50 Best SF Movies You Have Never Seen

When we say you have never seen these movies, we mean that you probably haven’t watched some of them.

In any case, these are less know movies, and in our opinion, amazing for SF lovers.

Below you can find some amazing movies, sorted in no particular order, with IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes score. We would put our score here as well, but there is no point because if we thought these movies are no good, we wouldn’t put it on this list.

We also have the best Magic Fantasy Books of All Time, and you can check it out on our link.

So lets begin.

50 Best Less Known SF Movies

We bring you lesser-known and underrated SF movies, some of which we found on pure luck, and some by recommendation. Hope you will like our recommendation as well.

1. The Island (2005)

Genre: Action, adventure, mystery, sci-fi

Director: Michael Bay

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Ewan McGregor, Djimon Hounsou

Synopsis: A man living in a futuristic sterile colony begins to question his limited existence when his friend is chosen to go to the island, the last unspoiled place on earth.

2. In Time (2011)

Genre: Action, sci-fi, thriller

Director: Andrew Niccol

Cast: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy

Synopsis: In a future where people stop aging at the age of 25 but are made to live only another year, having the means to buy exits from the situation will be immortal youth. Here Will Salas finds himself charged with murder and is on the run with a hostage – a connection that becomes an important part of the journey against the system.

3. Brazil (1985)

Genre: Drama, sci-fi

Director: Terry Gilliam

Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Robert De Niro

Synopsis: Bureaucrats, in a retro-future world, seek to correct an administrative error and become the enemy of the state.

4. Scanners (1981)

Genre: Horror, sci-fi thriller

Director: David Cronenberg

Cast: Jennifer O’Neill, Stephen Lack, Patrick McGoohan

Synopsis: A group of scanners, people who possess amazing psychic powers, intend to rule the world but a young man stands in their way who uses his powers to protect ordinary people.

5. Westworld (1973)

Genre: Action, thriller, sci-fi

Director: Michael Crichton

Cast: Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin

Synopsis: Futuristic automation goes crazy when two people try to realize their fantasies. Businessmen Richard Benjamin and James Brolin visit a creepy western-themed amusement park, where life robots suddenly go wild.

6. THX 1138 (1971)

Genre: Drama, sci-fi, thriller

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley

Synopsis: In the twenty-fifth century, at a time when people carry labels instead of names, a man, THX 1138, and a woman, LUH 3417, rebelled against their rigidly controlled society.

7. Cube (1997)

Genre: Drama, sci-fi, mystery

Director: Vincenzo Natali

Cast: Nicole de Boer, Maurice Dean Wint, David Hewlett

Synopsis: A group of people who wake up trapped in an inexplicable construction – a cube. One day a group of ordinary but not randomly selected people (a policeman, a doctor, a mathematician, a cheater, a bureaucrat, an autistic) wakes up trapped in a massive cube by a claustrophobic labyrinth of movable metal boxes equipped with hidden deadly traps. They are trying to find a way out of that space. Each box-room is identified by a series of numbers and they must use the mathematical cryptographic implications of simple numbers to understand the nature of the cube and escape from it. ”And as they gradually discover the codes, their relationships deteriorate, and their most dangerous enemies are their own fears.

8. Gattaca (1997)

Genre: Drama, thriller, sci-fi

Director: Andrew Niccol

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law

Synopsis: In the future when a person’s life is determined by genetic engineering, a young man (Ethan Hawke) assumes a false identity as a genetically perfect space navigator until a murder investigation threatens to uncover his deception.

9. Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

Genre: Sci-fi, thriller

Director: Joseph Sargent

Cast: Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent

Synopsis: Thinking this will prevent war, the U.S. government gives the impenetrable supercomputer complete control over the launch of nuclear missiles. But what a computer does with that power is unthinkable for its creators.

10. Radius (2017)

Genre: Sci-fi, thriller

Director: Caroline Labrèche, Steeve Léonard

Cast: Diego Klattenhoff, Charlotte Sullivan, Robert Borges

Synopsis: Liam wakes up after a car accident surrounded by dead bodies. Thinking that they have been bitten by a virus, he hurries home, but on the way, he realizes that anyone who is 15 meters away from him inexplicably collapses dead.

