Sci-Fi and fantasy are ever-evolving genres that are massively dictated by technological advancements, more so than any other movie genre. Whereas many worlds and special effects were once only managed to create in animation, now almost anything can be brought to life in live action. 2022 was an incredible year for science-fiction and fantasy, mostly thanks to technology. These new advanced technologies made a way to create never before seen worlds. However, it was not just the big-budget blockbusters that benefited, as cheaper cameras and effects allowed creatives of all sorts the opportunity to make the kinds of films that were unthinkable even a decade or two ago. The result was a panoply of great low-budget sci-fi films this year, many of which stood above the bigger CGI productions.
Update July 14, 2023: This article has been updated to include even more great sci-fi and fantasy films that were released in 2022.
Yes, sequels to Avatar and Black Panther, along with films like Nope, brought massive spectacles to audiences, but it was mostly the smaller films that stood out. Pandemics and viruses were a popular subject in the year, as were themes of lost time and losing loved ones. Plenty of amazing films came out in 2022, and to help you navigate, scroll down or click through the list to check out the 26 best sci-fi and fantasy films of 2022.
31 Alienoid
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=1500&dpr=1.5)
Alienoid could be described as a genius sci-fi tour de force or a convoluted, chaotic mess of a narrative, but probably best to describe it as both. In a nutshell, a forbearing alien Guard and his robot partner, Thunder, aim to stop a hostile alien, the Collector, before he can liberate his fellow alien prisoners from their human host bodies.
Sounds simple enough, but in fact, it takes place over shifting timelines and becomes so complicated and hard to follow that one is better off not going into this for the plot but rather the thrills of all the action and sci-fi spectacles. Despite being a polarizing film, it is an epic one, and with Taoist wizards time traveling robots, and aliens, one cannot deny its ambition, creativity, and originality.
30 Lightyear
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=1500&dpr=1.5)
Lightyear was Pixar's attempt at rebranding the Toy Story franchise in a new way. Instead of a traditional sequel, they made the in-universe version of the movie that Andy would have seen that would have inspired the toy line of Buzz Lightyear. That is a difficult premise to sell and likely hurt the movie at the box office as it was one of Pixar's most notable box office failures.
However, Lightyear is a fantastic science fiction adventure. It plays it straight, there is no winking or meta jokes about it being a Toy Story spin-off. The filmmakers clearly commit to the idea and look to tell a very serious, high-octane sci-fi adventure that could have been made even without the Toy Story iconography. Lightyear is certainly a film that will be a cult classic for years to come.
29 Three Thousand Years of Longing
George Miller is one of the best directors out there today, and he proved this irrefutability with Max Max: Fury Road. One might think his next film would be in the same vein, but lo and behold, it was a much different epic story. Three Thousand Years of Longing stars Tilda Swinton as Alithea and Idris Elba as a genie or djinn.
When she releases him, he grants her the standard three wishes in return for his freedom, but there's a big problem. Alithea is a scholar of story and mythology, so being aware of all the cautionary tales of wishes gone wrong, she is extremely hesitant to complete all three. Three Thousand Years of Longing is much more dense in meaningful themes than your A-typical genie movie.
28 Moonfall
Roland Emmerich brings another harrowing end-of-the-world tale in Moonfall. The fate of the world rests on three astronauts who get sent on a mission to basically stop the moon from engaging in a head-on collision with the Earth when a mysterious force sends it tumbling out of its orbit.
In a race against time to find out what actually caused this cosmic catastrophe and prevent the moon from crashing into Earth and wiping out all existence Oscar-winner Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, and K.C. Houseman playing the astronauts on a mission to save the world find out more about themselves and the world they thought they lived in. The movie might not have made any extravagant marks, but the magnificent visuals it packs need to be witnessed and appreciated more.
27 Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Talk about an animated film that surprised audiences. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was not only a Shrek spin-off, but a sequel to a movie that had come out just eleven months prior. It should not have been good, but it was fantastic.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish features a unique animation style that was clearly inspired by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The innovative action scenes and strong character work made this one of the best fantasy films of 2022 and one of the best-animated films of the year.
26 Avatar: The Way of Water
Putting Avatar: The Way of Water in a best-of list feels odd. Sure, the film is absolutely stunning with its special effects, performances, and music, as director James Cameron has truly created the kind of experience which movie theaters were made for. However, this doesn't feel like its own movie; it feels like an extension of the first Avatar (a masterpiece) on the one hand, but also a different extension leading to more Avatar on the other hand. Nonetheless, it's a beautiful epic.
