The 9 Best Sci-Fi Films of 2020

Admittedly, 2020 was a deplorable year for cinema, but surprisingly rich in excellent science fiction! Christopher Nolan's "The Argument", Denis Villeneuve's "Dune", Neil Berger's "Travelers" and several other high-profile premieres are waiting for us ahead. Do not forget the films that have already been released - we have chosen the 9 best science fiction films of this year.

The near future is 2038, for 2.5 years engineer George has been working under contract in complete isolation at a huge base near the Japanese city of Kyoto. He has an ambitious goal in front of him — to finish the first prototype of a realistic robot with artificial, but close to human intelligence. When the project comes to the final, most risky phase, George reveals his true motives — he secretly wants to upload the identity of his deceased wife into the robot.

Gavin Rothery's film is already being called one of the main debuts of this year and a rare chamber science fiction in our time, inspired by the films "Luna 2112" and "Out of the Car". The picture is not at all hampered by budget constraints — on the contrary, the creators are trying to surprise the viewer not with the scale of the story, but with a fresh approach to the boring concept of the relationship between grieving people and humanized robots, excellent acting by the central duo and a shocking finale.

The sudden hit of this year is a daring adaptation of the classic novel by Herbert George Wells from the director of "Upgrade" Lee Whannell, which meets the spirit of the time. Cecilia miraculously escapes from the mansion of her rich boyfriend - a cruel and controlling scientist named Adrian. While the girl is hiding with friends, a sudden news reaches her — a man has committed suicide.

In recent years, Russian cinematographers have increasingly turned to Russian history — and not always for the sake of filming baeviks or historical dramas. For example, the recent "Sputnik" crosses the pre-perestroika mood, the space race of the second half of the XX century and horror in the best traditions of "Alien".

The film is dedicated to the first contact between Soviet cosmonauts and a new form of life — the Soviet people honor the heroes who returned on the spacecraft, not knowing that one of them died under strange circumstances. The other one somehow survived, but now he is in a symbiotic relationship with an alien who comes out of him at night.

The influence of cult foreign science fiction is too noticeable in the film, but this does not detract from its merits: Sputnik is perhaps one of the best and most daring horror films in the history of Russian cinema.

The film with the strange title "The Possessor" tells about the future in which agents of a secret organization use brain implants with which they can control the bodies of other people and use them to carry out murder orders. One day, the heroine, who has begun to perform routine work, gets stuck in the brain of a person with an indomitable desire to kill.

In the list of the most highly rated films of this year, you can see a sudden guest - a low-budget fiction released in the midst of a worldwide quarantine on Amazon Prime. In a provincial American town, most of whose residents went to watch a basketball team match, friends obsessed with mystical stories, radio host Everett and telephone operator Faye are trying to unravel the source of a mysterious signal that, apparently, only they heard.

There is no parasitic nostalgia for the past era, only impeccable stylization with a modest history filled with references to American science fiction of the 1950s: from evening radio dramas and popular comics to Rod Sterling's "Twilight Zone" and classical literature.

A modern adaptation of Lovecraft's story about the Gardner family escaping from the hustle and bustle of the city to the countryside. There they lead a quiet life away from the noisy city — the mother of the family is resting after the mastectomy procedure, the father of the family breeds alpacas, the son spends days with his beloved dog, and the daughter indulges in the occult.

One day, a mysterious meteorite falls on their farm, which paints the surroundings with a bright purple color, and later begins to change people and bend time and space. Richard Stanley's psychedelic fiction is recommended for viewing, oddly enough, not only for mad Nicolas Cage fans, but also for viewers who miss the good old bi-movie and disturbing body horror with insane color correction.

Life situation: a young couple decides to move in together, tries to find affordable housing and asks for help from a real estate agency. This is what happened to the heroes of the film, who were sent to a seemingly exemplary suburban quarter with rows of cozy, but identical houses. They quickly find out that it is impossible to get out of the huge maze — all roads lead to their house. The only way out is to raise the baby he planted.

"The Last and First People" is not a typical science fiction, but a philosophical elegy on extinct humanity. This is the first and last film of the Icelandic composer Johan Johannsson, who died in 2018 — an impressive adaptation of the novel of the same name by Olaf Stapledon.

Two billion years later, a representative of a new civilization (the voice of Tilda Swinton) tells how people were on the verge of extinction. Only monumental, but faceless and lifeless structures remained of them. A black-and-white video sequence with architectural monuments, the voice of Tilda Swinton reflecting on the nature and evolution of man, and the music of Johannsson himself merge into a strange performance that takes your breath away.

A wedding is taking place in the California resort town of Palm Springs - at the end of the day, the boyfriend of one of the bride's friends named Niles enters a cave that appeared due to an earthquake and falls into a time loop. Now he has to live the same day: wake up with a girl cheating on him and wait for the ceremony, or at worst, you can just kill yourself. One of the groundhog days, Niles' fault, the bride's older sister comes into the cave, who did not want to come to the wedding at all.

Together, the heroes must understand the origin of the time loop and try to get out of it. Perhaps the main romantic comedy of this year owes its success to one of the most popular techniques of science fiction - the time loop, which has been used more often than usual in recent years. As it turned out, it's too early to write off the formula — in talented hands it flourishes.