FICTION BUT FUTURE

CHAPTER 2: SCI-FI

38 SCI-FI MOVIE LIST

1

Metropolis

1927

Director: Fritz Lang

The ultimate blueprint for cinematic sci-fi This silent German masterpiece explores a dystopian future where society is sharply divided between wealthy corporate rulers and oppressed underground laborers.

2

The Day the Earth Stood Still

1951

Director: Robert Wise

A classic Cold War allegory An alien named Klaatu and his powerful robot Gort land on Earth to deliver a peace ultimatum live peacefully or be destroyed as a threat to other planets.

3

2001 A Space Odyssey

1968

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Regarded as a pinnacle of the genre It tracks a voyage to Jupiter dealing with human evolution mysterious alien monoliths and HAL 9000 a sentient shipboard computer that turns hostile.

4

Planet of the Apes

1968

Director: Franklin J Schaffner

An astronaut crash-lands on a strange planet where intelligent talking apes rule over primitive mute humans Its final twist ending remains one of the most famous in cinema history.

5

Solaris

1972

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky

A psychological Soviet masterpiece A psychologist sent to a space station finds that a mysterious ocean-planet is telepathically manifesting the crew's painful suppressed memories.

6

Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope

1977

Director: George Lucas

Blending mythic fantasy with space sci-fi this blockbuster revolutionized special effects and pop culture following a young farm boy who joins a galactic rebellion.

7

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

1977

Director: Steven Spielberg

Unlike the violent alien-invasion tropes of the past this film treats alien contact with profound wonder and hope as ordinary citizens feel drawn to an epic meeting with an extraterrestrial mothership.

8

Alien

1979

Director: Ridley Scott

A flawless blend of sci-fi and horror The crew of a commercial spacesweeper answers a distress call unknowingly bringing a lethal predatory extraterrestrial creature aboard their ship.

9

Blade Runner

1982

Director: Ridley Scott

The defining aesthetic of cyberpunk In a rain-soaked neon-lit future a specialized detective is tasked with hunting down and retiring rogue biological androids replicants.

10

The Terminator

1984

Director: James Cameron

A relentless sci-fi action masterpiece A cyborg assassin is sent back in time from a dystopian future to eliminate a woman whose unborn son is destined to save mankind from a machine uprising.

11

Back to the Future

1985

Director: Robert Zemeckis

The ultimate time-travel adventure A teenager is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a modified sports car and must ensure his high school-aged parents fall in love.

12

Akira

1988

Director: Katsuhiro Otomo

A landmark anime masterpiece set in Neo-Tokyo It explores cyberpunk themes and military corruption after a young biker-gang member gains unstable catastrophic telekinetic powers.

13

Jurassic Park

1993

Director: Steven Spielberg

A cautionary tale about genetic manipulation Scientists use cloned DNA to recreate living dinosaurs for a wildlife theme park but structural failures turn the park into a struggle for survival.

14

Ghost in the Shell

1995

Director: Mamoru Oshii

A philosophical cyberpunk anime following a cyborg security agent hunting a mysterious hacker It raises deep questions about human consciousness and identity in a digital age.

15

The Fifth Element

1997

Director: Luc Besson

A colorful visually spectacular space opera A 23rd-century flying-cab driver inadvertently becomes central to a search for a legendary cosmic weapon needed to save Earth from an ancient evil.

16

Gattaca

1997

Director: Andrew Niccol

A chillingly realistic look at eugenics In a future where children are genetically engineered for perfection a naturally born un-enhanced man uses false biological samples to impersonate a genetic elite and fulfill his dream of space travel.

17

Armageddon

1998

Director: Michael Bay

The quintessential asteroid-disaster movie When a massive asteroid threatens to obliterate Earth NASA recruits a misfit team of deep-core oil drillers to fly into space drill into the rock and detonate a nuclear bomb.

18

The Matrix

1999

Director: Lana and Lilly Wachowski

A massive cultural shift that blended kung-fu philosophy with tech-paranoia A computer hacker discovers that his entire reality is actually a simulated illusion generated by machines.

19

Minority Report

2002

Director: Steven Spielberg

A gripping neo-noir tech thriller In a future where a specialized police department arrests murderers before they commit their crimes a top officer is accused of a future murder and goes on the run.

