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About Ender’s Game
Ender’s Game is a futuristic science fiction movie about a gifted child who is sent to military academy as everyone prepares an upcoming alien invasion.
During a recent re-watch of Ender's Game I started to think of other movies like Ender's Game. Below is our picks of non-stop adrenaline fueled epic sci-fi action flicks to add to your bucket list.
Let us know in the comments which are your favorites.
Written and directed by James Gray, Ad Astra stars Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, and Donald Sutherland. It was released in the year 2019.
Ad Astra follows an astronaut who ventures into space in search of his lost father, whose obsessive quest to discover intelligent alien life at all costs threatens the Solar System and all life on Earth.
2. Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
Directed by Robert Rodriguez, Alita: Battle Angel stars Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley and Keean Johnson. It was released in the year 2019.
Alita is a battle cyborg who is revived by Ido, a doctor, who realises that she actually has the soul of a teenager. Alita then sets out to learn about her past and find her true identity. Meanwhile, just like all good dystopian hellscapes, there’s the constant looming threat of augmented human-cyborgs and evil corporation to keep Alita busy.
3. Dark City (1998)
Directed by Alex Proyas, Dark City stars Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O’Brien, and Ian Richardson. It was released in the year 1998.
Dark City is a neo noir science fiction film which starts with a murder by a man with amnesia which quickly descends in an existential dilemma infused epic sci-fi ballad of The Matrix-like proportions. While Dark City was no mainstream success, it certainly deserves its cult-like status and is a worthy addition to this list.
4. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Directed by Doug Liman, Edge of Tomorrow stars Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, and Brendan Gleeson. It was released in the year 2014.
Edge of Tomorrow is about Major William Cage and his skirmish against a group of aliens that the human race is at war with. During this skirmish he’s exposed to some alien tech which causes him to relive every aspect of this war in some bizarre sci-fi version of this Groundhog Day story.
5. Elysium (2013)
Directed by Neill Blomkamp, Elysium stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Wagner Moura, and William Fichtner. It was released in the year 2013.
Elysium follows a futuristic earth which is overpopulated and disease ridden while the rich and 1%ers live on the space station called Elysium which orbits around the earth. With this plot point, Elysium explores many themes including classism, immigration and even healthcare.
6. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Directed by Mamoru Oshii, Ghost in the Shell stars voice actors Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Ōtsuka, and Iemasa Kayumi. It was released in the year 1995.
Ghost in the Shell is about a cyborg public-security agent, who hunts a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master. The story is set against a backdrop of a cyberpunk Japan where the lines between sentient and non-sentient technology is blurred. It’s no surprise that this is one of many anime’s that inspired elements of The Matrix.
7. Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
Directed by Robert Longo, Johnny Mnemonic stars Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren, Takeshi Kitano, Ice-T, and Dina Meyer. It was released in the year 1995.
Johnny Mnemonic is about a world driven by a different kind of internet which is controlled by mega corporations. Keanu Reeves stars as the title character which has an overloaded, cybernetic implant designed to store mass amounts of information. Which, in a dystopian society, means everyone wants to kill him.
Directed by Michael Matthews and co-written by Michael Matthews and Brian Duffield, Love and Monsters is a romantic post-apocalyptic action movie starring Dylan O’Brien, Jessica Henwick, Dan Ewing and Michael Rooker. It was released in the year 2020.
Love and Monsters is about Dylan O’Brien’s character, Joel Dawson, who gets separated from his girlfriend Aimee during an apocalypse which kills his parents. An apocalypse involving giant leviathan sized monsters.
9. Interstellar (2014)
Co-written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Interstellar stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, and Michael Caine. It was released in the year 2014.
Interstellar is set in a dystopian future where the human race is dying out. Promoting a group of astronauts to travel through a wormhole in hopes they’ll find an Earth-like planet. Interstellar is probably the closest to a real world Star Trek adventure based on our current level of science and exploration. It’s a wondrous spectacle.