11. Screamers (1995)

Genre: Horror, sci-fi, thriller

Director: Christian Duguay

Cast: Peter Weller, Roy Dupuis, Jennifer Rubin

Synopsis: Soldiers trying to negotiate an end to a protracted war uncover robots they built to assassinate enemy fighters, which have become aware and are now turning against both sides.

12. Impostor (2001)

Genre: Drama, mystery, sci-fi

Director: Gary Fleder

Cast: Shane Brolly, Vincent D’Onofrio, Gary Sinise

Synopsis: In the future, the alien race will use androids as bombs to attack Earth. A government weapons expert has been charged as one such android and intends to prove his innocence.

13. Soldier (1998)

Genre: Action, drama, sci-fi

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Cast: Kurt Russell, Jason Scott Lee, Jason Isaacs

Synopsis: A soldier trained from birth is considered obsolete and is dumped on a waste planet, where he is reluctantly accepted by a community of helpless, stranded travelers.

14. Event Horizon (1997)

Genre: Horror, sci-fi, thriller

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Cast: Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Jason Isaacs

Synopsis: The rescue team investigates a spaceship that disappeared into a black hole and returned … with someone or something new on board.

15. Pandorum (2009)

Genre: Action, horror, mystery, sci-fi

Director: Christian Alvart

Cast: Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet

Synopsis: Two astronauts, Payton and Bower, wake up after a deep hibernation in a, at first glance, completely empty spacecraft. They can’t remember anything: Who are they? What is their mission? Soon they hear a strange sound coming from inside the ship, so they decide to keep Payton by the radio, and Bower sets out to explore the spacecraft. Very slowly the two friends will discover the terrible secret that the spacecraft keeps and realize that their survival on it is more important than anything they could have imagined.

16. Freaks (2018)

Genre: Drama, mystery, sci-fi

Director: Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein

Cast: Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern, Grace Park

Synopsis: The brave little girl discovers a bizarre, menacing, and mysterious new world outside her front door after escaping her father’s protective and paranoid control.

17. Predestination (2014)

Genre: Drama, mystery, sci-fi

Director: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor

Synopsis: For his last task, a top time agent must follow a criminal who has escaped him over time. The hunt turns into a unique, surprising and strange exploration of love, destiny, and the taboos of time travel.

18. Spectral (2016)

Genre: Action, sci-fi, thriller

Director: Nic Mathieu

Cast: Clayne Crawford, Emily Mortimer, Max Martini

Synopsis: The sci-fi/thriller story focuses on a team of special soldiers being sent to fight supernatural beings.

19. ARQ (2016)

Genre: Action, sci-fi, thriller

Director: Tony Elliott

Cast: Robbie Amell, Rachael Taylor, Shaun Benson

Synopsis: Trapped in a lab and stuck in a time loop, a disoriented couple defends themselves from masked attackers as they create a source of energy that could save humanity.

20. Pi (1998)

Genre: Drama, horror, mystery

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Cast: Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Ben Shenkman

Synopsis: A paranoid computer genius searches for a magic number that will reveal many secrets.

21. The Fountain (2006)

Genre: Drama, sci-fi

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Sean Patrick Thomas

Synopsis: The millennial search for the source of eternal youth is the obsession of a man whose wife is dying of cancer.

22. Primer (2004)

Genre: Drama, sci-fi, thriller

Director: Shane Carruth

Cast: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden

Synopsis: Four friends / new entrepreneurs, knowing that there is something bigger and more innovative than the various error-checking devices they have built, are fighting over their new invention.

23. Dark City (1998)

Genre: Mystery, sci-fi, thriller

Director: Alex Proyas

Cast: Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly

Synopsis: A man struggles with memories of the past, including a woman he doesn’t remember, in a world of nightmares without the sun.

24. The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

Genre: Mystery, sci-fi, thriller

Director: Josef Rusnak

Cast: Craig Bierko, Gretchen Mol, Armin Mueller-Stahl

Synopsis: An informatician running a 1937 virtual reality simulation becomes the prime suspect when he kills his colleague and mentor.

25. Frequency (2000)

Genre: Crime, drama, mystery

Director: Gregory Hoblit

Cast: Dennis Quaid, Jim Caviezel, Shawn Doyle, Michael Cera

Synopsis: A random radio link connects a father and son over a period of 30 years. The son tries to save his father’s life, but then he has to fix the consequences.

