The 10 Best Sci-Fi Action Movies in Film History

Action movies are awesome. Sci-fi movies are awesome. Put them together, and you’ve got the most irresistible combination since H.B. Reese put peanut butter in a chocolate cup. There’s a particularly potent chemical reaction between these two genres that tends to bring out the best of both. Many of the greatest sci-fi action movies of all time could comfortably rank among the greatest in either genre and often do.

In the interest of variety, and as a natural result of subjectivity, this list will be limiting franchises to their single greatest action-packed entries. Directors, with one very notable exception, will also be kept to singular examples from their filmographies, so just know that if your personal favorite sci-fi actioner isn’t listed here, in some alternate universe it ranked number one. Otherwise, buckle up for the ten best sci-fi action movies in film history.

10

‘Predator’ (1987)

Only on a list like this could an action classic like Predator rank so low. Or maybe lower if you’re among the snobbish critics who reviewed the film when it was first released. Take a random sampling of those reviews, and you’ll notice that the majority of them wrote this iconic film off as a dumb, dull action movie. Reading some of the downright hostile reviews makes it almost seem like they stopped paying attention to the film after 30 minutes. For that first act, the film does seem like any other ultra macho 80s action movie, like Rambo or star Arnold Schwarzenegger’s own Commando, but once its alien antagonist makes its presence known, it evolves into something else entirely.

The premise of Predator is superficially similar to Aliens, with a group of highly trained soldiers taking on an extra-terrestrial threat. The difference is that these aren’t the Vietnam-coded Colonial Marines, these are hypermasculine Reagan-era mercenaries. They take out a compound full of bad guys like an R-rated A-Team, but when they come face to face with Kevin Peter Hall under Stan Winston appliances, they get their asses handed to them. Schwarzenegger spends half the climactic fight running away, with his voice pitched so high through Predator vision, he sounds like a scared little boy. Predator isn’t some cerebral thriller, but John McTiernan definitely didn’t make a dumb, dull movie.

9

‘Inception’ (2010)

There’s some debate over how good a director of action Christopher Nolan is. There’s no debate that he can handle spectacle, and his editors have certainly played a heavy role in keeping the tension taut in his films, but if there’s any decent argument to the contrary, it’s Inception. Some critics and viewers have opined that a film set almost entirely in dreams should be far more surreal, like the animated Paprika which shares more than a few similarities with Inception. The reality is that Nolan’s dreams are merely an architectural design for him to a build a big ass heist thriller meets James Bond adventure.

For all the mind-bending theatrics of the film, it’s a very basic premise of a professional thief trying to pull off one last job so he can get back to his family. Everything else is window dressing of the mind, and it looks damn good. The zero gravity fight sequence is one of the most memorable setpieces of the 21st century, and the mechanics of the film really lock into place in the climax. Inception adds several layers of action and sci-fi elements to the heist film template. The action in Nolan’s films may not be as fluidly choreographed or as tightly framed, but it’s on a scale that far too few filmmakers are even able to attempt.

8

‘Ghost in the Shell’ (1995)

There are a number of awesome animated sci-fi action films that deserve some recognition. Superheroes qualify here, so The Incredibles and the Spider-Verse get some love. The Animatrix never gets enough love, and Redline is wild fun, but really there are only two films vying for the spot here. Akira is the first, and it’s a gorgeous anime that continues to influence, and the other is Ghost in the Shell, an equally iconic film which hits a little harder in the action department. It’s a kinetic, cyberpunk thriller that really highlights the specific strengths of its medium. Though there have been sequels, remakes, and different series, all of varying quality, there’s something about the stripped-down simplicity of the original that still hits hard.

Ghost in the Shell is dense with sci-fi ideas and philosophical concepts but damned if it isn’t a movie that doesn’t feel the need to explain itself. The central narrative, about a group of cyber cops hunting down a dangerous hacker, is straightforward enough in a tech-noir sort of way. Everything else, from the setting to its technology and the implications thereof, is implicit. With a runtime of less than 90 minutes, as well, the film absolutely whips by. It’s a tight, captivating sci-fi action movie with big visuals and big ideas. That’s why it’s been so influential to many films that came after, including at least one more on this list.

