Some sci-fi movies aren’t particularly action-packed or exciting in the traditional sense, and that’s okay. Certain fans of the genre might well even prefer science fiction when it’s a little more methodical or thought-provoking, since the genre is home to the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stalker, and Blade Runner (okay, the last of those is sort of a thriller, but it would be a stretch to say it was action-heavy and properly explosive).
If you are after something a little faster and more in-your-face, then maybe the following will scratch an itch. These are sci-fi and action movies simultaneously, and they’re all here because they’re pretty much perfectly directed. There’s a sense of someone well in control of things being behind the camera (or behind everything, really), and they are more or less the usual suspects when it comes to great sci-fi/action movies… probably not too many surprises here, in other words.
10
‘RoboCop’ (1987)
You’re always in for an interesting time, when you sit down to watch a Paul Verhoeven movie, and sometimes, you’re in for both an interesting and genuinely entertaining time. Like, the guy has missed a little, and certain films of his could be defined as divisive, but RoboCop is a difficult one to fault, and an ultimately easy one to recommend so long as you don’t mind your science fiction bloody and at least a little wild.
There’s a dystopian setting here that still feels heightened, but maybe not as heightened now, in the 2020s, as it would’ve felt in 1987, so RoboCop could well be ahead of its time in that regard. Also, there’s a bluntness to the action that feels very ‘80s, though, but at least it’s ultimately not the bad kind of dated during those moments when it does feel like a movie of its era.
9
‘Inception’ (2010)
There’s an argument to be made that Interstellar is Christopher Nolan’s best sci-fi movie, but that one’s got more of a focus on the adventure and drama genres than “action,” so if you’re after his best movie that blends sci-fi and action, it has to be Inception. This is famously like a heist movie, but an internal one, involving the infiltration of someone’s subconscious and the implanting of an idea within their mind.
Inception lays out all its rules quite well, and in a way that keeps the necessary exposition entertaining, all before building to a more traditionally exciting second half.
Which sounds a little out-there, or might not sound as out-there if you’ve watched Paprika, but… well, Inception is pretty different from Paprika, even if they both heavily involve exploring strange dreamscapes. Inception lays out all its rules quite well, and in a way that keeps the necessary exposition entertaining, all before building to a more traditionally exciting second half that has a great deal of creatively shot and inventive action sequences.
8
‘Godzilla Minus One’ (2023)
Takashi Yamazaki had been a prolific director before 2023, but it was Godzilla Minus One that got him international recognition, since it’s one of the all-time best Godzilla movies, and perhaps the most popular/iconic Japanese film in the series (and most of them are Japanese) that’s not the original. Now, there are so many between Godzilla (1954) and Godzilla Minus One (2023) that deserve to be a little more famous on like a global level, but at least those two highlights have been widely appreciated.
With Godzilla Minus One, it takes place not long after the end of World War II (like, at all), and sees Japan as the true underdogs against a particularly vicious iteration of the titular king of the monsters. It’s a genuinely exciting film, getting the balance right when it comes to action, suspense, and even some moments of outright horror, since Godzilla can indeed be scary, depending on the tone each respective director’s going for. Yamazaki, undoubtedly, went above and beyond in this regard.
7
‘Aliens’ (1986)
James Cameron does sci-fi well, though he’s flourished outside the genre, too, since Titanic keeps things grounded and fairly historical, just with some fictional characters intersecting with real-life ones. He’s also devoted his entire 21st century (so far), filmmaking-wise, to directing Avatar movies, and they’re sort of science fantasy, or at least not hard science fiction, with more by way of fantastical elements as the series has gone on.
Cut back to the 20th century, though, and you’ll find a good deal of harder sci-fi from James Cameron, with Aliens being one of his best movies, in this regard. Or just one of his best movies overall, in any regard. It blends action, science fiction, and a little by way of horror in a seamless way, providing a nice change of pace from Alien (1979), which, it should be stressed, was also a fantastic sci-fi film, just a different kind of one.
6
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ (2022)
The duo known as the Daniels (Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan) made one chaotic genre-bender together before Everything Everywhere All at Once called Swiss Army Man. There was a lot going on there tonally and genre-wise, but no science fiction, and no real action… so Everything Everywhere All at Once lived up to the title by throwing those things in, being somehow more chaotic and more coherent (even if that sounds impossible) than Swiss Army Man was.
