The greatest sci-fi movies do more than just offer high-concept ideas, and the greatest of these started a massive franchise. The best sci-fi movie lives and dies by its concept. However, in order for it to be strong enough to warrant more movies, a sci-fi release needs to add characters people care about and a hook that promises more down the line.
It is also important to consider that the best sci-fi movies that started franchises were not initially made as the first film in a series, and instead stood on their own as a great stand-alone release. These films offered brilliant premises that ended up strong enough for late films to expand upon. These movies are among the best that created long-lasting sci-fi franchises.
Mad Max (1979)
When George Miller directed Mad Max in 1979, there were no big plans for a franchise, but what resulted was a film that not only started a series of movies, but also a franchise that would get bigger and bigger with each subsequent release. For Miller in 1979, it was just about telling a post-apocalyptic horror story.
Mel Gibson was the original star, and the first Mad Max movie was just a revenge thriller about a former cop who hunted down the people who killed his partner and later his own family. It was a personal film, and one that grew in mythology as the movies wore on. The next two movies got bigger, and then it exploded in 2015.
It seems hard to believe that there are now five films in the Mad Max franchise since this original film was released 47 years ago, and the fourth movie actually got Oscar attention. Even with the films getting bigger, the first was still a masterpiece of storytelling strong enough to build a universe around it.
Predator (1987)
When Predator came out in 1987, the sci-fi horror movie played out like a regular Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie of the era. Instead of Arnold hunting down terrorists like in Commando, he was hunted by an alien killing machine. What resulted was the start of an off-and-on franchise.
This was a huge deal for Schwarzenegger, who also starred in another sci-fi movie in the 80s that didn’t commit to a franchise in Total Recall. The difference here is that the film introduced the Predator monsters, which could return and fight other heroes even with Arnold not returning. However, nothing matched the first movie until the 2020s.
There was a sequel, crossover movies, and even a reboot and another sequel, and none of them matched the brilliance of the sci-fi movie that started the franchise until Prey arrived in 2022. Even with the resurgence of the Predator movies, the first film remains a cult classic and near-perfect monster movie.
Avatar (2009)
James Cameron only knows how to go big. He had created two movies in a previous franchise that hinted at how big he could get. However, when he released Avatar in 2009, Cameron created an entire universe from scratch and launched the series into the stratosphere. The first two movies are among the highest grossing in history.
Avatar introduced the world to the lead character, Jake Sully, and the Na’vi beings on the planet of Pandora. It also introduced the military forces of Earth who were there to colonize the planet by any means necessary. Unlike many sci-fi movies, Cameron always intended this to be a giant franchise and he succeeded.
Avatar is the highest-grossing movie of all time, with $2.93 million worldwide.
With only three movies in the series, the Avatar franchise has grossed over $6.72 billion, and even the lowest grossing of the three, Avatar: Fire and Ash, still made $1.48 billion. None of this would have been possible without the first Avatar, which remains the highest-grossing movie release of all time.
Godzilla (1954)
Godzilla is a phenomenon like almost no other sci-fi franchise. The first movie hit theaters in 1954, a short time after World War II ended with the Atomic Bomb dropped on Japan. The idea of the intense radiation and fallout caused Japanese filmmakers to explore the dangers. The best of these films was the sci-fi horror movie Godzilla.
The film saw the giant kaiju rise up and attack Japan, adding more devastation to a land already destroyed by a war. However, it also went a long way into creating a sci-fi franchise and one of the most iconic giant monsters ever created. The Toho franchise alone consists of 33 films, with the best arriving in 2023: Godzilla Minus One.
Until that 2023 release, many of the Godzilla movies remain beloved as cult classics, but with them having Godzilla serve as a protagonist and with some shaky special effects, the original remains the best of the original series. There is even an argument that Godzilla stands above the America MonsterVerse movies with the character.
Back To The Future (1985)
When Back to the Future came out in 1985, this was a movie that remains connected with the entire 1980s, as it feels at home with anything Steven Spielberg was doing at the time. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, this was the start of his journey to creating some of the best sci-fi and fantascical movies of the next two decades.
