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What are you some underrated or lesser known science fiction movies that you recommend?
I've never met anyone that has seen this movie despite it being relatively recent and with some popular actors, but I'd highly recommend Prospect (2018).
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7946422/
It's not a very big budget movie, but it has great aesthetics I think and an engaging story. I'm looking for some new science fiction movies to watch either old or new.
Not so much underrated but certainly overlooked -Primer. Also Predestination. Will check out Prospect.
I'm going to say The Last Starfighter. It's quite old at this point, and it's derivative of a lot of other things, but it is a lot of fun.
RiffTrax has a really funny episode on this movie, it is Mike Nelson from MST3K's thing that releases long mp3s you can play over the movie. They play this one on the Twitch stream sometimes too
Event Horizon!
Not lesser known, but maybe under-appreciated. I rewatched “Oblivion” the other evening and enjoyed it. I perused reviews afterward and they all panned the movie for being too long and plodding at two hours, which makes sense I guess. But, honestly, after the subsequent decade of three- and four-hour blockbuster schlock, “Oblivion” now feels like a taut little thriller.
Prospect is amazing for the sense of environment it gives, the story is pretty good and Pedro Pascal is absolutely great in it, plus the girl is no slouch either. I like it enough I ordered the blue ray of it immediately after seeing it the first time.
Buckaroo Banzai is another one everyone should see at least once. So very weird, but also a lot of fun! "Laugha while you can, a-monkey boy!"
Also, Timecrimes (2007) is a small movie out of Spain about what NOT to do if you find yourself stuck in a time loop. (And of course, this isn't exactly unknown but Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys is one of my all time favorites about time travel in case anyone hasn't seen that yet for some reason.)
I'm a huge fan of the like microbudget (like 50k) psychological sci-fi film Coherence. They make the most out of their cast who semi-improvise much of the dialog and go the lo-fi approach to wonderful effect. It is easily found on several different streaming services, and is truly an underseen gem.
That definitely sounds interesting to me. I'll give that a watch.
I liked 'Pandorum'. It's my standard for "wake up from pods, something is wrong" sci-fi.