Hollywood has used the theme of alien invasions many times. Sometimes it comes in the form of a subtle, systematic takeover, like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Other times, it's outright war. This can be in movies with a deadly serious tone or it can be a little parodic, like in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!.
It doesn't have to be aliens, either. Plenty of sci-fi war films have utilized the ominous presence of other antagonists, like robots, computer programs, bugs, and even tyrannical galactic empires led by mask-wearing sith lords.
Battle Los Angeles (2011): 5.7
In Jonathan Liebesman's Battle: Los Angeles, a group of marines learns about the existence of aliens and chopper in to face them (seeing wreckage and bodies everywhere).
Battle: L.A. has an interesting ground troops angle that puts the viewer in the middle of the battle. But even that intimate viewpoint was done better in Gareth Edwards' Godzilla (2014). There's an emotive lead performance from Aaron Eckhart, but it doesn't always cut through the constantly yelled and often cheesy dialogue.
The Tomorrow War (2021): 6.6
Amazon Prime's The Tomorrow War generated some unpopular Reddit opinions, but it was also fairly well-liked, as a whole. The 2021 actioner was bolstered by a talented cast, including Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, and a scene-stealing J.K. Simmons.
It just doesn't properly utilize all of its cast members (Strahovski's Colonel Muri Forester would have proved a more interesting protagonist than Pratt's Dan Forester). Fortunately, the design for the antagonistic aliens is better than some of the film's contemporaries.
Independence Day (1996): 7.0
Roland Emmerich's Independence Day took the casting and narrative excess of films like Airport and The Towering Inferno and threw in aliens. The result was Emmerich's best film and a clear signal that Will Smith was perhaps the biggest star on the planet.
Raters and general audiences were far less enamored with the director's long-delayed and Smith-free sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence. Utterly devoid of the original's charm, it's a disaster (film) that, according to Entertainment Weekly, even Emmerich himself regrets.
The War Of The Worlds (1953): 7.1
The deadly cinematic martian invaders in The War of the Worlds have held up, visually speaking, with an intimidating presence that's revealed in perfect fragments. In fact, the movie even won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
It's hard to imagine this not being at least partly why the film is held in high regard, even today. With a relatively recent Blu-ray release from The Criterion Collection, the film is still a beloved sci-fi war classic to this day.
Starship Troopers (1997): 7.2
Critically acclaimed but a '90s box office bomb, Paul Verhoeven's bombastic Starship Troopers works as well today as it ever did. Raters seem to agree, as they've placed it over even Independence Day.
Verhoeven's politically savvy and tongue-in-cheek film was followed by some direct-to-video sequels that unsurprisingly lacked any of the original's nuance. Everything is as it should be in Starship Troopers, with actors like Michael Ironside giving the movie the exact type of performance it required. Basil Poledouris's score is also a highlight, particularly over one of the movie's impressive pre-battle shots.
The Terminator (1984): 8.0
Not much is shown of the actual war against the machines in James Cameron's landmark The Terminator, but that just makes it more intimidating. The brief, intense scenes of John Connor narrowly avoiding shots from laser weapons feel like a scene from Saving Private Ryan.
This hair-raising tone is held in full throughout the movie but on a much smaller scale. The Terminator is about stopping a full-on science fiction war movie than it is a sci-fi war movie itself.
Dune (2021): 8.2
Denis Villeneuve's fantastic adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune deserves its fans just for being watchable. Herbert's book was an incredibly difficult one to adapt to the big screen. Others, like David Lynch, had tried, yet Villeneuve succeeded. The result was a hit (even considering the pandemic).
The casting was pitch-perfect across the board. Jason Momoa, Oscar Isaac, and Rebecca Ferguson were standouts, but the massive film was ably carried by Timothée Chalamet.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018): 8.4
All four Avengers films feature a massive battle within their runtime. But Avengers: Infinity War feels like just that throughout its epic runtime: a war. Avengers: Endgame featured a battle across time, but Infinity War still has the feel of Marvel's most epic story to date.
Raters on IMDb seem to hold both Infinity War and Endgame in equal standing. Furthermore, these two entries are rated higher than both The Avengers (8.0) and the divisive Avengers: Age of Ultron (7.3).
The Empire Strikes Back (1980): 8.7
Episode V is the highest-rated of the 11 Star Wars films. And in comparison to most, it's by a significant margin. It's the perfect display of the franchise's magic. Every major action sequence in The Empire Strikes Back is orchestrated like a masterclass. Visuals, dialogue, uniqueness of the location (universe expansion), and cinematography all play major roles in the importance of any given scene.
Major plot twists like Luke's parentage advanced the narrative in ways that have become outright iconic. Even those who haven't seen The Empire Strikes Back know the (oft-misquoted) line Vader holds over Luke's head.
The Matrix (1999): 8.7
While fans weren't thrilled about the 2003 sequels, The Matrix remains the highest-rated sci-fi war movie of all time. The Wachowskis introduced the world to Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, and the simulation so well the first time that audiences couldn't help but be excited for the final conflict against the machines.
With a four-year gap and a back-to-back shooting schedule, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions ultimately missed the mark. In terms of the war between The One and The Agents, though, The Matrix is note-perfect. Thankfully, Neo's well-timed return in The Matrix Resurrections looks more than satisfactory.