pick one as the most formative movie. How would you even compare something like WALL-E and Fury Road ?

I don't know, I would have to make it to the next century to make a fair call about this.

This is my vote as well. Interstellar was far from perfect, but most movies don't even bother engaging with any advances in astrophysics since the 80s. We need more graphic artists consulting with physicists and more writers willing to wrap their heads around time dilation.

@ares42: Sci Fi is the "RPG Elements" of film

How is mad max scifi?

I think i dug inception the most out of all the newer scifi stuff. District 9 is up there too.

@humanity: How is Inception not sci-fi? Its science and technology allows them to go into people's dreams, which is what the film is about. I don't see how The Fountain is sci-fi. The storyline with him in a bubble is just a metaphor.

I'd go Gattaca like some have mentioned here, but that is a 90s movie, so I went Children of Men. The new Blade Runner was pretentious and boring to me.

I voted for Mad Max, even though I don't think it really belongs on here. It was just the best movie on there that I have seen.

That being said, going over that list, there have been a ton of absolutely great sci-fi in recent years,

Children of Men. Didn't even need to read the other items on the list.

Cargo (2009, Ivan Engler, Ralph Etter)

It's a German Swiss space thriller that goes from creepy mystery to political commentary very naturally.

Under the Skin was really really good in my opinion. A little obscure, but it was right up my alley.

Probably Aleksey German'sHard to be a God, a movie about scientists who are sent to a distant planet to observe and aid in the cultural development of the aboriginal peoples who are undergoing what could be described as a very decadent medieval phase of their history. It was shot over a period of six years and took another seven to come out, during which the director actually died. His son completed the film. Apparently the seven years after shooting were mostly devoted to the director trying to create the perfect soundscape for the film. The plot doesn't really matter much and half of it will remain impenetrable after an initial viewing unless you've read the book it's based on, and the true joy and tragedy of the film is witnessing 173 minutes of a morbid circus unfold in front of your eyes. It's basically a Hieronymus Bosch -painting in motion. It is despicable, ugly, and it looks so much like shit that it makes you feel like shit. Yet it's all shot in crisp black&white so it's never murky. You can never really escape it. Yet the society is never really deprived of hope, it's always underneath there, even when people are literally drowning in shit. It's a wonderful experience. Here's a fun trailer:

Lol, Mad Max: Fury Road. I love that movie but go to wikipedia. Ctrl/Command F "science".

The century is still super young, but already so many good movies out. It only will become better. One might say that this is the best time to watch science fiction movies.

Anyway, MOON, Paprika and District 9 were especially amazing but both The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and The Fountain hit me by suprise, its also that these movies get better the more you see them. I'm going to watch Blade Runner 2049 soon, can't wait to see how good it really is.

I wanted to vote for either MOON or The Girl Who Leapt Through Time so I did the only reasonable thing and tossed a coin, gave my vote to TGWLTT.

There's lots of movies on that list that I wouldn't consider sci-fi. Just because it's set in the future it doesn't make it automatically fit that category.

Any movie on the list would easily beat Avatar. Other than the CGI and pushing 3D tech forward (and even that is debatable), there's nothing else in Avatar to make it one of the best.

This is kind of a weird list. I don't know really how to vote here, because a bunch of those movies aren't really what I'd consider science fiction. I mean, Mad Max: Fury Road is fucking rad, but it's not something where I'd say, "Oh, you like science fiction? Well, you gotta see Mad Max!" It's an action movie, and a great one at that.

I absolutely love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but it's more of a romance than anything. It's only "sci-fi" in terms of the memory-wiping tech, and that's pretty ancillary to the plot of the movie itself. It's a film about introspection and the spectrum of emotion within life.

Meanwhile, there are some odd exclusions like Interstellar, multiple Star Wars films, Avatar (overrated as fuck, IMO, but undeniably notable), and a few others. And while I enjoyed several of the movies on that list that I'd actually consider sci-fi like Looper, Edge of Tomorrow, Minority Report, etc., none really standout in a "movie to beat" sort of way.

Part of me wants to vote Children of Men because it's great, but that's really more of a drama. Also, I still need to see Blade Runner 2049. So, Inception, I guess?

(Also, Westworld is the best sci-fi I've seen this century, but it's a show, so I suppose it doesn't count.)

@assumedkilla: it’s hard for me to quantify but as fantastical as Inception gets I have a hard time viewing it as sci-fi although for lack of a proper genre I guess that where it would fall.

Too bad you couldn’t get into the new Blade Runner. Now that was some beautiful sci-fi right there.

My vote would go to Interstellar if it were on the list.

Inception has Leonardo DiCaprio, so that's automatically out (I've never gotten through a movie he's been in).

