There are various things you could focus on when it comes to trying to define which sci-fi movies are the most realistic, because maybe a realistic sci-fi movie is one that gets predictions right. Or maybe it’s more important whether it felt believable at the time. Or a bit of both can be considered. Or, an outlandish idea can be taken and made to feel realistic.
There aren’t as many outlandish idea films below, with more of a focus on films that felt like they could’ve become true one day, or still feel like they might be eventually proven prescient. If you want science fantasy movies, then these are not the films you are looking for. But if you’re into hard science fiction, and sci-fi that keeps things realistic (or realistic-feeling), then you’re in the right place.
10
‘The Andromeda Strain’ (1971)
Based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name (and doing a solid enough job as far as adaptations go), The Andromeda Strain is about the discovery of an extraterrestrial organism brought to Earth via a crashed satellite. There’s also a great many deaths in a small town near to where the satellite landed, which raises the issue of things turning into a full-on viral outbreak.
Yes, it’s one of a fair few virus-related movies released in the decades before the world was changed by an actual full-on global outbreak, so whether that makes The Andromeda Strain more or less interesting nowadays… eh, it’s up to you. There’s a real emphasis on science here, more so than most science fiction movies, and that makes The Andromeda Strain a bit dry and almost too methodical in its approach to the premise at hand, but those qualities are also admirable, on the other hand.
Contact is easy to compare to Arrival (2016), which might well be the better film, but Contact is probably even more grounded, and it was also based on a novel by Carl Sagan, who co-wrote the screenplay, too. And Sagan was a scientist first and a novelist/screenwriter second, so it’s not too surprising, then, what Contact chooses to focus on narratively and thematically.
It’s about possibly finding evidence of extraterrestrial life, then looking at what might logically happen in the lead-up to making actual, you know, contact with said potential extraterrestrial life. It’s more than solid as a piece of science fiction, though maybe less engaging if you’re after something that’s more broadly entertaining or blockbuster-ish in nature (plenty of other movies out there like that, though, including some by the director of Contact, Robert Zemeckis).
8
‘After Yang’ (2021)
There’s a real lack of flashiness in After Yang, and even if there’s a pretty strong sense of drama throughout, it’s not really heightened or big in any way. Call it a slow-burn, if you want, or the kind of film that’s much more concerned with characters over narrative, but the approach works, so long as you’re willing to be patient.
Essentially, After Yang is kind of a family drama, but the family is made up of a married couple, an adoptive daughter, and an android son. The android starts to experience problems, which threatens the whole family unit and forces them to slowly confront the idea of life without – or after – Yang, the android. Lots of the realism comes from the scope being limited, so huge special effects aren’t really needed to showcase a different/futuristic world, and the way it’s all acted and paced. The lifestyle and family dynamic explored here both feel very natural and, for lack of a better word, real.
7
‘Gattaca’ (1997)
It’s not directly said when Gattaca takes place, but the setting is a somewhat dystopian one mostly defined by the fact that eugenics is commonplace, and all the genetic selection makes births that take place by more natural means rare. The protagonist, played by Ethan Hawke, was born outside the eugenics program, and so he is discriminated against and feels as though he has to work harder in certain areas of life.
From there, you can unpack Gattaca as something that comments on more present-day or past kinds of discrimination, or something that looks at the sorts of hardships that could occur in a future where genetic selection plays more into the act of giving birth. That’s all to say there’s a lot to think about with this fairly believable take on near-futuristic ideas/issues, and there’s also a bit to feel, when it comes to Gattaca, since there’s something of a love story in here, too.
6
‘Gravity’ (2013)
It was internally debated whether Gravity should even go here, since it’s more of a survival/thriller film that just so happens to be set in space, and not deep in space, either. It’s all rather mundane for something that could be considered science fiction, but it does explore the effects of the Kessler syndrome in a manner that has not happened to Earth… yet.
There are new things explored, to some extent, even if the spacewalk mission that goes wrong is pretty low-key, at least initially. It’s still easier to call Gravity science fiction than something like Apollo 13 or The Right Stuff, which do indeed go into space, but explore real-life things that happened as part of actual space programs. Anyway, Gravity has some realistic things (it certainly looks and feels real) alongside some inaccuracies, but there’s enough of the former to make it feel worth including here. It’s also an impressive ride of a film, not to mention one with a very satisfying and cathartic finale.
