The Best Sci-Fi Movie Of All Time, According To IMDb

Warner Bros

There are a lot of epic sci-fi movies that have graced the silver screen over the decades. From box-office-breaking dystopian sagas like "The Matrix" to mind-bending emotional masterpieces like "Interstellar," the genre doesn't lack variety, even at the top of its ever-growing library of content. But which sci-fi movie is the best? What movie (not TV series, mind you) is the absolute highest rated? What science fiction film rules them all? We went to IMDb to find out what their users had to say, and it turns out that a tried and true Christopher Nolan classic rests atop the list — but it's not "Interstellar" that shines out. It's "Inception."

The dream-sharing, secret-stealing thriller has managed to maintain an 8.8 rating on IMDB despite receiving a staggering 2.6 million votes. This steady chart-topping support puts it above other classics, including "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (8.6), "Back to the Future" (8.5), and "Dune: Part Two" (8.5). It even nudges the granddaddy big-screen sci-fi event, "Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back," which comes in at 8.7 with 1.4 million ratings.

For context in the larger world of cinema, "Inception" ranks as number 14 on IMDB's all-time top 250 movies list, with "Empire Strikes Back" coming in at 15 and "The Matrix" at 16.

Warner Bros

"Inception" was both written and directed by Nolan and has a star-studded cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio and including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elliot Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Marion Cotillard, and many others. The unconventional sci-fi film has a well-balanced plot dripping with suspense, intrigue, and action. Even more impressive is the fact that Nolan doesn't go out to awe-inspiring areas of space or explore uncharted galaxies to draw in crowds and tell his story. He goes inward to the deepest, innermost parts of the mind — places where dreams thrive and people die.

As Cobb (DiCaprio) and his team use their dream-stealing tech to infiltrate corporate targets, audiences discover that the farther the protagonists go into a mind, the easier it is for them to get lost forever in an endless, nearly timeless dreamscape. This makes the stakes of the film's climactic cognitive caper a desperate sequence that has audiences on the edge of their seats as each millisecond crawls by. In a sense, the entire third act takes place in an instant of time — one that leaves a pit in your stomach and the need to dissect the outcome with friends and family for hours on end. It's no surprise that this one wins out, as it masterfully blends the complexities of science with the relatability of dreams, all set in the context of one of the wildest heists ever filmed.