7 Most Underrated Sci-Fi Movies of the 2010s

The 2010s were a transformative decade for science fiction. For starters, the genre escaped the “technical category” ghetto at the Academy Awards, with Inception, Gravity, Her, The Martian, Arrival, and Mad Max: Fury Road all securing Best Picture nominations. This surge in prestige was matched by an unprecedented commercial appetite for original stories, with Inception and Interstellar grossing over $800 million and $700 million, respectively. Furthermore, legacy brands were successfully reimagined through an auteurist lens, as directors utilized properties like Blade Runner 2049 and the Planet of the Apes trilogy to explore sophisticated questions about consciousness and societal collapse.

Simultaneously, the 2010s benefited from a technological democratization that allowed independent filmmakers to bypass traditional studio gatekeepers. The availability of high-end visual effects software enabled small-scale productions to achieve a level of polish that rivaled major blockbusters, leading to an explosion of high-concept, low-budget cinema. While acclaimed hits like Ex Machina, Edge of Tomorrow, Looper, Under the Skin, and Annihilation redefined the limits of the genre, the sheer volume of innovative output during these ten years left several exceptional projects in the shadows. Despite their limited exposure, these underappreciated sci-fi gems offer amazing storytelling that should be discovered by more genre fans.

7) Beyond the Black Rainbow

With Beyond the Black Rainbow, director Panos Cosmatos utilized a 1980s retro-futuristic aesthetic to create a sensory-heavy experience that prioritizes mood over traditional narrative structure. Set within the Arboria Institute, the film follows Elena (Eva Bourne), a young woman with psychic abilities held captive by the disturbed Dr. Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers). The production design relies on saturated primary colors and a synth-driven score to evoke a sense of analog dread, making the facility feel like a living entity.

While the pacing of Beyond the Black Rainbow is deliberately slow, the visual precision and commitment to a surrealist atmosphere reward viewers seeking a more abstract form of science fiction. That’s because the film functions as a dark meditation on the failure of utopian ideals, utilizing its claustrophobic setting to explore the terrifying intersection of spiritual enlightenment and pharmaceutical control. Ultimately, Beyond the Black Rainbow remains a vital entry in the psychedelic sci-fi subgenre, serving as a foundational text for the stylized horror Cosmatos would later perfect.

6) Antiviral

Brandon Cronenberg made a chilling directorial debut with Antiviral, a film that explores a parasitic relationship between celebrity culture and biological technology. The story centers on Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones), an employee at a clinic that sells live viruses harvested from famous people to obsessed fans who think being contaminated by their favorite stars allows them to get closer. This premise allows the narrative to delve into extreme body horror, depicting a society that views illness as a luxury commodity and a way to achieve a perverse form of intimacy with the elite. 

The clinical, white-washed aesthetic of Antiviral heightens the sense of sterile discomfort, reflecting the dehumanizing effects of a market-driven obsession with the human form. Plus, as it often happens with good sci-fi, the film’s themes regarding the commodification of the human body have only become more relevant since its release. While the movie is the least known project by Cronenberg, Antiviral stands as a remarkably prescient look at the intersection of media and medicine.

5) The Signal

Few science fiction films transition as drastically between genres as The Signal, which begins as a grounded road-trip mystery before evolving into a high-concept conspiracy thriller. The narrative follows Nic (Brenton Thwaites) and his friends as they are lured to a remote location by a mysterious hacker, only to wake up in a government-run facility overseen by the enigmatic Dr. Wallace Damon (Laurence Fishburne). 

With The Signal, director William Eubank utilizes the protagonist’s physical isolation and confusion to build a mounting sense of paranoia, questioning the nature of reality. The film’s final act features a series of staggering visual reveals that re-contextualize everything that came before, shifting the scale from a small-scale kidnapping to a massive technological experiment. While its ambitious ending proved polarizing upon release, the technical execution and creative use of a limited budget make it a standout for fans of “puzzle-box” cinema.

