More so than most other genres, sci-fi has the capacity to create visually arresting images, and some of the genre’s most beautiful movies are truly awe-inspiring. Sci-fi’s immense scope means that filmmakers can imagine worlds beyond our comprehension, either in the hypothetical reaches of distant galaxies or centuries in the future. Anything is possible in sci-fi, so filmmakers often pay close attention to the visuals.

Many of the great masterpieces of sci-fi rank among the most beautiful movies ever made, since the genre offers filmmakers a large canvas to work with. The grand expanse of outer space and the brilliant sheen of new technologies are both inherently appealing, but the most interesting sci-fi movies also find unique ways of visualizing abstract and hypothetical concepts that make them hard to forget.

10

Avatar (2009)

James Cameron’s Eye For The Extraordinary Has Always Suited Sci-Fi

Avatar quickly shattered every box office record possible when it was first released. While the storytelling and the performances are both important, a large portion of Avatar‘s success can be attributed to James Cameron’s eye for spectacle. His box office numbers show that he’s always been aligned with what audiences want to see, and he made Avatar into a must-see cinematic experience. It’s worth noting that Avatar utilized 3-D technology better than any other movie at the time.

Avatar takes place on the distant planet of Pandora, where humans arrive to discover a thriving ecosystem waiting to be explored. Of course, the tension between the beauty of this biome and the human urge to exploit it for profit is what drives the narrative forward. It’s important to the environmentalist themes that Cameron makes Avatar a sight to behold, even if the military men jostling for position never see it that way. The Way of Water continued the good work of the first movie, and Avatar: Fire and Ash looks set to reveal more corners of Pandora.

9

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

George Miller Takes His Franchise To The Next Level

The Mad Max franchise lay dormant for 30 years, but George Miller brought it back in style, creating a sequel that was bigger, more exciting and more visually stunning than anything that preceded it. Fury Road has been praised as one of the best action movies of the 21st century, but it never neglects its duty to the sci-fi genre. The worldbuilding of the wasteland is remarkable, hinting at a complex and barbaric society that Fury Road presents just a small slice of.

Mad Max: Fury Road is more vibrant and colorful than most modern blockbusters, but its burnt oranges and yawning blue skies offer more than mere spectacle. Miller creates an immersive reality that bristles with energy. While other dystopian sci-fi movies paint with washed-out grays, Fury Road feels closer to our own world at times. This sets the scene for some intense chases across the desert, with Miller’s camera swirling around the action like the watchful eye of fate.

8

Ad Astra (2019)

James Gray’s Underrated Space Saga Ponders Over Gorgeous Images

Ad Astra deserves more love, but it probably suffered from an overabundance of space exploration movies in the 2010s. After Gravity, The Martian, Interstellar, First Man and more, James Gray’s slow-paced drama came right at the tail end of a long sci-fi trend. Ad Astra still manages to set itself apart from these other movies, since it’s far slower and more ponderous. It isn’t a riveting space adventure at all. It’s more delicate, and it requires some patience.

Ad Astra is a strange blend of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and 2001: A Space Odyssey, as the plot follows a man across the solar system, trying to bring his father back from a rogue exploratory mission. Visually, it also borrows heavily from 2001, but with the benefit of more advanced technology. Like 2001, Ad Astra has the patience to sit silently amidst the grand ballet of outer space, highlighting the tranquility and isolation of space travel, and what it means for humanity.

7

Her (2013)

Her Imagines A Beautiful And Plausible Future

Sci-fi has all of time and space to explore, but Her stands tall next to the genre’s most beautiful creations with a small-scale Earthbound story. Joaquin Phoenix stars as a man who falls in love with an artificially intelligent software in an eerily near future. As time pᴀsses, Her seems to be more and more prophetic, but its gorgeous retrofuturist vision of the future is unique.

Her takes place in the future, but it often looks like midcentury America, with high-waisted trousers and portable devices which resemble cigarette cases and compact mirrors. Other movies imagine the future with clean lines and pristine white surfaces, but Her is much more recognizable. Spike Jonze has a delicate technique of framing his subjects in this beautifully crafted society to hint at a much larger world.

6

Interstellar (2014)

Interstellar Could Be Nolan’s Most Breathtaking Movie

Although Interstellar isn’t often ranked as one of Christopher Nolan’s very best movies, it can stake a claim to being the most beautiful. As Nolan’s career has progressed, he has developed a reputation for his cerebral blockbusters, and Interstellar embodies this idea. It’s a complex and thought-provoking story about time travel, legacy and regret, but it’s also frequently breathtaking.

