When it comes to the best sci-fi movies of the year, the top 5 cover a wide range of topics and sub-genres, from pandemic love loss to sound-sensitive monsters to family-friendly animated adventures. This year, with release windows being short and movies moving to streaming either immediately after release or very shortly thereafter, it’s been easy to miss some of the best-rated sci-fi epics of the year.
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Helmed by Superhero movie master James Gunn and featuring an all-star cast, the 2021’s sequel/reboot of The Suicide Squad fared much better at the box office than its 2016 predecessor. Highly stylized with a fun script, interesting characters, and plenty of R-rated action, The Suicide Squad showed audiences that DC movies don’t have to be dark and gritty. Managing a balance between mad-cap action, humor and heartfelt drama made The Suicide Squad not only one of the best sci-fi movies of 2021, but it also made it one of the biggest movies of the year overall. The movie also created new fan favorites in King Shark and Polka-Dot Man.
The Tomatometer rated The Suicide Squad at 90% with the audience score sitting at 82%. The critical consensus states “Enlivened by writer-director James Gunn’s singularly skewed vision, The Suicide Squad marks a funny, fast-paced rebound that plays to the source material’s violent, anarchic strengths.” The reception of the movie speaks to Gunn’s energy and style as a director with a property that had been all but written off.
Directed by Chad Hartigan and starring Olivia Cooke and Jack O’Connell, Little Fish is based upon a 2011 short story by Aja Gabel. The plot follows the relationship between Emma and Jude as it blooms in the time of a pandemic. The disease plaguing the world is known as NIA, Neuroinflammatory Affliction, which causes people to slowly lose their memories. The movie utilizes time jumps to show the beginnings of the couple’s relationship and its slow decline as Jack is struck down by NIA.
It’s hard to deny the timeliness of Little Fish, and it’s easy to see why it may put audiences off but it seems to have done the opposite. With a Tomatometer score of 91% and an audience score of 80%, the movie seems to have hit home with audiences despite its melancholy tone. The critics’ consensus is telling saying “Tough but stirring, Little Fish uses one couple’s pandemic love story to illustrate the strength of human connection in trying times.”
Written, produced, and directed by John Krasinski, A Quiet Place Part II follows on from 2018’s hit A Quiet Place following Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and her children as they struggle to stay quiet, stay alive and find other survivors. The audience is shown a flashback of the noise-sensitive aliens arriving on Earth at the beginning of the movie and cuts back to the present day, a year later and most of the Earth’s population has been killed by the creatures. The rest of the movie shows the family working to utilize a frequency from deaf daughter Regan’s cochlear implant to disable and weaken the creatures.
Rated on the Tomatometer as 91% and with an audience score of 92% A Quiet Place Part II proves that audiences still wanted to see the continuation of the Abbott family’s story, with the critics’ consensus being “A nerve-wracking continuation of its predecessor, A Quiet Place Part II expands the terrifying world of the franchise without losing track of its heart.”
Directed by Mike Rianda in his feature debut, The Mitchells vs. The Machines follows the dysfunctional Mitchell family as they accidentally become freedom fighters against the robot uprising. The movie explores family relationships, our relationships with technology, and learning to value creativity and each other’s quirks. Throughout their journey father, Rick, and daughter Katie struggle to find commonality alongside a backdrop of robots, both good and evil. With boundless energy, bright and frantic visuals, and a tight script, The Mitchells Vs. The Machines became Netflix’s most viewed animated feature, with 53 million households watching within the first 28 days of the film’s release.
The Tomatometer rates the movie as 98%, an audience score of 88% with the critics consensus being “Eye-catching and energetic, The Mitchells vs. the Machines delivers a funny, feel-good story that the whole family can enjoy.” The wide appeal of the film was sure to make it a success but it surpassed expectations to become a huge hit.
The fourth and final film in the Rebuild Evangelion series, Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time was written and directed by Hideaki Anno. Following on from the previous films where the Near Third Impact was triggered and the world essentially ended, Thrice Upon A Time shows fans of the series how it finally ends. It truly feels like the way Hideaki wanted to end Evangelion and it seems to have ended in a way that both critics and fans have loved. More character-focused but still with plenty of action sequences, the film offers more character understanding and empathy while also moving the world of Evangelion on to its true end.
Rated as 100% on the Tomatometer and with an audience score of 93% Thrice Upon A Time delivered on its promise to fans to wind up the timelines and loose ends left in previous installations. The consensus from fans and critics alike is that Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time is a fitting end and tribute to 26 years of Evangelion. While it’s sad it is ending, it went out with a bang.
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