In 1902, the first-ever Science Fiction movie, Le Voyage dans la Lune debuted. Clocking in at a whopping 18 minutes, the movie has been celebrated for its place in history. Since then, film-makers of all kinds have sought to bring their unique visions to the sci-fi genre. More so than any other film genre, science fiction is incredibly malleable. You can tell all kinds of stories with the tropes of a sci-fi flick as the backdrop.

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There’s only so much time in the world to sit down and watch any movie, however, let alone mind-bending, genre-defining science fiction. For every The Matrix, there’s a movie like Equilibrium or Existenz. Movies like Strange Days, Flash Gordon, and Dark City are all cult favorites and have found their audiences. Classics like Star Trek II and Planet Of The Apes aren’t just some of the best sci-fi flicks of all time, they’re some of the best movies of all time. Today, we're going to take a look at some of the more underrated works of the genre.

Updated April 17, 2020, by Shawn S. Lealos: There is always a great science fiction movie to see, but the best ones are often the ones you might have missed out on by just watching the blockbusters. As a matter of fact, it is the smaller movies that never got huge mainstream attention that brought the most unique and groundbreaking science fiction stories. From dystopian futures to time travel thrillers to beloved cult classics, we found five more science fiction masterpieces you might have missed.

REPO MAN (1984)

Released in 1984, Repo Man is am indie movie starring Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton, the film debut of Alex Cox.  The movie has Estevez as a young punk rocker named Otto, who is lured in to help repossess a 1964 Chevy Malibu that has something mysterious and deadly in its trunk. Of course, everything has to do with aliens, UFOs, and televangelists. The movie is a true cult classic, and anyone who wants to see it just needs to check it out on the Criterion Collection.

MOON (2009)

Duncan Jones made his film debut in 2009 with the movie Moon. People who only saw his big-screen efforts in Source Code and Warcraft know that he is talented, but his masterpiece is still this breakout film starring Sam Rockwell. The film is about a sole astronaut serving a three-year stint alone on a base on the moon. However, when his time is nearing an end, he starts to see other versions of himself and believes he is losing this mind.

TIMECRIMES (2007)

A masked figure in a forest in 2007's Timecrimes

Released in 2007, Timecrimes is a Spanish-language time-travel movie.  Directed by Nacho Vigalondo, this is a science fiction film that forces the viewer to really think about what they are seeing. The confusing and complex thing in Timecrimes is that the film plays with time travel, taking the story in loops and then swings that around with more loops until no one is really sure what is going on until the end when viewers realize that nothing is as it seems.

EX MACHINA (2015)

Alex Garland returned to the big screen with Ex Machina in 2015 and created a science fiction movie that blurs the lines of morality. Domhnall Gleeson stars as a young programmer who wins the right to come work for an eccentric tech genius (Oscar Isaac). It is here that he sees an advanced robot (Alicia Vikander) and developed a relationship with her. The entire film leads to a climax that has fans debating what is right and wrong in the end.

DARK CITY (1988)

A poster for Darky City

Alex Proyas directed Dark City in 1998 with Jennifer Connelly and Kiefer Sutherland in the lead roles. This movie is a science fiction masterpiece. It is not only a science fiction thriller, but it is also a great detective noir.  The film has a great setting, a city that never sees the daylight, and a claustrophobic feel with insomniacs and a shape-shifting city, that makes it stand above the rest. This is a science fiction movie that everyone who loves the genre needs to see.

A Boy And His Dog (1975)

Everyone knows that man’s best friend is his dog. In 2024, that’s exactly what Vic will need to survive the desert wastelands in search of food. One of Don Johnson’s earliest roles sees Vic and his pooch Blood (they can communicate telepathically) come upon an underground society.

It’s a strange and slightly experimental movie that pre-dates a lot of the better-known and more popular post-apocalyptic films that came afterward.

Cube (1997)

Cube

Rubik’s Cubes can be confusing and frustrating. Imagine being trapped inside of a giant one, where nearly every room is a trap. In the sci-fi/horror movie, Cube, that’s exactly what happens. Several strangers wake up and have no idea where they are, why they’re trapped or why they’re being held captive together.

