Christopher Nolan's movies provide illustrious examples of sci-fi cinema that's elevated by confusion. When the director takes on the genre, the result is consistently brilliant but equally perplexing.
As Nolan has demonstrated, these types of films often produce the most complicated narratives. Some of the best sci-fi movies of all time earned their spot through a thoughtful presentation of hard-to-understand ideas. It isn't simply a matter of foundational complexity. Rather, it's about the director's presentation of a particular event and how they ultimately incorporate it into the story. That said, several masterpieces in the genre cannot be fully appreciated unless given a second watch.
10 Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)
Directed By Michel Gondry
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Release Date
- March 19, 2004
- Runtime
- 108 minutes
- Director
- Michel Gondry
WHERE TO WATCH
Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet star in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski, a couple who rediscover their love after erasing each other from their memories. The 2004 drama is written by Charlie Kaufman, directed by Michel Gondry, and includes Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, Kirsten Dunst, and Tom Wilkinson in its cast.
- Writers
- Charlie Kaufman
- Studio(s)
- Universal Pictures
- Distributor(s)
- Focus Features, Universal Pictures
Those who haven't seen Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are missing out on a brilliant film, but saving themselves from heartache. The movie explores the rise and fall of a relationship between Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet). After splitting, the two undergo a fictional procedure to remove all memories of one another, completely wiping the relationship from history.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind's ending is ambiguous, but significantly improves the conclusion. When the couple supposedly meet at the start of the film, it's actually the end of their story. At this moment, they are seeing each other for the first time after their procedure. This completely changes the context and circumstances of the entire movie before this point. It effectively puts the conclusion back into the hands of the audience, letting them decide for themselves if Joel and Clementine were meant to be. On a second watch, the perspective would be entirely different.
9 Looper (2012)
Directed By Rian Johnson
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Looper
- Release Date
- September 28, 2012
- Runtime
- 118 minutes
- Director
- Rian Johnson
Cast
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
WHERE TO WATCH
In the sci-fi action thriller Looper, time travel is possible, but illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a "looper," a hired gun, is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich as a Looper and life is good... until the day the mob decides to "close the loop," sending back Joe's future self for assassination.
- Writers
- Rian Johnson
- Studio(s)
- Sony
- Distributor(s)
- Sony
When someone sets out to create a time travel film, it's virtually guaranteed that certain aspects won't make sense. Some directors take the Back to the Future cause-and-effect route, while others tend to throw in more complexity. In the case of Looper, it's the latter avenue. The story imagines a society where time travel has been created, but it's only used by futuristic mob bosses, who send their targets into the past to be killed by hitmen called "loopers."
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Looper Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) gets sent a target, only to realize it's him in the future. The premise alone is difficult to understand, but Looper's ending ramps it up. Joe's future self (Bruce Willis) comes to the past intent on stopping a futuristic disaster by killing "The Rainman" before he becomes an adult. However, Joe doesn't realize that he is effectively creating the problem by trying to fix it. Privy to this, the younger Joe kills himself, thus saving the future and closing the loop. This initially seems insane, but with a second look, the action becomes clear.
8 Arrival (2016)
Directed By Denis Villeneuve
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Arrival
- Release Date
- November 10, 2016
- Runtime
- 116 Minutes
- Director
- Denis Villeneuve
Cast
Forest Whitaker
WHERE TO WATCH
Based on Ted Chiang's short story "Story of Your Life", Denis Villeneuve's Arrival follows Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a linguist brought in to establish a line of communication with an alien species that have recently landed on Earth. With the help of physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), Banks begins to understand more of the aliens' communications, and it alters her perception of life forevermore.
- Writers
- Eric Heisserer, Ted Chiang
- Studio(s)
- FilmNation Entertainment, 21 Laps Entertainment, Lava Bear Films
- Distributor(s)
- Paramount Pictures
Denis Villeneuve has more than proven himself as one of the most exciting filmmakers of the modern era. Arrival was the director's first attempt at sci-fi, and he didn't disappoint. In a beautiful story about an alien invasion, the movie follows the life of linguist Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), who is tasked with communicating with the other-worldly visitors.
Arrival is based on the Sapir-Whorf theory of language relativity.
As it turns out, the invaders, also called Heptapods, have come to teach humanity their mode of communication. The Arrival alien's language is read from both ends, meaning they also view time in a non-linear fashion. Thus, Louise begins to perceive events in her life simultaneously, both past and present. This allows her to experience meeting General Shang in the future, so she knows how to call off his attack in the present. Upon re-watching, Louise's assumed flashbacks make sense as future events, completely changing the dynamic.
7 Donnie Darko (2001)
Directed By Richard Kelly
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Donnie Darko
- Release Date
- October 26, 2001
- Runtime
- 113 minutes
- Director
- Richard Kelly
Cast
Holmes Osborne
WHERE TO WATCH
After troubled teen Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes on a local golf course after a night of sleepwalking, he has a vision of a man in a rabbit suit telling him that the world will end in 28 days. Returning home, Donnie sees that a jet engine has fallen on his bedroom in the night, and begins to feel increasingly detached from reality. Scrambling to make sense of the bizarre and unexplainable events that have altered his life, Donnie finds himself unravelling a tangled web of disaster and fate.