7

‘Minority Report’ (2002)

Tom Cruise is his own breed of action hero. He’s been actively engaged with the genre since the 80s, but has always stood apart from it almost as his own brand. None of his films follow a clear trend, other than Cruise’s increasing insanity and willingness to put his body in danger. Even his signature franchise, Mission: Impossible, went through a few identity changes before settling in by the fifth film. Those movies all feature some very sci-fi technology, but don’t officially qualify as sci-fi action movies. His firmly fixed efforts are, ranked in ascending quality, Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow, and Minority Report.

The 2002 sci-fi thriller benefits from the direction of Steven Spielberg, who simply knows how to stage the hell out of an action sequence. From a jet-pack fight, to a chase on automated cars, and Cruise hiding from robot spiders like kids from raptors in a kitchen, Minority Report is what an Alfred Hitchcock movie looks like in sci-fi noir clothes with 21st century technology. It’s got a wrongfully accused man on the run, but instead of being paired with a platinum blonde who Hitchcock can abuse behind-the-scenes, he’s teamed up with Samantha Morton giving an incredible performance as a child-like psychic. There are still some traces of the themes from Philip K. Dick’s short story, and the film’s tech was surprisingly prescient, but it’s a true thrill ride.

6

‘RoboCop’ (1987)

Paul Verhoeven made three pretty damn perfect over-the-top sci-fi action movies. Total Recall was another Philip K. Dick adaptation turned into a blockbuster, albeit a far more violent one. Starship Troopers was a deliberately satirical adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s sci-fi military novel that took some time for critics and audiences to warm to. They are both classics in their own right, but RoboCop is his superior invention. It exists in its own genre entirely, playing intestinal jump rope with tone and sincerity. Even awesome films like Upgrade and Dredd, which owe a blood-soaked debt to RoboCop, aren’t able to achieve its strange alchemy.

The action of RoboCop, on a surface level, isn’t anything brilliantly staged or particularly fast-paced. Robo is about as fast as a backhoe in traffic, and generally moves in a straight line to annihilate his targets with his oversized gun. What the action does have, is an absolute ridiculous brutality to it. Unlike the throat rips and exploding arrows of other 80s action movies, the violence in RoboCop knows it’s absurd. The sheer quantity and size of the squibs put on the actors in this movie turns them into bloody chum, and that’s even before a melting man gets liquified by a car. If you want fancy footwork or complex choreography, look somewhere else. If you want an entire factory turned into a cloud of cocaine, bullets and blood, watch RoboCop.

5

‘Children of Men’ (2006)

Alfonso Cuarón is another filmmaker that couldn’t be listed as an action director. He’s made films that have scenes of incredible tension and suspense like Gravity, or even chaos and violence like in Roma. Both of those films were predicated on the work Cuarón had done on the only film of his that could be considered an action movie, the dystopic sci-fi thriller Children of Men. The action in Children of Men is of a visceral nature, much of it captured through digitally assembled long takes. It makes it more white-knuckle than fist-pumping like some of the action on this list. Children of Men is an action movie the same way Saving Private Ryan is, there’s a reality to its violence that makes it hard to enjoy, but easy to be impressed by.

There’s a version of Children of Men that could have been made without any action. The novel it’s based on, by P.D. James, has no action to speak of and is focused on ore in philosophical and political debates. It could’ve made a very talky but possibly interesting sci-fi film. Cuarón is far more interested in having audiences experience the violent social upheaval that might result from the world of the novel. The political themes are broadened, based more closely on post-9/11 fearmongering and aggressive nationalism, and the plot is streamlined into the format of a thriller. It’s a breathless film that doesn’t have time to contemplate for too long, but which is far more effective for how harrowing its action is.