Interstellar‘s space travel scenes are wonderfully choreographed, with ships filmed at great distances to create a dissonance between the scale of the existential threat to humanity and the deeply personal character-driven drama. Whether Nolan is filming his subjects from within the claustrophobic confines of a ship or from hundreds of miles above, each sH๏τ is designed to convey awe and emotion at once. The more abstract sequences are also beautifully rendered.

5

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

A Divisive Movie, But A Visually Arresting One

The Last Jedi is responsible for a lot of the current division in the Star Wars fan base, since Rian Johnson’s radical approach brought plenty of new ideas to the franchise while tearing up the gameplan drawn up by The Force Awakens. However, whether fans love or hate The Last Jedi‘s story, its cinematography and visual design are worth applauding. The Last Jedi‘s experimental streak extends to its visuals.

Many of the most controversial moments in The Last Jedi are also the most beautiful, like the “Holdo maneuver” and the fight in the throne room after Supreme Leader Snoke’s abrupt death. Even the meandering subplot about Finn and Rose visiting Canto Bight is visually rich, with an eye-popping number of inventive new aliens reminiscent of Mos Eisley Cantina. For better or worse, The Last Jedi dares to be different. The Star Wars franchise is finally set to return to theaters with The Mandalorian and Grogu in 2026.

4

Annihilation (2018)

Alex Garland Brings Some Interesting Ideas To A Novel That Can Be Hard To Visualize

Annihilation is based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer, but it’s a very loose adaptation. This is partly because some of the ideas in VanderMeer’s book are intentionally difficult to visualize and understand. He imagines a creature made entirely of light and noise, and a character who feels a strange “glow” inside of them that manifests in bizarre ways. Its credit to Alex Garland’s imagination that he manages to extract the novel’s sense of ambiguous horror while coming up with his own original ideas.

The obscure meaning of Annihilation is tied to the haunting imagery. It’s often not worth trying to decipher every new discovery through the lens of visual metaphor, since the characters are just as bewildered as Garland wants his audience to be. This procession of beautiful yet perverse imagery creates an inescapable feeling of dread, and it leaves a lingering mystery after the credits roll. The cryptic story is worth watching again, but the visuals are just as appealing.

3

WALL-E (2008)

WALL-E Is As Stunning As Any Live-Action Movie

Animation and sci-fi both have limitless potential to create otherworldly images, and WALL-E represents the ultimate synthesis of form and genre. The animation style is often more realistic than most other Pixar movies, especially when it pulls back to show WALL-E trundling through the ruins of an abandoned Earth or floating in outer space. Few animated movies have the power to create such awe-inspiring images.

WALL-E is one of Pixar’s best movies, and certainly one of the studio’s most ambitious offerings. It heaps a lot of emphasis on the visuals, since the main character barely utters a word and there are long stretches without any dialogue. The intelligence of the visual storytelling helps keep the pace up, and the spectacular setting ensures that WALL-E‘s world is one that audiences are willing to spend plenty of time in.

2

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Denis Villeneuve’s Sci-Fi Pedigree Shines Through

Over the last decade, Denis Villeneuve has established himself as one of the finest directors of sci-fi movies in Hollywood; specifically, one with an innate feeling for the genre’s potential for the spectacular. Blade Runner 2049 accomplishes the seemingly impossible task of creating a suitable sequel to one of the most influential sci-fi movies ever made. It retains the sense of scale that Ridley Scott brought to the original, and it expands on it in continually inventive ways.

Blade Runner 2049 offers a more detailed look at the muddled cityscape that the original movie only glimpses at, but it’s just as aesthetically interesting at street level. Like in Arrival and both Dune movies, Villeneuve creates large, imposing structures to dwarf his characters, and he works his magic at every scale. Blade Runner was a tough act to follow, but Villeneuve honored the original while creating something new.

1

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Stanley Kubrick’s Masterpiece Continues To Set The Agenda For The Sci-Fi Genre

2001: A Space Odyssey has shaped sci-fi movies for decades, especially in terms of the genre’s aesthetics of outer space. Kubrick’s clinical, slow-moving ships echo in everything from Star Wars to The Martian, so it can be hard to understand how innovative and fresh the idea was at the time. The orchestral music ensures that 2001 is as beautiful to listen to as it is to watch.

Beyond its epic sense of scale, 2001 is famous for conjuring a steady stream of wondrous and puzzling images. The enormous space baby, the stark white H๏τel and the towering monoliths are all designed to inspire awe, even if people looking for simple answers may be disappointed. 2001 stretches from the dawn of humanity to the furthest reaches of human consciousness, so it’s apt that it does so with a sense of grandeur.