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The 20 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Movies of 2020

Speculative fiction offered us little desired escapism this year, but the best of these genres still affected us greatly.
Best Sci fi Movies 2020
By  · Published on January 1st, 2021

10. Greenland

Greenland sci fi movies 2020

Even some of the movies that sounded like they’d be big dumb action/sci-fi spectaculars wound up being more grounded efforts. That was the case for Greenland, the latest team-up between action star Gerard Butler and his Angel Has Fallen director, Ric Roman Waugh. The familiar disaster movie plot of a comet heading toward the planet is, here, less about the destruction, which Waugh mostly ignores, and more about the human impact, giving Butler a rare instance of almost seeming like a real actor.

Greenland is more of a road movie following Butler’s character and his family trying to get to the titular location for the best-case survival scenario. It’s also the kind of movie where many of the supporting characters — including David Denman and Hope Davis as a seemingly good-hearted couple — unsurprisingly turn on the “heroes” because of how reasonable it’d be that the’re corrupted by imminent doom. While Butler has received some praise for his work, the real highlight is Morena Baccarin as his estranged wife, whose storyline as she searches for their stolen son brings the greatest emotional weight. Available On Demand.


9. Spontaneous

Spontaneous Quarantine

I guess it’s sort of a spoiler to include Spontaneous on this list because if there wound up being an explanation given for why teenagers at Coventry High School were suddenly exploding that might take away from the fantastical element of the story. Not that people spontaneously blowing up is a reality, but I wouldn’t put it in the entirely implausible box these days either. In fact, much of this bloody and shock-filled black comedy rom-com horror-fantasy drama feels all too relatable in 2020, making for an even more bittersweet third act than intended when conceived as a YA book, published in 2016, let alone when adapted as a film by writer/director Brian Duffield and shot in early 2018. Also for the sci-fi fans, Spontaneous has one of the best and funniest E.T. homages ever. Available On Demand.


8. Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn

Jurnee Birds Of Prey

While major superhero movies were rare these days, Warner Bros. got to slip DC installments near the start and end of 2020, both of which focused on women characters. The later one, Wonder Woman 1984, as much as I enjoyed it, didn’t quite cut it for a list of 20 movies. This return of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, however, is a great entry to the canon on numerous levels, from the fantabulous Robbie portrayal to a fabulous Chris Messina, who has now earned a spot in the rounds of great superhero movie Chrises. All around, it’s a wonderful, colorful, empowerful, bacon-egg-and-cheeserful, scrunchy-when-you’re-fighting-ful splash of violent joy. And yes, thanks to Jurnee Smollett-Bell‘s character’s unreal supersonic scream, Birds of Prey just barely counts as a fantasy film. Available on HBO Max.


7. Sputnik

Sputnik Movie Alien sci fi movies 2020

The history of Russian science fiction received another great entry this year with Egor Abramenko’s Sputnik, a horror-adjacent movie about an astronaut who unknowingly brings back a parasitic — ultimately symbiotic — alien creature inside his body. Think Venom but more grounded and, well, good. The premise and monster effects are pretty tight, but the story is held together by the lead performance by Oksana Akinshina (whose breakout in Lilya 4-Ever, maybe the last thing I saw her in, was nearly 20 years ago). She plays a psychiatrist with unconventional methods who is brought in to examine the astronaut — and eventually what’s living inside him, since it sometimes temporarily exits to do its damage. Hopefully, she’ll show in more films that make their way to these parts and to my attention before another couple of decades pass. Available on Hulu.


6. The Platform

Platform Netflix sci fi movies 2020

Another allegorical sci-fi feature, this rather quiet but clearly very popular Netflix release is one that will stick with you for a long time. The Platform is an award-winning Spanish production (originally titled El Hoyo) set in a kind of prison with vertically stacked cells, each with a central cutout in the floor (and ceiling) allowing a platform (initially) full of food to descend to each level, the rations depleting more and more as it goes. Violence ensues. The social metaphor is obvious but never stops being compelling. Watch it on an empty stomach, and then when you’re done and no longer have an appetite, donate all your food to the nearest food bank. Available on Netflix.

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Christopher Campbell began writing film criticism and covering film festivals for a zine called Read, back when a zine could actually get you Sundance press credentials. He's now a Senior Editor at FSR and the founding editor of our sister site Nonfics. He also regularly contributes to Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes and is the President of the Critics Choice Association's Documentary Branch.