The 10 Best Sci-Fi Movies Of 2024 So Far

Have you noticed that a lot of science-fiction movies haven't felt so fictional of late? Oh sure, the genre has always been about our real-world problems in the present day. Yet, as technology has caught up to our collective imaginations, a lot of would-be fantastical representations of the future have come to resemble our current hellscape but either slightly shinier and/or dingier and with A.I. that's capable of more than cranking out fake YouTube film trailer screencaps of men standing behind nude women. Even movies set thousands of years from now on distant planets tend to be about the all-too-topical concern of young white twinks embracing fascism (much to the dismay of their progressive girlfriends).

As dour and sometimes surreal as these movies are, they're also excellent vehicles for filmmakers to talk about the biggest issues of the day and, in doing so, perhaps make them feel just a tad less insurmountable and remind folks about the value of empathizing with those who have it worse than you do. And on that cheerful note (can you tell it's an election year?), here are our picks for the best sci-fi movies of 2024 so far.

Director Jeff Chan's 2019 sci-fi action-crime flick "Code 8" had an alluring hook: What if the X-Men didn't have a rich business daddy like Charles Xavier and instead had to make ends meet as working stiffs discriminated against by a militarized police force? Chan's sequel, "Code 8: Part II," continues to build on that uncomfortably timely premise, to the degree that its vision of a world of relentless drone surveillance, under-funded public facilities, and officers complicit in localized drug trades using "humane" robotic attack dogs is barely even fiction.

"Part II" follows Connor (Robbie Amell) — the first movie's hero and part of the four percent of the population with super-abilities in this universe — as he reluctantly joins forces with his law-breaking frenemy Garrett (Stephen Amell) to protect Pavani (Sirena Gulamgaus), a young "transducer" (i.e. someone capable of manipulating technology) who witnesses just how "non-lethal" the police's new K9 patrol robots truly are. A half-hearted "Not All Cops" subplot aside (come on, folks, you're better than that), Chan and his crew deliver a rousingly anti-police thriller that even touches on the problem of minorities assimilating at the expense of their community. "Part II" also delivers on a visual level, blending slick sci-fi action with believably scuzzy, low-fi production design. The ending might be over-optimistic after everything that's happened in the real world since 2019, but at least the film's heart is in the right place. (Sandy Schaefer)

Director: Jeff Chan

Cast: Robbie Amell, Stephen Amell, Sirena Gulamgaus, Altair Vincent, Alex Mallari Jr., Moe Jeudy-Lamour, Aaron Abrams, and Jean Yoon

Rating: TV-MA

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 69%

Welcome to the big leagues, Denis Villeneuve and Timothée Chalamet. In one fell swoop, the sequel adaptation of Frank Herbert's original novel "Dune" officially ushered in both talented artists to the upper echelon of the industry. For the director, taking a carefully measured approach to a book commonly considered to be "unfilmable" and meeting immediate box-office success with "Dune: Part Two" finally put Villeneuve among household names such as Christopher Nolan and Jordan Peele. For Chalamet, his stardom reached its peak through his commanding performance as the misguided messianic figure Paul Atreides, a charismatic leader capable of shaping the destinies of untold millions. Together, both helped turn a classic — but notoriously dense — sci-fi story into a mainstream hit that many now consider to be a new gold standard for 21st-century cinema.

Of course, they had plenty of backup along the way, too. From Greig Fraser's frequently stunning cinematography creating an awe-inspiring sense of scale to Hans Zimmer's booming score forming a backdrop to the visuals to the stacked supporting cast of heavy hitters (arguably none more crucial than Zendaya's steadfast but headstrong Chani), every aspect of "Dune: Part Two" evokes the grandeur and tragic inevitability that forever changed the genre upon publication in 1965. The future of blockbuster filmmaking has never looked brighter or more epic. (Jeremy Mathai)

Director: Denis Villenueve

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Souheila Yacoub, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem

Rating: PG-13

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

Imagine creating a sweeping, apocalyptic epic featuring one of the year's most thrilling and well-executed set pieces, a downright mythic storyline fleshing out one of the most beloved cinematic heroes of the century, and starring one of the most talented actors of her generation in the role of a lifetime ... and it's still only the second best "Mad Max" movie of the last decade. That's hardly a slight on "Furiosa" itself, George Miller's prequel follow-up to 2015's action masterclass "Fury Road," and more of a statement on just how lucky we are to live in a time when such a visionary filmmaker keeps insisting on taking hundreds of millions of Warner Bros.' dollars, heading out into the desert, and crashing a bunch of cars into each other.

Facing an enormous amount of pressure to live up to sky-high expectations and trapped in a blockbuster landscape in which anything short of a record-breaking opening weekend would be perceived as a disappointment, "Furiosa" always had the deck stacked against it. The fact that it took a completely different approach from its much less traditional predecessor (commonly described as a feature-length car chase) was doomed to throw many viewers off, but those who embraced it as its own thing altogether were treated to an origin story that avoided all the usual prequel pitfalls and delivered another unique chapter in one of the most idiosyncratic sci-fi franchises ever made. Regardless of whether Miller gets to make his trilogy-capping "Wasteland," Valhalla awaits "Furiosa" and its many fans, shiny and chrome.

Director: George Miller

Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, and Alyla Browne

Rating: R

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

There's a scene in "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" where Godzilla and King Kong, now equipped with power-ups like they're Mario and Luigi in a "Super Mario Bros." video game, proceed to pummel their enemies in a zero-gravity fight amidst the depths of the Hollow Earth. If merely reading that sentence made you break out in hives, you may want to consider this film might not be for you.

That the MonsterVerse would go from Gareth Edwards' 2014 "Godzilla" — a gloomy, downbeat disaster thriller — to Adam Wingard's "Godzilla x Kong" 10 years later was inevitable. Just as Ishirō Honda's original haunting 1954 metaphor for post-war Japan and the horrors of nuclear annihilation eventually led to the supremely silly likes of 1968's "Destroy All Monsters," the "Godzilla" movies have oscillated from dark allegory to colorful mayhem and back over and over for the past 70 years. What makes "Godzilla x Kong" work is that Wingard goes all-in on his synth-heavy, anime-influenced throwback to the cartoonish highs of the franchise's Shōwa era. The whole thing moves at such a breakneck speed that it's easy to lie back and let the absurdity wash over you, much like Kong taking a shower in a waterfall after a gooey monster brawl.

Since the humans are a secondary concern (although Dan Stevens as a gung-ho monster doctor is a welcome addition), it's the Eighth Wonder of the World who gets the most pronounced arc as he completes his journey from a racist symbol pre-MonsterVerse to a kaiju liberator. So, too, is the series' iteration of Godzilla fully refashioned as a benevolent force of nature not born out of humanity's warring but dedicated to maintaining ecological balance. There's substance beneath the ridiculous spectacle is what I'm getting at, so long as you're willing to go digging for it. (Sandy Schaefer)

Director: Adam Wingard

Cast: Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens, Brian Tyree Henry, Kaylee Hottle, Rachel House

Rating: PG-13

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 54%

World superpowers in open conflict with one another, mistrust and violence affecting countless innocents caught in the crossfire, and even our most inspiring symbols of progress and cooperation falling victim to our worst instincts? Phew, it's a good thing none of that would ever happen in real life! Historically, sci-fi has always functioned as a mirror to reflect our greatest ambitions ... and our most horrifying failings. "I.S.S." might very well be the platonic ideal of the best this genre has to offer, serving as perhaps an early contender for the year's most overlooked example of entertainment packing a political punch.

