These are the best sci-fi movies from the 2000s, spanning everything from climate disasters to post-apocalyptic settings, and even alien encounters.
The 2000s were a weird and wild time for movies. Technology was pushing films into a new era, society was rapidly shifting due to events like 9/11 and the Great Recession, and a distrust of politics and corporations began permeating every aspect of culture, leading to a decade of endless dystopian and post-apocalyptic movies and TV shows.
Science fiction was ground zero for this new style, with the genre shifting away from grand and fanciful space operas and instead focusing on issues people were becoming scared of. Climate change, disease, drugs, and warfare took center stage in the genre, making the 2000s an era of decidedly more depressing sci-fi movies.
But, beneath the pain and fear that gave birth to this decade of cinema, a few gems can still be found that were exciting, thought-provoking, and revolutionary. Here are the 10 best sci-fi movies from the 2000s.Signs (2002)
When viewed through a modern lens, M. Night Shyamalan‘s Signs hasn’t aged very well thanks to its crappy CGI, weird undertones of religion and grief, and Mel Gibson. But for genre fans, it’s still a fun watch thanks to its overdramatic scares. In the film, humanity discovers that aliens have arrived on Earth, and (for some reason) those aliens are now invading a small family farm in rural Pennsylvania.
By today’s standards, the aliens look atrociously cheap, but at the time Signs was a massive hit, grossing over $408 million at the box office. The movie became such a phenomenon that the plot of Scary Movie 3 was based almost entirely around Signs and directly spoofed the movie numerous times. For fans of horror and sci-fi, especially anyone who loves a good alien movie, Signs definitely deserves to be watched at least once.The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
The Day After Tomorrow was a massive box office hit, and also a controversial and polarizing film. The disaster movie is an exaggerated take on what happens after the planet experiences too much global warming, altering the ocean’s currents and causing epic disasters around the globe.
The Day After Tomorrow is both a cheesy and fun disaster movie, while also feeling eerily more relevant as natural disasters continue to be amplified by climate change. It was also one of the first major pieces of media that got the average person talking about climate change and its potential dangers, making the movie an important piece of history.Children of Men (2006)
Children of Men was a dystopian film that explored how fragile society is and how quickly it can fall apart. The movie is set in the year 2027, after two decades of complete human infertility. When one woman finally becomes pregnant, she must be protected at all costs for the human race to continue.
The movie wasn’t successful upon its initial premiere, despite being hailed by critics, and was a box office flop. It wasn’t until Children of Men was released on DVD that the movie found a larger audience and became a cult hit. Tackling issues of immigration, racism, fearmongering, and divisive politics, Children of Men has received newfound success in recent years, with many seeing correlations between the film and what is happening in real life, making the movie more relevant today than when it was initially released.