26. eXistenZ (1999)

Genre: Horror, sci-fi, thriller

Director: David Cronenberg

Cast: Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ian Holm

Synopsis: A game designer on the run from killers must play his latest creation from virtual reality with a marketing trainee to determine if the game is damaged.

27. Timecrimes (2007)

Genre: Horror, sci-fi, mystery

Director: Nacho Vigalondo

Cast: Karra Elejalde, Candela Fernández, Bárbara Goenaga

Synopsis: A man accidentally enters a time machine and travels back in time for almost an hour. Finding yourself will be the first in a series of disasters of unpredictable consequences.

28. The Man from Earth (2007)

Genre: Drama, fantasy, sci-fi

Director: Richard Schenkman

Cast: David Lee Smith, Tony Todd, John Billingsley

Synopsis: John Oldman is a professor at the faculty who has a successful ten-year career behind him. Seemingly for no reason, he decides to leave his job and move to another city. He invites colleagues, faculty professors of biology, anthropology, theology, and archeology to his house in the forest, where he presents his theory about a 14,000-year-old man, a Cro-Magnon who is immortal. Shortly afterward, he discovers that he is the man who never grows old. He begins to tell his impressions about various historical events he witnessed, and important people he knew.

29. The City of Lost Children (1995)

Genre: Fantasy, sci-fi

Director: Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Cast: Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, Judith Wittet

Synopsis: A scientist in a surreal society kidnaps children to steal their dreams in hopes of slowing down his aging process.

30. Infinity Chamber (2016)

Genre: Sci-fi, thriller

Director: Travis Milloy

Cast: Christopher Soren Kelly, Cassandra Clark, Cajardo Lindsey

Synopsis: A man trapped in an automated prison must outwit a computer in order to escape.

31. Extinction (2018)

Genre: Sci-fi, thriller

Director: Ben Young

Cast: Mike Colter, Lizzy Caplan, Michael Peña

Synopsis: The father has a recurring dream of losing his family. His nightmare turns into reality when the planet is attacked by a force that wants to destroy it. Fighting for their lives, he exerts an unknown power to protect them from evil.

32. The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)

Genre: Drama, horror, thriller, sci-fi

Director: Colm McCarthy

Cast: Gemma Arterton, Glenn Close, Anamaria Marinca

Synopsis: A scientist and teacher living in a dystopian future embark on a path of survival with a special young girl named Melanie.

33. I Am Mother (2019)

Genre: Drama, thriller, sci-fi

Director: Grant Sputore

Cast: Luke Hawker, Rose Byrne, Maddie Lenton

Synopsis: A teenage girl is raised underground by a kind “Mother” robot – created to inhabit the earth after the extinction of humanity. But their unique connection is jeopardized when inexplicable strangers arrive with alarming news.

34. Europa Report (2013)

Genre: Drama, mystery, sci-fi

Director: Sebastián Cordero

Cast: Sharlto Copley, Michael Nyqvist, Christian Camargo

Synopsis: A group of astronauts, made up of the smartest and best people from around the world, are sent on a privately funded mission to explore Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, Europe, in search of extraterrestrial life. The only thing more frightening and unpredictable than a long journey to a destination is what they will find on that big, icy moon.

35. What Happened to Monday (2017)

Genre: Action, crime, drama, sci-fi

Director: Tommy Wirkola

Cast: Noomi Rapace, Glenn Close, Willem Dafoe

Synopsis: In a world where families are limited to one child due to overpopulation, identical sevens must avoid being put into a long-term sleep by the authorities and a dangerous fight while investigating the disappearance of one of their own.

36. Threads (1984)

Genre: Drama, sci-fi, war

Director: Mick Jackson

Cast: Karen Meagher, Reece Dinsdale, David Brierly

Synopsis: The Effects of the Nuclear Holocaust on the Working Class City of Sheffield in England and the Potential Long-Term Effects of Nuclear War on Civilization.

37. Forbidden Planet (1956)

Genre: Action, adventure, sci-fi

Director: Fred M. Wilcox

Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen

Synopsis: A group of explorers comes to the planet Altair 4 to find out what happened to the settlers.