- Writers
- Richard Kelly
- Studio(s)
- Newmarket Films
- Distributor(s)
- Newmarket Films
It's a shame that Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko didn't make more of a splash upon its 2001 release, considering how high-quality the film is. After reaching the credits, audiences will almost certainly be left feeling perplexed. In a story of time perception, visions, and death, Donnie Darko uses its complicated narrative to its advantage. During the entire plot, the viewer is under the facade that the world will end in 28 days unless Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) does what the demonic rabbit Frank (James Duval) says.
There is speculation as to what Donnie Darko's ending means, but most theories agree that Donnie allowed the jet engine to fall on him, thus closing the parallel universe and saving everyone. Watching this movie again is an entirely dissimilar experience. It isn't that Donnie is creating the catastrophe by trying to prevent it. Rather, his actions will be seen as superfluous upon the second screening, since the only path to his loved one's salvation is through death.
6 Interstellar (2014)
Directed By Christopher Nolan
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Interstellar
- Release Date
- November 7, 2014
- Runtime
- 169 Minutes
- Director
- Christopher Nolan
WHERE TO WATCH
From Christopher Nolan, Interstellar imagines a future where the Earth is plagued by a life-threatening famine, and a small team of astronauts is sent out to find a new prospective home among the stars. Despite putting the mission first, Coop (Matthew McConaughey) races against time to return home to his family even as they work to save mankind back on Earth.
- Writers
- Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan
- Main Genre
- Sci-Fi
- Studio(s)
- Warner Bros. Pictures, Paramount Pictures
- Distributor(s)
- Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures
Christopher Nolan continued his streak of brilliance in 2014 with his sci-fi masterpiece Interstellar. A film that many consider to be one of his best, it's as emotionally provocative as it is convoluted. As Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) sets out into the stars in search of habitable planets, he begins to understand how his relationships aren't confined to time and space. Interstellar's ending is nearly impossible to wrap one's head around the first watch.
Cooper essentially goes through a black hole, which allows him to travel across time and space. At the beginning of the film, Murph (Jessica Chastain) claims that she has a ghost, which is ultimately revealed to be her father in the other dimension, sending messages back through time. Thus, Cooper sends himself the coordinates of NASA. In other words, he's the reason the mission took place in the first place. It's unquestionably hard to understand at first, but the movie demonstrates a marvelous approach to narrative creation and storytelling.
5 Primer (2004)
Directed By Shane Carruth
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Primer is a science fiction film directed by Shane Carruth, following two engineers, Aaron and Abe, who inadvertently discover a method of time travel while working on a side project. As they explore the complexities and ethical ramifications of their invention, they grapple with the unpredictable consequences that arise. Carruth also stars as one of the protagonists, delivering a narrative that intricately explores the paradoxes and existential dilemmas of time manipulation.
In contemplation of the best time travel movies ever made, Shane Carruth's 2004 indie sci-fi Primer is arguably at the top of the list. With a mere budget of $7,000, the film somehow manages to produce the conceptual depth of a heavy-hitting blockbuster. Primer is an example of a time-travel film that doesn't merely brush off the repercussions of moving into the past. The story follows engineers Aaron (Shane Carruth) and Abe (David Sullivan), who effectively create a time machine, but things quickly go awry.
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Primer is a fascinating time travel movie, but the story is way too complicated to fully understand even after several viewings of the film.
It's not about justifying what is taking place, but rather understanding why things are happening the way they are. Although this is an extreme oversimplification, it's alluded to that Aaron discovered the ability before Abe. He then created a fail-safe box that allowed him to travel back to the old version of himself, who he then drugged and replaced. But Abe had also done this, which created further, inexplicable problems. Truth be told, the plot is far too complicated to explain briefly, and it's most likely a film that will be more entertaining than understandable.
4 The Prestige (2006)
Directed By Christopher Nolan
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The Prestige
- Release Date
- October 20, 2006
- Runtime
- 130 minutes
- Director
- Christopher Nolan
WHERE TO WATCH
Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, The Prestige follows the lives of two stage magicians in Victorian London. Once colleagues, Robert Angier and Alfred Borden become hated rivals after a tragedy involving Angier's wife tears them apart. The two magicians each go on to have their own lives and careers while competing to see who can pull off a seemingly impossible teleportation trick. Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale star as Angier and Borden.
- Writers
- Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan
- Main Genre
- Sci-Fi
- Studio(s)
- Warner Bros. Pictures
- Distributor(s)
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Christopher Nolan's The Prestige is unquestionably his most underrated movie. People are sometimes deterred from giving it a chance, given that it's about competing magicians. This is unfortunate, however, since it's an expertly crafted story backed by a mind-blowing concept. Considering the setup of the plot, watching it a second time is necessary, if not encouraged. Without a doubt, the biggest twist of The Prestige's ending reveals that Borden's (Christian Bale) assumed engineer, Fallon, is his identical twin.
