If you’re reading this list, chances are at some point in your life you’ve held a toy spaceship in your hands and steered it gracefully through the air, banking left and right, while making engine noises (“Kschchchch,” “Wrrrrrrreeeeeeeaaaar!”) and laser noises (“Pfew, pfew,” “Tschew!”). That’s because ships in sci-fi movies can be so crazy cool. That’s part of the fun of watching them: seeing which new designs special effects teams have come up with, or what old favorites have been updated.

Most of these ships are spacecraft, but sci-fi ships can also go underwater or even inside the human body. There are malicious, invading alien crafts and benevolent alien ships; massive vessels that hold thousands of people, and little one-seaters. But they’re all awesome in their own way.

Here are the 14 Most Iconic Ships To Ever Appear in Science Fiction Movies.

14. KLINGON BIRD OF PREY FROM STAR TREK

One look at the Klingon Bird of Prey warship and you can’t help but think you best turn away and run as fast as you can. Or else open fire immediately. Because it, like just about anything Klingon, does not look friendly – especially when it has lowered its wings, primed for attack, with weapons pointed forward, ahead of everything else.

Interestingly, when it was designed for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, it was originally going to be a Romulan vehicle, and the feather designs remained on its wings as a result. Also because of this, it’s the first of many Klingon vessels to have a cloaking device. It went on to be a hugely popular design, appearing in five films and two TV series.

13. JUPITER II FROM LOST IN SPACE

Okay, this is a film list, not a TV list. Certainly the most iconic version of this ship was featured in the 1965-’68 television series, Lost in Space: the more numerically named Jupiter 2. It basically looked like your typical 1950s flying saucer. But it more or less does make an appearance in the 1998 movie, as Jupiter I, the vehicle that launched Jupiter II into orbit. Have we confused you with the names yet? And Netflix is evidently preparing to reboot the series, so we’ll certainly have yet another version of Jupiter 2/II. Jupiter Dos, maybe? Jupiter 2.2?

The film version was fairly slick in its own right, much more streamlined and oval, but still retaining the essential saucer shape. The movie itself was nothing to write home about, sucking the campy humor out of original series and taking itself way too seriously. But at least they made some nods to the original, including that Jupiter 2-ish Jupiter I.

12. SERENITY FROM SERENITY

The Serenity is central to the plots of both the short-lived but acclaimed TV series Serenity. After all, the titles of both refer to the ship (Firefly is the class of the ship). Series creator Joss Whedon helped design the relatively small transport vessel, and he has described it as the 10th character in the series.

It has the look of a stocky, short-winged bird, bulky enough to fit the cargo that its owner, Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) acquires. Unlike many awesome sci-fi ships, Serenity isn’t exactly prepared for a fight – it’s unarmed and can either zoom out of harm’s way or deploy decoys. As much as Mal and fans love this ship, it garners sneers from most others within the show and movie, constantly referred to as “crap,” “garbage” or “junk.”

11. THE MOTHERSHIP FROM INDEPENDENCE DAY

Independence Day (1999) is overflowing with giant spacecraft. Most of them are relatively small “city destroyers.” And when we say “relatively small,” we’re talking about 15 miles wide – so they’re small only relative to the ridiculous mothership, which is one quarter of the size of the Earth’s moon. That would be about 500 miles long. 500 miles. That’s crazy talk.

But within the narrative of the film, it’s all too true. It lurks in orbit, hiding behind the moon, while the city destroyers blanket cities around the world with their gigantic shadows. The mothership features a fairly traditional domed saucer for the top half, but adds two long sort of flippers dangling beneath. As horrifying as it is, however, it proves highly susceptible to human technology. But those aliens and their nasty ships will be back this summer in Independence Day: Resurgence.

10. TIE FIGHTER FROM STAR WARS

There’s no denying that the TIE fighter casts a bit of a strange visage: a ball sandwiched between two much wider, taller s. We’re not used to seeing flying vehicles with vertical wings like that. But somehow it works. The favorite short-range fighter ship of Star Wars bad guys for decades (in the movies, we see them from A New Hope, all the way up to The Force Awakens), they’re speedy little buggers with twin engines and two laser cannons, that swarm around like bees, attacking their foes.