It was also the film that showed the world that Michael J. Fox was a leading man, and that Christopher Lloyd was a national treasure. Using time travel in a way that was just meant to be fun, it also opened up a ton of opportunities for a franchise, which is what happened, but with a twist.
Back to the Future was smart enough to stop with the trilogy, and it didn’t keep pushing out movie after movie until people were tired of it. Not only that, but Back to the Future was a trilogy where there wasn’t a bad release, and all three movies delivered. Zemeckis directed all three, and the first remains the best.
Terminator (1984)
While James Cameron broke box office records with his Avatar movies, he proved he could hit those highs with his pervious franchise. However, with the Terminator movies, Cameron had to start off slowly before hitting hyperdrive with the sequel. He then left the franchise before it started to go downhill.
This was also a case where the first movie was nothing like the second film, and neither film was like anything that followed. The second movie remains superior, with T2: Judgment Day a CGI spectacle unlike anything else in theaters at the time. However, it wouldn’t exist without that first horror movie.
That is how Terminator is different from every other movie in the franchise, as it was a horror movie about an unstoppable slasher killer hunting down the Final Girl. The Terminator was like Jason Voorhees, if Jason were a robot, and that is an easy reason to understand why it became such a huge franchise.
Jurassic Park (1993)
Steven Spielberg did something no one else had ever done with the first Jurassic Park movie. He took CGI from a concept to a finished product and created the first big-budget CGI movie ever made. What is even more impressive is that the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park look better than almost any CGI movie made since that time.
Jurassic Park made dinosaurs cool again, and while the next two sequels didn’t come anywhere near the level of the original movie, the franchise began hitting massive box office totals when it rebranded itself as Jurassic World over a decade later. Even then, nothing touched the first film in the franchise.
What is even more impressive is that Spielberg also gained Oscar attention the same year for making Schindler’s List. With an Oscar-caliber war movie and a big-budget blockbuster in the same year, Spielberg proved no one in Hollywood was on his level at that time.
The Matrix (1999)
The Matrix changed everything about sci-fi movies when the Wachowskis released it in 1999, and films tried to copy it for the decade following. However, nothing matched up to the brilliance of this movie, not even the two sequels that followed over the next few years. The original Matrix was groundbreaking in every way.
From the idea of living inside a computer simulation without knowing any better to the post-apocalyptic landscape that existed in the real world, the world building here was massive. Add in the Bullet Time action technique, and this was a movie that fought to create something no one had seen before.
There were two sequels that tried to overcomplicate things, and while the ideas were big and intelligent, it overshadowed what made the first movie so great. There was a third sequel two decades later that did some interesting things, but the first Matrix did everything right.
Alien (1979)
The first Alien movie was like the first Terminator compared to the rest of the franchise. In the same way, the original sci-fi movie was a horror first and foremost, and the best way to describe Alien is a haunted house story in space. There was no escape for Ripley when her crew found a ship with an alien onboard.
However, just like with T2: Judgment Day, the movie Aliens took the horror and added sci-fi action and thrills by adding the Colonial Marines and having lots of gun fights and explosions. This was also just like Terminator, where both the first and second movies were fantastic for different reasons.
Also, like the Terminator franchise, things went downhill after that. Regardless, the first Alien movie was a masterclass of terror and was brilliant enough to warrant the studio to make more movies with the aliens and Ripley fighting them throughout the first few films in the series.
Star Wars (1977)
When George Lucas directed Star Wars, huge sci-fi franchises were not a normal thing outside things like the Godzilla and monster movies. However, Lucas had a huge vision of his work and he had big plans. He proved this when he worked out a deal to keep merchandising rights and then built a legacy.
It only took three years to get the second movie in the franchise made, with The Empire Strikes Back, and then three more for Return of the Jedi to complete his trilogy. Like Back to the Future a few years later, this was a perfect trilogy, with fans loving all three movies, and turning it into a blockbuster success.
There are now 11 movies, with a 12th Star Wars movie on the way in 2026, as well as TV shows in both live-action and animation. However, none of this would be possible if Lucas hadn’t excited an entire generation of sci-fi fans with his story that took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and a sci-fi franchise was born.
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