Science fiction movies often take place in the future, but not exclusively (and that’s to say nothing of the stories that were once futuristic, but now enough time’s passed to make them future pasts, or past futures). These movies do often explore humanity and its relationship with technology, and while plenty of sci-fi movies get pretty weighty and thought-provoking, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, others are a little more focused on emotion or spectacle, like any movies in the Star Wars series (though some will argue that series is not sci-fi, and should instead be deemed fantasy in space).
Anyway, 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Star Wars movies are very well-known, and the former is a masterpiece while some films in the latter series are rightly recognized as classics, but what about some lesser-known sci-fi movies? The following aren’t just underrated or a little overlooked, but are also genuinely great, perhaps to the point of even feeling masterful, or close enough to perfect/flaw-free that they might as well be considered so.
10
‘Starman’ (1984)
Not to be mixed up with that David Bowie song, 1984’s Starman is actually a John Carpenter movie, albeit one that’s not nearly as gritty/violent as other sci-fi movies of his, like Escape from New York, The Thing, or They Live. Starman is Carpenter at his most sentimental, and sees him directing a romantic movie, and it works far better than you might expect.
The acting helps, of course, with Jeff Bridges being excellent, and Karen Allen being similarly compelling. Allen plays a widow grieving her husband, while Bridges plays an alien who takes the form of said husband, and the former helps the latter get from one place to another while the two start to fall in love. It’s a romantic sci-fi road trip drama movie, with a director you wouldn’t expect, and it should be a mess, but it’s honestly quite wonderful and shockingly good, should you be willing to give it a chance.
9
‘Summer Time Machine Blues’ (2005)
Summer Time Machine Blues is unsurprisingly about time travel, but just about everything else here is surprising, in a good way. It’s about a group of young people getting a time machine out of nowhere (which is how it would likely feel, if one came from the future), and then a series of chaotic things happen when they misuse it, all the while also trying to figure out how it came to them in the first place.
Things get a little confusing, but many of the characters are also flabbergasted for large stretches of the movie, so it works, and that confusion is largely played for laughs, too. It’s honestly almost as fun as a time travel comedy as the far more well-known Back to the Future films, so if you’re a fan of that trilogy, Summer Time Machine Blues is pretty easy to recommend.
8
‘Electric Dreams’ (1984)
Honestly, the music in Electric Dreams is reason enough to watch the movie, since Giorgio Moroder was in charge of a lot of it, and he was at his most Moroder-iest during the 1980s (see also Scarface). Then again, the non-music stuff in Electric Dreams is also surprisingly good, because it takes a wild premise (there’s a love triangle, but one member of it is an advanced computer) and makes it work.
There are things in Electric Dreams that have aged well, and other parts that feel dated (albeit in a charming way), and all those things clash in an honestly fascinating manner.
The style here is very 1980s in every single way, which makes the idea of a new modern-day adaptation kind of ghastly, but at least 1984’s Electric Dreams will always feel like an ideal 1980s time capsule. There are things here that have aged well, and other parts that feel dated (albeit in a charming way), and all those things clash in an honestly fascinating manner. There’s something heartfelt, weird, and endearing about Electric Dreams, and more people should talk about/remember it, honestly.
7
‘Gamera: Guardian of the Universe’ (1995)
After almost 30 years spent living in the shadows of another giant monster whose name started with “G” and ended with “a,” Gamera: Guardian of the Universe finally made Gamera a legendary movie monster in his own right. Things were taken a bit more seriously here, compared to past Gamera movies, and it also helped that the budget here was decent enough to prevent Gamera: Guardian of the Universe from feeling like a full-on B-movie.
It’s a good update of the Gamera series, and started a trilogy that arguably got even better as it went along, with 1996’s Gamera 2: Attack of Legion and 1999’s Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris. So, consider this spot in the ranking for the 1990s Gamera trilogy as a whole, if you want (in the end, all are kind of underrated/overlooked).
6
‘The Super Inframan’ (1975)
Also classifiable as an underrated action movie, The Super Inframan is very goofy – and even childish – but so much fun that it doesn’t matter. Its plot concerns Earth being in danger of getting overrun with monsters, all of them led by an evil alien conqueror, and so the only solution involves experimenting on a man and turning him into a superhero of sorts, because of course it does. What else could/should one do, really?