We see a few different versions of TIEs in the films, from the standard flat ships, to Darth Vader’s intimidating TIE Advanced x1 with its bent s, to Return of the Jedi’s TIE Interceptor, with its bent and split s.

9. DISCOVERY ONE FROM 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

In a world familiar with flying saucers as science-fiction spacecraft, and monolithic rockets as real-life spacecraft, Discovery One was an interesting combination of the two. It had that narrow, elongated middle, reminiscent not only of the real-life rockets, but also of the monolith at the center of 2001: A Space Odyssey. But it also had the more saucer-like orb at the front. And then there was the rear propulsion section that had to have heavily influenced the huge transport ships we’d see a few years later in Star Wars: A New Hope – and, really, the orb is reminiscent of the Death Star, too.

Inside Discovery One, all was very white and clean and sparse, with hits of red. But it also became a creepy, lonely place when the ship’s even more iconic computer, HAL 9000, started to go loopy and tried to kill everyone on board.

8. NAUTILUS FROM 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA

The Nautilus first captured the imaginations of people around the world in the late 19th century, thanks to Jules Verne’s novels 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island, and the name actually comes from what many consider to be the first real-life practical submarine. In the books, its shape was described as cigar-like, which is pretty much your standard sub, but that’s not the shape we know and love.

No, it’s the 1954 movie version that we love. This nuclear-powered behemoth is still essentially cylindrical, but takes on the shape of a marlin or other pointy-nosed fish, with a narrow point at the front, a tail fin, and an “eye” toward the top front for observation. The film won the Oscar for Best Special Effects in part for this creation, which has become so iconic that it has had its own ride at Disney parks, and eBay is filled with collectibles based on its fishy facade.

7. PROTEUS FROM FANTASTIC VOYAGE

In the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, scientists have figured out how to shrink people and objects to minuscule sizes, but only for a limited time. Shortly after another scientist comes up with a way to shrink things indefinitely, he’s nearly assassinated and left in a coma. So they put a bunch of doctors, scientists and CIA agents in a submarine, shrink them and inject them into the scientist, with one hour to save his life. After that hour, the sub would revert to normal size, which, needless to say, wouldn't work out well for the scientist.

Proteus is that sub. It looks like part motor boat, part spaceship and part trilobite. A full size (42 feet by 23 feet) version was designed by Harper Goff, who also built the Nautilus in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. They filmed interiors inside the actual sub, while three smaller prop models were used for some exteriors. Oddly, the smallest (1-1/2 inches) was stolen by a crow, which flew off with it. Ultimately, after the heroes escape, the Proteus is destroyed by white blood cells and is left, in pieces, inside the scientist's body – which should revert to normal size after the hour, but they inexplicably don’t.

6. DERELICT FROM ALIEN

The Derelict is definitely one of the creepier ships on this list. It looks like the arms of some horrific creature coming to grab you and never let go until there’s nothing left of you to let go of. Indeed, Alien director Ridley Scott wanted the ship to feel like “a dark, old haunted house.” Inside, it was just as foreboding, with confusing, steep ages, skeletal walls, and, of course, a fossilized human body.

It broadcast a distress signal, luring the crew of the Nostromo, another fairly iconic ship, to the moon on which it had crashed thousands of years earlier. Ultimately, it’s revealed that the Derelict is filled with alien eggs, which was not good news for the curious crew of the Nostromo.

5. STAR DESTROYER FROM STAR WARS

Who can forget that opening shot from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope? It’s the classic “there’s always a bigger fish” scenario, as we first see the big Rebel ship, Tantive IV. But it’s being shot at. By what? One of the biggest ships you’ve ever seen on film, the behemoth flying arrowhead that is a Star Destroyer. Specifically, we’re talking about the Imperial-class Star Destroyer.

Even though the Super Star Destroyer (which we saw in Return of the Jedi) was mind-bogglingly bigger than this one, the Imperial class was a ridiculous 5,250 feet long and boasted an endless supply of mega-powerful weapons. It was so powerful, that C-3PO memorably whined, “Sir, the odds of surviving a direct assault on an Imperial Star Destroyer…,” to which Leia told him to shut up.