The 10 Best Sci-Fi Movies of the Last 10 Years, Ranked

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures Published Jul 28, 2026, 4:58 AM EDT Chance Morgan made a decision at a young age to forego having friends and a social life in order to prepare for a career writing about movies and TV. He stuck to that decision whether he wanted to or not. Now, after graduating from the prestigious University of Alabama, Chance spends most of his time putting that training to use. When he is not watching and/or writing about movies and TV, you can probably catch Chance listening to countless podcasts about movies and TV. Sign in to your Collider account Science fiction is one of the great classic genres of storytelling. It utilizes scientific concepts to ask questions about what direction our society is moving in. Have technology and other developments in the future changed our lives for the better, or have they made things worse? In the past 10 years, science fiction films have tried to tackle this question to critical acclaim and financial success. From big-budget sci-fi epics to low-budget sci-fi thrillers, there have been science fiction movies over the past 10 years that will stand the test of time as great examples of the genre. Together, they prove science fiction still has plenty of new ground to explore. 10 'War for the Planet of the Apes' (2017) Image via 20th Century Studios Rupert Wyatt's Rise of the Planet of the Apes re-introduced the storied Planet of the Apes franchise to a whole new generation by telling the story of how it all began. Matt Reeves' two follow-ups brought the franchise to new heights by centering the story squarely on Andy Serkis' revolutionary ape, Caesar. The third film, War for the Planet of the Apes is one of the few times a trilogy truly saved the best for last. The film takes place at a time when humanity has its place as the apex predator. Caesar leads a society of apes trying to build a safe life for themselves when they are forced into a conflict with a human militia led by a ruthless Colonel played by Woody Harrelson. What makes this movie so incredible is how it turns the audience against humankind. It humanizes the apes to the point that it makes the audience consider who the real animals are. 9 'Upgrade' (2018) Image via Blumhouse Productions After making his directorial debut with Insidious: Chapter 3, writer and actor Leigh Whannell came into his own as a filmmaker with his next film, Upgrade. Logan Marshall-Green plays Grey Trace, who, after a car accident kills his wife and paralyzes him from the neck down, gets an experimental chip implanted into his body that allows him to move again. The artificial intelligence within the chip helps Grey find out who caused the accident. However, as the AI begins to take more control, Grey begins losing touch with himself. Upgrade is reminiscent of the kind of violent and visceral science fiction movies we don't get much of anymore. While its point of view on humanity's relationship to technology is a cynical one, the movie's thrilling action and kinetic cinematography keep it from being a depressing watch. Upgrade truly takes the sci-fi horror sub-genre to a whole new level. 8 'Arrival' (2016) Denis Villeneuve's Arrival is a movie about the science of communication. When twelve mysterious spaceships land on Earth, Louise Banks (portrayed by Amy Adams in a career-best performance) is called in to decipher circular alien characters found inside, and determine whether the invaders are friends or foes to the human race. As she learns the alien language, her understanding of the universe is challenged. The film is epic in scope without a lot of action while still telling the incredibly personal story of Louise. What makes Arrival an astounding science fiction movie is how, by highlighting the little-known science of linguistics, the film carves its path in the genre. It also ties the science of the story in with the personal journey of Louise in a way that only a truly great movie can. 7 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' (2018) Image via Sony Pictures Releasing If there's one sci-fi concept that is in vogue right now, it's the multiverse. Arguably, the whole craze began with the release of the Oscar-winning animated film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The movie brought Miles Morales' Spider-Man (Shameik Moore) to the big screen for the first time, along with several other Spider-Men, Spider-Women, and even a Spider-Pig, from across the multiverse. What makes Spider-Verse such an incredible film is its ability to accomplish so many things all at once, without any of them lacking in their execution. Not only did it make Miles Morales just as iconic a Spider-Man as Peter Parker, but it also told one of the strangest stories we've ever seen in a superhero movie, and featured an animation style unlike any movie we've seen before. We can feel lucky to be living in this part of the multiverse. 6 'Dune' (2021) Frank Herbert's extremely influential sci-fi epic, Dune, has long been considered a novel that is near impossible to faithfully adapt to the big screen. David Lynch tried in 1984 to mixed results, and it wouldn't be until 2021 that another attempt was made, this time by acclaimed director and die-hard Dune fan, Denis Villeneuve. Dune was Villeneuve's passion project, a movie he spent years getting off the ground. Passion projects can be a mixed bag because sometimes the director's love for the property doesn't always equal success. Against all odds, not only was Denis Villeneuve's Dune a faithful adaptation of the novel (even if it was only the first half), but it was also a rare pandemic-era box office hit, grossing $400 million, and one of the best-received movies of 2021, earning 10 Academy Award nominations. With time, the epic story of Paul Atreides on Arrakis could prove to be the next Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, but it all begins with Dune. Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive. 💊The Matrix 🔥Mad Max 🌧️Blade Runner 🏜️Dune 🚀Star Wars TEST YOUR SURVIVAL → 01 You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one. APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone. NEXT QUESTION → 02 In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires. AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of. AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run. NEXT QUESTION → 04 How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything. ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen. NEXT QUESTION → 05 Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are. AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are. AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of. AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another. AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot. REVEAL MY WORLD → Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In…Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for. The MatrixYou took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things. You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it. You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare. You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it. The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door. Mad MaxThe wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you. You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon. You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three. You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider. In the wasteland, that distinction is everything. Blade RunnerYou'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely. You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer. In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional. You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either. In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything. DuneArrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards. Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools. You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory. Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect. In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it. Star WarsThe galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way. You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion. You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken. You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of. In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 5 'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse' (2024) Image via Sony Pictures Releasing Into the Spider-Verse took the world by storm, proving just how flawlessly the Wall-Crawler could work in the realm of animation. As such, a lot was riding on its sequel. Not only did Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse live up to expectations and then some; some may even confidently call it the best Spider-Man film to date, including both IMDb and Letterboxd, where it's the highest-grossing movie of the 2020s thus far. Dramatically expanding the multiversal adventures of Miles Morales and the other Spider-People, Across the Spider-Verse is undoubtedly one of the best sci-fi animated movies of all time. It's exciting, it's action-packed, and it may very well be the most visually impressive animated film in history. A thought-provoking study of the Spidey mythos and superheroes as a whole, it's the perfect antidote to the superhero slop that has infected so much of this decade's blockbuster landscape. —Diego Pineda Pacheco 4 'Blade Runner 2049' (2017) Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is widely considered a masterpiece of science fiction. So, when it was announced that Denis Villeneuve would be directing a sequel, expectations were set extremely high. Not only did Blade Runner 2049 meet said expectations, but many would go as far as to say it's even better than the original. The film stars Ryan Gosling as K, a replicant blade runner in the dystopian city of Los Angeles, looking into a mystery that leads him to Harrison Ford's Deckard from the original film. Full of stunning visuals (which finally won cinematographer Roger Deakins an Academy Award), incredible writing, and compelling performances, Blade Runner 2049 didn't just repackage the original film for modern audiences but instead created something that can stand on its own as yet another science fiction masterpiece that will leave audiences stunned for years to come. 3 'Annihilation' (2018) Image via Paramount Pictures After creating one sci-fi masterpiece in Ex Machina, writer/director Alex Garland followed it up with an even more ambitious, bold adaptation of the acclaimed science fiction novel, Annihilation. The movie follows Natalie Portman as Lena, a biologist who ventures into a mysterious zone after an environmental disaster where the laws of nature don't apply. What follows is both a dream and a nightmare, where reality and time aren't what they appear to be. Annihilation is a movie that doesn't try to be very clear about what happens, especially when it comes to the ending. It leaves a lot up to interpretation, but that's what makes it so fascinating. The audience can draw their conclusions as to what it all means, but the movie doesn't use its ambiguity as a crutch. It also works incredibly well as a tense sci-fi thriller following Lena's squad from one anomaly to the next, going deeper and deeper into the unknown. Annihilation is a movie that doesn't need explanation, because at the core of all science fiction stories are burning questions in need of answers. 2 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' (2022) Image via A24 Every year, there's at least one indie movie that seems to come out of nowhere and win a big award or two. In 2022-23, that surprise hit ended up winning not only the Best Picture Academy Award, but also another six Oscars. It's Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan's Everything Everywhere All at Once, a genre-bending family saga as funny as it is action-packed, emotionally stirring, and philosophically complex. Aside from being one of the most wildly (and at times, bizarrely) entertaining films about existential dread the world has ever seen, Everything Everywhere is also one of the most unpredictable movies of all time. Even after several re-visits, this delightfully chaotic sci-fi extravaganza still seems to have surprises in store, and that's what will likely ensure it remains a timeless classic for many decades to come. —Diego Pineda Pacheco 1 'Dune: Part Two' (2024) Image via Warner Bros. Pictures With Dune: Part Two, Denis Villeneuve proved that Dune was nothing even remotely resembling a fluke. It may not have seen quite as much Oscar glory, but it has remained one of the most acclaimed and widely beloved sci-fi films of the 21st century since its momentous release. Adapting the second half of Frank Herbert's Dune, it further showed just how masterful the marriage between Herbert's imagination and Villeneuve's vision was. It's one of the best sci-fi movies based on books, and easily the greatest sci-fi masterpiece of the last decade. It's immensely exciting, technically perfect, and beautifully elevated by one of the best scores of Hans Zimmer's career. The visuals are wonderful, the action sequences are enthralling, and the third act is arguably the most moving of any sci-fi film in recent memory. Dune: Part Two is a masterpiece, and it'll take something really special to take its throne. — Diego Pineda Pacheco