Both have been sharing Borden's identity, and this explains how he pulled off the transported man trick without Tesla's (David Bowie) technology. The ending additionally demonstrates how Angier (Hugh Jackman) had been duplicating and killing himself, but it wasn't clear which final form remained. Consequently, watching the film a second time will be a completely different experience. The truth is, the leading characters weren't who they seemed from the beginning.
3 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Directed By Stanley Kubrick
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2001: A Space Odyssey
- Release Date
- April 3, 1968
- Runtime
- 149 minutes
- Director
- Stanley Kubrick
Cast
Keir Dullea-
Gary Lockwood
WHERE TO WATCH
2001: A Space Odyssey is one of Stanley Kubrick's most well-known films. A science-fiction epic, the film tells the story of the journey of Discovery One, a spacecraft operated by a group of scientists, astronauts, and a sentient computer, on a mission to Jupiter to investigate a mysterious monolith. Considered one of the greatest films ever made, Kubrick combines sparse dialogue with the heavy use of scoring and ambiguous imagery to create something that eschews conventional filmmaking.
- Writers
- Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke
- Studio(s)
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Distributor(s)
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
In 1968, Stanley Kubrick seemingly advanced cinematic special effects 20 years into the future with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Often hailed as the director's magnum opus, it's arguably the greatest sci-fi movie ever made. Everything from the visuals to the narrative is exceptionally unique and hasn't been topped since. However, upon an initial viewing, most are left completely befuddled. The quality that makes this film outstanding is the same one that makes it perplexing: ambiguity. There is essentially a complete lack of dialogue, which makes it more of a spectacle than a story.
In 1969, Stanley Kubrick won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is the only Academy Award the director ever won.
Kubrick's intentions are up for interpretation, but it's clear that he's showing the audience the extreme ends of human evolution rather than explaining it. Nobody can definitively say what the point of the monoliths are, but it doesn't take away from their captivation. When it comes down to it, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a tale about humanity that starts and ends at two set points, but the journey through it is indescribable. Any remaining confusion shouldn't take away from the fact that it's a sci-fi masterpiece.
2 Tenet (2020)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
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Tenet
- Release Date
- September 3, 2020
- Runtime
- 150 minutes
- Director
- Christopher Nolan
Cast
John David Washington
WHERE TO WATCH
Armed with only one word—Tenet—and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a nameless Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.
- Writers
- Christopher Nolan
- Studio
- Warner Bros. Pictures
- Studio(s)
- Warner Bros. Pictures
- Distributor(s)
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Tenet marked Christopher Nolan's fourth attempt at pure sci-fi, and he didn't disappoint by any means. A blend of time travel and action, the film brought qualities reminiscent of the director's old works but took them in a new direction. The result was impressive, but incredibly confusing on multiple levels. Every time the explanation seems clear, there's another reason it's wrong. At its core, Tenet is about altering the entropy of objects, allowing for movement through time.
It isn't time travel in the traditional sense, but rather the reversing of time. In other words, the characters move back toward previous events, but they don't skip straight to them. If this concept wasn't difficult enough, its incorporation into the plot is similarly messy. Tenet's ending is open for interpretation on most fronts, but in of the protagonist (John David Washington), it seems like he recruited Neil (Robert Pattinson) in the future, who then inverted time again. It's a real headache of a film to try and summarize to a tee, but the idea is undeniably cool.
1 Memento (2000)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
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Memento
- Release Date
- May 25, 2001
- Runtime
- 113 minutes
- Director
- Christopher Nolan
WHERE TO WATCH
Christopher Nolan's Memento is a psychological thriller that tells the story of Leonard, a former insurance investigator who suffers from a disease that prevents his brain from storing short-term memories. The one thing he can is murder of his wife, for which he wishes to exact revenge. Starring Guy Pearce and Carrie-Anne Moss, the movie was released in 2000 to widespread acclaim, launching the director's successful Hollywood career.
- Writers
- Christopher Nolan
- Studio(s)
- Newmarket Films
- Distributor(s)
- Newmarket Films
It's worth noting that Memento is not definitively a sci-fi film by any real measure. After all, the events of the plot don't involve scientific concepts. With that being said, the entire perspective is framed in a way that has a sci-fi feel. Nothing is what it seems, and the narrative is propelled through altered memories. More importantly, Memento is the single greatest example of a movie that requires two screenings to be understood. To put it simply, Memento puts the viewer in the perspective of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a man with short-term memory loss.
He's constantly forgetting everything, and can only remind himself of the truth using Polaroids. Although it isn't initially clear, the story is told backward and forward from two different timelines. The black and white scenes are chronological, but the color scenes are in reverse, thus representing Shelby's memory loss. It's frankly unbelievable that this was only Nolan's second film. Memento's timeline will never be entirely coherent, but that's part of what makes it a triumph in storytelling.
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