8 Best Hard Sci-Fi Movies of the 2020s, Ranked

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Published Jun 28, 2026, 2:49 PM EDT

Remus is a writer, editor, journalist, and author with an eye for detail and an extremely active imagination. He is an enthusiast of everything to do with the graphic medium, whether it's Western comics and their adaptations or manga and anime. Remus is also the author of the sci-fantasy novel Once Upon a Time in Hyperspace and several works of short fiction in the mystery, comedy, and horror genres.

Between a global pandemic, a rapidly changing cultural landscape, and tech overload, the sci-fi genre has grown leaps and bounds in the 2020s. From groundbreaking original concepts to old subjects revisited with a new perspective, the sci-fi movies of the decade have offered fans a wide range of titles to explore and ponder. Particularly in hard science fiction, cinema has taken a different turn this decade, with narratives shifting from the theoretically dense to more grounded, realistic depictions of concepts and theories.

Many of the hard sci-fi films of the 2020s also emphasize the human element of it all, reminding us that characters are often more significant to these stories than the stories themselves. The decade, as chaotic as it might have been so far, has proven that science fiction films are not just about exploring the unseen and unknown through a lens of grandeur. Rather, these films provoke the audience to ask questions about important issues that are shaping our world in real life. With that in mind, here’s our ranked selection of some of the best hard sci-fi movies of the 2020s so far.

8 ‘Archive’ (2020)

A British sci-fi drama written and directed by Gavin Rothery in his directorial debut, Archive stars Theo James as George Almore, a scientist in 2038, who loses his wife in a tragic accident and tries to develop an AI with human capabilities using her consciousness. But just as his latest prototype with advanced capabilities becomes nearly ready, George finds himself facing various threats from machines and humans alike. Besides James, the movie also features Stacy Martin, Rhona Mitra, Peter Ferdinando, Lia Williams, and Toby Jones in key roles.

Archive is simultaneously like and unlike many films of its genre, taking familiar elements and genre conventions and translating them into an intelligent story about grief, love, and artificial intelligence. Even if the plot moves at a slower pace than most sci-fi films, the movie keeps the audience engaged with its stunning visuals and compelling AI characterizations, capping it off with a shocking final twist. One of the most underrated sci-fi gems of the 2020s, Archive is praiseworthy for its production values and philosophical narrative, balancing hard sci-fi with human elements.

7 ‘The Creator’ (2023)

John David Washington as Joshua in 'The Creator'

A sci-fi action film directed and co-written by Gareth Edwards, The Creator follows the raging war between the human race and artificial intelligence in 2070, after the detonation of a nuclear weapon in Los Angeles. Former special forces agent Joshua Taylor is tasked with hunting down and killing the titular entity, the architect of an advanced, mysterious weapon that could end the war or the world. John David Washington stars as Joshua, with Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Sturgill Simpson, Allison Janney, and Ralph Ineson in supporting roles.

The Creator is an inventive sci-fi film that takes a very interesting and unconventional stance on the narrative of artificial intelligence and its threat to the human race. Underneath its hard sci-fi, dystopian veneer, the film is essentially an exploration of personhood, prejudices, and the morality of war. The film opened to great success in 2023, earning generally positive reviews from critics and various accolades, including two Academy Award nominations and a Saturn Award nomination for its visual effects and sound.

6 ‘The Matrix Resurrections’ (2021)

Keanu Reeves & Carrie-Anne Moss as Neo & Trinity looking in the same direction in The Matrix Resurrections

Directed by Lana Wachowski, The Matrix Resurrections is a sequel to 2003’s The Matrix Revolutions and the fourth installment in The Matrix film franchise. Set 60 years from the events of the third film, it follows Neo, who is trapped in a new Matrix as a video game developer believing his past was just a game, until a group of rebels with a digital version of Morpheus comes to his rescue and fights the new enemy. Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Jada Pinkett Smith reprise their roles from previous films, with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, and more as new characters.

The Matrix Resurrections might not have resurrected the appeal of the other Matrix films, but it does justice to its themes and genre with stylized action choreography and slick visual effects. The film is best seen as a meta legacy sequel with a focus on Neo and Trinity’s romance and personal journey, rather than a high-stakes cyberpunk thriller like the original trilogy. Despite its polarizing reviews, The Matrix Resurrections is still a thrilling and entertaining sci-fi action film with plenty of heart and a surprising amount of humor.

Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars

Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive.

💊The Matrix

🔥Mad Max

🌧️Blade Runner

🏜️Dune

🚀Star Wars

TEST YOUR SURVIVAL →

You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.

APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone.

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In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.

AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.

NEXT QUESTION →

What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of.

AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.

ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.

NEXT QUESTION →

Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.

AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches.

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Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.

AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.

NEXT QUESTION →

Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of.

AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are.

NEXT QUESTION →

What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.

AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In…

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

The Matrix

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things.

You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door.

Mad Max

The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you.

You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.

Blade Runner

You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either.
In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything.

Dune

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it.

Star Wars

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way.

