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Sci-fi movies are a wildly varied genre, with different styles and differing fan bases, but there are some that remain a perfect 10-out-of-10 from start to finish. Sci-fi is one of the oldest genres in Hollywood history, with one of the very first films being the 1902 silent sci-fi film, A Trip to the Moon.
This was followed by more masterpieces of silent cinema, with Metropolis the biggest example, and even early horror releases, like Frankenstein, were sci-fi movies at heart. Today, sci-fi ranges from films about time travel, space wars, technology gone wrong, and more. However, only a few of these sci-fi movies are perfect 10s from start to finish.
10 Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)
Steven Spielberg set out to be a sci-fi filmmaker early in his career, and he has some genuine masterpieces to his name. However, the first sci-fi movie he made remains one of his best, and it is a perfect story from start to finish. In 1977, Spielberg directed Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a movie about aliens coming to Earth, something Spielberg approached again in the future, but in wildly different ways. In this movie, it is more about a father obsessed with aliens so much that he abandons his family to find them. This is as much a family drama as an alien film.
It is a solid watch, a drama that has a very methodical pace but never once feels long. It received nine Oscar nominations, winning two of them, and was added to the National Film Registry in 2007.
9 Arrival (2016)
Arrival is a slow-burning but highly rewarding sci-fi drama about aliens arriving on Earth and sending out messages that humans have to decipher. The film is directed by Denis Villeneuve, who went on to direct Blade Runner 2049 and the Dune franchise, but he proved his mastery of sci-fi with this release.
Amy Adams stars as a linguist named Louise Banks, while Jeremy Renner stars as a physicist who was sent in to find out what the aliens want. As tensions escalate and the world prepares to possibly attack the alien spacecraft, the two scientists have to find a way to figure out the aliens' messages before it's too late.
What results when Louise deciphers the messages is both hopeful and heartbreaking, and it remains one of the best modern sci-fi dramas ever made and a perfect movie from start to finish.
8 Children Of Men (2006)
Alfonso Cuarón is widely considered one of the best Mexican directors of all time, but he has a sci-fi masterpiece that not enough people talk about. Cuarón, who won Oscars for Gravity and Roma and is also known as the man who brought Harry Potter into the adult realm in Prisoner of Azkaban, directed Children of Men in 2006.
This movie is one of the greatest post-apocalyptic movies ever made, and it isn't about a war that destroyed the Earth but the spread of human infertility. A baby had not been born in two decades, and people realized extinction was coming. However, when a pregnant woman is found, everyone wants her for their own reasons.
From the start of the film, with a terrorist attack shaking up London, to the end, where the woman is delivered to safety, this movie never stops, is full of deep and interesting ideas, and might be one of the best stories of the human condition at the worst moments in history. It doesn't get much better than Children of Men.
7 The Thing (1982)
One of the best sci-fi horror movies ever made is a film that was a critical and commercial failure when it was released. When John Carpenter directed The Thing in 1982, critics hated it and the film bombed at the box office. However, over a decade after its release, it became known as a masterpiece of genre cinema.
Kurt Russell stars as R.J. MacReady, a helicopter pilot stationed at a research base in Antarctica when the base is infiltrated by an alien shape-shifter who can take on anyone's form. As the alien starts killing everyone at the base, no one could trust each other, creating a Cold War allegory during the Red Scare.
The film is as strong today as it was when Carpenter released it, and it remains a scary and important film about a society that can no longer trust each other. It remains one of the best cult sci-fi movies ever released and proves that some stories were ahead of their time.
6 Jurassic Park (1993)
Jurassic Park changed everything for sci-fi action movies, ushering in the age of CGI and still looking better than most movies that have used it since that time. The movie brought dinosaurs back to the big screen with realistic computer-generated monsters and not practical stop-motion creations.
What makes Jurassic Park such a great movie, and a legitimate 10-out-of-10 experience, is the mixture of the groundbreaking effects work and the fantastically plotted story and acting. Everyone, from Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill to Laura Dern and Richard Attenborough, was great, and the dinosaurs looked fantastic.
It seems hard to believe Steven Spielberg released this sci-fi film in the same year he released another 10-out-of-10 drama in Schindler's List, but it shows a director at the top of his game.
5 Back To The Future (1985)
Back to the Future was a very different sci-fi movie because it took the idea of a time travel story, added in a coming-of-age tale, and then combined it into one of the best family movies of all time. Michael J. Fox stars as Marty McFly, a young man who travels back in time and almost ends his own existence.
The time travel rules here were almost nonexistent, and that is better in this case because it allows the viewer to shut off their analytical brain and enjoy the story for what it is. That is where this movie is a perfect 10, because it is a great story with fantastic acting and a fun time for anyone who watches it.
Back to the Future is also one of the rare franchises where every movie in the trilogy is good, and it entertains with great sci-fi storytelling from start to finish.
4 The Matrix (1999)
The Matrix is a film that helped change everything about sci-fi action movies for an entire generation, although many of the films that followed it didn't understand that it is more than Bullet Time and computer-generated worlds. This is a story that pushed even the storytelling to the future.
The film takes place in a world where computers have taken control and have created a virtual reality where humans live without knowing their real bodies are in pods, used as batteries to fuel the machines. However, there are people in the real world who want to rebel, and they pull their Chosen One out, a man named Neo.
To understand how great The Matrix is, look at the sequels and realize how impressive it was that the Wachowskis could create something so groundbreaking and then failed to reach the same level with bigger movies and more money. The Matrix was nearly perfect, and it was impossible to top it again.
Steven Spielberg has directed more perfect 10-out-of-10 sci-fi films than any other director in history. After his brilliant drama Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he kept his focus on benevolent aliens when he directed E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. This was the tale of an alien scientist stranded on Earth.
Spielberg did two things that made this movie so great. He made the main characters little kids who decided they needed to protect E.T., and he made the U.S. government the threatening force, as a group that wanted to hurt the little alien in the name of national security and scientific experimentation.
Having kids facing dangerous government forces made this a movie that was always going to be a success, and it ended up as the most successful sci-fi movie in a year that also saw The Thing and Blade Runner hit theaters. All three are masterpieces, and E.T. deserves its reputation as well.
2 Alien (1979)
There is a good argument that both Alien and Aliens are perfect 10-out-of-10 sci-fi movies, and each for a different reason. The sequel was one of the best sci-fi action movies of its time and matched up to the original in quality and acclaim. However, Alien was a brilliant sci-fi horror movie, one of the best of its kind.
The movie is best described as a haunted house movie in space, and in this situation, the victims have nowhere to run and hide. It has the same format as a slasher movie, with Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley serving as a perfect Final Girl, and her facing down the Xenomorph alone was better than the Marines in the sequel.
It is hard to find a better horror movie than Alien, and its sci-fi leanings make it even better.
1 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
While James Cameron's Aliens was a great sci-fi action movie, he took things to an entirely new level in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The movie is similar to Aliens in that it follows a straight slasher-style horror movie and creates a sequel that adds a lot of action to the story.
What makes Terminator 2 stand out from other sci-fi action movies is the groundbreaking special effects, and it is impossible to forget moments from this movie, from the new Terminator's melting scenes to the high-octane chases. This has everything a sci-fi action movie fan could want.
It is impossible to think of the genre without bringing up this movie, and when it comes to proclaiming a sci-fi movie as a perfect 10-out-of-10, nothing gets that description better than Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
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