5
‘Moon’ (2009)
Anything that can be said about the premise of Moon runs the risk of sounding like a spoiler, so there’s your warning. The biggest reveal won’t be discussed, but you sort of have to hint at it, otherwise, it’s a movie you can only really summarize as being about a guy who is the only human being at a mining site on the Moon. There is also GERTY, who’s an AI assistant.
There’s a mundane sort of quality to Moon early on, and then even when things get a bit wilder and more outwardly sci-fi in nature (rather than being mostly a slice-of-life thing about loneliness on the Moon), there’s still an attempt to explore such stuff in a relatively believable way. It gets the balance right, with the whole thing being entertaining, interesting, unique, and eventually thought-provoking, too.
4
‘Ex Machina’ (2014)
Of all the movies about AI made in the last decade and a half, Her (2013) might’ve been better than After Yang, and perhaps even a little better than Ex Machina, too, but those non-Her films just feel a bit more real. Her’s idealism was nice, and maybe even still is nice, but something like Ex Machina, which has a more cynical approach to AI overall, just feels more realistic and/or believable, nowadays.
There’s a humanoid robot with advanced artificial intelligence in Ex Machina, and she ends up becoming alarmingly self-aware, posing a threat to her creator and another man who won a contest to see the robot in action before the rest of the world. It works as a sci-fi drama that builds tension enough to eventually also feel like a thriller, with it being engaging on all those fronts, plus lots of it feels genuinely convincing, too.
3
‘Primer’ (2004)
Understandably, Primer has a reputation for feeling like the most grounded and plausible of all the movies out there that deal with some kind of time manipulation, whether you want to call it a time loop or a time travel-related story. There are two guys, and they have a device that lets them experience time backwards, so as long as things are set up properly, being inside the device for five hours will lead to going back five hours in time.
There are so many interesting complications, dilemmas, and outright bizarre events that occur once the device’s capabilities are stretched, and the movie sort of dares you to keep up.
That’s simplifying things a little, but you do need to keep things brief when summarizing Primer in only so many words. There are so many interesting complications, dilemmas, and outright bizarre events that occur once the device’s capabilities are stretched, and the movie sort of dares you to keep up. Even if things fly over your head on a first watch, it remains compelling, and – as everyone says – the fact that Primer was done on so small a budget is also very much worth celebrating and admiring.
2
‘Children of Men’ (2006)
Quite a lot has been written about watching Children of Men some years after its initial release, and only a little is going to be written here. Put simply, it feels like one of the most regrettably prescient science fiction movies in recent memory, and maybe some of that comes from it being set 21 years in the future, which is, at the time of writing, pretty much the present, but even then.
Children of Men does have global infertility as the biggest problem its dystopian world is facing, and there isn’t anything in real life that’s as existentially devastating, but there are so many fears around various things in the last couple of decades that could destroy humanity, eventually. There was unease in the 2000s, when Children of Men was made, and it was a film with heightened unease, showcasing a worst-case scenario for what was then the near-future. Now, time has caught up, and the worst-case scenario feels a little more believable. Again, that’s simplifying things, but there are plenty of other think-pieces out there about the soul-crushing prescience of this film.
1
‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)
An easy pick, sure, but hopefully also a welcome one, 2001: A Space Odyssey is likely the film people think of first when they hear the term “hard science fiction.” It’s also successful in living up to the “Odyssey” part of its title even more than the “2001” and “Space” parts, though it’s certainly willing to tick those off, too. Basically, 2001: A Space Odyssey is about human evolution across a mind-bendingly long period of time.
Part of that involves the distant past, and some of it seems to involve the near future, while the center of the film is a little more concerned with events that happen in and around the titular year. While the scope of 2001: A Space Odyssey is much grander, it shares something in common with the far more intimate aforementioned Primer: rewatches of either prove very rewarding. Also, even if 2001: A Space Odyssey had some predictions that were off, they felt realistic at the time. And then there’s the fact that almost all the special effects hold up, keeping some of the film’s most impressive sequences still looking very much believable all these decades later.
2001: A Space Odyssey
- Release Date
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April 10, 1968
- Runtime
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149 minutes
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Keir Dullea
Dr. David Bowman
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Gary Lockwood
Dr. Frank Poole
