Science fiction stories have been around for just over three centuries, but the genre has been explored numerous times in the last century of cinema.
And while there have been great sci-fi movies in the 21st century, many of the best examples of the genre appeared in the last two decades of the 20th century.
Unfortunately, not all of the top sci-fi movies are readily available in the streaming era without buying or renting them.
But if you’re looking for the best sci-fi movies of all time, the Watch With Us team is here to tell you what they are and where to find them.
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10. ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ (1982)
Director Steven Spielberg set the tone for the rest of the ’80s with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial after wowing audiences with Raiders of the Lost Ark the year before. Spielberg’s take on aliens was a gentle creature known as E.T., who was brought to life through a convincing blend of animatronics, puppetry and even people in costume. After becoming trapped on Earth, E.T. befriends a young boy named Elliott Taylor (Henry Thomas), as well as his younger sister, Gertie (Drew Barrymore), and their older brother, Michael (Robert MacNaughton).
As much as the Taylor kids enjoy having E.T. around, something on the planet is causing him to become deathly ill. And as government agents intensify their search for the alien, E.T.’s fate is inexorably linked to Elliott’s as their health rapidly deteriorates.
E.T. is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
9. ‘The Thing’ (1982)
John Carpenter had a much darker take on aliens in The Thing, which also ranks among the all-time great horror movies. This particular alien doesn’t have a name, but it can infect and assimilate any living being, including humans, and replicate their behavior as closely as possible. A group of researchers in the Arctic doesn’t realize the danger that the alien represents until it has already infiltrated their base.
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R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) isn’t infected, but he’s less sure about his colleagues, including Blair (Wilford Brimley), Childs (Keith David), Nauls (T.K. Carter), Norris (Charles Hallahan), Palmer (David Clennon) and Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart). Any of them could be the alien, and it’s biding its time while hiding among the survivors. If these men can’t stop the alien here, then the entire world is doomed.
The Thing is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
8. ‘Inception’ (2010)
Christopher Nolan‘s Interstellar is also a great sci-fi film, but Inception offers a far more enticing journey inside a mind instead of out among the stars. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), use experimental technology to invade the dreams of their targets and extract corporate secrets from their unconscious minds. The visuals of the dream worlds are astounding, and they aren’t restricted to the laws of physics as we know them.
Dom is also in exile for the death of his wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), and he’s haunted by her appearance in his own subconscious. In order to get back to his children and clear his name, Dom assembles a new team to take on a potentially impossible mission. They need to build upon multiple levels of dreams to convince Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) to break up his father’s energy company and make him think it was his idea. And the further into Fischer’s dreams they go, the harder it will be to get out.
Inception is streaming on Max.
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7. ‘The Matrix’ (1999)
The Matrix was such a game-changer for sci-fi that none of the other movies in the franchise have come anywhere close to matching the impact of the first film. Ordinary office drone Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a hacker by night who goes by Neo. He’s heard about the Matrix, but he doesn’t know what it is, and the only ones who can tell him are known terrorists Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss).
There are few surprises in any movie more shocking than the reveal of what’s really happening in Neo’s world and what comes next. Neo’s reality is shattered, and there’s no way he can go back to his old life. He has a destiny to fulfill, if he can live long enough to see it through.
The Matrix is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
6. ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (1991)
If James Cameron had never made a follow-up to The Terminator, then that’s the film that would be in this slot. Instead, Cameron topped the original movie with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a bigger and better sequel. Arnold Schwarzenegger was such a fantastic villain in the first movie that it’s almost a shame that his T-800 gets re-imagined as the hero of the second film.
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In the future, the AI known as Skynet has already failed to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) before she gave birth to John Connor (Edward Furlong), the leader of the human resistance. To change the timeline, Skynet sends an even more advanced Terminator, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), back in time to finish the job. Luckily for John and Sarah, future John sent a reprogrammed T-800 to help them. He may have also given the Connors a way to prevent the war with the machines from ever happening at all.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day is streaming on Paramount+.