20

Primer

2004

Director: Shane Carruth

A fiercely intelligent hyper-realistic time-travel movie Two engineers accidentally invent a temporal loop mechanism in their garage leading to a complex web of distrust and timeline manipulation driven by pure mathematics and tech logic.

21

Avatar

2009

Director: James Cameron

A visually groundbreaking space epic A paraplegic marine is dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission but becomes torn between following orders and protecting the alien world he learns to call home.

22

Inception

2010

Director: Christopher Nolan

A brilliantly complex heist movie where corporate thieves use experimental dream-sharing technology to enter targets' minds and plant ideas directly into their subconscious.

23

In Time

2011

Director: Andrew Niccol

A clever high-concept sci-fi thriller set in a future where aging stops at 25 and time is used as currency People carry a glowing countdown clock on their wrists and must work steal or inherit hours to avoid timing out and dying.

24

Her

2013

Director: Spike Jonze

A soulful and poignant look at intimacy In a near-future Los Angeles a lonely writer develops an unlikely romantic relationship with a highly advanced operating system designed to meet his every need.

25

Ex Machina

2014

Director: Alex Garland

A tense psychological tech-thriller A young programmer is invited to a reclusive billionaire's estate to administer a Turing test to Ava an advanced highly manipulative humanoid artificial intelligence.

26

Interstellar

2014

Director: Christopher Nolan

Grounded in real theoretical physics a group of astronauts travels through a wormhole near Saturn to find a new home for humanity as Earth faces a massive global crop blight.

27

The Lobster

2015

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

A darkly absurd satirical dystopia In a strictly regulated society single people are taken to a hotel where they must find a romantic partner within 45 days or be surgically transformed into an animal.

28

The Martian

2015

Director: Ridley Scott

The ultimate hard-science survival film An astronaut accidentally left behind on Mars must use his wit botanical expertise and engineering skills to science his way out and survive on a dead planet.

29

Westworld (TV Series)

2016

Created by: Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy

An amusement park that simulates the Wild West and is inhabited by robots, where money can buy any experience.

30

The Shape of Water

2017

Director: Guillermo del Toro

A dark romantic sci-fi fairy tale set during the Cold War A lonely mute cleaning woman working at a high-security government laboratory falls in love with a captured amphibious humanoid creature.

31

Everything Everywhere All at Once

2022

Director: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

A chaotic and deeply emotional multiversal adventure A middle-aged Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure where she alone can save existence by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she could have led.

32

The Peripheral (TV Series)

2022

Created by: Scott Smith

Based on the novel by William Gibson It centers on a woman in a near-future rural America who discovers a secret connection to an alternate reality as well as a dark future of her own.

33

Poor Things

2023

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

A steampunk feminist reimagining of the Frankenstein myth A young woman is brought back to life by an eccentric scientist who transplants an infant's brain into her body sending her on a bizarre journey of self-discovery.

34

3 Body Problem (TV Series)

2024

Created by: David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo

A fateful decision in 1960s China echoes across space and time to a group of scientists in the present forcing them to face humanity's greatest threat from a distant alien civilization.

35

Dune Part Two

2024

Director: Denis Villeneuve

The modern peak of the sci-fi epic It adapts Frank Herbert's novel tracking a young duke as he unites with desert freedom fighters to seek revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family.

36

Frankenstein

2025

Director: Guillermo del Toro

A gothic sci-fi adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic novel Del Toro brings his signature monster-empathy and dark visual style to the timeless story of Victor Frankenstein and the tragic creature he brings to life.

37

Bugonia

2025

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

A sci-fi dark comedy centered on two conspiracy-obsessed men who kidnap a high-powered corporate executive absolutely convinced that she is actually an alien leader plotting the destruction of planet Earth.

38

Disclosure Day

2026

Director: Steven Spielberg

A paranoid sci-fi political thriller following a targeted whistleblower and a TV meteorologist as a massive government conspiracy unravels forcing them into a race against time to expose a hidden alien presence walking among humans.

planet Earth.

TEXT By Vincent Moustache with AI

ILLUSTRATIONS By @VincentMoustache