As Earth 2 looms closer, so does the inescapability of our heroine’s actions. The main focus, however, is on Rhoda (Marling), a young woman struggling to come to grips with the consequences of a terrible mistake from her past. In Mike Cahill and Brit Marling’s quiet indie drama, a mirror Earth is hurtling slowly but surely toward our own. In a switcheroo worthy of The Twilight Zone, some supernatural mojo grants both husband and wife the opportunity to get exactly what they want from each other – provided that they’re willing to accept some dire consequences. There’s a big twist, which arrives after the spouses head off for a therapeutic weekend at a country estate. It’s probably best not to know too much about this sci-fi–inflected indie before you watch – though it’s okay to be aware ahead of time that director Charlie McDowell’s relationship dramedy doubles as a genre piece, and not just some run-of-the-mill story about a bickering married couple (played by Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss). ( Avatar may have been a gamechanging film for 3D, but “unobtainium”? Really?!?) We’re confident, however, that there’s a place in the canon for these relative latecomers. Some noteworthy favorites of ours just barely missed the cut (very sorry, Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer) or some major titles were dinged on quality-control issues.

We’ve now expanded our list to 40 titles, to better highlight the best and brightest SF films of our still-new–ish millennium. More than a few major science-fiction flicks, however – from franchise-expanding blockbusters to arthouse headscratchers – have dropped since then, so it was time for an overhaul and an update. In 2014, we concocted a list of the Best Sci-Fi Movies of the 21st Century - a quick and dirty survey of the best the genre has had to offer since the millennium’s beginning. Great sci-fi movies didn’t decide to party like it’s 1999 then call it a day a host of thrilling, intelligent, offbeat, funny and frightening SF films have hit art houses and multiplexes since Y2K. But let’s face it – those answers are so last century. Ask any science-fiction movie fanatic what their go-to films are, and you’ll get a lot of great answers back: Metropolis, Blade Runner, 2001, The Day the Earth Stood Still, the original Godzilla, The Thing etc.

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