The 6 Best Science Fantasy Movies Released Since 2020, Ranked

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Since 2020, the world has been treated to some of the greatest sci-fi movies and some of the greatest fantasy movies of the entire 21st century, whether they came out on the big screen or were forced directly onto streaming by the COVID-19 pandemic. Blend the best aspects of both genres and what do you get? Science fantasy, of course, the genre that has given the world several of the most entertaining blockbusters of the last six years. There are six gems in particular, however, that stand out above all the others as the very best of the bunch.

Whether it’s an awfully underappreciated superhero spectacle like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings or masterful Oscar-winning fare like Poor Things, the best science fantasy movies of the past six years proves why this genre has remained so massively popular over the course of modern film history. With the creative and intricate world-building of a great fantasy film and the powerful reflections of modern society of a great sci-fi movie, the greatest science fantasy films the world has seen since 2020 should all be considered essential viewing for anyone who tends to enjoy either of these two genres—let alone if they typically love both.

6

‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ (2021)

Genre purists tend to dislike referring to the superhero film genre as either fantasy or science fiction, but sometimes, the label is absolutely inevitable. And though many of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s movies blend elements of both genres in varying measures, there’s no MCU entry from the past six years that more clearly belongs to the science fantasy genre than Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Taking a character who was at best a D-list hero while he existed only on the printed page and turning them into international movie icons is something that the MCU is no stranger to, and Destin Daniel Cretton pulled it off here.

Despite the fact that it still doesn’t have a sequel in production and that even MCU fans tend not to shower it with as much praise as it deserves, Shang-Chi is nevertheless one of the best superhero movies of the last 10 years. With its heavy use of MCU technology providing its science fiction basis and its use of ancient magic, mythical creatures, and supernatural elements rooted in Chinese folklore functioning as its beating fantastical heart, this riveting blockbuster also happens to be one of the most entertaining martial arts movies of the last six years. What else could anyone who loves popcorn action flicks possibly ask for?

5

‘Nimona’ (2023)

Riz Ahmed as Ballister Boldheart and Chloe Grace Moretz as Nimona

ND Stevenson‘s 2015 graphic novel Nimona was a massive commercial and critical success, winner of several awards and hailed in particular for the brilliant way in which it blends sci-fi and fantasy elements. As it happens, that blend of genres translated perfectly all the way into the Netflix original film adaptation of the graphic novel, which is one of the best family films of the 2020s so far. Entertaining, funny, visually stunning, and full of refreshing LGBTQ+ representation, it’s a must-see for anyone who tends to love science fantasy.

The best part of the way Nimona functions as a science fantasy movie is how purely it presents both genres, mixing Medieval high fantasy tropes that at times make it feel like an Arthurian-coded adventure and fun retro-futuristic sci-fi elements and aesthetics that make the film’s whole world really pop. It’s an unapologetic love letter to empathy, acceptance, and queer identity, as well as to the many fantasy and sci-fi classics whose influences it wears on its sleeve with glee. Both for those who love the source material and those who have never read it, it’s an irresistible delight.

4

‘Frankenstein’ (2025)

The Creature looking at the camera in Frankenstein

Back in 1818, Mary Shelley pretty much invented the science fiction genre at a mere 18 years of age with the Gothic masterpiece Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. Over two centuries later, who better than Guillermo del Toro, modern master of dark fantasy, to take that sci-fi classic and do something refreshingly unique (yet undeniably respectful toward the source material) with it? Indeed, the Mexican auteur’s Frankenstein is one of the best sci-fi movies of the 2020s so far, but it also adds a fantastical dimension that no one but del Toro could have possibly executed this well.

Far from just making a cheap monster flick, del Toro set out to make this passion project of his a deeply personal, beautifully sentimental study of the philosophical themes that concerned Shelley’s Frankenstein, from the dangers of man’s hubris to feelings as complex as loneliness and abandonment. The director’s lifelong obsession with the macabre marries perfectly with the vision and esence of Shelley’s source material, but while the book is a cornerstone of pure science fiction, the supernatural and quasi-mythical essence that del Toro adds to the story fits it far better than it has any right to.

Collider · Quiz

Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz
Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive?
The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars

Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.

💊The Matrix

🔥Mad Max

🌧️Blade Runner

🏜️Dune

🚀Star Wars

TEST YOUR SURVIVAL →

QUESTION 1 / 8INSTINCT

You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do?
The first instinct is often the truest one.

APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it.
BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don’t keep you alive.
CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who’s pulling the strings.
DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it.
EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can’t fix a broken galaxy alone.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 2 / 8RESOURCE

In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely?
What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.

AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don’t need resources — you can generate them.
BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it.
CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity.
DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on.
EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 3 / 8THREAT

What kind of threat keeps you up at night?
Fear is useful data — if you’re honest about what you’re actually afraid of.

AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant.
BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left.
CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you’re a problem, you’re already out of time.
DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn’t even know I was playing.
EThe Empire tightening its grip until there’s nowhere left to run.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 4 / 8AUTHORITY

How do you deal with authority you don’t trust?
Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.

ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it.
BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better.
CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy.
DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can’t beat a system you refuse to understand.
EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 5 / 8ENVIRONMENT

Which environment could you actually endure long-term?
Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.

AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters.
BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest.
CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions.
DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand.
EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire’s attention rarely reaches.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 6 / 8ALLIANCE

Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart?
The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.

AA tight crew of believers who’ve seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose.
BOne or two people I’d trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks.
CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice.
DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last.
EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 7 / 8MORALITY

Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all?
Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.

AI won’t harm the innocent — even the ones who’d report me without hesitation.
BI do what I have to to protect the people I’ve chosen. Everything else is negotiable.
CThe line shifts depending on who’s asking and what’s at stake.
DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people’s future, even if it’d help now.
ESome lines, once crossed, can’t be uncrossed. I know which ones they are.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 8 / 8PURPOSE

What would actually make survival worth it?
Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.

AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it.
BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving.
CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out.
DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations.
EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else’s boot.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

Your Fate Has Been Calculated
You’d Survive In…

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

The Matrix

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.

You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.

Mad Max

The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.

You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.

Blade Runner

You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.

Dune

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.

Star Wars

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

3

‘Palm Springs’ (2020)

Nyles and Sarah drinking while floating on a pool in 'Palm Springs' — Nyles and Sarah drinking while floating on a pool in ‘Palm Springs’

There are some great modern rom-coms that prove the genre isn’t even remotely close to dead, like some people like to claim, and Max Barbakow‘s Palm Springs is undoubtedly one of those precious cinematic gems. Time travel movies that don’t worry too much about explaining the minutiae of how their time travel mechanics work often end up falling into the field of science fantasy, and this delightful movie is one such case. Clearly inspired by time loop classics like Groundhog Day, the film puts all sorts of exquisite twists on what these types of stories usually do.

Just as much as it is a hilarious romance led by a pair of lead performances by Andy Samberg and Cristin Millioti which ooze charisma and layered humor, Palm Springs is an existentialist comedy of surprising philosophical depth. The best kinds of science fantasy films are often the ones that balance their genre elements with narrative, emotional, and thematic complexity, and Palm Springs achieves those things wonderfully. It’s funny, it’s moving, it’s delectably romantic, and it’s awfully underrated.

2

‘Poor Things’ (2023)

Emma Stone as Bella Baxter in front of a blue sky in Poor Things

Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos has been delivering some of the most deliciously twisted and bizarre dramedies on the planet for several years, and Poor Things may very well be his magnum opus. Anchored by an Oscar-winning Emma Stone lead performance that is genuinely among the greatest acting performances Hollywood has seen this past decade, this adaptation of Alasdair Gray‘s 1992 novel is like some sort of radical gender-bent twist on the Frankenstein mythos.

The result of such a twist? A masterpiece that’s very much among the best fantasy movies and the best sci-fi movies since 2020, which makes it one of the best science fantasy gems of the 21st century as a whole. Its surreal, dreamlike fairy tale tone and aesthetic blend flawlessly with Lanthimos’ enrapturing techno-futuristic world-building, and the fact that the film has some of the strongest production values of the last six years certainly doesn’t hurt at all.

1

‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ (2022)

Rock with googly eyes from Everything Everywhere All at Once

Winner of a whopping seven Academy Awards, the Daniels‘ indie darling Everything Everywhere All At Once felt like it came out of nowhere when it dominated the 2022-23 award season. Four years after its release, it’s still one of the most iconic surprise genre hits that the world has seen in quite a while. Part surreal fantasy spectacle, part over-the-top multiversal sci-fi extravaganza, part martial arts comedy, part family drama, it sure is one of the most artistically complex action films that A24 have ever distributed.

It’s one of the best films of the 2020s so far, one that’s deeply philosophical, thought-provoking, hilarious, and deliriously entertaining in equal measure. The performances are all top-notch, the visuals are exquisite despite the film’s relatively low budget, the action sequences are all silly and campy in all the right ways, and—of course—the science fantasy elements all flow like a shot of adrenaline that elevates the entertainment value of the story to stratospheric heights. It’s a masterpiece that’s bound to go keep aging like fine wine.

The 6 Best Science Fantasy Movies Released Since 2020, Ranked

6 ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ (2021)

5 ‘Nimona’ (2023)

4 ‘Frankenstein’ (2025)

3 ‘Palm Springs’ (2020)

2 ‘Poor Things’ (2023)

1 ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ (2022)

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