15 Best Sci-Fi Movies Of The '90s, Ranked

Filmmakers have been crafting sci-fi movies since the dawn of the artform itself, and the genre has always been powered by a mashup of ideas and visuals. Each new decade brought updates and upgrades (arguable) when it comes to visual effects, and for the 1990s, it came in the form of a heavy push towards computer generated imagery, or CGI.

Fantastic sci-fi movies can be made with minimal or even zero CGI, but as the list below suggests, it's almost always an integral part of sci-fi blockbusters. Big movies require big special effects sequences to help give life to alien spaceships, creatures, and landscapes, and both the films and filmmakers below trusted thousands of artists to deliver images that still hold up today.

Keep reading for a look at the 15 best sci-fi movies of the '90s.

It's July 4th weekend, but instead of celebration, there's terror in the streets of both the United States and the world. Aliens have descended from space and begun attacking cities around the globe, but they didn't count on humans having Apple products at their disposal.

Look, viewers looking to nitpick and poke fun at the script will have a field day tearing apart Roland Emmerich's "Independence Day." Get past that, though, and you'll find one of the last fun and innocent Hollywood blockbusters. It's a film aimed at spectacle, entertainment, and the power of unity, and it hits those marks with some still fantastic practical effects and a refreshing lack of cynicism.

CGI would go on to become the norm, but Emmerich and friends deliver epic destruction through the use of exquisite miniatures and very real explosions. Even today, three decades later, it still looks incredible, and the tangible feel of it all adds to the visceral impact of recognizable landmarks being turned into splinters. It's goofy and cheesy, but it's also an undeniably, fist-pumping good time that almost lacked the presence and power of Will Smith, thanks to racist attitudes.

Seven strangers awake in a strange room with doors on all six sides. The doors lead to other rooms, identical in almost every way — except many of them feature deadly traps. The body count rises, the group's cohesive nature breaks down, and only one will survive to escape the geometric nightmare.

Vincenzo Natali's "Cube" is a great example of how a single spectacular premise can carry an entire film. The strangers are trying to figure not only where they are but why they're there, and the film lets the questions simmer and stew. Is this hell? Is it merely a futuristic prison? Is it made by man or something... else?

Even if the film's ultimately leaves things a bit up in the air, the production design and visually engaging deaths — including one unforgettable death created with practical effects – will most likely thrill viewers. Each room looks identical, but the symmetrical nature of it all pairs its sci-fi sheen with some bloody demises, and there's a splash of cosmic horror about it all too all the way through to its final shot.

People are okay, but they can be made better through controlled genetics. What could go wrong, really? Vincent (Ethan Hawke) is a normie labeled in-valid by a system that values control and perfection, but he has a plan to fool that system.

While some sci-fi films go big with their themes and world-building, others tell simpler tales that merely tweak reality to appear futuristic (and like "Gattaca," they often do so on a tight budget). "Gattaca" belongs in that latter camp as it offers up a near-future where eugenics is the preferred path, and those without that lift are considered lesser than. It's basically a class issue.

Writer/director Andrew Niccol's feature debut offers up a compelling tale exploring issues we're all very familiar with in the present (and past, obviously). It finds suspense along the way, and its drama is well-crafted thanks in large part to a cast that also includes Jude Law, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, and more. The questions it's asking are familiar enough, but they're given renewed weight as very real possibilities in the impending future.

An alien being threatens Earth every 5,000 years, and only one weapon can stop it. Well, one five-part weapon consisting of the four known elements and one final, mysterious element. Things take a turn when the element (Milla Jovovich) swan dives into a cranky man's (Bruce Willis) flying taxi.

Luc Besson may be persona non grata these days (even after being cleared of controversial charges), but there's no arguing with his genre output in the 1980s and 1990s as both writer and director. The latter efforts include absolute gems like "The Big Blue," "La Femme Nikita," and "The Professional," with 1997's "The Fifth Element" being his last great movie. It holds up as a fun, thrilling, visually exciting sci-fi/adventure with some fairly surprising inspirations, including the philosophical writings of Plato?

Jovovich has a very physical role that's not asking too much of her acting chops, and Willis is having a blast in what amounts to an action/comedy filled with sci-fi trappings like flying cars, laser blasters, and aliens. Gary Oldman is also aboard with a terrifically unhinged performance, and Chris Tucker, well, he's super green. The world-building is fun, colorful, and borderline goofy, but it works.

Everything is going just fine on Earth thanks to a fascistic world government, but alien bugs are encroaching from outer space. The youth are rallied to fight this new threat as part of their duty to Earth, and while most will die, some will go on to earn accolades, which is nice.

