The best sci-fi movies of the year so far

From all around the world

We love science fiction here at Polygon. We cover it in games, movies, TV, books — whatever medium you can find the genre in, we’re there.

This year has already delivered a lot for fans of the genre, with fascinating stories from around the world for sci-fi faithful in theaters and at home. There have been crowd-pleasing blockbuster hits, contemplative smaller projects, joyous B-movie genre fare, and everything in between.

So here are the best sci-fi movies of 2024 so far and where to watch them. They are sorted into two sections: the top tier, can’t miss movies of the year, and the best of the rest. This list will continue to be updated throughout the year, and will be sorted in reverse chronological order, so the newest movies always show up first.

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The can’t-miss, top-tier sci-fi movies of 2024

Rebel Moon: Chalice of Blood

Where to watch: Netflix

When the first part of Zack Snyder’s sci-fi epic arrived on Netflix late last year, it was met with criticism over its shallow world and vapid story. However, there was one notable caveat: Snyder himself had already explained that Netflix made him release a shorter, toned-down version of the movie first before he could release his director’s cut that better fit his vision. Unsurprisingly for some, now that the director’s cut has arrived, it’s a totally different and infinitely better movie.

Rebel Moon: Chalice of Blood, the subtitle for the director’s cut of part one, is exactly what Snyder promised the series would be: A tremendous space opera with intricate, complicated lore and tremendous visuals. The story is more or less Seven Samurai in space, which is a perfect prism to use to introduce us to this world. Rebel Moon’s universe floats exactly in the middle ground between Star Wars and Warhammer, which as it turns out means that everything in the movie is exceptionally cool. Skulls and bones are shoveled into engines to power faster-than-light travel, an unexplained order of red-clad priests collect the teeth of enemies of the horrible fascist Imperium, all in the name of a dead child-god. It’s all incredibly metal, and an excellent — if very over-the-top — space opera, that we should thank our lucky stars for. —Austen Goslin

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Where to watch: For digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple TV

The Mad Max franchise never fails to reinvent itself. Furiosa is a direct prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, but writer and director George Miller approaches it completely differently than any other Mad Max film so far. Of course, it’s an outstanding action movie, with action that feels massive, bombastic, and impressive enough to match the mythical framing, but it’s the storytelling itself that makes Furiosa such a special entry in the sci-fi canon.

The story of Furiosa’s life, and what brought her to be the ruler of the Citadel, takes on a mythic quality, the kind of tall-tale about a legend that gets shared and expanded over a thousand retellings beside fires in the Wasteland. Both Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa herself and Chris Hemsworth as Dementus the warlord — whose cruelty shaped the course of Furiosa’s life — hand in incredible performances that more than live up to the larger-than-live qualities the story ascribes to them. Thanks to all these details, Furiosa isn’t just one of the best action movies of the last decade, it’s one of the best science fiction prequels ever, too. —Austen Goslin

Mars Express

Where to watch: For digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple TV

Set in a future where humanity has colonized space and sentient robots live side-by-side with their creators as a caste of servants, Jérémie Périn’s sci-fi thriller is a gorgeous and fully realized world bursting with imagination and intrigue around every corner.

Centered around a pair of private detectives — a soft-spoken human woman with a drinking problem and the simulated consciousness of a dead man preserved in an artificial body — searching for a missing girl and an elusive hacker, Mars Express slowly but surely unravels into a byzantine mystery where seemingly everyone, and every thing, has a secret to keep. With explosive action sequences, beautifully detailed backgrounds, and a plot that evolves from a simple missing persons case into a singularity-adjacent revelation, Mars Express is an original sci-fi adventure worth experiencing. —Toussaint Egan

The Beast

Where to watch: Criterion Channel, or for digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple TV

“Cloud Atlas meets Mulholland Drive” is the most succinct way to describe Bertrand Bonello’s sci-fi drama to someone who hasn’t seen it yet. Truthfully though, even that comparison falls short in encompassing everything The Beast attempts, and succeeds, at conveying. The surface likeness is uncanny: A story of two lovers, played by Léa Seydoux and George MacKay, who meet one another time and again across several lifetimes only to be ripped apart from one another.