4

‘The Matrix’ (1999)

An action sci-fi movie that certainly wants to be contemplative is The Matrix. The Wachowski’s breakthrough film, which became a true pop culture phenomenon, is a mélange of philosophical debates, spiritual themes, and trans allegories. The film isn’t focused on any one of those things enough to express anything specific, but the implications certainly tickled many people’s cerebrums more than the average action movie. It definitely opened people up to the many philosophical influences that the Wachowskis had in crafting their film and launched a million different interpretations of its meaning. In that way, it also introduced many to the martial arts films and cyberpunk anime that were coded in its DNA.

Movies like Ghost in the Shell and directors like John Woo all inspired The Matrix, much in the same way Christopher Nolan and Inception would be by it. The film brought action techniques like wire-fu, that had been mainstays in industries like Hong Kong for decades, to mainstream American audiences. It also perfected bullet-time, which had been toyed with as a concept in previous disparate films, anime, music videos and even commercials. The Matrix funneled all its influences into one leather-clad action film that defined a generation of action films.

3

‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (1991)

Top 3 spots are reserved for the big guns, and nobody likes a big sci-fi gun like James Cameron. The Canadian filmmaker has only made two films that don’t fall into science fiction and only one of those, Titanic, isn’t an action movie. While that historical drama may have brought him prestige and Oscar gold, it’s not his best film. His two best films, in fact, are both sci-fi action movies, and they are masterpieces of the subgenre. The first belongs to Cameron’s own franchise, with the totemic blockbuster sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Where The Terminator was a more exploitation-adjacent sci-fi action movie wrapped over a slasher endoskeleton, the sequel was designed from the ground up to be a blockbuster. It’s got a more family-friendly Terminator, with Arnold’s iconic villain reprogrammed as a hero this time around to protect a kid protagonist who’s about as based in reality as Bart Simpson. It’s a corny movie, no doubt, but it’s got amazing setpieces, Linda Hamilton as a kick-ass action heroine, and Robert Patrick as the ultimate artificial villain. The landmark CGI is still impressive, and it’s mixed with incredible practicle effects and stunt work that make Terminator 2: Judgment Day a chrome-clad classic.

2

‘Aliens’ (1986)

Cameron’s best film is a sequel to a movie he didn’t direct. As fun as it would be to list Piranha II: The Spawning here, it has to go to Aliens. More so than the escalation that Terminator 2 brought, Aliens completely changes genres from its predecessor. The most discussed aspect of Cameron’s sequel is how he jettisoned the horror of the first film and inserted a thrilling war movie into its sci-fi setting. It’s almost taken for granted now, but it was a big risk that paid massive dividends, and set the scales for many future sequels. Also, often discussed is the film’s expansion of the character of Ripley, who truly becomes the full iconic character as fans know and love her.

Sigourney Weaver certainly gave a committed performance in the first film, but her character is fairly thinly written, enough that her actual gender was completely arbitrary. Cameron, as he is wont to do, fleshed her out with a backstory involving a daughter (in the director’s cut) and gave her new purpose with a surrogate one. Aliens is about mothers, and that’s what Cameron brought to it. The soldiers were already there in the almost non-existent outline given to him by the producers. What could’ve been a cheap follow-up where a few soldiers are picked off by another alien, instead became an epic action movie featuring the mother of all sci-fi showdowns.

1

‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)

While there’s some debate on whether post-apocalyptic stories always qualify as sci-fi, it’s still a speculative as hell subgenre and the original Mad Max was a dystopian film so Mad Max: Fury Road gets to smash through to the top spot. It’s a film that’s been endlessly hyped by action fans, cinephiles and critics alike, but which didn’t even crack the top ten highest grossing films of the year it was released. Financial success has no bearing on its quality, it just speaks to how monumental the entire Mad Max franchise is while still remaining slightly cultish.

Miller’s first film was a seminal Ozoloitation revenge thriller. One which helped bring Australian cinema international attention, except from most of America. The states were so out of the loop that the sequel Mad Max 2 was released under the title The Road Warrior. The film was a big success regardless, especially thanks to its relatively minuscule budget of $2 million. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome was the most mainstream entry of the franchise, with a PG-13 rating, a musical superstar as a co-lead, and a gang of kid characters. It would be three decades before Max returned, and he came back in the most streamlined, pulse-pounding, visually astonishing, sci-fi action movie ever made.