Future Visions and Galactic Quests
Explore our ranked list of the best science fiction films from this year, featuring epic space adventures and mind-bending speculative thrills.
Looking back at the cinematic landscape of 2017, it feels like we witnessed a rare alignment of the stars for science fiction. It was a year where the genre finally shed its reputation for empty spectacle, choosing instead to lean into the cerebral, the atmospheric, and the deeply human. If 2016 was about the arrival of something new, 2017 was about the survival of the soul in an increasingly digital world.
The crown jewel of the year was undoubtedly Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049. Taking on a sequel to a sacred cow of the genre is usually a fool's errand, yet Villeneuve managed to expand on Ridley Scott's neon-soaked nihilism with something that felt both massive and intimate. It was a film that asked what it means to be real in an era of manufactured memories. Roger Deakins' cinematography turned every frame into a painting, but it was the quiet, melancholic performance of Ryan Gosling that gave the film its heartbeat. In a box office climate dominated by loud, fast-paced action, a three-hour meditative tone poem about an android’s loneliness felt like a miracle.
While Blade Runner 2049 looked toward the horizon, Matt Reeves took us into the woods with War for the Planet of the Apes. This was the conclusion of a trilogy that remains one of the most consistent feats of storytelling in modern memory. By 2017, the technology behind Andy Serkis' performance as Caesar had reached a point of total invisibility. We weren't looking at pixels; we were looking at a weary leader carrying the weight of a dying species. It was a gritty, Shakespearean tragedy disguised as a summer blockbuster, proving that big-budget franchises could still harbor immense emotional complexity.
On the smaller, weirder end of the spectrum, 2017 gave us Colossal, a film that used the giant monster trope to tell a startlingly grounded story about toxic masculinity and alcoholism. By tethering a kaiju’s movements to a woman struggling with her life in the suburbs, director Nacho Vigalondo reinvented the creature feature. It was a reminder that science fiction is often at its best when it uses the impossible to examine the flaws we carry inside us every day.
We also saw the genre grapple with the concept of legacy in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Regardless of the polarization it caused, Rian Johnson's entry into the saga was the first time in decades that the franchise felt like it was actually interested in deconstructing its own mythology. It challenged the idea of destiny and suggested that greatness could come from nowhere. It was a bold, visually stunning swing that prioritized theme over fan service, a rarity for a property of that scale.
The year 2017 served as a manifesto for what science fiction can achieve when directors are given the keys to the kingdom. It wasn't just about spaceships and laser beams. It was a year of mourning, reflection, and quiet beauty. From the ruins of a future Las Vegas to the snowy trenches of an ape rebellion, the genre proved that the most interesting frontiers aren't located in deep space, but within the complicated machinery of the human heart.

As the Twelfth Doctor nears regeneration, he stumbles on his first incarnation, also refusing to change. It takes a captain, a glass avatar and a familiar face to convince the Doctors the universe still needs them.

Fuelled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman's selfless act, Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince assemble a team of metahumans consisting of Barry Allen, Arthur Curry and Victor Stone to face the catastrophic threat of Steppenwolf and the Parademons who are on the hunt for three Mother Boxes on Earth.

After an alien ship crash lands in a Russian city, many who see the inside and the occupants start to question their own existence while others demand the aliens leave Earth.

Ren Amari is the driven inventor of a revolutionary new drug. OtherLife expands the brain's sense of time and creates virtual reality directly in the user's mind. With OtherLife, mere seconds in real life feel like hours or days of exciting adventures. As Ren and her colleagues race around the clock to launch OtherLife, the government muscles in to use the drugs as a radical solution to prison overcrowding. They will create virtual cells where criminals serve long sentences in just minutes of real time. When Ren resists, she finds herself an unwilling guinea pig trapped in a prison cell in her mind. She must escape before she descends into madness, and then regain control of OtherLife before others suffer the same fate.

Dae-ho, an investigative journalist, seeks to track down the whereabouts of his son who was abducted three years ago. With the help of a detective and a psychiatrist friend, he will retrace his memory of the incident through the use of lucid dreaming techniques.

The story of humankind's last stand against a cataclysmic alien invasion. Set in the war-ravaged African countryside, a U.S. soldier and a French foreign aid worker team up to survive the alien onslaught. Their bond will be tested as they search for refuge across a crumbling world.

Twenty years after three teenagers disappeared in the wake of mysterious lights appearing above Phoenix, Arizona, unseen footage from that night has been discovered, chronicling the final hours of their fateful expedition.

A pilot battles to save his family and the planet after an experiment for unlimited energy goes wrong.

Two planes almost collide after a blinding flash of light paralyzes air traffic controller Dylan Branson for a few seconds. Suspended from his job, Dylan starts to notice an ominous pattern of sounds and events that repeats itself in exactly the same manner every day, ending precisely at 2:22 p.m. Also drawn into a complex relationship with a woman, Dylan must figure out a way to break the power of the past and take control of time itself.

A young refugee, Aryan, is shot while illegally trying to cross the Hungarian border. While tending him back to health, a doctor at a refugee camp discovers that Aryan has gained an extraordinary talent—he can levitate. Aryan is smuggled out by the doctor, who is intent on exploiting his secret.

