Netflix became a streaming giant thanks to its successful original series, none bigger than Stranger Things. Created by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things echoes the golden era of 1980s cinema by delivering a nostalgic story about a small community banding together to face a supernatural threat that mixes sci-fi and horror tropes. Willing to recreate Stranger Things‘ success, Netflix has invested in other stories that reused some of those elements, from Locke & Key to Wednesday. However, no series got as close to the formula as The Boroughs, a new sci-fi series produced by the Duffer Brothers themselves and created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, the minds behind The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.
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The Boroughs centers on a picturesque New Mexico retirement community where an otherworldly monster begins preying on the elderly residents to steal their remaining time. The series stars Alfred Molina as a grieving widower who forms an unlikely alliance with fellow seniors, played by Alfre Woodard, Geena Davis, Clarke Peters, Denis O’Hare, and Bill Pullman, to hunt the creature. The series balances cosmic horror and heartfelt suburban wonder, swapping the adolescent angst of traditional coming-of-age stories for existential themes of aging and legacy. Nevertheless, the narrative structure perfectly mirrors the classic Amblin formula that is also found in Steven Spielberg classics, assembling a group of underestimated neighborhood misfits to combat supernatural mayhem. If you’ve already binged all eight episodes of The Boroughs, many movies can give you a similar experience.
7) The World’s End
As the closing chapter of the Cornetto Trilogy, Edgar Wright’s The World’s End reunites Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and other frequent collaborators for a pub crawl that derails into an alien invasion. The story centers on Gary King (Pegg), a fortysomething man-child still clinging to his teenage glory days, who drags his estranged childhood friends back to their sleepy hometown of Newton Haven to complete the twelve-pub journey they failed to finish twenty years earlier. As the reunited crew staggers from pub to pub, they discover the town has been quietly replaced by alien replicas controlled by a disembodied cosmic intelligence, forcing them to brawl their way to the final pub while the world ends around them. Wright’s signature chaos masks a surprisingly melancholy look at nostalgia and addiction, all while discussing how the weight of middle age can drag people down.
6) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Before establishing the definitive youth-centric sci-fi adventure with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Steven Spielberg changed the cinematic language of flying saucers with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The movie tracks Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), a blue-collar power company worker whose life unravels after witnessing weird lights on a deserted Indiana road. Obsessed by intrusive mental images of mountains he had never seen before. The narrative weaves his unraveling together with Jillian (Melinda Dillon), a single mother whose young son is taken by the unseen visitors, and Claude Lacombe (François Truffaut), a French scientist trying to communicate with the intelligence behind the lights. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg marries the mundane beats of suburban domestic life with overwhelming visual grandeur, using John Williams’ now-iconic five-tone motif and Vilmos Zsigmond’s light show to build a craft an atmosphere that teeters between paranoia and childlike wonder.
5) Jules
Marc Turtletaub’s Jules centers on Milton Robinson (Ben Kingsley), a small-town retiree whose quiet routine of council meetings and azalea tending shatters when a flying saucer crashes in his backyard, bringing with it a blue-eyed extraterrestrial who needs a place to stay. Soon after, fellow septuagenarians Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris) and Joyce (Jane Curtin) stumble onto the secret and become co-conspirators against trigger-happy government agents, discovering along the way that caring for this silent visitor returns a purpose they assumed had left them for good in their old age. Adding a clever twist to a familiar sci-fi premise, Jules treats the alien as a metaphor for loneliness, offering a sincere meditation on visibility and connection after the world has stopped paying attention.
4) Super 8
Super 8, written and directed by J.J. Abrams as a clear homage to Steven Spielberg, follows Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) and Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning), two kids shooting a zombie movie with their middle-school friends in 1979 Ohio, when they witness a catastrophic train derailment that unleashes an impossible creature. As dogs vanish and the military cordons off entire neighborhoods, the children fumble toward the truth armed with bicycles, the Super 8 camera, and a deep supply of amateur pyrotechnics. The film anchors its spectacular creature in the raw-nerved reality of adolescent grief and first love, never allowing the spectacle to trample the small human moments that give the danger its weight. This attention to character allows Super 8 to stand apart from other attempts to mimic Spielberg’s style, as Abrams shows he truly understands what makes small-town sci-fi so enticing.
3) batteries not included
Matthew Robbins directed batteries not included from a story originally intended for the Amazing Stories television anthology, expanding the premise into a heartfelt theatrical feature about gentrification. The narrative centers on an elderly group of stubborn tenants, including the determined diner owner Frank Riley (Hume Cronyn) and his dementia-stricken wife Faye (Jessica Tandy), who refuse to vacate their crumbling East Village apartment building for a ruthless property developer. When all conventional hope evaporates, a pair of metallic flying saucers arrives to repair the building and aid the marginalized residents. The 1987 film deliberately avoids the threats usually associated with aliens, focusing instead on the deeply personal struggle of aging citizens fighting to preserve their legacy and their community against corporate greed. This emphasis on elderly resilience and interspecies cooperation makes it a perfect companion piece for audiences seeking science fiction anchored by older protagonists.
2) Cocoon
Directed by Ron Howard, Cocoon follows Art Selwyn (Don Ameche), Ben Luckett (Wilford Brimley), and Joe Finley (Hume Cronyn), three seniors at a Florida retirement home who start sneaking into a nearby pool that holds mysterious alien powers. The more time they spend in the water, the more their aches fade, their eyesight sharpens, and their appetite for life reignites, effectively reversing their age. What makes Cocoon endure across decades is how completely it avoids turning old age into a punchline, instead treating the men’s reawakening as an adventure filled with romance and rivalry, and impossible goodbyes. In addition, the film asks the audience what they would trade for one more healthy decade with their loved ones, using its sci-fi premise to discuss the high costs of doing the right thing.
1) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Steven Spielberg established the definitive template for suburban science fiction with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, using life outside of Earth as the catalyst for an emotional coming-of-age story. The narrative tracks Elliott (Henry Thomas), a lonely boy grappling with his parents’ recent divorce, who discovers a stranded alien hiding in his backyard shed. What begins as a terrified encounter blossoms into one of cinema’s most tender friendships, with Elliott and his siblings banding together to hide the creature from government agents and help him phone home. The film’s suburban setting, including its wide-eyed sense of wonder and its unwavering belief that the most extraordinary adventures can unfold on the quietest cul-de-sacs, turned E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial into one of the most influential movies of all time, and a sci-fi classic well worth revisiting.
Which science fiction movie about a local community uniting against a supernatural threat is your absolute favorite? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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