"Robocop," "Total Recall," "Basic Instinct," "Showgirls," and "Starship Troopers." That's one heck of a five-film run and a clear highpoint in director Paul Verhoeven's filmography. That last film was his second box-office bomb in a row and enough to effectively end his Hollywood career, but time has been far kinder to it as viewers learned the movie had much more bubbling underneath its surface silliness and fascist energy, hiding whip-smart comedy and commentary in plain sight.

Critics and audiences missed its heavily satirical bent upon release, incredibly, but the film is now seen as a genuinely subversive blockbuster. It delivers its biting commentary alongside epic action sequences, gory deaths, cutting edge (for the time) digital and practical effects, and a sharp personality that keeps it all humming along to a patriotic beat.

It's the height of the Cold War, and a giant alien robot has crash landed on America's coast. A young boy named Hogarth befriends it, cares for it, and teaches it about the value of life and individuality. All is well until a fearful U.S. military comes calling.

Director Brad Bird's filmography features three animated blockbusters ("Ratatouille," "The Incredibles," and its sequel) and a fantastic live-action franchise entry ("Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol"), but for some of us, it's his two box-office duds that are the most memorable. "Tomorrowland" remains a misunderstood gem, but it's "The Iron Giant" that takes our focus here, despite it being failed by Warner Bros. on release.

The story follows two threads that ultimately converge, and while it's never groundbreaking, it's told with such warmth, beauty, and love that its emotions and thrills land with precision. The friendship between the boy and his robot is moving, and the fear of the unknown other shown by the military and some townspeople is all too real. It's a terrific film for kids and adults alike.

James Cole (Bruce Willis) lives a worthless life in an apocalyptic 2035, but he's given a chance at greatness and sent back in time to identify the source of a virus that wiped out most of humankind. The truth isn't quite what he's expecting, though.

Terry Gilliam's career has seen its share of ups and downs, some self-induced and others due to the fickle whims of fate, but there's an argument to made that at least a quarter of his 12 features are genuine all-timers. "Time Bandits," "Brazil," "The Fisher King," and 1995's "12 Monkeys" offer fascinating explorations into the past and future that often serve to comment on the present in unflattering ways.

Willis does strong work as a man moving painfully through time, and he's joined by a Madeline Stowe as a psychiatrist who's our portal into this world as she goes from skeptic to believer. Brad Pitt steals his scenes as an absolute nutter, but it's the impending, possibly unavoidable doom of it all that holds you rapt until the expectedly playful and downbeat ending (which we've explained here).

Jay (Will Smith) is a cop who captures a suspect only to discover that the guy is actually an alien. The realization lands him a spot in a secret organization created to handle cases involving alien beings on Earth. It's a wild ride about to get wilder as the planet's destruction might just be imminent.

There are plenty of great sci-fi blockbusters, but few are as effortlessly, casually fun as Barry Sonnenfeld's "Men in Black." Just as he did with "The Addams Family" and "Get Shorty," Sonnenfeld excels at finding the balance between character, action, and humor so that there's not a dull, down moment to be found. (The same can't be said for all three follow-ups in the franchise, as only two of them are really worth watching.)

He's aided by a stellar cast of leads (Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and his farts) and supporting players (Linda Fiorentino, Rip Torn, Tony Shalhoub) who play their roles with a pitch perfect tone. Of course, Vincent D'Onofrio outshines them all as an alien in human skin. Big laughs and fun action beats combine with cool sci-fi gadgets, characters, and set pieces for a wonderfully wild adventure.

Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a regular guy, a blue-collar worker who dreams of a more adventurous life. He finds it when an attempt at virtual thrills turns dangerous in real life (maybe) leading Quaid towards action, intrigue, and a deadly encounter on Mars.

"Total Recall" went through a long series of false starts — including one that would have seen David Cronenberg directing it — before finally finding life with director Paul Verhoeven and star Schwarzenegger. The end result is arguably the best it could be, though, as it delivers the kinds of practical thrills, effects, and action set-pieces that we almost never see from big budget studio films these days.

Dig into the film and its ending, and you have a philosophically minded commentary on the value of reality in the face of what can be imagined. Ignore that all together, and you still have an action/sci-fi epic filled with exciting fights, chases, and alien creations, all of which are brought to life through fun, imaginative practical effects. This is the kind of big, R-rated fun we used to deserve in this country.

The cast of a popular but long canceled sci-fi show about space adventures finds themselves aboard a very real spaceship with some very real aliens. The visitors have picked up the television signal, and years of watching have convinced them that the crew are genuine galactic heroes.

Comedic riffs on the world of "Star Trek" are nothing new, but none have managed to capture the magic of that nostalgia while also telling a wholly original story with fresh characters — except 1999's "Galaxy Quest." It plays off various elements of the real series to craft jokes and gags that pay off throughout, and everything from the script to the production design are spot-on. Even better, it's a rare positive appreciation of fandom in a world where fandoms have grown increasingly troubling.

