Science fiction cinema had some of its greatest all-time achievements throughout the 2010s. With auteurs like Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve, and Alex Garland putting their directorial stamp on the genre, fresh life was breathed into well-worn ideas like sentient artificial intelligence and first contact with extraterrestrial life.
But of course, not every sci-fi movie from the past decade was a masterpiece. For every cerebral work of artistic genius, there were dozens of lazily written, cliché-ridden duds hot off the Hollywood blockbuster factory line. So, here are the best and worst sci-fi movies from the 2010s.
Updated on September 12th, 2020 by Ben Sherlock: We’re a few months into the new decade and there haven’t been a lot of new movies to come along. There’s been a silver lining to this, though, as it’s allowed movie fans to discover films from the 2010s that they may have missed. It was a great decade for movies, particularly science fiction, and there were plenty of hidden gems that went relatively unnoticed, so we’ve updated this list.
Best: The Martian (2015)
It might not count as science fiction when most of the science in the movie is factually accurate, but if it’s a fictional story with scientific elements, surely it’s science fiction. Ridley Scott’s The Martian was a real breath of fresh air in 2015.
The story of an astronaut stranded on Mars and faced with incredible odds could’ve easily been made as a bleak survival drama, but Matt Damon brought a delightful sense of humor to the lead role, making the movie a testament to the human spirit above all.
Worst: Mortal Engines (2018)
This is what happens when a first-time filmmaker is given a $150 million budget. Christian Rivers didn’t have to creatively bypass any hurdles, because he could just throw money at all the problems he encountered. The result is a giant, bloated, lifeless sci-fi spectacle.
With no personal touch and a bunch of plot points stolen from better sci-fi stories, the spectacle of cities driving around a post-apocalyptic wasteland on gargantuan automobiles runs out of steam very quickly.
Best: Her (2013)
The dystopian future of Spike Jonze’s Her is startlingly similar to the actual present. Joaquin Phoenix stars as an introvert who gets a new lease on life when he falls in love with his Siri-like virtual assistant, voiced by Scarlett Johansson.
Anyone who hasn’t seen this movie might think the premise sounds a little weird, but against all odds, Jonze’s earnest screenplay makes the inter-cyberspace romance feel authentic.
Worst: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
The Wachowskis delivered one of the greatest movies in the history of science fiction with The Matrix, but they really dropped the ball when they tried their hands at a space opera with 2015’s Jupiter Ascending.
While there’s merit in the movie’s upending of clichés involving female characters in science fiction, for the most part, it’s all style and no substance, with flat worldbuilding and a baffling plot.
Best: Inception (2010)
Between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan took a brief detour into the world of dreams with one of the most thought-provoking sci-fi thrillers ever put on film.
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Dom Cobb, the leader of a team planning to infiltrate a man’s mind to steal an idea. With its strong sci-fi overtones, Inception puts a fascinating spin on the familiar structure and conventions of a heist movie.
Worst: Transcendence (2014)
After working as a cinematographer on some of Christopher Nolan’s best movies, Wally Pfister tried his hand at directing with 2014’s A.I. sci-fi epic Transcendence, starring Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall. It was a complete disaster.
Jack Paglen’s script for Transcendence was once ranked among Hollywood’s most popular unproduced screenplays, but it’s difficult to see why when the final product is this muddled and nonsensical.
Best: Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
When a sequel to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner was announced, the first instinct was to assume that it would suck. That tends to be the case with belated sequels to beloved classics that are considered by film buffs to be untouchable masterpieces (despite the fact that Scott keeps touching the original Blade Runner with endless recuts).
But against all odds, Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, arriving 35 years after Scott’s original hit theaters, not only managed to satisfy Blade Runner fans, but also stands as a masterpiece of the genre in its own right.
Worst: Passengers (2016)
In the running for creepiest movie premise of the 2010s, Passengers is a sci-fi romance whose love story is ominously problematic. On a space cruiser headed to humankind’s new home, a man played by Chris Pratt is accidentally awoken from cryosleep and doomed to die on the ship.
He decides to awaken another passenger, played by Jennifer Lawrence, pretty much just so he can sleep with her. Along the way, she realizes that she wasn’t woken up by accident, but weirdly, she forgives Pratt in time for the shoehorned-in third-act action sequence.
Best: Snowpiercer (2013)
Years before he swept the Oscars with his masterpiece Parasite, Bong Joon-ho put his stamp on the science fiction genre with the comics-based Snowpiercer. As with all of Bong’s movies, Snowpiercer is an insightful study of class divisions.
Set on a train protecting humanity’s last survivors from the ice age that wiped out almost all life on Earth, Snowpiercer stars Chris Evans as the leader of a revolution by the lower-class passengers against their upper-class overlords.
Worst: Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
The first of two sequels to Will Smith movies that replaced him with a Hemsworth, Independence Day: Resurgence could’ve easily been titled Independence Day: Rehash or Independence Day: Retread. The sequel just copies the much smarter, much funner original with seriously diminishing returns.
Smith chose to do Suicide Squad instead of this, and even though Suicide Squad ended up being butchered by Warner Bros. in a panicked response to Batman v Superman’s failure and Deadpool’s success, Resurgence was so bad that he still made the right decision.
Best: Arrival (2016)
The second entry in the “best” section to be directed by Denis Villeneuve, Arrival is a movie about Earth’s first contact with alien life that explores what it truly means to be human.
Amy Adams plays a linguistic expert who’s recruited to decipher the aliens’ language, which gets a little heady and confusing, but the emotionally charged ending pulls it all together with a deeply moving audience connection.
Worst: The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)
After a found-footage monster movie and a paranoid post-apocalyptic thriller, the Cloverfield saga continued on Netflix (after Paramount executives got cold feet about how terrible it was and pulled its theatrical release) with The Cloverfield Paradox. It's worth noting that the film wasn't even supposed to be a Cloverfield work in the first place, and its shoehorning attempts to make it fit the franchise are painfully present.
The Cloverfield Paradox combines brainless attempts at cosmic Lovecraftian horror with forced, meaningless connections to the other Cloverfield movies in an overall disastrous film.
Best: Ex Machina (2015)
After years of writing genre gems for other filmmakers, from 28 Days Later to an unproduced Halo movie, Alex Garland tried his hand at directing with the sci-fi thriller Ex Machina.
A random coder is flown out to his reclusive boss’ remote home to test his A.I., Ava, who may or may not be secretly manipulating both of them.
Worst: After Earth (2013)
This is the movie that finally made M. Night Shyamalan evaluate his strengths as a filmmaker and get back to directing good movies like The Visit and Split. Shockingly, After Earth managed to be even worse than previous Shyamalan stinkers like The Last Airbender and The Happening.
It stars Will Smith alongside his son Jaden Smith as a father and son stranded on a post-apocalyptic Earth that’s been overrun by mutant animals and abandoned by humanity.
Best: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
After the fourth Mad Max movie had been stuck in development hell for over a decade, fans had pretty much lost all faith in it. And then George Miller blew audiences away with Mad Max: Fury Road, which was instantly praised by critics as one of the most intense action movies ever made.
The film is essentially a feature-length car chase, but lying underneath the breathtaking practical effects is an interesting exploration of a post-apocalyptic future governed by gasoline. Plus, Charlize Theron gives a fierce performance as Furiosa, the hero of the story (despite Max’s name being in the title).