For fans of the original, Avatar: The Way of Water is a wonderful journey back to Pandora. Cameron and the special effects wizards spent years perfecting the look of the film, creating new ways to pull off what the iconic director envisioned. Much like Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water is a huge leap forward for special effects.
25 Troll
A very fun trip through Scandinavian folklore and Amblin Entertainment-style fantasy films, Troll was a surprise hit on Netflix, and rightfully so. It takes the giant creature feature format of King Kong and Godzilla but injects it with classic myth and gives it a modern conspiratorial twist.
The film follows a paleontologist father and daughter as they work both with and against the government to stop a gigantic troll that has recently awakened after an excavation in the Dovre mountains. Beautifully detailed special effects and a strong father-daughter relationship ground the somewhat wacky but very entertaining movie.
24 Dual
A comically quirky, extremely deadpan little sci-fi movie from Riley Stearns (The Art of Self-Defense), Dual is about as dry as a film can possibly be, which works in its favor. Dual presents a future in which cloning is possible, and people are able to clone themselves at the end of their life. When Sarah (played by the charming Karen Gillan) receives a terminal diagnosis and decides to get a clone; however, when she recovers, her clone doesn't want to be decommissioned (or essentially killed).
The government mandates that only one of them can live, resulting in a gladiatorial duel to the death. Sarah trains to fight her clone with the help of an extremely serious and possibly shady self-defense instructor (a hilarious Aaron Paul), hoping to survive this fight with herself. It's a very weird, allegorical film that's intentionally flat and devoid of expressiveness, but the alienating effect works.
23 Tin Can
Tin Can was filmed quite a while ago and yet was finally released theatrically and commercially in 2022, which is remarkable considering how many parallels the film has to real-world events. A piece of 'Covid Cinema,' Tin Can was one of many, many 2022 films to become associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and follows a scientist (a wonderful Anna Hopkins) who was attempting to find the cure to a vicious pandemic when she is abducted by mysterious forces.
With extensive memory loss and confusion, the woman attempts to not only figure out what has happened to her, but to also escape from her captors. Seth Smith, who also made the extremely stylistic film The Crescent, continues to experiment with visuals and narrative, resulting in a truly enigmatic, haunting sci-fi film.
22 Brian and Charles
Brian and Charles brings a quirky, funny, and touching tale of life to the screen that lets the audience gently submerge themselves in its surprising emotional depths. A lonely inventor, Brian, who cannot seem to make anything in his life work, starts to put his everything into his dream project after getting frustrated by his failures.
Using a washing machine and various spare parts, he brings to life his new and possibly first successful creation, AI robot Charles. A beautifully thoughtful journey unfolds when they tackle life and its lessons in all their strange and charming ways. Brian and Charles tackles some serious issues with gentle empathy while pulling some of the year's best laughs out of the audience. It's fresh and heart-warming and definitely worth a watch.
21 Relax, I'm From the Future
A funny, cyclical, and mind-bending little sci-fi gem, Relax, I'm from the Future greatly expands on a quirky short film from years ago to create a really entertaining, realistic spin on time travel movies. The great Rhys Darby, so funny in Our Flag Means Death and Flight of the Concords, stars as a time traveler who is attempting to save humanity from itself.
He needs help, though, so he promises get-rich-quick information based on his knowledge of the future to someone, which, of course, alters the future. The eccentric film spins like a top from there.
20 King Car
Released very early in 2022 and mostly forgotten about, King Car is an extremely energetic, and funny film about technology and revolution. The Brazilian sci-fi comedy follows a boy who can communicate with his old automobile, a friendship that initially blinds him to the car's megalomaniacal intentions. The titular car itself is actually a really fascinating character, masking its own insecurities with nefarious plots and bitter malice.
As the film branches out to include the boy's family and a technological cult that wants to use the car for a revolution against a corrupt society, it becomes clear that a lot more is going on than just some Christine-style character study. King Car seemed to slip by audiences when it was released, but is well worth discovering.
19 Glasshouse
A haunting little South African thriller with some great performances, Glasshouse is set during a post-pandemic apocalypse caused by a virus that is essentially a contagious form of dementia and extreme memory loss. Updating The Beguiled with a topical sci-fi premise, Glasshouse focuses on a group of women trying to survive the apocalypse when, one day, a man stumbles into their compound.
Healing him but never trusting him, this mostly unwelcome guest is the catalyst for an escalating paranoia and dread in a film where you're never quite sure what to believe. Glasshouse is a movie that is sure to stay with well after you watch it.