Despite how that might sound, however, The Beast is anything but a fairy tale. A sci-fi odyssey that combines period piece romance with contemporary slasher aesthetics and dystopian dread, Bonello’s film is a disorienting and terrifying plunge into a future where love is a liability that’s more certain to break your heart than it is to ever make you feel whole. The Beast isn’t just one of the best sci-fi films of the year; it’s one of the most daring movies of the year, period. –TE

The Animal Kingdom

Where to watch: Hulu, or for digital rental/purchase on Amazon/Apple TV

One of the year’s most fascinating movies, The Animal Kingdom is a French science fiction drama about a mutation that has started to transform some people into human-animal hybrids. The film primarily follows a father (Romain Duris) and his son (Paul Kircher) as they look for the family’s missing mother, who is in the midst of just such a transformation.

As I wrote in our best movies of the year list:

Featuring realistic creature designs that blend practical and digital effects, a rich father-son relationship anchored by strong leading performances, and a compelling overarching narrative metaphor welcoming all sorts of interpretations, The Animal Kingdom stands out in modern sci-fi. It fires on all cylinders to create one of the more powerful movies of the year, evoking a rich world populated by fascinating people.

Part of the brilliance of The Animal Kingdom is the continued mundanity of human existence. Yes, everything we thought we knew about our species is being thrown into chaos, but there’s still work to do and school to attend and new love and enduring love and all the other shades of the human (or human-animal hybrid) experience. It’s in those moments that the true heart of the movie lies. —PV

Dune: Part Two

Where to watch: Max, or for digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple TV

Frank Herbert’s Dune has always been a cautionary tale about the fallibility of charismatic leaders, and Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up to his 2021 epic part-one adaptation of the novel delivers on illustrating that message to chilling and awe-inspiring effect.

With his father dead and his enemies now in power, Paul Atreides must earn the trust of the Fremen of Arrakis to rally them to his cause of exacting revenge on the Harkonnens and asserting his claim of supremacy. He is a man at odds with himself: both resistant yet resigned towards embracing a destiny he knows will result in the deaths of millions and cement his own legacy as a tyrant. Dune: Part Two is an epic tragedy disguised as a blockbuster spectacle, a cautionary tale about the perils of fanaticism that inspires you to cheer in awe all the while begging you to question on behalf of who, or what, exactly it is you’re cheering for. —TE

Alienoid: Return to the Future

Where to watch: Prime Video, Hoopla, or for digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple TV

Part two of the deliriously funny 2022 Korean blockbuster Alienoid, Return to the Future picks up where the first movie left off and delivers a pitch perfect combination of action, comedy, and time-travelling science fiction hijinks.

I’ll keep the plot details light for those that haven’t seen the first movie, but the Alienoid movies take place in both the 14th and 21st centuries, following a pair of humanoid robots sent to monitor alien prisoners being held inside human bodies. Along the way, they accidentally adopt a 14th century child and bring her to the modern day.

The movie is funny, but it also has impressive visual effects work, and surprisingly strong action sequences for a comedy-forward movie. But the real strength of the Alienoid franchise is the cast, led by the great Kim Tae-ri (The Handmaiden, Space Sweepers) as a pistol-wielding badass in the 14th century, Kim Woo-bin as the robot Guard (a meaty role where he gets to play many different types), and Ryu Jun-yeol as a clumsy 14th century swordsman with a great destiny.

Return to the Future does start with a recap of sorts, which is helpful because of how dense the plot is. But it’s well worth watching both of these very fun movies, which epitomize the kind of crowd-pleasing, cross-genre fun you can have with a blockbuster movie. —PV

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The best of the rest

Rebel Moon: Curse of Forgiveness

Where to watch: Netflix

While it’s not nearly as successful as the first part, thanks in part to Chalice of Blood’s much more focused scope, part two of Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon director’s cut is still a pretty great sci-fi romp. More like a sequel than a true part two, Curse of Forgiveness is essentially the last half of Seven Samurai stretched into three hours thanks in large part to an extraordinarily epic hour-plus long battle. If the first Rebel Moon movie is all about world building for Snyder, then the second is all about payoff, giving us glorious action scene after glorious action scene, meticulously paying off the storylines he set up in the original.