You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

5 ‘The Beast’ (2023)

Léa Seydoux as Gabrielle Monnier looking at the camera in The Beast.

Loosely based on Henry James' 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle, The Beast is a French sci-fi romantic drama film written and directed by Bertrand Bonello. Set across three different timelines, the film centers on Gabrielle, a woman who agrees to erase her emotions to fit into the advanced AI-run society of her time, but in the process, she finds that her past, present, and future are forever tied to her lover across time. Léa Seydoux stars as Gabrielle, with George MacKay, Guslagie Malanda, Dasha Nekrasova, Martin Scali, and Elina Löwensohn in supporting roles.

The Beast premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, where it earned a positive reception from critics. The movie is a heavily layered, thought-provoking exploration of artificial intelligence, human emotions, and memory. With its surreal, fever-dream-like narrative style and themes of eradicating trauma and the pain and joy of love, the film is comparable to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, albeit much darker and with more complex sci-fi elements.

4 ‘Crimes of the Future’ (2022)

Viggo Mortensen and Lea Seydoux lay in bed in David Cronenberg's 'Crimes of the Future'

A sci-fi body horror drama written and directed by David Cronenberg, Crimes of the Future is set in an indeterminate dystopian future where the accelerated evolution of humans has led to new mutations and transformations. The plot centers on a famous performance artist couple, Saul and Caprice, who showcase the metamorphosis of Saul’s organs, while a group of radical evolutionists tries to use his fame to promote the next phase of human evolution. Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux star as the artist duo, with Kristen Stewart, Scott Speedman, and Don McKellar in supporting roles.

Not connected to the concept or plot of Cronenberg’s eponymous 1970 film, 2022’s Crimes of the Future is a bizarre, avant-garde film that combines visceral body horror and dark dystopian sci-fi elements. At the same time, it is also artistic and oddly elegant in its symbolic satire of the changing world of art. The movie premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and has been widely praised for its thematic brilliance and the standout performances by Mortensen and Seydoux, marking Cronenberg’s welcome return to the genre over 20 years after his last sci-fi film, 1999’s Existenz.

3 ‘Tenet’ (2020)

John David Washington's The Protagonist at a desert military base in Tenet

A sci-fi spy thriller written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Tenet follows a special-ops agent, known as The Protagonist, who is recruited by the titular secret organization to thwart a complex conspiracy. Using a time inversion technology, the agent travels backwards and forwards through time to stop a renegade Russian oligarch from starting World War III and ending the world. John David Washington leads the ensemble cast as the Protagonist, with Robert Pattinson, Kenneth Branagh, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, and Michael Caine in key roles.

The most high-octane sci-fi film ever made by Christopher Nolan, Tenet is a fast-paced, visually spectacular puzzle for fans to solve, that might often feel confusing, but is still thrilling nevertheless. The narrative blends espionage action and complex temporal mechanics to explore complex, philosophical themes like free will vs. predestination, morality, cause and effect, and more. Released during the 2020 pandemic, Tenet became the fifth-highest-grossing film of the year, and though it had mixed reviews from critics and audiences, the movie earned high praise for Pattinson’s and Debicki’s performances.

2 ‘Dune: Part One & Two’ (2021–Present)

Timothée Chalamet holding a blade while saluting in Dune

Adapted by Denis Villeneuve from Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel of the same name, Dune marks the second film adaptation of the classic space opera following David Lynch’s 1984 film, with a third and final part, based on Herbert’s 1969 novel, arriving in 2026. Set in a far future, the film series revolves around Paul Atreides and his epic, mythical, and emotional quest to fulfill an ancient prophecy, which sends him on a perilous journey across a harsh yet fascinating world. Timothée Chalamet leads the cast as Paul Atreides, with Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Javier Bardem, and more in key roles.

Unlike other films on this list, Dune is not entirely a hard sci-fi film, combining elements of space opera, science fiction, and mysticism in a minimalist storytelling style that instantly became a fan-favorite. Dune became a major pop culture phenomenon on its release, with the second part surpassing the popularity and success of the first. Both films have been praised for Villeneuve’s masterful direction, stunning visual effects, costumes, and remarkable faithfulness to the sci-fi literary classic, earning several BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Academy Awards.

1 ‘Project Hail Mary’ (2026)

Ryan Gosling in a ship in 'Project Hail Mary'

Adapted from the bestselling novel of the same name by Andy Weir and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Project Hail Mary follows Ryland Grace, a middle school teacher who wakes up alone on a space station with no memory of how he got there. As he tries to recollect his memory, he discovers that he is tasked with stopping a catastrophic cosmic event and runs into an alien lifeform in the process. Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace, with Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung, Milana Vayntrub, Liz Kingsman, and Orion Lee in supporting roles.

One of the most highly anticipated films of 2026, Project Hail Mary surpassed all expectations to become a phenomenal critical and commercial success. The sprawling space odyssey combines deeply human elements with high-stakes mission and high-concept sci-fi, joining the ranks of genre gems like The Martian and Interstellar. The film has since been hailed as a sci-fi masterpiece and is easily one of the best science fiction films of the decade so far.