Set entirely on board the International Space Station containing American and Russian astronauts, director Gabriela Cowperthwaite and writer Nick Shafir find the perfect staging ground for a claustrophobic and stripped-down thriller. When reports of armed conflict between America and Russia reach the orbiting explorers (punctuated by the unsettling bursts of nuclear hellfire visible from their windows), what was once considered neutral ground and a scientific safe haven suddenly turns into yet another front of a war nobody signed up for. As the temperatures rise and battle lines are drawn between the two reluctant sides, viewers are treated to a visceral nail-biter that, fittingly enough, offers no easy answers. (Jeremy Mathai)

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Cast: Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, Pilou Asbaek, John Gallagher Jr., Costa Ronin, and Masha Mashkova

Rating: R

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 62%

Dating back to the 1968 sci-fi classic that started it all, the "Planet of the Apes" franchise has been shockingly consistent. Save for Tim Burton's ill-fated remake, almost all of the films have merit to them. From the wildly underrated "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" to the Caesar trilogy, there is much to love. That being the case, director Wes Ball had his work cut out for him with "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes," a film that had to pick up after the particulaly high highs of both "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" and "War for the Planet of the Apes." Against the odds, the wild son of a b***h pulled it off by embracing the past while moving bravely into a distant future.

"Kingdom" picks up several generations after Caesar's reign, with apes now firmly the dominant species on the planet and humans reduced to living on the fringes. The film largely follows Noa (Owen Teague), who is living a peaceful life with his tribe until the tyrannical Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) crosses his path as the ambitious ape attempts to build a new empire. It becomes a fascinating examination of differing ideologies within these newer ape societies (ones that have no recollection of human dominance), as well as a look into what happens to humanity when people long for an existence they never had.

Embracing the past while simultaneously building a future for new and old viewers alike is what so many franchises say they want to do. It's easier said than done. That's precisely what Ball accomplished with "Kingdom" though, a movie that is rewarding all on its own while also setting up a bright future for the "Planet of the Apes" series. From stunning visuals to crafting characters worth caring about, this is franchise filmmaking done right on every level. Apes together strong, as it were. (Ryan Scott)

Director: Wes Ball

Cast: Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Peter Macon, Kevin Durand, and William H. Macy.

Rating: PG-13

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%

"The Kitchen" sees architect-filmmaker Kibwe Tavares and Oscar-winning actor Daniel Kaluuya merging their powers in the best way. The pair's feature directing debut takes place in a (barely) futuristic London where public housing for the lower classes has been eliminated save for the eponymous community — and even there, citizens are subject to persistent police raids as the government tries to push them out for good. Tavares' architectural background manifests itself in the way the film's titular housing estate is visualized and depicted in bountiful, tangible detail, from its ground-level stores and eateries to the crumbling high-rise apartments and communal areas where locals gather to dance their woes away.

The actual story here centers on Izi (Kane Robinson), a Kitchen resident who's on the verge of moving away into a far more opulent flat when he encounters Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman), a boy who only just lost his mother ... and may or may not be Izi's son. More of a mood piece than a thriller (though the scenes where the police raid the Kitchen are intense and stressful in their staging), "The Kitchen" boasts the kind of naturalistic, subtle performances that Kaluuya is known for, which benefits this familiar yet moving tale of a reluctant father-figure struggling to do right by his — again, possibly literal — kid. What you're left with is a fine addition to the greater tradition of British sci-fi social realism that speaks as much to where we are now as it does to what tomorrow may bring. (Sandy Schaefer)

Director: Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares

Cast: Kane Robinson, Jedaiah Bannerman, Hope Ikpoku Jr, Teija Kabs, Demmy Ladipo, and Ian Wright

Rating: R

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

I'd like to think that Mary Shelley, sci-fi pioneer and the most gothic author who ever gothed, would be pleased to know that her novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" would one day inspire a movie about a teenager getting it on with a re-animated cadaver. The '80s-set "Lisa Frankenstein" plays as fast-and-loose with its sci-fi components as the many '80 horror, high school, and sci-fi comedies it homages. Lightning miraculously reviving a dead body buried in the ground? A faulty tanning bed that somehow makes a slimy, rotted corpse more alive? Look, it doesn't matter. The fantastical science in "Lisa Frankenstein" is just this audaciously off-kilter coming-of-(r)age love story's means to an end.