There are monsters here, and then that whole sci-fi sub-genre is also combined with martial arts action, because this is a Shaw Brothers production, and the action here is comparable to that in other Shaw Brothers movies, only here, the actors are wearing ridiculous costumes. The Super Inframan is just a blast, and it’s one of those ideal “switch your brain off and simply enjoy the simplicity” kinds of movies.
5
‘Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes’ (2020)
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is one of the best sci-fi movies in recent memory, and it was done on such a small scale, too. The action is pretty much entirely situated in one café, and events play out in real-time, or as close to real-time as possible when a kind of time travel is a factor in the plot; namely, there’s a monitor that lets people see into the future, but only by a couple of minutes.
It’s not just a sci-fi movie, either, since Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is also great enough to be one of the more underrated comedies of the last few years, too. It’s creative and mind-spinning with all the things it does with an initially simple premise, and every few minutes, there’s some new idea that builds upon what came before, making it all further chaotic… but in a fun way. It’s not the frustrating sort of confounding, because it’s fun. Confunding? Yeah. It’s a confunding movie.
4
‘Woman in the Moon’ (1929)
If Woman in the Moon had been made 40 years after the first real-life instance of human beings setting foot on the moon, it would’ve been laughed at, but instead, it was made 40 years before. So, of course, it doesn’t get everything right, but it’s more accurate and forward-thinking than you might expect. And, even if it weren’t, it’s still impressive and creative as a science fiction epic.
Narratively, it’s about the various conflicts between a group of people who set out on an expedition to the moon, with a bit of romance and melodrama thrown in for good measure. It’s very engaging for a film of its age, and maybe it’s a testament to how good Fritz Lang was, as a director, that Woman in the Moon gets overshadowed by the likes of other masterpieces like Metropolis, M, and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.
3
‘Threads’ (1984)
It might be a stretch to call Threads a science fiction movie, but it kind of is, at least for now (thankfully). It’s also something of a war movie, but the conflict it builds to and depicts is over pretty quickly, since the warfare covered is of the nuclear variety, and so it decimates pretty much the entire world, and kills off most of the population.
Which might sound like a spoiler, but no, Threads then goes on to explore the remnants of humanity slowly losing their, well, humanity, alongside losing everything else as life just gets worse and worse in a harrowingly realistic post-apocalyptic landscape. Threads could well be too heavy and despairing for some, so maybe it should be entered into cautiously, but nevertheless, it deserves to be held up as an all-timer of a sci-fi/war/post-apocalyptic movie for just how nightmarish it gets.
2
‘Godzilla vs. Destoroyah’ (1995)
The first Godzilla is rightly recognized as a classic giant monster movie, or maybe even the definitive giant monster movie (it’s either that or 1933’s King Kong, in terms of historical significance and technical brilliance). But many subsequent Godzilla movies tend to get overlooked outside Japan, or at least overlooked by people who aren’t wild about giant monster movies generally, and that goes for Godzilla vs. Destoroyah.
Any fan of the series will likely call it a highlight, and it’s regarded as one of the more intense and emotional movies in the decades-spanning series, but there’s enough here to make it worth watching even if you’re not a huge Godzilla fan. Godzilla vs. Destoroyah was a perfect ending for one of several eras of Godzilla, and Destoroyah himself is easily one of the best foes in the entire history of the series.
1
‘Until the End of the World’ (1991)
The runtime might be a factor in Until the End of the World being overlooked, since you do need a spare five hours to watch the (far superior) director’s cut, but it is worth your time. It uses all those many minutes to play out like the ultimate road trip movie, on an international scale, rather than just sticking to one or two counties, but then it slows down in its second half to become more of a sci-fi movie.
You get adventuring, some romance, the feeling of an offbeat thriller at times, and then, ultimately, a moving sci-fi drama for the last hour or two. It sounds like too much, maybe, but Until the End of the World can be, like, three different movies at once if it ends up being the length of about three different movies watched back-to-back (to back). Also, the music used throughout is phenomenal, and it might well be one of the best-looking movies of its era, too.
Until the End of the World
- Release Date
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September 12, 1991
- Runtime
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158 minutes
Cast
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Sam Farber, alias Trevor McPhee
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Solveig Dommartin
Claire Tourneur
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