The science fiction genre has attracted the minds of filmmakers and fans from the beginning of cinema. From Georges Méliès to Fritz Lang, Robert Wise to Ridley Scott, science fiction films have explored humanity’s dread of the unknown and the unknown, casting sometimes grim, sometimes thrilling images of the future.
If you’re a science-fiction fan and a Prime Video user, there are a few worthwhile options to watch on the site. There’s something for everyone, whether it’s sci-fi horror, action, humor, or post-apocalyptic/dystopian sci-fi. Here’s our selection of sci-fi movies that every sci-fi fan should see, some good, some bad, and some in the center but philosophically sound.
Anna (2013)
Anna, also known as Mindscape, is a film that will make you dizzy. Anna follows John Washington, a detective who has the ability to penetrate people’s minds, and is led by Taissa Farmiga in a chillingly superb performance. Throughout the film, John is tasked with determining whether Anna, 16, is a victim of psychological trauma or a dangerous sociopath. Anna is a unique and continually intriguing blend of inventive sci-fi cinema, classic detective story, and heart-pounding thriller. If you’re looking for a fantastic mystery in the spirit of Vertigo or Chinatown, you’ll love Anna’s intriguing plot.
Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)
Bill & Ted 3 should not be as excellent as it is, but it is a fantastically fun sequel that also feels like a progression of the franchise. Bill and Ted — Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter – have reached middle age and have yet to write the song that will save the universe when the film begins. When they’re given a ticking clock and told they have to write the song before time runs out, they’re forced to over-reflect. What’s their solution? Travel back in time to when they wrote the song and steal it from them! The film is delightfully ridiculous and goofy, but it is founded in genuine empathy for all of its characters. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is a time-travel comedy with a big, softie heart.
Bliss (2021)
When you mix Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with The Matrix, you get Bliss is a well-known but inventive science fiction romance about a distorted world. It’s tempting to compare it to famous genre masterpieces, yet director Mike Cahill manages to make the subject feel fresh. Bliss takes place in a not-too-distant future in which corporations have considerably more influence than they do now. A lonely daydreamer (Owen Wilson) looks for a woman in his dreams (Salma Hayek) and realizes that she might be real. Wilson and Hayek are best known for their comedic roles, so seeing them in more serious parts is refreshing.
Coherence (2013)
Coherence is a fantastic feature film debut by Gore Verbinski’s frequent storyboard artist James Ward Byrkit, and one of the most original science fiction concepts in recent memory, shot over the course of five nights with an almost all improvised script. Tensions escalate as the laws of physics and the firmaments of reality bend and shatter over the course of one mind-bending night at a dinner party reunion among old acquaintances on the night of a rare astronomical occurrence. Part sci-fi, part horror, the low-budget chamber piece succeeds not by relying on its spectacular notion, but by following that concept through with honest character arcs and the disquieting realization that nothing is scarier than our own perceptions.
Eva (2011)
Eva is a Spanish-language science fiction film directed by Kike Mallo that will keep you captivated and wondering long after the credits have rolled. In the year 2043, in a not-too-distant future where humans and machines coexist, a renowned cybernetic engineer named lex (Daniel Brühl) returns to his birthplace to complete a project he had abandoned ten years before. Before he left, he was working on a SI-9 robot with his collaborator and then-girlfriend Lana (Marta Etura), which was supposed to look and act like any other youngster.
He sets out to find the ideal child to model the project after and encounters a ten-year-old girl named Eva in the process (Claudia Vega). What’s more startling is that he finds out soon after they meet that Eva is Lana’s daughter with his brother David (Alberto Ammann), whom she married after Lex left town. Eva is a brilliant science fiction picture that takes viewers on a wild voyage that weaves in and out of both expected and unexpected science fiction storytelling routes. Eva is a must-see if you’re still reeling from the newly released After Yang, which likewise explores the blurred border between mankind and the robots we create in our image.
Freaks (2018)
I’m going to reserve one of the big aspects of Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein’s Freaks till the conclusion of this blurb because I recommend entering into this novel with as little knowledge as possible. However, keep in mind that this is one of the year’s best character-driven sci-fi thrillers. Lexy Kolker as seven-year-old Chloe gives a standout performance in the film. She’s lived her entire childhood with her father, Henry, entirely cut off from the outside world (Emile Hirsch). He’s always warned her that the outside world is hazardous, but the older Chloe gets, the more she wants to go out, and eventually she does. Are you prepared for that semi-spoilery information that will underscore how very wonderful this film is? Here it is: as much as I enjoy a good big-budget superhero film, Freaks is a definite must-see for anyone interested in seeing what can be done with a minimal budget in the genre. It’s one of those films that will have you leaning in closer with its early oddities before erupting with creativity when Chloe discovers more about her reality.
Galaxy Quest (1999)
Galaxy Quest, released in 1999, is without a doubt one of the best comedies ever filmed. This one is for you if you enjoy sci-fi flicks and laughing. The plot centres around a group of washed-up actors who are clinging to their glory days as stars in a Star Trek-like TV show decades ago. Their lives are turned upside down when they are kidnapped by real aliens who mistake their TV shows for “historical documents” and believe that this group of galactic warriors can defend them from a diabolical menace. There’s chaos, laughter, and a little heart in this film.