Of all of these stories, by far the most effective is that of Jimmy, a robot voiced by Anthony Hopkins who was created to serve on a team of personal bodyguards for the late king. The robots were all designed as state of the art killing machines, but once the king died they mysteriously stopped being capable of violence. But over the course of the first two Rebel Moon parts, Jimmy finds something worth fighting for again, and boy does it result in a sick killing montage toward the end of Curse of Forgiveness. If your tolerance for earnestness and silliness in equal measure is as high as your desire for epic sci-fi action, you’re sure to love Snyder’s second run at Rebel Moon and certain to hope he gets the chance to tell more stories in this world. —AG

A Quiet Place: Day One

Where to watch: Theaters

The first two Quiet Place movies are surprisingly effective, but it took replacing original director John Krasinski (and him moving to an executive producer and story writer role instead) for the franchise to get its first truly great entry. His replacement director is Michael Sarnoski, who previously directed the Nicolas Cage drama Pig. Sarnoski impressively marries the intimate, character-focused sensibilities that made Pig so fascinating with the kind of blockbuster horror-action you’d expect from an alien invasion movie set in Manhattan.

Sarnoski’s apocalyptic New York is gorgeously shot, with tension waiting in every alley and every noise feeling like certain death. But more than anything it’s the lead performance by Lupita Nyong’o as a terminally ill woman who’s still desperately trying to survive that gives A Quiet Place Day One so much life. It’s easily the most intimate, low-key, and tragic blockbuster of the year, which turns out to be a perfect mode for the franchise. —AG

Kalki 2898 AD

Where to watch: Theaters

The most expensive Indian film ever made and the highest-grossing Indian film of the year, Kalki 2898 AD is a blockbuster epic in every sense. While it has drawn comparisons to RRR because of the success and scale of that movie, the two really aren’t all that similar. Kalki’s sprawling plot spans from 3102 BC to the titular year, with Hindu deities, post-apocalyptic wastelands, and a ragtag group of heroes brought together to save a woman and her unborn child.

While Kalki has excellent vehicle and weapon design and makes some interesting narrative and character choices (especially with the Prabhas’ lead character, the self-centered bounty hunter Bhairava), the pacing makes the movie very hard to follow, and the directing and editing choices don’t help at all. It’s also a movie very focused on human cruelty, so expect a lot of that. But strangely, despite not really liking Kalki all that much, I can’t wait for the next entry in this series. The production design is evocative, and the movie ends in a much more interesting place than it starts. While it’s not a great movie, it has the bones of a great franchise. —PV

Robot Dreams

Where to watch: Theaters

Nominated for a surprise Best Animated Feature Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards, Robot Dreams finally rolled out to wider audiences this May.

As our colleague Petrana Radulovic put it in our list of the best movies of the year:

Director Pablo Berger was so dang moved by Sara Varon’s graphic novel Robot Dreams that he started an animation studio to make it into a movie. Told entirely without dialogue, Robot Dreams is about a lonely dog who befriends a robot and the whirlwind summer they spend together before life forces them apart. The characters are evocative and the anthropomorphic world is very charming. But despite the humanized animals, this isn’t a goofy, gag-filled movie; Robot Dreams is actually an incredibly poignant and bittersweet film all about the meaningful friendships that we can’t always take with us as life goes on. The last scenes hit like a gut punch, aching in the best sort of way.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Where to watch: Hulu, or for digital rental/purchase on Amazon, Apple TV

The fourth entry in a Planet of the Apes prequel series sounds awfully bleak on paper, but the reality of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes couldn’t be further from the truth. The latest entry in the franchise, directed by Maze Runner filmmaker Wes Ball, is a fantastical adventure that proves to be the most fun Apes movie in years. While the previous two movies were both dower meditations on war, combat, and the limitations of peaceful coexistence, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a fun action/adventure movie that feels pulled right out of the 90s.