I enjoyed District 9, but I'm bitter it hasn't gotten a sequel, that's out because I'm petty.

Interstellar isn't on the list, but it was a little too "Look at me, I'm an arthouse blockbuster!" for my taste, so that's out.

Arrival was adapted from a book, so it loses points for not being entirely original.

I haven't seen the new Blade Runner yet, but I hear it's really good, so maybe?

So the answer is . . . Mad Max? Even if I wouldn't classify it as sci-fi? It has Hobo-Darth Vader as the villain, so I guess it technically counts? Best movie on the list, anyway.

It's a little early to be judging a movie for the century. Narrowing it down to decade (2000-2010 or 2010-2020) would be better. I'm not sure Mad Max really counts as sci-fi. Also - no Avatar?

We need to add Attack the Block (2011) for sure....and

• Battle Royale(2000)
• Pitch Black (2000)
• Reign of Fire(2002)
• Solaris (2002)
• 28 Days Later (2002)
• V for Vendetta (2006)
• The Host(2006)
• Cloverfield (2008)
• Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
• Never Let Me Go (2010)
• Another Earth (2011)
• The Adjustment Bureau(2011)
• Melancholia (2011)
• Robot & Frank (2012)
• The Hunger Games (2012)
• Oblivion (2013)
• Elysium (2013)
• The Signal(2014)
• Godzilla(2014)
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
  
  Oh and...
• Super 8 (2010)
• Big Hero 6 (2014)
• Ender's Game (2013)
• Signs (2002) [I happen to like it...even if M. Night Shyamalan made it.]
• Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)
• 9 (2009)
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) [retro-Scifi...but still great]
• Automata (2014) [I liked this more a HELL OF A LOT better than Ex Machina]

Some glaring omissions and inclusions but I don't think any of them would beat Moon.

@monkeyking1969: Considered those including Attack the Block but the list is already too big and had to make cuts. Also, the century starts 1/1/2001.

This is impossible. Sci-fi isn’t all the same, most of these are vastly different so I couldn’t choose one. Maybe I could choose 20.

I cannot in good conscience vote on such a list that does not include Interstellar.

The autistic part of my brain is going crazy after reading this thread. Many of the films in the list are not scifi! A drama that happens to be set in the future is not automatically a scifi. Just like a film that happens to have a gruesome scene is not a horror. Genres are more specific then that surely? If you would go to a video rental shop you would never find Mad Max or Eternal Sunshine under the scifi category. Ugg!

Ok scifi nerd rant over. Honestly I dont care how you classify your movies. My top scif movies would be District 9 and Interstellar. In a broader interpretation that includes all films that are set in the future probably Melancholia.

I would say that "Sci-Fi" has to have some science based thing (that is not currently possible/encountered) as one of it's main focus. Like Mad Max: Fury Road (awesome movie) and Children of Men (probably my favorite film on this list) really don't qualify. So win defaults to Ex Machina - a fantastic peak at the alien nature nature of the AI.

For everyone talking about what should and shouldn't be on the list... Wikipedia. Fury Road is categorised in 2010s Science Fiction films. Yup, the internet was a mistake.

EDIT: Wait a minute, @liquiddragon: did you just go to Wikipedia (specifically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2000s_science_fiction_films and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2010s_science_fiction_films) and pick out 30 titles?

The term "sci-fi" clearly has a nebulous definition considering what made it on to the poll and the discussions in this thread. A couple of my favorite movies on that list - Children of Men and Mad Max - don't fit my personal description for the genre. I voted for Under the Skin.

I like a lot of the listed movies, Moon ranks up there pretty high for me but if I can take the new Planet of the Apes as a trilogy I'd go with that.

Science fiction has become a massive, broad term that many people use in many different ways. It's basically become shorthand for "fiction that's more realistic than fantasy but is still unrealistic".

At some point, discussion of genres gets pretty silly anyway. Fury Road fits best under "post-apocalyptic", but so does Logan's Run - if you need to differentiate the two, Fury Road is way more of an action movie. But then Die Hard is also an action movie, so you need to differentiate those two with a different descriptor and so on and so forth.

I'd say this is pretty accurate.

Coherence. If you haven't seen it, give it a bash. It's amazing what the director accomplished with a tight budget ($50,000) alone (director, writer, the set was his house). James Ward Byrkit hired actors that weren't well known and kept them from meeting beforehand. James brought the actors to his house (the set) "threw them a few red herrings and set them loose for five days knowing that the film could evolve organically" his plan was to "strip down a film set to the bare minimum: getting rid of the script, getting rid of the crew." A highly interesting sci-fi film, which has kept me thinking even though it's been almost a year later since I watched it. It's one of my favourite films, and I've seen it like 3 times.