I made a list of the best science fiction films of the 2010s... This is the most recent on that list.
Cloud Atlas (2012) This is a spectacular and touching example of something I thought I would not care for—spiritual science fiction.
Robot and Frank (2012) Excellent low-key SF that makes me think of the very best of Isaac Asimov’s Robot tales.
Trudno byt Bogom - Hard to Be a God (2013) This film is difficult to understand, but since the previous filmed version (Es ist Nicht Leicht, ein Gott zu Sein – 1989) was carefully explained and totally forgettable; you should give this a chance. It is based on a novel by the Strugatskys about a scientist who is living among the human population of an alien world that seems trapped in a ghastly, filthy, ignorant dark age. He is prohibited from interference…
Europa Report (2013) A little film that is pretty good hard SF about an expedition to Europa and an encounter with what most films would simply consider another alien horror. Well, it is pretty horrifying, but it also seems real.
Ex Machina (2015) Is perhaps my favorite of contemporary AI stories. The heart of this plays out as a two-person drama—in which one of the persons may not be…
The Martian (2015) It may have flaws (Martian storms can’t pack the wallop to knock over much that is not made of styrofoam) but at its heart it is adventurous hard SF and very entertaining.
Arrival (2016) Once again (see Solaris) we have the problem of communicating with the truly alien. A worthy SF film based on an admittedly out of vogue linguistic theory.
Prospect (2018) A great low budget SF film. This is a story about a teenage girl who travels with her father to a remote planet where he hope so strike it rich with an odd form of prospecting. It plays out a bit like a space-western, and that sounds unappealing to me—but the result is very good.
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