10. Oblivion (2013)
Directed by Joseph Kosinski, Oblivion is a post-apocalyptic science fiction film starring Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Melissa Leo. It was released in the year 2013.
Oblivion focuses on a lone maintenance technician who has almost completed his mission on an Earth completed decimated from an alien war. Completely alone, or so he thought, the maintenance tech discovers woman who survived when her space ship crashed into earth. Together, they do what they can to survive and along the way they discover the truth behind the war with the aliens.
11. Pacific Rim (2013)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro, Pacific Rim stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, and Ron Perlman. It was released in the year 2013.
Pacific Rim is essentially a sci-fi kaiju tale, yet the basis for the universe is an invading force of large interdimensional beasts. This kind of invasion is exactly what H.P. Lovecraft would’ve envisioned. He probably just didn’t imagine fighting them with giant robots.
12. Moonfall (2022)
Co-written and directed by Roland Emmerich, Moonfall stars Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Michael Peña, Charlie Plummer, Kelly Yu, Donald Sutherland, and Carolina Bartczak. It was released in the year 2022.
Moonfall follows two former astronauts alongside a conspiracy theorist who discover the hidden truth about Earth’s moon when it suddenly leaves its orbit. Despite the incredible cast and visual effects, Moonfall was an absolute flop but it’s certainly worth a watch if you’ve got a lazy afternoon planned.
13. Chaos Walking (2021)
Directed by Doug Liman, Chaos Walking stars Daisy Ridley, Tom Holland, Mads Mikkelsen, Demián Bichir, Cynthia Erivo, Nick Jonas, and David Oyelowo. It was released in the year 2021.
Chaos Walking follows a young man who lives in a dystopian world without women, where all living creatures can hear each other’s thoughts in streams of images, words and sounds, called “Noise”. Then when a woman crash-lands on the planet, he does everything he can to try and protect her from danger.
14. Valerian and the City of A Thousand Planets (2017)
Directed by Luc Besson, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets stars Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke, Herbie Hancock, Kris Wu and Rutger Hauer. It was released in the year 2017.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is about a vast metropolis and home to species from a thousand planets. When this metropolis comes under threat by a dark force, Special operatives Valerian and Laureline must race to identify the marauding menace which may threaten the entire universe.
15. Ready Player One (2018)
Directed by Steven Spielberg, Ready Player One stars stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, and Mark Rylance. It was released in the year 2018.
Ready Player One focuses on a futuristic world where most of humanity uses a virtual reality simulation called The Oasis. However, it is run by an evil corporation who wants to profiteer from the players. The plot focuses on a teen orphan (played by Tye Sheridan) who discovers clues to a contest which promises the winner total control and ownership of The Oasis.
16. Skylines (2020)
Directed and co-produced by Liam O'Donnell, Skylines is a science fiction action film starring Lindsey Morgan, Jonathan Howard, Daniel Bernhardt, Rhona Mitra, James Cosmo and Alexander Siddig. It was released in the year 2020 and is the third film in the Skyline franchise.
Skylines focuses on Rose, who leads the human fleet against the aliens (the "Harvesters"), 10 years after the previous Skyline film. During the battle she's forced to fire at the alien's mother ship to save earth but in doing so she destroys an earth ship which is caught in the crossfire.
The majority of the film then follows the events that unfold five years later which involves a pandemic virus which is attacking the human-alien hybrid Pilots. Rose then embarks on a mission back to the Harvesters homeworld in search of a cure.
Despite the well crafted storyline, Skylines was an absolute flop. Grossing less than $200,000 at the Box Office.
17. The Fifth Element (1997)
Directed by Luc Besson, The Fifth Element stars Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, Chris Tucker and Milla Jovovich. It was released in the year 1997.
Set in the 23rd Century, The Fifth Element is about a cabbie, Korben Dallas, who joins forces with a beautiful orange-haired young woman who falls into his cab. They're then charged with retrieving four mystical stones essential for defending earth against the attack of an unstoppable and malevolent cosmic entity.
