Want to know the best Science Fiction movies? How about the worst Science Fiction movies? Curious about Science Fiction box office grosses or which Science Fiction movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Science Fiction movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information and lots more.
The following massive table has 625 Science Fiction movies ranked Best to Worst in 6 different categories. Why so many movies you wonder? Well…”A very long time ago in a galaxy far far away”…Steve Lensman requested we do an UMR (Ultimate Movie Rankings) page on Science Fiction movies. In order to figure out which science fiction movies were the best statistically we had to research as many science fiction movies as possible.
Before starting this massive research project we came up with three rules. (1) Superhero, King Kong and Godzilla movies would not be included in the study…..why? To us they fall into the fantasy category versus the science fiction category. (2) To be included in the page the movie’s box office grosses needed to be known. (3) The movie needed to have played in North American theaters. To help find all of these movies two books were a big help: Chris Barsanti’s The Sci-Fi Movie Guide and Tom DeMichael’s Modern Sci-Fi Films FAQ. After completing this research…we were able to finally write our science fiction page. Click on Top 200 Science Fiction Movies to see the sister site to this page..
Alphabetical Science Fiction Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort movies by stars of the movie
- Sort movies by adjusted domestic box office using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort science fiction movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort movies by how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort movies by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each movie received.
- Sort movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Blue link in Co-star column takes you to that star’s UMR movie page
- Highly recommend using the search and sort buttons to help navigate this massive table.
Whew, that took awhile to tabulate!
I have seen 538 of the 627 films listed. Out of those that I haven’t seen, most were from the last few years, and I’ll be watching them soon.
Hey Hunsecker….wow you and Steve are very very close in your tall counts…I figured if anybody could take Steve down it would be you. Thanks for taking the time to count those movies…and welcome to the 500 club……I am still trying to get invited into club….lol.
Tons of work here. Do have some questions. Where is Chappie? If the Purge 1 and 2 made the list why did Purge 3 not?
Hey Daniel….good eye…..I forgot to include those two movies…but I will fix that very soon…..thanks for heads up.
Hey Bruce thanks for adding This Island Earth on to the master list, it’s a big favorite for fans of classic sci-fi. Looking at the charts it didn’t do too badly on the UMR and on adjusted box office it was more successful than John Carter, Road Warrior and Starman. I’m impressed. Universal spent a bit of money on that one back in the 50s, more than usual for their sci-fi output.
Battlefield Earth on the bottom rung of the critics chart, no surprises there, it fared a little better on the UMR, I bought it on DVD, he shamelessly admitted. Mars Needs Women (1966) is last on the UMR chart, I don’t think I’ve seen that one. There was a recent Disney film with a similar title, its not on the chart but I did buy it in 3D, it was an expensive flop but it looked great in 3D. Now what was that title?
Hey Steve….I add This Island Earth last night and Mars Needs Moms this morning….still trying to figure how I did not include a “Mars” movie. Makes me wonder what other movies I missed…at one point late in the research…I realized I had left off Stargate.
I actually thought Battlefield Earth was decent….granted I might be one of the few people on Earth that thinks that way….but I also own that on DVD…..if I remember correctly…it is loaded with extra features. We also own Mars Needs Moms on 3D…though the kids have not asked to rewatch that one…a single time since their original viewing back in 2012 (I think). As for Mars Needs Women….it was actually a television movie (and a bad one) that somehow managed to work it’s way on to the midnight movie circuit…..probably because it was so bad.
Looking at the bottom ranked movies….Rollerball the remake is one of the worst movies that I have seen……that actually had a real budget and some talent….I rate those more harshly than a low budget movie. So now the page is up to 627. Growing and growing.
Bruce I think you should quietly keep on adding sci-fi movies to the list, a bunch every week, until you reach 1000, do it at night when no one is looking. 🙂
I think the page can handle it and you’ll have the most complete sci-fi movie stats page the world has ever known!
Hey Steve…..that’s a thought….I could quickly get it close to 800 just by adding the superhero & Universal Horror movies in my database to this table. Not sure how many movies I can add in before the table says it is too many. At good old Hub Pages….the max was 100.. I guess I will find out the answer to that question with this page….lol. 🙂
Not all superhero movies are sci-fi, not sure about Batman or Spider-Man but definitely The Avengers (2012) with that humongous alien invasion, and the sequel with the heroes battling a never ending army of robots, can’t get more science fictiony than that. And like Robert says on the other page Superman is an alien from another planet… 🙂
Memories of a lifetime
Hey Marian…. I agree 100%…..a lifetime of memories in this massive page.
Impressive table ! It’s a remakkable work you made Bruce. I’ve seen only 258 movies on 625. And I told you in a previous post i loved SF movies… In fact, lot of recent movies were direct to video in France and therefore have not interested me. By cons I realize that I have seen one film Vincent Price. I’ll change it.
Hey Laurent….thanks for tally count. 258 movies is pretty good. Thanks for talking the time to count all of those movies. Wow…..no Vincent Price movies? That is very surprising. I appreciate your kind words about this page.