Primer (2004)
Primer is probably the greatest time travel movie you’ve never seen. This indie film features four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs who build and sell error-checking technology. When they accidentally invent what they think is a time machine, they build a version capable of transporting humans and learn the dark consequences of their actions.
Event Horizon (1997)
The film was originally slammed by critics and audiences who detested its gore, but is now receiving more recognition for its innovative contribution to the genre. It follows a rescue crew investigating a spaceship that disappeared into a black hole and has now returned…with someone or something new on-board.
High Life (2018)
The story of a group of criminals sent into outer space and towards a black hole. Along the way, they serve as expendable lab rats to glean information about the celestial body. High Life is undoubtedly one of the most underrated space movies out there.
Strange Days (1995)
Strange Days flopped at the box office, partly because of its brutality. It features a former LAPD officer who sells illegal recordings of memories on the black market. When he uncovers a conspiracy in one of the recordings involving the murder of prominent rapper Jeriko One, he sets out to reveal the truth.
The Fountain (2006)
A man travels through time on a quest for immortality and to save the woman he loves. As a 16th-century conquistador, he searches for the legendary Fountain of Youth. As a present-day scientist, he desperately struggles to cure the cancer that is killing his wife. And finally, as a 26th-century astronaut in deep space, he begins to grasp the mysteries of life, love and death. At the time, The Fountain was considered “pretencious” and “confusing,” but now after popular movies like Interstellar and Arrival, audiences are used to interwoven stories and profound questions.
The Abyss (1989)
One of James Cameron’s lesser known films,The Abyss follows a civilian diving team who is enlisted to search for a lost nuclear submarine and faces danger while encountering an alien aquatic species.
Annihilation (2018)
Annihilation was never going to be a mainstream success, with test audiences calling it “a fever dream” and “too intellectual.” However, it’s an astonishing movie about a biologist that signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition into a mysterious zone called “The Shimmer” where the laws of nature don’t apply.
Treasure Planet (2002)
Based on the 1883 novel Treasure Island about a rebellious teen who receives a map from a dying pirate and embarks on an odyssey across the universe to find the legendary Treasure Planet. The mixture of classic 2D animation and CGI came off as outdated to audiences in 2002, but 20 years later, the inventiveness of the movie is clear.
Dark City (1998)
Dark City is often compared to The Matrix which came out only a year later and even used some of the same sets. However, only one is often remembered. Like The Matrix, it is a neo-noir sci-fi film. It features a man who struggles with memories of his past, which include a wife he cannot remember and a nightmarish world no one else ever seems to wake up from.
Existenz (1999)
David Cronenberg has firected many divise movies and Existenz is no different. This futuristic sci-fi horror movie is set in a world where the titular virtual reality game has taken over. The game’s talented but flawed creator has to cope with ruthless assassins while navigating an increasingly thin divide between real life and the virtual world she created.
Cube (1997)
Despite its dated special effects and unlikeable characters, Cube has now gained quite the cult following. It follows the story of six complete strangers with widely varying personalities who are involuntarily placed in an endless maze containing deadly traps.
Source Code (2011)
Source code received excellent reviews when it was released, but is still forgotten about when listing great sci-fi films. It follows a soldier who wakes up in someone else’s body and discovers he’s part of an experimental government program to find the bomber of a commuter train within 8 minutes.
Timecrimes (2007)
This Spanish sci-fi thriller skillfully adds a hilarity that most time travel movies don’t have. A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time only to find himself one hour ago and starts a series of dangerous, hilariously complex time loops.
The Vast of Night (2019)
Set in New Mexico during the 1950s, The Vast of Night is centered around a switchboard operator and a radio DJ who come across a strange audio frequency. They soon understand that it’s not just any anomaly, but one that could be coming from extraterrestrial life forms. This unassuming low-budget sci-fi movie deserves much more attention than it received.
Prospect (2018)
A teenage girl and her father are traveling to an alien moon with a contract to mine gems in the moon’s poisonous forest in this criminally overlooked sci-fi movie by Zeek Earl and Chris Caldwell
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#2 #10 #11 incredible good
The Abyss was great for it's time (despite being an apparently horrible experience for the stars from what I've read)
#8
#9
Treasure Planet and Dark City are both amazing movies that it seems like no one has heard of
High Life? Go read the plot and then try to imagine why noone went to see.....wont take you lone
Treasure Planet is just not very good. It's not terrible but it's also not good. Even Disney didn't know what to do with it.
Cube is a ridiculously awful movie that doesn't know what it is. It's NOT sci fi. It's a dull and pointless film that quickly becomes repetitive and hard to watch because none of the characters are either interesting or likeable. "Oh no, we are trapped in this maze made by *mumble mumble* to *mumble mumble* reasons Shut up and stop asking questions. This is what I think sci fi is".
Primer: the third reference to that film in two weeks, gonna have to watch it.
Abyss. Long winded and over stays its welcome but decent enough.
Source Code is sci fi popcorn.
Annihilation......look, the problem with Annihilation is this......it has Natalie Portman in it and Natalie is the thinking man's sexy babe and the film kinda forgot what the story was and we all left confused as to what the hell we just watched. To quote Peter Griffin:"It insists on itself". It's the film equivalent to that guy in the Cafe who wears a beret and a scarf and carries Proust with him......he is trying SOOOOO HARD to be seen as an intellectual.......
Titan AE got missed.
Jonny Mnemonic
Starship Troopers MAYBE.
Let's do a list of 80s Sci fi next but make a list of GOOD science fiction. Not Star wars rip-offs or Alien rip-offs but GOOD sci fi that has stood thd test of time.
Settle down, Beavis.
You know what the say about @$$holes. They have opinions and no one else likes them. ...or something like that
#6 I thought it interesting at the time and it is the only time that I've seen anyone actually try and depict liquid ventilation on screen. We were experimenting with it back in the 90s and it showed promise back then.
#15 I remember this one and it wasn't bad.