5. ‘Back to the Future’ (1985)
Sci-fi and comedy collide in the unforgettable Back to the Future. Michael J. Fox may not have been the original choice to play Marty McFly, but he carries the entire movie on his shoulders. Marty’s friend — and local mad scientist — Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown (Christopher Lloyd) has discovered the secret to time travel and placed a working model inside a DeLorean. And it’s a secret that Doc takes to his grave minutes later after terrorists come after him for stealing their plutonium.
Marty uses the DeLorean to escape and finds himself stuck in 1955, where he’s already jeopardized his existence by keeping his parents, George McFly (Crispin Glover) and Lorraine Baines (Lea Thompson), from meeting when they were supposed to. A younger version of Doc Brown might be able to help Marty get back to 1985, but he’ll have to get his parents to fall in love, or else he won’t have a home to go back to.
Back to the Future is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
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4. ‘Aliens’ (1986)
Ridley Scott‘s Alien is also a classic among sci-fi films, but James Cameron upped the stakes with Aliens. One xenomorph was terrifying enough, but a whole colony full of aliens is pure nightmare fuel. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) survived her first encounter with a xenomorph, only to discover that she spent decades in stasis and missed her daughter’s entire life. With no other purpose, Ripley agrees to accompany the Colonial Marines to a colony world, LV-426, to investigate a possible xenomorph infestation.
What they find is far worse than they could have ever imagined. The lone human survivor is a young girl, Rebecca “Newt” Jorden (Carrie Henn), who forms a strong bond with Ripley. Yet not even the Colonial Marines can hold back the alien threat, and Ripley will have to take matters into her own hands to save Newt and herself from the xenomorph queen.
Aliens is streaming on Hulu.
3. ‘Blade Runner’ (1982)
2019 felt like a long time in the future when Blade Runner was released in 1982. Now, it’s six years in our past and we still don’t have flying cars or android replicants that can pass themselves off as humans. What we do have is a fantastic movie by Ridley Scott that builds upon the foundation created in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by author Philip K. Dick.
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Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a former cop turned Blade Runner whose job requires him to hunt down rogue replicants who present a threat to humanity. Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) and his group of replicants have their own ambitions, and they won’t simply allow Deckard to murder them. Despite being jaded, Deckard is shocked by the humanity of the replicants, especially a special model known as Rachael (Sean Young). She’s so convincingly human that even Deckard can barely tell she isn’t real.
Blade Runner is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
2. ‘Star Wars’ (1977)
The Empire Strikes Back may be a better movie, but the original Star Wars has shaped sci-fi as we know it for almost five decades. George Lucas originally wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie, but he had to settle for making one of the most successful film franchises ever created. This galactic space opera made Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill into stars, and even its iconic Oscar-winning music by John Williams is still widely known decades later.
Princess Leia (Fisher) isn’t able to prevent herself from being captured by Darth Vader (physically portrayed by David Prose, and voiced by James Earl Jones), but she manages to smuggle the plans to the Death Star off her ship with two droids, C3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker). That sets in motion events that will propel a simple farm boy, Luke Skywalker (Hamill), a smuggler named Han Solo (Ford), the Wookie Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) and an old Jedi master, Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi (Alec Guinness) on the adventure of a lifetime.
Star Wars is streaming on Disney+.
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1. ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a film that doesn’t really feel the need to fully explain itself. Director Stanley Kubrick and writer Arthur C. Clarke told a complete story, but the interpretation of these events is largely left to the audience. The film begins with a look at the distant past of humanity and the influence that an alien monolith may have had on mankind’s development.
In the future, the discovery of a monolith on the moon leads to an even bigger monolith waiting for humanity near Jupiter. Dr. David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) embark on the long trip to investigate it without being fully aware of what their mission entails. Their A.I. computer, HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain), also proves to be a problem they may not be able to overcome. HAL is convinced that Bowman and Poole intend to dismantle it, so it plans to strike first before they even get a chance to finish the mission.
2001: A Space Odyssey is streaming on Max.