The first quarter of the 21st Century has been a strong one for the Sci-Fi genre, on screens both big and small. On the latter, we’ve seen things like Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Lost, and The Expanse take it to new heights. And on the former, whether it be remakes, reboots, adaptations, or original stories, we’ve had some of the very best that science fiction has to offer. As technology has advanced, so too has how the world (or its future) can be portrayed, while a focus on finding franchises and utilizing known IPs (though it can often be a drawback) has led to some stellar releases like Blade Runner 2049.
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That is to say, there are plenty of strong contenders for the best Sci-Fi movie of the 21st Century, and if you wanted to pick, say, Children of Men or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it’d be difficult to find too much to argue over. But for me, the very best of the bunch comes from the director who has defined and dominated the genre over the past decade or so: Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival. More so than his Blade Runner 2049 or Dune: Part Two – as much as I think both are phenomenal – or anything else, Arrival is the Sci-Fi movie that’s stayed with me more than any other from the past 25 years of releases.
Why Arrival Is Such A Great Sci-Fi Movie
Arrival, based on Ted Chiang’s short story Story of Your Life, takes a classic Sci-Fi narrative device – the alien invasion – but puts a whole new spin on it. What if the aliens weren’t simply a threat to be dealt with by force, but a species you could actually try to communicate with, and even learn from? The way Villeneuve’s movie finds new ground in one of the genre’s most well-worn concepts is just one reason to appreciate the movie, but it’s far from the only one, nor is it the biggest.
That might well be Amy Adams. Herself one of the 21st Century’s finest actresses, she’s given no greater performance than her turn here as linguist Louise Banks, the person who must learn to communicate with the aliens (or heptapods), and on whose shoulders the fate of the world rests. Adams is astonishing yet understated in the role, giving a performance of quiet power and genuine empathy that grounds the movie, making it all feel believable, and is core to why the film works so well.
When it comes to what makes a great Sci-Fi movie, for me, it’s often about how it blends the heady concepts with actual emotion; the narrative devices can be thrilling on their own, but are so much better when used as a tool to explore the human condition, and not many do that better than Arrival. This dives into something so fundamental to our being – the importance of communication – in a way that I don’t think any movie (regardless of genre) has done on the same level.
Sci-Fi movies can often be cold, but there’s a real sense of poignancy at play in this, which combines with its story and grander ideas in a rather beautiful way. There is real spectacle here too – the heptapods’ appearance is unique for the big screen, the cinematography and production design are stunning, the world crisis is thrilling, and the spin it puts on having a time travel twist is jaw-dropping. But it all works in service of that emotion, and using the aliens to drive our understanding of what it means to be human, in a way that makes it soar higher and stay longer than any of the genre’s other entries from this century that I’ve seen.
Arrival is available to stream on Paramount+.
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