Is there anyone out there who doesn’t like excitement in their movies? Maybe. Something being thrilling or in-your-face isn’t always ideal, because sometimes, you need a Perfect Days or a Paterson to mellow you out. Or there are great sci-fi movies that aren’t necessarily pulse-pounding watches, but they’re still mesmerizing and excellent in other ways, as the likes of Stalker and 2001: A Space Odyssey demonstrate.
On the topic of sci-fi, though, quite a few films that belong to the genre also qualify as action and/or thriller movies, and those ones do indeed get rather exciting. And such films are highlighted below, all being worth seeking out if you want a science fiction movie that gets your heart racing (and they’re pretty well known, so maybe it’s unlikely that you’ve not seen them before, but oh well… iconic and widely discussed movies are still worth celebrating).
10
‘Predator’ (1987)
Does a movie need to have more to it than a bunch of muscly guys shooting people in a jungle and then finding themselves hunted by a dangerous extra-terrestrial creature to be great? If Predator has anything to say about the matter, then the answer is an emphatic no! That’s what Predator is, that’s what Predator does, and that’s all Predator ever had to do.
Oh, sure, there’s Arnold Schwarzenegger here being perfectly cast alongside some other actors who are all well-utilized, there are some memorable lines, and the alien itself is an all-timer, enough to rival the alien species from, well, Alien. But all that’s well known by now, and the kind of thing you probably know before you even watch Predator, curious about whether it’ll live up to the hype, or hold up, and then it does. It really, really does.
9
‘Face/Off’ (1997)
The absurdity of Face/Off is something to behold, and it’s gonzo whether you want to call it a sci-fi movie, an action film, a crime one, or even a comedy. It’s a bit of all of those all at once, and of those genres, maybe sci-fi sounds the hardest to link it to, yet this is a movie about a procedure that lets people swap faces in a way convincing enough to fool pretty much everyone not directly involved with said crazy procedure.
Also gonzo is the fact that anyone has ever talked about crafting a sequel to Face/Off, because this movie’s existence goes beyond merely capturing lightning in a bottle. It’s John Woo capturing John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in a bottle, and then he shakes the bottle around and Travolta and Cage swap faces and get to play each other, and the resulting mess is equal parts silly and spectacular.
8
‘Inception’ (2010)
Inception gets wild and layered in a way that makes it easy to revisit, though it’s not overly complicated, nor the kind of thing that you can’t fully appreciate after one viewing. It lays out all the rules surrounding the mind heist at its center pretty effectively, and then it’s fun to see it all play out and go both to plan in some regards and out of control in other ways. You know, like any good heist movie.
It’s a psychological heist movie, and even if the entering dreams part of it might be comparable to Paprika (also great, in its own way), Inception does enough different – and on a grand enough scale – to feel like its own thing. It’s a highlight as far as blockbuster filmmaking of the 2010s is concerned; not just for those movies that are sci-fi-related, but of any genre for a film made on that kind of scale.
7
‘Gravity’ (2013)
There’s a lot going on narratively in Inception, but not all that much, really, when it comes to Gravity. That’s okay, though, since it’s a lean and no-nonsense sort of movie, and massively thrilling as a result, since it showcases a disaster happening in space, and then the two people who survive it (initially) have to work out how to get back to Earth.
Gravity doesn’t take place in literal real-time, but close enough to it that you get the sense it is, at least in the moment, in a way that’s not dissimilar to 1917. On a technical front, Gravity is hard to fault, and it’s one of the best-paced sci-fi movies to come out in relatively recent memory, too. Oh, and it’s pretty intense for something with a PG-13 rating, also.
6
‘Jurassic Park’ (1993)
If you’re willing to count dinosaurs that have been resurrected through scientific means as monsters, then Jurassic Park can easily count itself among the very best monster movies of all time. The simplicity here is also wonderful, because there’s an island, there are dinosaurs on the island (part of a planned theme park), there are some straightforward yet endearing (or unlikable) characters, and then things go wrong on the island, so characters both endearing and unlikable have to survive.
There are plenty of sequels to Jurassic Park, and some are a little more enjoyable than most like to give them credit for, yet none come anywhere near the first film in terms of excitement and filmmaking proficiency. The jury’s out on whether it can really be called Steven Spielberg’s best movie overall (there are so many contenders to choose from), but the title of “most entertaining Spielberg movie”? No, wait, the jury’s out there, as well. Sorry. But Jurassic Park is also a strong contender on that front.