It follows a young ape named Noa who has to go on a quest to save his village after his friends and family get kidnapped. That journey takes Noa around the ruins of the once great human world, and shows us how the apes have been attempting to build civilizations of their own. All of this makes for excellent world building, and a surprisingly effective prequel to the future imagined in the original Planet of the Apes movies. —AG

Code 8: Part II

Where to watch: Netflix

In 2020, a small Canadian sci-fi movie supported by more than 30,000 Indiegogo contributors dropped on Netflix. Code 8, produced by and starring real-life cousins Robbie Amell (Upload) and Stephen Amell (Arrow), would become a breakaway hit on the platform, helping spawn a straight-to-Netflix sequel a few years later. It’s easy to see why they became hits — their dedication to interesting world-building and the clear passion behind the projects make them enjoyable to watch, warts and all.

In the world of Code 8, superpowered people have existed since the early 20th century. Those people became a labor class, using their powers to perform dangerous jobs. But as the Industrial Revolution progressed and automation became more standard, society decided the dangers of superpowered workers outweighed the benefits, turning those former workers into a heavily policed and marginalized class of people. When a young man with electric powers looks for a job to help pay for his mother’s medical bills, he falls in with a gang of powered criminals looking to secure a big score.

The Code 8 movies are not the most polished projects. But in some ways, that works to their benefit, in concert with the “low-budget passion indie” mood of the projects. (It also makes you appreciate how good the evil robot cops look in the series — some are reminiscent of Automatons in Helldivers 2, while others are straight riffs on Boston Dynamics’ terrifying robot dogs).

Part heist movies, part sci-fi, part stories about power and who wields it, the Code 8 movies don’t always execute at a high level, but they are working with some interesting ideas and are committed to seeing them through. Sometimes, that’s what you want from low-budget sci-fi. —PV

Badland Hunters

Where to watch: Netflix

When you’re looking for a great sci-fi movie to watch, sometimes you’re looking for a thoughtful meditation on humanity’s role in the galaxy, with hard science elements and beautiful, almost fantastical cinematography. Other times, you’re looking for Ma Dong-seok absolutely laying into fools in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Badland Hunters is for those other times.

A (bizarre, tonally speaking) sequel to the serious apocalyptic earthquake drama Concrete Utopia, Badland Hunters is a Mad Max-esque story of a hulking man looking out for his found family and destroying anyone who gets in his way (including a mad scientist up to some twisted experiments). While it doesn’t reach the high heights of Ma’s work in Train to Busan or the Roundup movies, he is such a reliably entertaining and charismatic movie star that you can’t help but enjoy this B-movie experience. (And director Heo Myeong-haeng, a former stuntman who will helm the upcoming The Roundup: Punishment, knows exactly how to shoot the big man’s action sequences.) It’s one of Netflix’s standout international releases of 2024 so far, and a fun time for people looking for some popcorn-worthy sci-fi. —PV

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part One

Where to watch: Max

The second phase of the DC Animated Movie Universe is wrapping up with the three-part Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline — all three have been released, but only the first two are on Max. I haven’t seen the third yet, but enjoyed the first in the context of DCAU projects (the second felt less strong, but I’m still excited for when the third one arrives on the streaming platform).

Presented in a nonlinear narrative as Barry Allen “trips” around time, Crisis on Infinite Earths Part One takes more chances with its story than other DCAU projects, and they pay off. Barry travels to multiple Earths and meets multiple versions of the Justice League superheroes, learning of an anti-matter wave that threatens the entire multi-verse. It’s pulpy, comic book fun with a game voice cast (Darren Criss as Superman, Jensen Ackles as Batman, Matt Bomer as Flash, Zachary Quinto as Lex Luthor — the list goes on), and it’s more sci-fi forward than many other DC animated movies.

And some teases for the other entries: Part Two features Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond, and Part Three features the posthumous final performance of the great Kevin Conroy as Batman, as well as the final performance of Mark Hamill as the Joker. —PV

source https://www.polygon.com/24210391/best-sci-fi-movies-2024-watch