Ready To Stream Now: Best Science Fiction Movies Of 2009

By Josh Tyler | Updated

Wondering what to watch this weekend? Here’s a list of the best science fiction movies released in 2009. They may be old but they are still worth streaming. Watch them all.

Star Trek

kelvinverse

Star Trek would deserve its place in the top spot, if only for that opening ten minutes which left most audiences simultaneously sobbing and gasping for breath.

Was this the Star Trek we used to know? Thoughtful, challenging, and socially relevant? Nope.

It morphed the franchise into a high-octane Hollywood action series and it was hard not to sit back and just enjoy the fun.

Sure it’s not as good as Wrath of Khan and some of the other smarter, better, classic Trek entries but it’s a blast and a movie that I find myself liking more with every passing day.

Watchmen

Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Watchmen transcends the superhero genre. It’s also smart science fiction about an alternate world where Nixon is still president and the only way to save mankind is to trick him into believing there’s an impending alien invasion… wait scratch that… trick him into believing there’s a rogue Superman out to get him.

Nothing will ever top the graphic novel on which it’s based but Zack Snyder’s adaptation is as close as it gets to faithfully bringing Alan Moore’s literary classic to the big screen.

Most importantly, it’s got balls, both literally and figuratively. It’s challenging and fearless, unafraid to show you its big, blue, penis.

Crank: High Voltage

Best sci-fi of 2009

Maybe it’d be safer to call this Mad science fiction than actual science fiction, but whatever you call it Chev Chelios goes through another equally crazy, out-of-this-world transformation.

He races, half-naked more often than not, through a world populated by re-animated severed heads, super-drugs, electronic hearts that can be run off car batteries, and crazy organ-harvesting Asians all out to take what’s his. It’s sick, it’s twisted, and completely immoral. I loved every second.

Moon

Best Science Fiction Movies Of 2009

Moon is Doug Jones’ entry into the trippy, thoughtful sci-fi drama made famous by movies like 2001 and Solaris. It was the first in a while to really get it right.

Others like Danny Boyle had tried, but Moon was just original enough and smart enough to make it work.

Sam Rockwell stars as an astronaut, all alone on the moon where he toils endlessly to harvest helium and send it back to Earth. To tell you much more than that would be to ruin the movie even though, let’s face it the trailers already did that for you.

Spoiled or not, Moon is a strange and soft-spoken movie and the year’s most brainy piece of original science fiction so far.

Knowing

Best Science Fiction Movies Of 2009

Alex Proyas’ much-maligned end-of-the-world thriller deserves more credit than it’s gotten. I think it’s liquid science fiction, poured straight into your brain without shame or another one of Hollywood’s attempts to disguise sci-fi as something more acceptable.

Nic Cage stars a father whose kid gets a 50-year-old letter from a time capsule. Encoded in the letter are the dates, death tolls, and coordinates of every major disaster that has happened since the document was first written.

There are only three more disasters to go, and the first of them happens tomorrow. Knowing is far from director Alex Proyas’s best movie and it’s a serious bummer, but as solid science fiction, it works. It’s entertaining and engrossing. Don’t dismiss it.

Battle For Terra

Best Science Fiction Movies Of 2009

It starts out all wrong as a preachy anti-technology screed, but halfway through Battle for Terra abandons its message and finds its footing as a heartfelt, emotional science fiction movie.

Unafraid to tackle tough issues, it doesn’t let the fact that its animation limits it to being a kids’ movie. It takes place in a far-off future, where man has destroyed the Earth and only a scant few escape, roaming the galaxy for generations in search of a new home.

They find it, on a planet named Terra, a planet which is unfortunately already inhabited by Ewok-like, peaceful aliens. Unfortunately, for man to live the aliens must die, setting up a moral dilemma for an Earth pilot who befriends one of the natives.

Push

Best Science Fiction Movies Of 2009

Push follows a group of people with superpowers, hiding and running from a government-backed organization called Division.

The world’s superheroes come in a variety of different flavors. Movers can move things with their mind, Watchers can see the future, Pushers can control your mind, and so on.

We follow a Mover and Watcher as they get wrapped up in a save-the-world plot which, while not particularly inspired, is serviceable enough to let us have a little fun watching Chris Evans throw people against the wall with telekinesis.

Monsters vs Aliens

Best Science Fiction Movies Of 2009

With a title like Monsters vs. Aliens you’d expect a movie stuffed to the gills with crazy, monster-on-alien action. Unfortunately, this isn’t that movie.

While a somewhat disappointing experience, it’s gorgeous animation and thanks to brilliant voice work by people like Stephen Colbert and Seth Rogen, also pretty hilarious. It’s missing the tension and excitement it deserves, but it’s so flat-out silly most who saw it probably didn’t care.

Whatever You Do Don’t Stream These 2009 Sci-Fi Movies, They Are The Worst

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

It’s not as bad as some portray it, but it’s not exactly great either. Bad plot, mediocre special effects, and the absolute ruination of a great character like Deadpool make this a big mix.

Outlander

Former Jesus Jim Caviezel is an astronaut stranded on ancient Earth among the Vikings. It’s well directed and for low-budget barbarian sci-fi it looks a lot better than it should.

Unfortunately, the script is filled primarily of half-formed ideas that never really go anywhere and the barbarians aren’t particularly convincing.

Race To Witch Mountain

The original wasn’t particularly great and with a little help from The Rock Disney managed to make it even worse.

Terminator: Salvation

Even for a movie based on a time travel franchise this plot is pretty ridiculous. See it, if you like your Terminator watered-down and terminally brain dead.