Kathryn Newton stars as the titular Lisa, a lonesome teen goth girl with a dark past who finds her soulmate in a revived nameless Victorian corpse (Cole Sprouse). This isn't just a superficial imitation of a warped, satirical '80s movie, it's a warped, satirical '80s movie in spirit. Armed with writer Diablo Cody's dark wit and provocative observations about the challenges of being an underage misfit (and not in a cutesy way, but in an "Okay, this girl is a certified oddball" sense), plus some deliciously wild performances and director Zelda Williams doing a better Tim Burton impersonation than Burton himself has done in years, "Lisa Frankenstein" will awaken your inner sicko like a bolt of lighting to the head. Huh, maybe its science isn't so fictional after all. (Sandy Schaefer)

Director: Zelda Williams

Cast: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Liza Soberano, Carla Gugino, Henry Eikenberry, and Joe Chrest

Rating: PG-13

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 51%

An ancient cosmic entity and the loneliest (space)man in the world cross paths on a distant rocket ship speeding away far from Earth. No, this isn't the setup to a groan-worthy punchline, but the oddball premise for one of the stranger and more esoteric releases of 2024 so far. Ordinarily, placing a giant spider-like being in close confines with a sole protagonist under severe mental distress would feel like the makings of a horror movie, but director Johan Renck's "Spaceman" (based on the 2017 novel "Spaceman of Bohemia") plays its particular tune at a much more fascinating and introspective pitch.

Adam Sandler stars as Jakub Procházka, a Czech cosmonaut selected for a special one-man, year-long mission to investigate a mysterious, purple-hued dust cloud that has recently invaded the furthest reaches of our solar system. If the scraggly beard and thousand-yard stare of Jakub's eyes don't give away the game, the frequent intrusions of past memories with his wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan) left to fend for herself reveal him for exactly what he is: a man running away from something. But when she finally decides she's had enough and abruptly cuts off communication, only the inexplicable appearance of an eight-legged intruder on his spaceship (voiced by Paul Dano) — and its endless questions about his past — seems to bring Jakub back to life.

What follows is a thoughtful and poignant attempt to make sense of our own imperfect lives, self-destructive tendencies and all. (Jeremy Mathai)

Director: Johan Renck

Cast: Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan, Paul Dano, Kunal Nayyar, Lena Olin, and Isabella Rossellini

Rating: R

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 52%

"Ultraman: Rising" avoids the usual pitfalls of American adaptations of Japanese properties by keeping the action in Japan and featuring a cast made up of Japanese-American voice actors, which makes the film feel like a new entry in the original franchise rather than a forced attempt to bring the eponymous character to the U.S. There are also a ton of references to multiple iterations of Ultraman, different kaiju, and other tokusatsu properties to entice longtime "Ultraman" fans. And yet, at the same time, this is the perfect movie to watch if you've never even heard of Ultraman before.

A big part of what makes "Ultraman: Rising" work is that it offers an effectively self-contained story of a man finding himself and realizing the meaning of being a hero, while at the same time being a heartwarming (and funny) story of fatherhood co-starring the cutest alien baby since Grogu. However, in addition to all that, it's utterly stunning to behold. The film's animated kaiju behave like they are real people wearing monster suits, with the wizards at ILM doing their part to make this one of the most gorgeous-looking movies of the year. On top of its use of color and lighting, which is unparalleled in either live-action or animation these days, the film possesses a keen understanding of iconography and utilizes character poses that are straight out of a manga or anime. Together, it makes for a striking and memorable watch that fans of superheros and kaiju alike will appreciate. (Rafael Motamayor)

Director: Shannon Tindle

Cast: Christopher Sean, Tamlyn Tomita, Gedde Watanabe, Julia Harriman, Keone Young

Rating: PG

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%