Entertainment
10 Greatest Sci-Fi Adventure Movies of the Last 25 Years
Much of science fiction takes us into worlds and galaxies beyond our own. While some find darker corners in the darkest reaches of outer space, some rousing efforts are all about adventure. Despite the high budgets that often come with high adventures set in space or the future, these movies have been around since the days of silent cinema. Ever since Georges Méliès sent a group of astronomers on A Trip to the Moon, audiences have been excited by the adventures that sci-fi can take us on.
The 20th century was host to numerous sci-fi adventures. Forbidden Planet, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park and so many more brought audiences adventures on spaceships, across time and with bioengineered beasts. The adventure didn’t stop at the turn of the century, though, and we’ve gotten plenty of sci-fi classics in the 21st century. In the last 26 years, we’ve gotten new adventurous editions of some of the all-time best franchises. The adventure hasn’t stopped in the 21st century, and these ten films from the last 25 years are some of the best.
10
‘Atlantis: The Lost Empire’ (2001)
As the Disney Renaissance came to a close at the end of the ’90s, the studio began to try its hand at lots of different genres, adventure chief among them. Gone were the lavish musical numbers of films like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, replaced by Tarzan swinging to the sounds of Phil Collins and the second half of Mulan that subtly shifted it from a musical to a war epic. In the 21st century, Disney added some sci-fi to this formula with two of their most underrated cult films: the sci-fi pirate adventure Treasure Planet, and the steampunk Atlantis: The Lost Empire. The latter is still one of the best Disney movies of the 21st century and one of the best to combine sci-fi and adventure.
Set in the early 20th century, the film follows cartographer Milo Thatch (Michael J. Fox), who believes he can find the fabled lost city of Atlantis. He’s given the opportunity thanks to an eccentric millionaire and a ragtag team of adventurers who bring him on a journey to the depths of the oceans. The action is high octane, thanks to co-directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, and it features a vastly different style to the studio’s previous efforts thanks to the heavy influence of Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, who also served as a production designer. Top to bottom, Atlantis: The Lost Empire is dynamite sci-fi entertainment.
9
‘Tron: Legacy’ (2010)
The original Tron was a landmark film in terms of visual effects technology, but had a more tepid response from critics and at the box office. Unsurprisingly, it became a major cult success with fans who fell in love with the dayglo circuitry aesthetic of the Grid. That cult following, coupled with the career resurgence of Jeff Bridges in the late aughts, led to the first major legacy sequel of the 21st century, aptly titled Tron: Legacy. It wasn’t exactly a blockbuster success, leaving the franchise dormant until last year’s low-rez Tron: Ares, but it’s still a visually astounding adventure across the digital frontier.
Decades after programmer Kevin Flynn (Bridges), the hero of the original, goes missing, his son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) receives a cryptic clue regarding his whereabouts. Sam is almost immediately digitized into the Grid, where he not only finds his father alive, but also his villainous digital doppelgänger Clu, who has designs on escaping his computer prison and spreading like a virus across the real world. Tron: Legacy brings back all the signature elements of the first film, from the light cycles to identity disks, and gives them all a new coat of digital paint. Director Joseph Kosinski excels at making digital effects feel tactile, making Tron: Legacy an incredible debut.
8
‘Star Trek’ (2009)
Despite his uneven track record, there’s no denying that J.J. Abrams can direct some spectacle, which is exactly what he brought, along with many lens flares, to his blockbuster reboot of Star Trek. Resetting the series with an alternate timeline, Abrams brought back the original series crew for a whole new voyage. Hardcore Trekkies may have taken major issues with the film and its liberties, but it helped revitalize a franchise that had been dormant for much of the 2000s after the failure of Star Trek: Nemesis.