Detective Mark Corley storms his way onto an alien spaceship to rescue his estranged son. When the ship crashes in Southeast Asia, he forges an alliance with a band of survivors to take back the planet once and for all.

The widow of a wise professor stumbles upon one of his inventions that's able to record and play a person's memory.

In a world where families are limited to one child due to overpopulation, a set of identical septuplets must avoid being put to a long sleep by the government and dangerous infighting while investigating the disappearance of one of their own.

A young man raised by scientists on Mars returns to Earth to find his father.

After an unprecedented series of natural disasters threatened the planet, the world's leaders came together to create an intricate network of satellites to control the global climate and keep everyone safe. But now, something has gone wrong: the system built to protect Earth is attacking it, and it becomes a race against the clock to uncover the real threat before a worldwide geostorm wipes out everything and everyone along with it.

A young tech worker takes a job at a powerful Internet corporation, quickly rises up the company's ranks, and soon finds herself in a perilous situation concerning privacy, surveillance and freedom. She comes to learn that her decisions and actions will determine the future of humanity.
While functioning as a cautionary tale of the digital age, this film captures the insidious nature of total transparency in a hyper-connected society. It serves as a stark, voyeuristic reflection of our current obsession with algorithmic validation and the erosion of the private self.

Five ordinary teens must become something extraordinary when they learn that their small town of Angel Grove — and the world — is on the verge of being obliterated by an alien threat. Chosen by destiny, our heroes quickly discover they are the only ones who can save the planet. But to do so, they will have to overcome their real-life issues and before it’s too late, band together as the Power Rangers.
Surprisingly grounded in its teenage angst, this revival finds success by treating its protagonists with the tonal sincerity of a coming-of-age drama. It manages to modernize a campy legacy through impressive scale and a genuine investment in its misfit ensemble.

A young girl named Mija risks everything to prevent a powerful, multi-national company from kidnapping her best friend - a massive animal named Okja.
Bong Joon-ho masterfully weaves corporate satire and Spielbergian wonder into a poignant critique of global consumerism. The film’s brilliance lies in its tonal gymnastics, shifting effortlessly from slapstick energy to a devastatingly earnest plea for empathy.

In the near future, due to a breakthrough scientific discovery by Dr. Thomas Harbor, there is now definitive proof of an afterlife. While countless people have chosen suicide to reset their existence, others try to decide what it all means. Among them is Dr. Harbor's son Will, who has arrived at his father's isolated compound with a mysterious young woman named Isla. There, they discover the strange acolytes who help Dr. Harbor with his experiments.
This icy, cerebral exercise treats the afterlife not as a religious concept but as a cold scientific variable. It distinguishes itself through a muted palette and a haunting preoccupation with the weight of regret in a world where the veil of mortality has been lifted.

The crew of the colony ship Covenant, bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise but is actually a dark, dangerous world.
Ridley Scott pivots back toward gothic horror while continuing his philosophical obsession with the hubris of the creator. It is a grotesque, beautifully shot symphony of madness that transforms a franchise cornerstone into a pitch-black meditation on synthetic supremacy.

The six-member crew of the International Space Station is tasked with studying a sample from Mars that may be the first proof of extra-terrestrial life, which proves more intelligent than ever expected.
Drenched in claustrophobic dread, this lean thriller reinvigorates the 'slasher in space' archetype with a terrifyingly plausible biological threat. It excels by leaning into scientific nihilism, stripping away hope to focus on the cold, predatory logic of extraterrestrial survival.

In the 28th century, Valerian and Laureline are special operatives charged with keeping order throughout the human territories. On assignment from the Minister of Defense, the two undertake a mission to Alpha, an ever-expanding metropolis where species from across the universe have converged over centuries to share knowledge, intelligence, and cultures. At the center of Alpha is a mysterious dark force which threatens the peaceful existence of the City of a Thousand Planets, and Valerian and Laureline must race to identify the menace and safeguard not just Alpha, but the future of the universe.
Luc Besson delivers a kaleidoscopic fever dream that prioritizes unbridled maximalism over conventional narrative structure. Every frame overflows with exuberant creature design and psychedelic world-building that puts more restrained space operas to shame.

Caesar and his apes are forced into a deadly conflict with an army of humans led by a ruthless Colonel. After the apes suffer unimaginable losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts and begins his own mythic quest to avenge his kind. As the journey finally brings them face to face, Caesar and the Colonel are pitted against each other in an epic battle that will determine the fate of both their species and the future of the planet.
This somber conclusion to the trilogy elevates performance-capture technology to the level of Shakespearean tragedy. It eschews typical explosive spectacle in favor of a soul-stirring character study that blurs the line between primate and human morality.
Rey develops her newly discovered abilities with the guidance of Luke Skywalker, who is unsettled by the strength of her powers. Meanwhile, the Resistance prepares to do battle with the First Order.
Rian Johnson boldly deconstructs established mythology, choosing to interrogate the legacy of the Jedi rather than merely reciting it. It stands as the year’s most subversive blockbuster, trading easy nostalgia for a challenging exploration of failure and rebirth.
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
Denis Villeneuve achieves the impossible by expanding Ridley Scott’s neon-soaked noir into a staggering meditation on memory and soul. Its visual language is unparalleled, utilizing brutalist architecture and atmospheric decay to redefine the aesthetic boundaries of modern high-concept cinema.
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