5
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)
Mad Max: Fury Road probably impresses most on an action front, since there’s a ton of action and it’s all of a very high quality, but with the post-apocalyptic setting of the series, it’s also a sci-fi movie, of course. Okay, the first movie might be more dystopian than outright post-apocalyptic, though all the films that followed fit more into the latter category… not that it matters too much.
The Mad Max series is pretty episodic and stuff, and Mad Max: Fury Road is probably the best episode of the bunch, so to speak. It is to Mad Max what “Ozymandias” is to Breaking Bad. No, it’s not really an episode. It’s a silly analogy. But what else is there to say about Mad Max: Fury Road? You’ve probably already seen it pop up in a bunch of rankings or lists or articles before, and so everything complimentary has likely already been said.
4
‘Children of Men’ (2006)
Since it’s a particularly bleak dystopian movie, it wouldn’t be right to call Children of Men entertaining in the traditional sense, though you could describe it as exciting, at least owing to how intense it is. It’s hard not to feel locked in the whole time, and that does result in the movie passing by in what feels like a flash, so sure, exciting and intense at the same time. Intensting? Exstence?
The stakes are also about as high as they can possibly get, as Children of Men is about a woman becoming pregnant, and thereby a target, in a world where everyone’s been infertile for years.
This film takes place in 2027, and it’s a bleaker 2027 than the one that’ll come to pass in, at the time of writing, a bit over a year from now, but also not by much. The stakes are also about as high as they can possibly get, as Children of Men is about a woman becoming pregnant, and thereby a target, in a world where everyone’s been infertile for years. Its story boils down to “We have to like, get her to safety and stuff,” but the execution makes that simple premise riveting.
3
‘Godzilla Minus One’ (2023)
The most exciting Godzilla movie might well be the most recent Japanese one, at least at the time of writing: Godzilla Minus One. Don’t call it a reboot or anything, though, since it goes back further in time than the first Godzilla (1954), which was also a monster movie with a post-WWII setting, but a bit further on from the end of the war than Godzilla Minus One.
It’s hard to explain what makes Godzilla Minus One special, because it does hit the beats plenty of giant monster movies do, and the structure isn’t revolutionary or anything, but it’s a bit like the whole Children of Men being special thing: it comes down, once more, to the execution. And it was a striking enough film that even in a year with plenty of upcoming high-profile science fiction movies, a Godzilla Minus One sequel feels like one of the most promising and potentially exciting.
2
‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (1991)
Schwarzenegger strikes back, with Terminator 2: Judgment Day being even better than Predator, if you’re willing to compare two (admittedly fairly different) sci-fi/action movies. The Terminator is also an exciting film, it should be stressed, but it’s not quite as bombastic and thrill-heavy as its first (and easily best) sequel, so Terminator 2: Judgment Day wins out as far as this particular ranking is concerned.
There’s still a somewhat familiar premise here, what with a villainous and heroic character being sent back in time with a mission that involves the future and John Connor, and that’s okay, since there’s so much added and tweaked this time around. And, again, Terminator 2: Judgment Day thrives as a blockbuster in much the same way that The Terminator was a remarkable sci-fi spin on the slasher genre, and watching them back to back has always been – and will always be – an undeniably satisfying double feature… and then you don’t really have to watch anything that comes after!
1
‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980)
To address the elephant in the room, or the elephant in space, or whatever elephant that’s wherever, sure, The Empire Strikes Back might be more of a fantasy movie than a sci-fi one (with Star Wars being a space opera series and stuff), but it’s still going here. You have to weigh the negative feedback you’ll probably get by calling The Empire Strikes Back a work of science fiction against the negative feedback you’d get if you didn’t highlight The Empire Strikes Back.
The lesser of two evils was picked here, so yes, The Empire Strikes Back is about as thrilling as science fiction (or space opera) movies get. The first Star Wars might be a stronger crowd-pleaser, and more important historically as a blockbuster, yet The Empire Strikes Back is an overall better movie in just about every way (and the first Star Wars is still absolutely remarkable), so you gotta give credit where it’s due.
Source link
