Science fiction is cinema’s way of showing us the future – usually a bleak, chrome-plated dystopia where humanity dies screaming, but with really good lighting. These films explore everything from interstellar politics to what happens if you give Jeff Goldblum a computer and too much curiosity. They ask the big questions: What does it mean to be human? How long can Sigourney Weaver sweat on camera before it becomes art? And most importantly, will the future have better snacks?
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stanley Kubrick’s magnum opus is less a movie and more an endurance test disguised as art. For two and a half hours, you’ll watch astronauts interact with an AI, float around in silence, and then be assaulted by the kind of psychedelic visuals only enjoyed by stoners or people currently concussed.
Its villain, HAL 9000, is basically Alexa with a passive-aggressive streak, proving once and for all that the true horror of the future is technology that refuses to take “off” as an instruction.
Despite being confusing, pretentious and slower than a dial-up connection, 2001 remains a masterpiece.
2. Alien (1979)
Ridley Scott’s Alien gave us two things: one of the greatest horror-sci-fi hybrids ever made, and a generation of men terrified of their own ribcages.
The plot is simple: space truckers pick up an unwanted hitchhiker, who then proceeds to kill everyone except Sigourney Weaver, proving that in space, the most powerful weapon is chain-smoking levels of stress. The real star, of course, is the xenomorph, a Freudian nightmare designed by H.R. Giger, who clearly looked at reproductive organs and thought, “Yes, but slimier.”
It’s tense, it’s terrifying and it has one of cinema’s greatest cats.
3. Blade Runner (1982)
Ah yes, the movie that asks: what if robots had feelings, and what if those feelings were mostly depression?
Blade Runner gives us Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a man whose job is to retire replicants (basically Androids, but hotter). The movie invented the rain-soaked neon aesthetic every cyberpunk franchise has stolen since, making cities look like Times Square if it was run by nihilists.
The final monologue – Rutger Hauer’s “tears in rain” speech – still hits hard.
4. The Terminator (1984)
James Cameron gave us Arnold Schwarzenegger as a murderous robot sent from the future to kill the mother of resistance. It’s tight, terrifying, and refreshingly straightforward compared to Cameron’s later habit of spending three decades animating blue cat people.
The real horror of The Terminator isn’t Skynet or nuclear annihilation – it’s that the machines don’t even need to wait until 2029. Your fridge already reports your midnight cheesecake raids to Silicon Valley.
And yet, through all the violence and explosions, the movie remains oddly romantic: boy meets girl, boy travels through time, boy dies horribly to save humanity. Classic first date stuff.
5. The Matrix (1999)
Imagine telling someone in 1999 that The Matrix wasn’t just an action movie, but a chilling metaphor about reality, identity and late-stage capitalism. They would have laughed, finished their Y2K prep, and gone back to listening to Limp Bizkit.
Neo (Keanu Reeves) discovers the world is a simulation controlled by machines, which is only slightly less depressing than realising your own life is controlled by your employer and your landlord. Cue bullet time, leather and enough sunglasses to block out the sun itself.
It’s stylish, philosophical, and still relevant today, especially when you’re three days into doomscrolling and wonder if you’d swallow the blue pill just to sleep properly again.