The cast is every bit as perfect with Tim Allen hitting all the right notes as a William Shatner-type, Sigourney Weaver as a voice of reason, Alan Rickman tired of his makeup, Tony Shalhoub just endlessly blitzed, and Sam Rockwell worried about his role as an expendable crewman. Add in Rainn Wilson, Justin Long, Daryl Mitchell, Enrico Colantoni, and you have one of the most easily rewatchable films ever made.

Ellie (Jodie Foster) is a scientist whose life work involves the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and one day she picks up a signal. It captures the attention of the U.S. government and the world, especially when they realize the signal includes schematics for a vehicle of some kind.

It's been a while, but Robert Zemeckis used to make thought-provoking and hugely entertaining movies like "Back to the Future," "What Lies Beneath," "Cast Away," and 1997's "Contact." Adapted from Carl Sagan's novel, the film is a beautiful celebration of science, wonder, and the concept of faith through an atheistic lens.

The film has powerful things to say about our (American) response to science and religion, observations that feel even more relevant today, and it couches them in some very human characters and relationships. This is one of the most grounded films to make the list, and while it delivers thrills, suspense, and some whizbang visual effects towards the end, it remains a simple ode to looking up, looking out, and looking inward — to being endlessly curious about the universe and our place within it.

Thomas (Keanu Reeves) is an office worker who moonlights as a hacker called Neo, and his digital explorations lead him to two people — Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). They, in turn, lead him to a shocking truth about what he perceives to be reality.

"The Matrix" is one of those movies that ticks a lot of big boxes. It's a blockbuster, a franchise starter, one of the best action movies of the decade, an inspiration to a whole generation of filmmakers, and yes, one of the best sci-fi movies of the 1990s, too. The Wachowskis also ensured it's a film with far more on its mind than just entertaining thrills (not that there's anything wrong with that) as it explores identity, self-determination, and the idea that we get the world we accept.

The sci-fi framework the film rests upon centers around the idea that the world and life we know are mere illusions hiding a grim truth from our susceptible brains. It's a conspiracy that some people in the real world share, and it's given a smart, thrilling life here with an elaborate attention to its story and timeline. High tech meets heavy themes for the win.

It's been a decade since Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) stopped a murderous robot from the future from taking her life, and now she's incarcerated in an asylum. The robot has returned, but this time the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is here to protect her from a far more dangerous threat.

While the first film is a spunky sci-fi slasher, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" is an action masterpiece — as evident in its ranking on our list of the best action movies of the '90s — that dials up the sci-fi trapping all the way to eleven. The intricate nature of time travel, details about the future war with Skynet, the horror of future knowledge, and the nightmare that is the technology behind the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) all help inform a story about people, hope, and friendship.

Cinema is filled with fun, thrilling tales built on the back of time travel setups, and while the franchise that James Cameron built has since twisted itself into convoluted knots, this entry remains a high point. It connects its story to the first film in ways big and small without getting lost in the weeds of time travel mechanics, and it holds up.

It's the turn of the millennium, and there's both anger and uncertainty in the air. Lenny (Ralph Fiennes) sells videos recorded directly from people's brains, and his latest find reveals a conspiracy involving police violence and people willing to kill to cover it up.

At the risk of upsetting James Cameron by putting a Kathryn Bigelow film ahead of his, "Strange Days" earns this spot for its smart, thrilling, and hugely under-appreciated genre mashup. The sci-fi conceit posits a technology that lets people record their experience and for others to then experience it as if it's their own — think virtual reality indistinguishable from actual reality and with the bonus of experiencing the person's emotional state as well.

The core of the film, though, is a love story about people facing down fear and the unknown to come together stronger than they ever were before. Fiennes and Angela Bassett are a beautiful pairing who craft characters built on wholly human emotions, and it all comes together in the end in thrilling, suspenseful, cheer worthy fashion that really shouldn't be so hard to find and watch.

Science has finally cracked the big one and successfully cloned dinosaurs, and capitalism has jumped aboard with a brand-new theme park. What could go wrong, you ask, as you land on an island filled with big, hungry reptiles who haven't seen the light of day in hundreds of millions of years.

People like to pretend that characters in these movies are dumb for heading to an island featuring dinosaurs, but every single one of us would buy a ticket if "Jurassic Park" was real. Steven Spielberg knew this and crafted something special here with a blockbuster that understands that thrills and terror are balanced with actual wonder.

Numerous sequels have followed of varying quality, but none have come near that combination of fun genre thrills and frightening cautionary tale. The film never demonizes the dinosaurs or claims that science has gone too far, as it instead targets the hubris of humans thinking they could possibly control creation itself with a ticket price and a tall fence. Filled with iconic moments and images, this is the pinnacle of sci-fi blockbusters in the '90s.