Basically, Everything Everywhere All at Once is about saving the multiverse, and how a small family – and all their alternate selves – are wrapped up in a battle for its future, or lack thereof. You sort of just have to roll with it, and all the wild stuff it throws at you, but the experience ends up being a thrilling one, and whatever the Daniels do as a follow-up should be interesting, to say the least. It’s hard to know where they’d go from here, but hopefully it’s somewhere cool.
5
‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ (2018)
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller often get quite a bit of praise for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and they should, since they have writing and producing credits, but there were three other people credited with directing Into the Spider-Verse: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman. Having multiple directors for an animated movie is not rare, by any means, though it can result in directors who work in animation not getting as much credit.
Like, even Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio had two directors, even though Guillermo del Toro’s name was the only one in the title (Mark Gustafson was the other). Anyway, getting sidetracked. That one’s not a sci-fi or action movie, but Into the Spider-Verse is, and it’s a phenomenal one. The science fiction concepts here are genuinely interesting and quite complex for a generally family-friendly animated movie, and the action is also dazzling, largely thanks to the stylized animation.
4
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)
The Mad Max series, at the time of writing, is unquestionably George Miller’s. Like, he’s been the sole director of four out of five, and then the other, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, was done with a co-director: George Ogilvie. It can be counted as a Miller film, or you can point to Ogilvie’s involvement and be like, “Well, the creator does it the best,” if you subscribe to the idea that Beyond Thunderdome is the closest thing to a weak Mad Max movie.
It’s hard to make complaints about Mad Max: Fury Road, though, which came out three decades on from Beyond Thunderdome and stripped everything down to its bare essentials. There’s a post-apocalyptic setting, a group of desperate heroic characters, an unstoppable force of evil ones, and a long chase that occurs throughout pretty much the whole film, with downtime kept to a minimum. It’s incredibly exciting stuff, and plenty of good-to-great blockbusters released post-2015 feel like they’re still playing catch-up to Mad Max: Fury Road, to some extent.
3
‘The Matrix’ (1999)
It’s hopefully not controversial to suggest The Matrix is the greatest film the Wachowskis have directed to date (even if Speed Racer is visually more out-there, and something like Cloud Atlas is arguably more ambitious). The Matrix is just so efficient and also engaging, being comparable to Inception in the sense that it lays out some complex concepts in a digestible manner, all before playing around with some of those ideas through various action scenes later on.
The sequels to The Matrix also have their moments, but the original is the best, and it’s also one of the easiest to like/appreciate science fiction movies of all time. It’s a bit like, “What else is there to say?” It’s a classic, and it felt like a classic years ago, before it was old enough to be a classic in the traditional sense, but it’s been more than a quarter of a century now (time flies and stuff), so yeah, it’s a classic.
2
‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (1991)
Five years on from Aliens, James Cameron did it again. “It” here is directing a perfect sequel to a movie that was already great. With Aliens, he continued a series he didn’t start, but with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, it was his own series he kept going, and The Terminator (1984) does deserve an honorable mention, for current purposes. It’s a phenomenally made sci-fi movie that has a good deal of action, especially during its final act, though a decent amount of it before then feels a little more in line with the horror genre.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day isn’t quite as scary, outside a few nightmarish moments, and is instead more about spectacle and action. On those fronts, it’s hugely successful and honestly hard to fault, continuing, quite seamlessly, what probably (originally) felt like a self-contained time travel story with style.
1
‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980)
George Lucas directed the original Star Wars, and then all three in the prequel trilogy, but the other two movies in the original trilogy were helmed by other filmmakers (though Lucas still had a good deal of creative control over them). Irvin Kershner directed The Empire Strikes Back, and that movie’s the best of the entire series, so being the director behind it counts for quite a bit.
What else can really be said about The Empire Strikes Back? It unfolds so well, everything’s in just the right place it needs to be, the pacing is impossible-to-fault, and it also looks really good on a technical front. Even though Star Wars (1977) broke more boundaries as far as filmmaking and special effects go, The Empire Strikes Back perfected all the things that the original movie was going for, and even if it’s more of a space fantasy film than a true sci-fi one, it still deserves to take the top spot here.
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