18 LOLA
Fresh, inspiring, and very clever, LOLA is one of the many small-budget films of 2022 to toy with sci-fi concepts in a really creative way. The UK film focuses on two close and committed sisters during World War II who have somehow adjusted their radio to pick up broadcasts from the future, leading to all sorts of discoveries (including an embrace of punk rock from the '70s and '80s, leading to some of the film's best moments).
Of course, having knowledge of the future affects the future, leading the sisters into all sorts of trouble. With its minimalist visuals and a great soundtrack, LOLA is one of the most charming films of the year, albeit a very short one.
17 Suzume no Tojimari
Makoto Shinkai brings another heart-wrenchingly beautiful tale to the screen in Suzume no Tojimari. The anime feature centers around Suzume, a young girl trying to save her country from an oncoming disaster. Armed with her power to see supernatural elements that others cannot perceive, Suzume goes on a wild and dangerous journey to close the mysterious doors that are appearing across the country, with each door opening the way to the terrible unknown.
As the clock continues ticking and the sky turns red, Suzume is the only one that stands in the way of her country facing a terrible fate. As always, Makoto Shinkai presents the viewers with the kind of mind-blowing animation that makes it almost impossible to look away from the screen, and along with its haunting background music and beautiful storytelling, this movie definitely made its way to his list of masterpieces.
16 Nope
Nope was clearly the most divisive Jordan Peele film for fans, and one of the more divisive films of the year. It's hard to call it a great film — it's all over the place, often embarrassingly weak with its logic and motivations, and has mostly thin characters. However, few films were as hotly debated in 2022, with a variety of fascinating Nope theories actually making the film better in hindsight.
In Nope, two siblings find themselves in the center of a UFO sighting, which leads to get-rich-quick schemes and a lot of questions about what people will do to become famous. Not only was it genuinely fun to parse through the allegories and possible meanings of Nope, but it was visually astounding thanks to cinematographer Hoye van Hoytema.
15 The Pink Cloud
Yet another sci-fi film from 2022 seemingly inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, The Pink Cloud is different in its laid-back nature and sense of curiosity. The Brazilian film follows the human response to a deadly global weather event, the titular pink cloud, using the occurrence to study how quarantining and forced isolation changes the lives of people over a prolonged time.
As people are forced to shelter in place, they begin to question the foundations of the culture, technology, and governments which led them to this situation, and some of the darker impulses of the human condition emerge. Quietly political, extremely subtle, and with a depression that's contagious, The Pink Cloud is an assured debut and one of the most thoughtful films of the year.
14 Next Exit
Next Exit is fascinating for taking a unique science fiction premise, but using it to make a complicated character study rather than a flashy sci-fi thriller. In a dystopian future, the afterlife has been somewhat proven thanks to the scientific verification of ghosts. As a result, a medical institution is studying the phenomenon through assisted suicide, where they take volunteers who would rather go to the afterlife than live in this world and study what happens when they die.
Two characters (played by a wonderful Katie Parker and Rahul Kohli) take a road trip to the institute. The film sees the two characters essentially driving toward their own death in this surprisingly funny, heartfelt, and deeply compassionate intellectual sci-fi film.
13 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Like the second Avatar, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was another anticipated CGI epic that hardly stands on its own. Viewers who haven't seen the first film won't experience nearly as much emotional resonance and suspense as those who are familiar with the original and the MCU franchise as a whole, However, if there is one individual MCU film of the past couple of years which does mostly work in a vacuum, it's Wakanda Forever.
Made under the shadow of the tragic loss of Chadwick Boseman, director Ryan Coogler chose to use the very sad reality as a way into Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, giving audiences an opportunity to mourn the loss of Boseman while reminding us that through grief can come hope and understanding. The sequel is rousing, dramatic, expertly acted, and filled with Black power, and sets up the future of the MCU.
12 Turning Red
Disney and Pixar's bold little fantasy Turning Red is a delightful allegory for puberty and coming-of-age, daring to address (through whimsy and metaphor) something which happens every month to half the population of planet Earth. The animation is beautiful, and the pacing and tone of the whole film is consistently fun, sweet, and touching. Much of this is thanks to director Domee Shi, who previously made the adorably brilliant, Oscar-winning Pixar short Bao.
Originally planned as a theatrical release, Turning Red ended up going direct to streaming due to Covid-19. That didn't stop the film from finding a large audience and becoming a hit. Domee Shi has been open about ideas for a sequel, and fans hope to see it happen.