18. The Fifth Wave (2016)
Directed by J Blakeson, The Fifth Wave stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Ron Livingston, Maggie Siff, Alex Roe, Maria Bello, Maika Monroe, and Liev Schreiber. It was released in the year 2016.
The Fifth Wave is about an alien invasion of earth where the aliens use a number of techniques to easily destabilise world governments and allow for an easier take over. The techniques range from creating tsunamis and other natural disasters to taking human hosts to unleashing a flu-like pandemic. These are all done in “waves.” Whereas, the “fifth wave” is when the humans decide to fight back.
Directed by Paul Verhoeven, Total Recall is a science fiction action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside and Ronny Cox. It was released in the year 1990.
Total Recall focuses on Schwarzenegger's character, Douglas Quaid, who receives an implanted memory of an adventure on Mars. Thinking it's fictional, he eventually finds out his Martian adventure happened in reality when agents of a shadow organisation pursue and try to prevent him from recovering his real memories of a past living as a Martian secret agent attempting to foil the regime of Martian dictator Vilos Cohaagen.
20. Transcendence (2014)
Directed by Wally Pfister, Transcendence is a science fiction thriller starring Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Rebecca Hall, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy, Cole Hauser and Paul Bettany. It was released in the year 2014.
Transcendence follows Dr. Will Caster, a scientist who researches the nature of sapience and artificial intelligence. He and his team work to create a sentient computer; he predicts that such a computer will create a technological singularity, or in his words "Transcendence". His wife, Evelyn, is also a scientist and helps him with his work.
What follows is Dr Caster being pursued by the anti-technology terrorist group known as R.I.F.T. and eventually the FBI. As they both seek to control the Artificial Intelligence he created.
21. Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Directed and written by the Wachowskis, Jupiter Ascending is a space opera starring Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne and Douglas Booth. It was released in the year 2015.
Jupiter Ascending is a cosmically charge movie about the rich usurping the poor and less fortunate. As the poorer planets and the poor denizens on those planets live only to serve their transhuman and alien royalty which established those planets. Planets whose organisms are harvested to produce a "youth serum" for the ruling class of alien elites.
What follows is Jupiter, a servant, and Caine, an intergalactic soldier, as they join forces to take down the royalty the rules over their vast empire of planets.
22. Captive State (2019)
Directed by Rupert Wyatt, Captive State is a science fiction thriller movie starring John Goodman, Ashton Sanders, Jonathan Majors, Colson Baker and Vera Farmiga. It was released in the year 2019.
Captive State follows a young man who gets involved in a conspiracy to rebel against an alien race. An alien race which rules the earth alongside their human collaborators. It’s a dystopian story filled with many twists that will keep you guessing til the end. With an ending you won’t see coming!
23. Voyagers (2021)
Directed and written by Neil Burger, Voyagers is a science fiction thriller starring Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp, Fionn Whitehead, Colin Farrell, Chanté Adams, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Viveik Kalra, Archie Madekwe and Quintessa Swindell. It was released in the year 2021.
Voyagers follows an multi-generational spaceship journeying to a far away planet where its teenagers discover their personalities and emotions are being artificially suppressed. What follows is utter mayhem!
24. The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008)
Directed by Scott Derrickson, The Day The Earth Stood Still is a science fiction action movie starring Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Jaden Smith, John Cleese, Jon Hamm and Kathy Bates. It was released in the year 2008.
The Day The Earth Stood Still depicts an alien named Klaatu who is sent to earth to try to change human behaviour to try to change humanity’s current path towards its own self annihilation.
25. Riddick (2013)
Directed and written by David Twohy, Riddick is a science fiction action film starring Vin Diesel, Jordi Mollà, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Dave Bautista, Bokeem Woodbine, Raoul Trujillo and Karl Urban. It was released in the year 2013.
Riddick is the third film in the Riddick/Pitch Black franchise and puts back into a similar situation as the first film. Where Riddick is marooned on a planet and left to face off against mercenaries and an even larger threat. One which only comes out at night.
Have you seen any of these movies before?
Do you think any of these movies are like Ender’s Game? Let us know in the comments.