In this rebooted timeline, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is a hotheaded cadet who’s got an antagonistic relationship with Spock (Zachary Quinto). After half of Starfleet is destroyed by the Romulan Nero (Eric Bana), Kirk and Spock must put aside their differences to save Earth from total destruction. There’s plenty of action and adventure in the film, which is pretty perfectly cast top to bottom, with every actor bringing new dimensions to their established characters. The film also makes room for Leonard Nimoy to return to his iconic role in a bit of fan service that actually benefits the movie. Despite a couple of diminishing sequels, this reboot is still stellar fun.
7
‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ (2014)
Most superhero movies qualify as science fiction. That definitely applies to every entry in the MCU, which came out strong in 2008 with the original Iron Man and dominated the box office and pop culture for a solid decade. It wouldn’t be until the franchise got into its second phase that it really started to embrace the more cosmic side of Marvel, with James Gunn‘s Guardians of the Galaxy. Still one of the best MCU movies ever made, this intergalactic adventure is chock-full of colorful characters, quick quips and lots of sci-fi settings.
In a far-off section of space, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) does his best impression of Han Solo and Indiana Jones by plundering a planet for an ancient relic. This mystical MacGuffin contains an Infinity Stone, and Quill quickly finds himself in a universe of trouble. In a space prison, Quill gathers a motley crew of misfits including Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (Vin Diesel) and Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper). The characters, and Gunn’s off-the-wall writing, are what make this such an indelible sci-fi adventure that proved the MCU was better off embracing the weirder corner of its galaxy.
6
‘Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi’ (2017)
Even though it’s been almost a decade, there’s still a fair amount of (completely online) controversy surrounding The Last Jedi. The film made major, deliberate changes to some of the most beloved Star Wars characters in an effort to release the franchise from the constraints of its past. That unfortunately led to a completely normal and rational online reaction from a very vocal set of fans that completely drowned out any reasonable discussion. Disney also ended up listening to too much of that reaction and towed a far safer line with every other film and streaming series (save for Andor).
There’s no opinion regarding The Last Jedi that won’t offend someone, so here it is: it’s the best Star Wars movie since The Empire Strikes Back. The continuing adventures of Rey (Daisy Ridley) bring us back into the orbit of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who’s become a miserable hermit after years of failing to find balance in the Force. She also discovers a hard truth about her parentage that promised a bold new direction for the franchise before being unceremoniously retconned. There are also a lot of subplots, including a casino planet, Leia (Carrie Fisher) flying through space, and that old devil Snoke (Andy Serkis). It’s a weird and uneven movie sometimes, but it’s also a fantastic adventure that offered new possibilities in a galaxy far, far away.
5
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ (2022)
Multiverses became a part of the mainstream pop culture lexicon in the 21st century, bringing the concept that comic book and sci-fi fans had been nerding out over in media for decades to a much bigger audience. It largely hit its zeitgeist apex when it was featured in the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once, an absurd sci-fi martial arts adventure that had more ideas in single scenes than a lot of Hollywood blockbusters had in their entire runtimes. Giving Michelle Yeoh a proper Hollywood leading role that was at least two decades overdue and featuring shining support from Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once gives you everything you want out of a movie.
Evelyn Wang (Yeoh) is a depressed laundromat proprietor being audited by the IRS, estranged from her husband Waymond (Quan) and with a strained relationship with her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). When Evelyn learns of the existence of the multiverse where she can inhabit her alternate selves, she also discovers her daughter is a multiverse maniac intent on destroying every last parallel world. The film can go from clever to overbearing to kick-ass and back again from scene to scene. It could all be overwhelming noise and nonsense, but directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert keep the story grounded, and Yeoh gives a full-bodied Oscar-winning performance.
4
‘Project Hail Mary’ (2026)
One of the best sci-fi adventures of the last 25 years also happens to be the best blockbuster of 2026 so far. Project Hail Mary is based on the hard sci-fi novel by Andy Weir. This newest adventure features a lone human scientist on a one-way mission to save Earth who teams up with an alien lifeform. The balancing act of humor and science jargon is handled expertly by co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who keep the tone as light as it needs to be and the pace moving. Ryan Gosling has more chemistry with a talking rock, making for one of the most unexpectedly beautiful bonds in modern sci-fi.
