Rolling Stone Top 40 Sci-Fi Movies of the 21st Century
Created by rvandam.
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Ask any science-fiction movie fanatic what their go-to films are, and you’ll get a lot of great answers back: Metropolis, Blade Runner, 2001, The Day the Earth Stood Still, the original Godzilla, The Thing etc. But let’s face it – those answers are so last century. Great sci-fi movies didn’t decide to party like it’s 1999 then call it a day; a host of thrilling, intelligent, offbeat, funny and frightening SF films have hit art houses and multiplexes since Y2K.
In 2014, we concocted a list of the Best Sci-Fi Movies of the 21st Century — a quick and dirty survey of the best the genre has had to offer since the millennium’s beginning. More than a few major science-fiction flicks, however – from franchise-expanding blockbusters to arthouse headscratchers – have dropped since then, so it was time for an overhaul and an update. We’ve now expanded our list to 40 titles, to better highlight the best and brightest SF films of our still-new–ish millennium. Some noteworthy favorites of ours just barely missed the cut (very sorry, Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer) or some major titles were dinged on quality-control issues. (Avatar may have been a gamechanging film for 3D, but “unobtainium”? Really?!?) We’re confident, however, that there’s a place in the canon for these relative latecomers.
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12 new
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2004, in 28 top lists Check -
6 new
WALL·E
2008, in 26 top lists Check -
11 new
Mad Max: Fury Road
2015, in 23 top lists Check -
33 new
Donnie Darko
2001, in 21 top lists Check -
5 new
Inception
2010, in 21 top lists Check -
1 new
Children of Men
2006, in 12 top lists Check -
7 new
Gravity
2013, in 12 top lists Check -
26 new
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
2001, in 11 top lists Check -
4 new
Arrival
2016, in 11 top lists Check -
20 new
Gwoemul
2006 — a.k.a. The Host, in 11 top lists Check -
13 new
District 9
2009, in 10 top lists Check -
18 new
Her
2013, in 10 top lists Check -
3 new
Under the Skin
2013, in 10 top lists Check -
8 new
28 Days Later...
2002, in 9 top lists Check -
24 new
Minority Report
2002, in 8 top lists Check -
32 new
2046
2004, in 6 top lists Check -
25 new
Primer
2004, in 6 top lists Check -
2 new
Ex Machina
2014, in 5 top lists Check -
9 new
The Martian
2015, in 5 top lists Check -
23 new
Moon
2009, in 5 top lists Check -
14 new
Serenity
2005, in 4 top lists Check -
10 new
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
2015, in 4 top lists Check -
27 new
Cloverfield
2008, in 3 top lists Check -
29 new
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
2014, in 3 top lists Check -
19 new
Edge of Tomorrow
2014, in 3 top lists Check -
34 new
Guardians of the Galaxy
2014, in 3 top lists Check -
31 new
Monsters
2010, in 3 top lists Check -
17 new
A Scanner Darkly
2006, in 3 top lists Check -
28 new
Attack the Block
2011, in 2 top lists Check -
15 new
Looper
2012, in 2 top lists Check -
16 new
Snowpiercer
2013, in 2 top lists Check -
36 new
Pacific Rim
2013, in 1 top list Check -
35 new
Sunshine
2007, in 1 top list Check -
39 new
Another Earth
2011, in 0 top lists Check -
37 new
The Girl with All the Gifts
2016, in 0 top lists Check -
21 new
Midnight Special
2016, in 0 top lists Check -
40 new
The One I Love
2014, in 0 top lists Check -
30 new
Reign of Fire
2002, in 0 top lists Check -
38 new
Source Code
2011, in 0 top lists Check -
22 new
The World's End
2013, in 0 top lists Check
Last updated on Jan 8, 2019; source