38. The Andromeda Strain (1971)

Genre: Sci-fi, thriller

Director: Robert Wise

Cast: James Olson, Arthur Hill, David Wayne

Synopsis: A team of top scientists is feverishly working in a secret, state-of-the-art laboratory to discover what killed the citizens of a small town and find out how this deadly infection can be stopped.

39. Upgrade (2018)

Genre: Action, horror, sci-fi

Director: Leigh Whannell

Cast: Logan Marshall-Green, Rosco Campbell, Richard Cawthorne

Synopsis: Located in the near future, technology controls almost every aspect of human life. But when Gray, a self-identified technophobe, turns the whole world upside down, his only hope for revenge is an experimental computer chip implant named Stem.

40. Prospect (2018)

Genre: Horror, sci-fi

Director: Chris Caldwell, Zeek Earl

Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Pedro Pascal, Jay Duplass

Synopsis: In the movie Prospect, a teenage girl and her father travel to a distant moon in search of unattainable riches. But there are others digging through the moon’s toxic forests and the business very quickly turns into desperate escape attempts.

41. Save the Green Planet! (2003)

Genre: Horror, sci-fi, comedy, thriller

Director: Joon-Hwan Jang

Cast: Ha-kyun Shin, Yun-shik Baek, Jung-min Hwang

Synopsis: Byeong-gu believes that the world is on the brink of an alien invasion, and intends to save it.

42. The Void (2016)

Genre: Horror, mystery, sci-fi

Director: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski

Cast: Aaron Poole, Kenneth Welsh, Daniel Fathers

Synopsis: Shortly after handing a patient to the hospital in a lack of staff, a police officer experiences strange and violent events that are seemingly associated with a group of mysterious hooded figures.

43. Attack the Block (2011)

Genre: Action, comedy, sci-fi

Director: Joe Cornish

Cast: John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Alex Esmail

Synopsis: A fast-paced, hilarious, and terrifying adventure in which a group of teenagers confronts a wild invasion of aliens and changes an apartment block in London into a besieged fort. When an unknown creature falls from the sky and attacks a gang of juvenile hooligans in the middle of a robbery, the gang grabs weapons, bicycles and begins to defend their terrain. In the fight against a new wave of invaders, which are bigger and more dangerous than before, this group of failures will become the last hope for the defense of London.

44. Monsters (2010)

Genre: Adventure, drama, romance, sci-fi

Director: Gareth Edwards

Cast: Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able, Mario Zuniga Benavides

Synopsis: Six years after Earth suffered an alien invasion, a cynical journalist agrees to follow a distraught American tourist through infected zones in Mexico to the security of the U.S. border.

45. Chronicle (2012)

Genre: Drama, sci-fi, thriller

Director: Josh Trank

Cast: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan

Synopsis: Three high school students come across a miraculous discovery that gives them unusual abilities. Although they learn to control their powers, their lives are disrupted when the dark side of their character prevails.

46. Midnight Special (2016)

Genre: Drama, mystery, sci-fi

Director: Jeff Nichols

Cast: Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst

Synopsis: The father and son go on the run, followed by the government and a cult that is attracted to the child’s special powers.

47. Skyline (2010)

Genre: Action, sci-fi, thriller

Director: Colin Strause, Greg Strause

Cast: Eric Balfour, Donald Faison, Scottie Thompson

Synopsis: Strange lights descend on Los Angeles, attracting humans like moths to flames where an alien force threatens to wipe out an entire human population from the face of the Earth.

48. The Vast of Night (2020)

Genre: Drama, mystery, sci-fi

Director: Andrew Patterson

Cast: Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz, Gail Cronauer

Synopsis: In the late 1950s, one fateful night in New Mexico, young switchboard operator Fay and charismatic radio DJ Everett discover an unusual sound frequency that could forever change their small town and future.

49. Sea Fever (2020)

Genre: Horror, sci-fi

Director: Neasa Hardiman

Cast: Connie Nielsen, Hermione Corfield, Dougray Scott

Synopsis: The crew of the West of Ireland brakes, stranded at sea, are fighting for their lives against a growing parasite in their drinking water.

50. The Platform (El Hoyo, 2020)

Genre: Horror, thriller, sci-fi

Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

Cast: Ivan Massagué, Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan

Synopsis: Vertical prison with one cell per level. Two people per cell. One single food platform and two minutes a day to feed from top to bottom. An endless nightmare trapped in The Pit.