5 Great Movies You Didn’t Realize Were Sci-Fi

As movie genres go, sci fi is one of the most popular and for very good reason. It’s extremely versatile, covering a wide range of elements that includes hyper futuristic realities, aliens, space, and so much more. But even with sci fi being well known for its imaginings of incredible technology or strange new worlds, not everything that’s science fiction actually looks and feels like science fiction. Some stories feel more human, more grounded, and sometimes even look like the world we live in. That’s because while sci fi can take the viewer to the edge of experience, at its core the genre is about “what if” and sometimes, what that means for the human condition.

Because of this core value, there are some great films that are actually sci fi, but they don’t necessarily look or feel like it. Instead, some movies use futuristic concepts, complex ideas, and surprising twists to tell stories that also fit into other genres as well. Some of these films read more like satire or simple drama than one might expect from sci fi. Others take turns into horror or even mask their sci fi roots in animation, each with the result that the viewer might not realize that they’ve been watching sci fi the entire time.

5) Idiocracy

When most people think of 2006’s Idiocracy, they think of political satire or comedy, but the movie is actually a sci fi gem. Directed and co-written by Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge, Idiocracy stars Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, Terry Crews and more and follows Joe (Wilson) ends up, along with a sex worker named Rita (Rudolph), as participants in a government suspended animation experiment. Things go a little awry and they end up not waking up for 500 years, only to find an America that has gotten dumber over time with Joe potentially the only hope. What makes Idiocracy a sci fi film is its use of technology as a plot point — specifically the suspended animation experiment — and the idea of awakening centuries into the future. It’s a case of sci fi not really looking especially high tech, which makes it much easier to simply see it as comedy.

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4) Mad Max

1979’s Mad Max is most commonly seen as a dystopian action film, it’s also a sci fi gem. Telling the story of a police officer turned vigilante in a dystopian future Australia that’s deep in societal collapse, the film is a classic, but even with its dystopian elements, the story is more. Not only is the near-future setting one that pushes the film into the territory of science fiction, but it’s what causes the dystopia the characters exist in that fall into the category. At the center of the collapse is ecocide or the destruction of the environment by humans. While that’s not exactly a far-flung concept, it’s how it impacts society and the way the film imagines the consequences that make Mad Max sci fi. It’s also worth noting that additional films in the series, particular Mad Max: Fury Road, veer much more into the clear sci fi territory.

3) Battle Royale

Hyper violent and bloody, 2000’s Battle Royale is an iconic film following junior high school students who are forced by a totalitarian Japanese government to fight to the death. While the sci fi elements are a bit harder to pinpoint with Battle Royale, it’s the futuristic setting that sets the film apart. The film also leans into the “what if” element at the heart of many science fiction stories by putting the characters in the brutal and impossible scenario they find themselves in. There are also smaller elements in the film, such as the explosive collars used to kill uncooperative students and the group of students who hack into the computer system trying to stop the program that’s running the lethal game.

2) Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day is a full stop classic with the romantic fantasy often considered one of the best films of the ‘90s. But it’s also a sci fi film thanks to its time loop story. Groundhog Day follows cynical television weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) who gets trapped in a time loop that forces him to relive February 2nd over and over and over again. While Groundhog Day focuses more on the comedy and romance of the story, that time loop element is straight out of science fiction.

1) Inside Out

One of Pixar’s best films ever, Inside Out is a lot of things. It’s an animated film, it’s a coming-of-age-film, but it is also science fiction. The story digs into the inner workings of a young girl named Riley’s mind as she works through the relocation of her family to a new city. While the actual mechanics of the film aren’t directly science fiction, it’s how the film portrays the emotions and the processing of memories that slides into sci fi territory. The idea of memories as colored orbs with a very specific management system is unique and interesting and feels like a fantasy-drive, scientific imagining of how feelings and memories might actually work. It’s really beautiful and proof that sci fi can be so much more than spaceships and lasers.

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