Ryland Grace (Gosling) is a middle school teacher and molecular biologist recruited to assist in a mission to study small organisms responsible for the dimming of the sun. Through a series of unfortunate events, Grace soon finds himself all alone on a spacecraft light-years from Earth. That’s when there’s a knock at the door, and he meets Rocky, the adorable alien voiced by James Ortiz, who also led the creature’s puppeteers. Grace and Rocky’s relationship makes Project Hail Mary such a fun adventure, but the film’s excitement towards science and the beauty of the universe should make any fan giddy as well. This hit is the kind of crowd-pleasing blockbuster that should be the rule and not the exception that it currently is.
3
‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ (2018)
Before Everything Everywhere All at Once explored the multiverse, and before Lord and Miller shot Ryan Gosling into space, there was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. While Sony can’t seem to get their act together when it comes to a live-action expanded universe featuring Spider-Man and his amazing friends, animation has provided a medium for some of the most inventive and visually stunning superhero adventures ever made. Into the Spider-Verse gave the Spider-Spotlight to Miles Morales, an alternate-universe Spider-Man whose origin story here comes with multiversal consequences.
Miles (Shameik Moore) is a gifted but distracted kid from Brooklyn who has great power thrust upon him after he’s bitten by a genetically mutated spider and witnesses his universe’s Peter Parker (Chris Pine) die at the fists of Kingpin (Liev Schreiber). He’s not alone for too long as he quickly meets more Spider-People from across the multiverse, including an old, sadder Peter Parker (Jake Johnson), Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) and even the hard-boiled Spider-Noir (Nicolas Cage). Into the Spider-Verse is the best Spider-Man movie ever made. It reinvigorated a character and franchise that had been booted and rebooted too many times, with a fresh perspective and a wildly entertaining sci-fi adventure.
2
‘Dune: Part Two’ (2024)
The most epic sci-fi adventure of the 2020s and possibly the 21st century so far is Denis Villeneuve‘s two-part (soon to be three) adaptation of Frank Herbert‘s seminal sci-fi novel Dune. Depicting the feudal conflicts that stain the sands of Arrakis red with blood, Villeneuve’s films brought vivid, visually arresting life to Herbert’s sci-fi world. While the first film was a slow introduction to that world and its characters, the sequel kicked things into higher gear with epic sandworm riding and visceral fight sequences. It’s a stimulating and overwhelming adaptation of one of the biggest sci-fi adventures in the history of the genre.
After the destruction of his family’s empire, Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) now lives a nomadic existence with the Fremen tribes of Arrakis, some of whom believe him to be their messiah. Plagued by visions of a future of destruction caused by his actions while haunted by the machinations behind his existence, Paul is ultimately led to his role as a messianic leader and is able to exact vengeance upon the Harkonnens, who orchestrated the violent overthrow of his family. Dune: Part Two is a sprawling story told with sprawling visuals and is one of the most immersive sci-fi films of this century.
1
‘WALL-E’ (2008)
Pixar’s robot love story WALL-E might be the studio’s greatest. It was Andrew Stanton‘s follow-up to Finding Nemo as a director, and it represented a quantum leap forward in terms of what could be done in mainstream CGI animation and what could be expected of it. So beloved was WALL-E and its success so overwhelming that it contributed to the Academy Awards expanding their Best Picture category to include more than five films after they infamously snubbed the animated masterpiece.
In the future, Earth is no longer inhabited by humans, who have long since left it behind to live in luxury on massive cruise liners in space. Still on Earth is WALL-E, or Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth-Class, a trash bot built to clean up the mess left by humans, but he’s the only one of his kind left on the planet. That is until the robot EVE lands, and WALL-E finds love, while EVE finds a boot with a plant setting off the more madcap back half of the film. WALL-E is a wonderful romance, a fantastic family film, and even a more pointed satire of our technological reliance than Stanton’s own Toy Story 5. It is also the greatest sci-fi adventure of the last 25 years.
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