10 Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Released Since 'The Matrix,' Ranked

And since The Matrix came out right before the 21st century began, it’s not too surprising that various works of science fiction made after 1999 sometimes get compared to The Matrix. Below are a bunch that are either almost just as good, or occasionally perhaps even better than The Matrix, all of them having come out in the last quarter of a century.

10 'Pacific Rim' (2013)

Not really the thought-provoking or intricate kind of science fiction, sure, Pacific Rim instead works wonders as great escapist and blockbuster science fiction, and it’s emotionally resonant anyway, so the lack of things to think about doesn’t matter so much. It’s a movie about giant monsters invading Earth, and humanity fighting back through the use of giant pilotable robots. That’s all there is. That’s all you need.

In plenty of other giant monster movies, those monsters might be more frightening, but outside a couple of moments in Pacific Rim, they're not really, and they mostly just exist to get punched around by giant robot fists. If you're after something a little deeper, regarding conflict between humanity and monsters (including questions about who the gosh darn real monsters are), then you can find that in most of Guillermo del Toro’s other movies.

9 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (2004)

As it’s unnerving and all about break-ups, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind can count itself among the most anxiety-inducing romance movies ever made (but in a good/interesting way). It also counts as a sci-fi film because it’s about a procedure that allows people to get rid of memories of partners they used to have, which a once-happy couple does, but then regrets doing.

You're thrown into a collection of memories and someone’s mind, more or less, for much of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, with the whole film exploring some very raw and relatable things in genuinely unpredictable ways. It’s also a sci-fi film that benefits quite a bit from being rewatched, owing to how much there is to analyze here, though the fact that it’s rather heavy-going for much of its runtime does make the idea of revisiting it a little daunting. Daunting but rewarding. Redaunting?

8 'Gravity' (2013)

Gravity takes a simple premise and then makes it work, just because the filmmaking and everything that went into this technically is beyond impressive, not to mention complex. But again, the narrative is really just like a mini disaster movie (“mini” in the sense that there are only a few characters) set in space, with debris continually hurtling around the Earth and making the act of spacewalking incredibly dangerous for a handful of astronauts.

Since the focus is so narrow, you really do feel the terror of the whole situation, and it helps that Gravity also makes it all look so convincing. It was a movie best experienced back in 2013, owing to the use of 3D in a theatrical setting (perhaps the only movie to do 3D better than James Cameron’s Avatar films), but it’s still a relentless and exciting watch from what’s otherwise the relative comfort of your own home, nowadays.

7 'Mad Max: Fury Road' (2015)

Not many movie series have their best entry being the fourth one, but Mad Max is no ordinary movie series. Each of the five feature films so far have been directed by George Miller (well, he co-directed the third with George Ogilvie), and Mad Max: Fury Road is the best of them, and also not really one you need to see the first three to appreciate, owing to Mad Max movies generally being standalone. Furiosa could be the exception, but then Max himself barely factors into that one.

Tangents aside, Mad Max: Fury Road is amazing, and it also has no real tangents, since it’s just so direct a chase movie, going from A to B, and then back to A, with so much action and spectacle happening along the way. People do love to talk about this film and praise it pretty much endlessly, but such praise is well-deserved.

6 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' (2017)

Before anyone freaks out too much, it should be acknowledged that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is not a perfect movie, and it’s here because the writer believes the good parts outweigh the not-so-good parts. It can be appreciated as something bold and fairly new for Star Wars, which hit a bit of a rough patch as far as the movie side of things went, owing to over-saturation, in the 2010s. At least the TV side of Star Wars had Andor.

Anyway, The Last Jedi is the best of the post-George Lucas Star Wars movies, not to mention being the best-looking Star Wars movie of the century so far, too. It did some wild things that could’ve been built upon, in The Rise of Skywalker, but that film went backwards and so the whole sequel trilogy kind of face-planted on the finish line. Oh well. At least The Last Jedi was what it needed to be, within the trilogy it found itself in.

5 'Paprika' (2006)

Paprika is a real rush of a film, and could well be too head-spinning for some, though everyone has to accept that, to some extent, not everything can be understood here after one viewing. There are probably things here that even multiple viewings will fail to clarify, yet this is a movie about dreams and dream logic, or the lack thereof, and so a good deal of the confusion is supposed to be felt.

In Paprika, there is a device that lets therapists see the dreams of their patients, and chaos that unfolds when people who shouldn’t have access to such a device suddenly do. It does things that probably couldn’t be done outside the realm of animation, and so for all the creativity and bizarre detours found throughout, Paprika is very much worth watching (and, honestly, returning to, preferably again and again).

4 'Godzilla Minus One' (2023)

In 1999, alongside The Matrix, there was also the start of the Millennium era of Godzilla, with Godzilla 2000 (yes, called that even though it came out in 1999) being the first. That era ended in 2004, with Godzilla: Final Wars, but it wasn’t a finale for good, as since then, there have been several American Godzilla movies (all of them much better than the first American Godzilla, which came out in 1998), and also a couple of live-action Japanese Godzilla movies.

Shin Godzilla (2016) deserves an honorable mention, for being a pretty great disaster movie featuring Godzilla, but Godzilla Minus One is the probable highlight, for the character, of this century so far. It works incredibly well as something exciting, approachable, and genuinely quite compelling as a drama. The Godzilla scenes are as amazing as expected, but Godzilla Minus One also remains incredibly engaging when there are only human characters on screen, too.

3 'WALL·E' (2008)

Within the pantheon of Pixar movies, not many top the first three films in the Toy Story series, but WALL·E feels like it could be one of them. The studio had done plenty by way of fantasy before, and also some stories about things that don’t usually speak in the real world speaking (and having more feelings), but WALL·E was the first real foray into science fiction, and also stood as a kid-friendly post-apocalyptic movie.

It is that for its opening act, at least, which is almost devoid of any human beings and similarly sparse on dialogue. Then, WALL·E (both the character and the film) goes into space, and the movie becomes about trying to get the last remnants of humanity back to Earth. Along the way, it’s very creative, visually dazzling, emotional, and packed with a good deal of heart. It’s one of the most moving sci-fi movies ever, and also one of the very best, animated or otherwise.

2 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' (2022)

Successfully pulling off a sincere attempt to belong within just about every genre out there in a single movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once is gonzo and also surprisingly consistent and coherent, albeit being those things while playing by its own rules. Still, there’s so much here that’s resonant, and you can choose to get invested in the family drama side of things, or the absurd detours taken, or the overall battle to save every universe out there.

Or you can choose to enjoy all those different threads of Everything Everywhere All at Once, as overwhelming as that might be. You're not going to find too many other movies out there that have martial arts, gross-out comedy scenes, tearjerking moments, and a cooking raccoon, plus so many other things. Everything Everywhere All at Once also did all these weird things while managing to win Best Picture at the Oscars, so that’s also pretty cool.

1 'Children of Men' (2006)

Perhaps boring, as a pick for the #1 spot, but Children of Men really does feel like something special, and it kind of is just that good. It’s aging well, also, though since what it looked at regarding the future wasn’t exactly optimistic, it’s one of those things where it would've been better, overall, if it hadn’t aged well. The world would be in a better place if it could look back at Children of Men and laugh at it as a hysterical film.

But no. Its dystopian vision of 2027 is, in some ways, not too far off from the real world’s 2026, so there’s still a year for things to get a bit worse (that and, admittedly, global infertility would need to be a full-on issue for Children of Men to have predicted the future perfectly). So, this one’s not a fun movie, but it is a pretty incredible piece of sci-fi cinema, and also one of the most technically impressive films of the past few decades.