4) Europa Report

Scientific accuracy and psychological realism are the pillars of Europa Report, a found-footage film that depicts a private mission to Jupiter’s fourth moon. Eschewing the sensationalism often found in space-based horror, the story focuses on a team of international astronauts, including Dr. Rosa Dasque (Anamaria Marinca) and James Corrigan (Sharlto Copley), as they search for signs of life in the moon’s sub-surface ocean. The documentary-style format provides a sense of authenticity, emphasizing the technical challenges and lethal risks associated with deep-space travel. 

By prioritizing the curiosity and bravery of the crew over traditional jump scares, Europa Report creates a profound sense of awe and existential weight. The claustrophobic interiors of the spacecraft contrast sharply with the vast beauty of the Jovian system, highlighting the fragility of human life in the face of cosmic discovery. Consequently, Europa Report remains one of the most respected examples of hard science fiction from the past decade, underlining that the search for truth can be as thrilling as any fictional monster.

3) Monsters

Long before he revitalized the Jurassic World franchise with the 2025 release of Jurassic World Rebirth, director Gareth Edwards demonstrated his ability to blend large-scale world-building with intimate character drama in Monsters. The film takes place years after an alien invasion has left a “walled-off” infected zone in Mexico, and follows a photojournalist (Scoot McNairy) tasked with escorting a tourist (Whitney Able) back to the United States. Rather than focusing on the warfare or the creatures themselves, the narrative treats the aliens as a naturalized part of the landscape, focusing on the human stories occurring in their shadow. 

Monster’s grounded perspective allows the film to function as a road movie that explores themes of border politics and environmental adaptation. Furthermore, the creatures are utilized sparingly, ensuring that when the extraterrestrials do appear, they possess a majestic and ethereal quality rather than being generic antagonists. Monsters also rely on improvised dialogue and on-location filming, ensuring the movie can feel like a realistic story, despite its sci-fi elements.

2) The Vast of Night

Minimalism is the primary strength of The Vast of Night, a film that relies on rapid-fire dialogue and exceptional sound design to build an immersive 1950s mystery. Set over a single night in a small New Mexico town, the plot follows switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick) and radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) as they investigate a strange audio frequency that seems to originate from the sky. To explore this premise, director Andrew Patterson utilizes long, unbroken takes and an atmospheric aesthetic to transport the audience back to the height of the Cold War UFO craze. 

The Vast of Night treats its central enigma with a sense of genuine wonder and mounting dread, focusing on the oral history and eyewitness accounts of the townspeople rather than digital spectacle. This approach turns the act of listening into a source of tension, making the eventual payoff feel earned and profoundly haunting. Despite its micro-budget origins, the film possesses a cinematic confidence that makes it a mandatory watch for anyone interested in the low-fi end of the science fiction spectrum.

1) Prospect

Prospect is a gritty space-western that prioritizes practical world-building over CGI-heavy environments. The story follows Cee (Sophie Thatcher) and her father (Jay Duplass) as they travel to a toxic alien moon to harvest valuable gems, eventually forming a tenuous alliance with a dangerous prospector named Ezra (Pedro Pascal). The film is notable for its used-future aesthetic, where every piece of equipment feels heavy and rusted, creating a setting that echoes the industrial grit of the early science fiction era. 

Thatcher delivered a transformative debut performance in Prospect, signaling her future success, while Pascal provided an early look at the hardened archetype he would later refine in TV shows like The Mandalorian and The Last of US. The narrative also avoids typical tropes of galactic destiny, choosing instead to focus on the desperate survival instincts of blue-collar workers in a lawless frontier. As a result, Prospect stands as the most impressive underwatched sci-fi film of the decade, offering a level of atmospheric depth and character integrity that rivals the genre’s biggest blockbusters.

Which underappreciated sci-fi movie from the 2010s do you think deserves more recognition? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

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