12 Sci-Fi Movies to Help You Escape Reality This Year

As a gross understatement, we’ll just say that 2020 was not our year—for anything. Like most industries, film took a superhuman hit. Closing movie theaters meant major studios would have to find ways to cut losses, which meant delays and expensive streaming options. (We love Christopher Nolan and we believe in his save-the-movies mission, but we’re not paying $20 to watch a film on our laptops.)

Sci-fi films felt especially vulnerable as they’re often one of two categories—massive investments for studios (and so requiring theatrical releases to make up for production costs) or small independent films (also requiring theatrical release to make any sort of profit). And then there were just a few misfires. Sci-fi films we thought might steal the summer (Tenet) and winter (The Midnight Sky) short-circuited.

But the genre wasn’t completely dormant. We got a welcomingly strange, technicolor treat with Color Out of Space, a wonderful surprise hit with Amazon’s The Vast of Night, and some great horror-sci fi with The Invisible Man.

And 2021 promises to deliver the big one, the film we’ve been hyping and anticipating for over a year: Dune. While, we have some qualms in classifying Dune as “sci-fi," it’s hard not to recognize Frank Herbert’s massive contribution to the genre. Warner Brothers says Dune will happen in October and we hope they’re not using some kind of Bene Gesserit mind trick on us.

Here’s Dune and every other sci-fi film to look forward to in 2021.