They all try to work together to learn a little about one another and assist each other to try and escape this box. Some of the effects are absolutely brutal for an indie flick, such as a laser net that completely diced one of the characters to bits.

The Box (2009)

The set up alone for The Box is as exciting as it is terrifying. A package shows up on your doorstep with no return label. Inside a wooden box with a red button. A disfigured stranger comes to your house and explains that he will give you one million dollars should you decide to press the button. The caveat is that someone you’ve never met before will die as a result.

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The stranger gives you 100$ for your time and walks away. What happens next is all up to Arthur and Norma Lewis (played by James Marsden and Cameron Diaz) in this The Twilight Zone-inspired story.

THX-1138 (1971)

Seemingly everyone adored George Lucas’ Star Wars when it was first released. While the events of the saga happen “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” the future cane six years prior in a disturbing sci-fi dystopian film, THX-1138. The film takes place in the 25th century and the world is run by a robot police force that controls the population. That population is kept in line further by utilizing chemicals to keep all of the workers compliant.

Concepts like family, love, and friendship are outlawed. The society begins to crumble as one citizen, THX-1138, starts to break free of his constraints.

Westworld (1973)

From Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) comes another rather disturbing science fiction story. The futuristic theme park Westworld has all kinds of fun rides for anyone with a good chunk of change to indulge in, just about anything your heart and mind desires.

Peter Martin and his friend John Delane head to the park, which features lifelike android cowboys ready for a duel. Robots in a sci-fi almost always mean a mechanical breakdown of some sort is bound to happen. This is exactly what happens when the gunslinger android starts firing live rounds!

Scanners (1981)

Over the course of his career, David Cronenberg has given fans plenty of thoughtful and awe-inspiring sci-fi/horror films, and Scanners is no different. The movie is ahead of its time. In the movie, Scanners are people born with unique telepathic abilities.

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A company called ConSec wants to use these people for their own needs. During testing, one Scanner, Revok, proves to the strongest of all of them. He (famously) makes another Scanner’s head explode and escapes.

Brazil (1985)

If you think you understand what’s happening in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, you’re probably wrong. Go and watch it again. Like a lot of Gilliam’s movies, the Nineteen-Eighty-Four-meets-Monty-Python-style film requires more than one sitting just to understand the plot of the movie.

Sam Lowry dreams of rescuing a beautiful woman. Meanwhile, thanks to a clerical error, the government captures and accidentally kills Archibald Buttle instead of suspect Archibald Tuttle. Lowry is charged with notifying the widow and realizes that he's just met the girl of his dreams. That’s just the first few minutes of the movie! Plenty of fans of this movie have had to watch it more than once just to figure it all out but stick with it. It’s worth it.

In Time (2011)

In 2169, time is the currency of the day. Humans have stopped aging after 25 and get to keep on living depending on how much time they’ve accrued. The poor and working-class barely have 24 hours on their clock and have to work daily to keep going. Meanwhile, the elite and wealthy have enough time to live forever.

Will Salas is a factory worker who receives 116 years of time from a man who had given up on his own life. Soon, the Timekeepers are in pursuit (believing that Salas killed the man), as Salas doles out his 116 years like Robin Hood.

Contagion (2011)

Often times, the best sci-fi films are based around events that could conceivably happen. In Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, a deadly virus has been released that threatens the entire planet.

It’s a race to identify and contain the virus while researching a cure and locating patient zero. If you're a bit of a hypochondriac, you might want to skip this one.

The Island (2005)

In 2019 (yep, right now), for the right price, you can be cloned for spare parts. Not only that, but your clone can win a lottery to be escorted away from your friends and family, to what they believe is a better life.

Sadly, that 'better life' actually involves being dismantled. When two clones named Lincoln and Jordan discover the deception, they escape and attempt to figure out their place in the world. This intriguing adventure is definitely one of Michael Bay's most underrated movies.

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