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
Plan 9 from Outer Space, the king of bad movies, is perhaps Ed Wood’s greatest opus—the king of awful moviemakers. In the sixty years after its release, this absurd fiction about aliens invading Earth to prevent humanity from developing the Solaranite weapon, which would endanger the entire universe, has gained cult status. The aliens in question have devised a fairly ambitious plan to preserve the universe: they want to resurrect human bodies in order to prey on the living. One of them is an elderly guy played by Bela Lugosi, who died before the filming began. Wood handled the problem by using silent Lugosi footage from The Vampire’s Tomb, an abandoned film. The resurrected Lugosi elderly man persona was thereafter played by another actor. To imitate the Dracula star, that actor marches around with a cloak covering half his face. This is one of the many blunders of Plan 9’s misadventure. Wood’s picture is still as amusing as ever, with terrible performances and absurd dialogue that sounds like something an actual extraterrestrial trying to pass himself off as a human might say.
Prometheus (2012)
While the Alien franchise has had its highs and lows since the first two films, Ridley Scott’s subversive prequel offered a new philosophical subtext to the Xenomorphs’ origins. Rather than relying on cheap nostalgia, Scott focused on humanity’s yearning for its originators. Prometheus is ambitious and flawed, but Michael Fassbender’s compelling performance as the android David is incentive enough to revisit it. The audacity of Prometheus is a strong addition to Scott’s late-career revival, especially when compared to the follow-up Alien: Covenant, which carried the narrative back to more familiar ground.
Starfish (2018)
Some will despise Starfish because it is experimental and abstract, while others will adore it (calling it allegorically brilliant). It’s a bizarre, meandering picture with more powerful themes than plot. In reality, there isn’t much of a plot. Grace, a young woman named Aubrey (Virginia Gardner), dies, and Aubrey breaks into her apartment and resides there after her burial. However, something happens the next day that appears to end the world. Aubrey is able to converse with a mysterious person on the other end of a two-way radio who assists her with her navigation. Grace has also left cassette cassettes for her all across town. She can undo the terrible calamity if she can find them all and decipher the hints within. Oh, and there are monsters on occasion. Gardner, who appears in nearly every frame, is fantastic in this gorgeously shot film. And that may be the only redeeming feature for some. A.T. White, who also wrote and directed the film, could have communicated what he wanted to convey sooner and more clearly, but that’s probably part of the purpose. This stuff is deliberately slow and ambiguous. It’s a look at grief and the power it wields. You’re unlikely to see it again, but it displays the genre’s breadth and complexity, however niche.
The Endless (2017)
The Endless may lack dragons, fairies, or swashbuckling heroes, but Spring filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s indie horror-fantasy discreetly develops one of the most fascinating and compelling mythologies in the hills north of San Diego. The film follows two brothers (Benson and Moorhead) who return to the cult from which they escaped as children and realize that there are more than a few crazies. The Endless is rich with subtle dark fantasy to catch the imagination, like double moons, a mysterious crimson plant, and a game of tug-of-war that reaches high into the sky. The semi-sequel to their 2012 festival smash Resolution, alternately humorous and scary, with moments of grim existential reflection, is one of the best under-the-radar indies in recent memory, and if you’re searching for a fantasy tale with one foot firmly in the real world, you can’t go wrong.
The Host (2006)
Bong Joon Ho (Parasite) released The Host between Memories of Murder in 2003 and Mother in 2009. The Host, like Godzilla, is a monster film with an environmental message. It begins with doctors on a US facility in South Korea putting hazardous chemicals into municipal sewer systems. After the Park family is introduced, with regular Bong Joon Ho collaborator Kang-ho Song reprising the starring role, a giant fish monster rises to terrify this Korean beachfront hamlet. Despite the antiquated CGI, the monster segments are thrilling, but the film’s heart beats within the Park family. Each scene in the tiny convenience shop develops and demonstrates their bond. While it is a monster film, it is also about pride, discipline, and family, as well as a cautionary tale about the perils of pollution. The odd creature design is both terrifying and fascinating, but it merely acts as a mirror to reflect humanity’s environmental atrocities.
The Lazarus Effect (2015)
The Lazarus Effect is a film about a group of medical experts who find a serum that may revive the dead. This sounds fantastic in principle, but everyone who has watched a zombie movie knows that this doesn’t always work out. The Lazarus Effect isn’t any different. When one of the group’s members, Zoe (Olivia Wilde), is electrocuted and undergoes the operation, she returns as a superpowered – and sometimes super frightening – version of herself, putting everyone in danger. “Evil shall Rise” is the tagline for the picture, and that pretty much sums it up. The Lazarus Effect is for you if you like your science fiction with a touch of horror and supernatural.
The Terminator (1984)
If the recent run of sequels has proven how a large budget can be mismanaged, the original 1984 The Terminator is proof that all you need is a terrific script and a lot of inventiveness to make a sci-fi masterpiece. While the visual effects of Terminator 2: Judgment Day cannot be denied, the first chapter in the series was just as powerful. Cameron combined technology anxiety, neo-noir stylism, romance, and paranoia into a one-of-a-kind work of art. Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s performance was a phenomenon for a reason; even if it’s been frequently mimicked, Schwarzeneggar’s frightening atmosphere is impossible to deny here.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Being a little corny is perfectly OK. The Tomorrow War is the perfect type of alien invasion epic that doesn’t take itself too seriously, a throwback to Independence Day, Armageddon, and other lighthearted science-fiction spectacles of the 1990s. Director Chris McKay produces some absolutely jaw-dropping action sequences in The LEGO Batman Movie, yet the 138-minute duration doesn’t feel too long. Chris Pratt provides one of his most sincere and captivating performances yet, with a touching subplot involving his father (J.K. Simmons). The Tomorrow War is for you if you want a Roland Emmerich mimic that is better than anything Emmerich has created in the last two decades.
