Top 10 Emotional Sci-Fi Movies — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] Hey Bonnie, it's the no-kill-to-eat-a-real-boy, and I think I'm a real boy, can I come home? Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks of the most emotionally arresting and poignant sci-fi epics. There will be spoilers.

[00:19] Number 10, The Iron Giant. Kicking off our list is an animated masterpiece that caught an entire generation on guard. The Iron Giant takes a classic Cold War paranoia setup and flips it into a deeply moving story about choice and sacrifice.

[00:35] I'm Superman. Okay, Superman. Take this! Take this! Don't you dare.

[00:54] When a young boy named Hogarth befriends a rogue alien robot, we expect fun, retro sci-fi adventures. What we get instead is a profound meditation on identity and morality. I know you feel bad about the deer, but it's not your fault.

[01:09] Things die. It's part of life. It's bad to kill, but it's not bad to die. The emotional climax of the film will rise when a nuclear missile is launched at the town of Rockwell.

[01:21] To save his friends, the giant flies into outer space to intercept the weapon. His final words, closing his eyes and whispering Superman as he embraces his fate, remain one of the most devastating, tear-jerking moments in cinema history.

[01:35] You stay. I go. No, Halloween.

[01:58] I love you. Number 9, Interstellar. I can't miss this. I'll be back in a couple hours, Murd.

[02:12] But tell me what you're going to find. Max. Now I can't thank you. Christopher Nolan is often accused of making cold, overly intellectual films.

[02:24] The Interstellar is anchored by a massive, bleeding heart. Sure, the film features stunning visuals of black holes and wormholes, but its true gravity comes from the relationship between a father and daughter. Because of the laws of general relativity, Cooper's time exploring distant worlds means

[02:53] he's aging at a fraction of the rate of his children back on the dying Earth. The breaking point of the movie occurs when Cooper returns from a water planet where a mere few hours equal 23 years in Earth time. Watching Matthew McConaughey sit alone, sobbing uncontrollably as he watches decades of missed

[03:09] video messages from his children, is an excruciatingly raw depiction of lost time. Sorry it's been a while. Hold it, check it out.

[03:26] Hello? My grandpa died last week. Number 8, Moved. Directed by Duncan Jones, Moon is a claustrophobic, psychological sci-fi film that thrives on a unique flavor of existential dread.

[03:41] Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, an astronaut nearing the end of a lonely three-year shift harvesting helium-3 on the far side of the moon. Sam, you're out of bed. Yeah. I'm going to stretch my legs, man.

[03:54] We're done. We been having some problems with the lunar shaft and our live feed seems to be down I was recording a video message for Central updating them on your progress

[04:07] The heartbreak begins when Sam suffers an accident and discovers a horrific corporate secret. He isn't the original Sam Bell. He's merely one of a seemingly endless line of short-lived clones designed to be discarded.

[04:19] Isn't she beautiful? She's my little monkey. She's our little monkey. High five. The sheer loneliness of the character, combined with the tragic realization that his memories of his wife and daughter back home,

[04:35] so long as someone else, turned the cerebral mystery into a deeply mournful exploration of identity, corporate exploitation, and ultimate isolation. You know, you've got a hidden room, you know, about the others.

[04:47] That hidden room, Gertie. The lower deck is out of bounds to awaken the bones found. Brain, you need to wake up in a cloud. New clones can only be awakened once a three-year contract is completed.

[05:01] Number 7. Melancholia Lars von Trier's Melancholia uses a rogue planet on a collision course with Earth as a terrifying metaphor for clinical depression. The film is split into two halves, focusing on two sisters,

[05:13] Justine and Claire, as the end of the world looms. Don't you need an answer? But I do. Michael, I decided to get through to you all evening tomorrow.

[05:29] That's not true! While Claire grows increasingly hysterical with panic as the planetary impact becomes inevitable, the chronically depressed Justine becomes strangely calm, finding comfort in the absolute certainty of total annihilation.

[05:41] There are no heroic astronauts flying up to plant a bomb on the asteroid here. There is only the agonizing, slow-motion approach of inevitable death.

[05:54] I'm trying to explain it to you. My God. Number 6. AI Artificial Intelligence Feel my hand on the back of your neck?

[06:09] Yes. Does any of this hurt? No. Okay, now. This film is a haunting, multi-layered modern fairy tale that was originally conceived by Stanley Kubrick

[06:21] before ultimately being directed by Steven Spielberg. We follow David, an advanced cybernetic child programmed with the ability to love. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it now!

[06:33] Stop it! David, stop it! When his human mother abandons him in a forest,

[06:46] David embarks on a centuries-long quest to become a real boy, so he can win back her affection. The movie's final act leads 2,000 years into the future, where advanced alien-like Mecha grant David one single final day with a cloned version of his mother.

[07:01] Watching this artificial child experience a fleeting, manufactured moment of maternal love, knowing it's his only one before he slips into an eternal sleep, is an incredibly heavy and deeply unsettling tearjerker.

[07:21] I can do anything that is possible, but I cannot make you a real boy. Why not, Molly? You just look like my husband is different.

[07:35] Number 5. The Fly Good! Oh my god! Good! You look so pretty. Is this happening? Oh, I think it's killing me. This is a horrible encounter.

[07:47] David Cronenberg's The Fly is renowned as a masterpiece of body horror, but beneath the disgusting slime and peeling fingernails lies a deeply tragic romance. Jeff Goldblum plays Seth Rundle a brilliant but eccentric scientist whose genes are accidentally fused with a common housewife during a teleportation experiment As his body undergoes a grotesque mutation his girlfriend played by Gina Davis is forced to watch the man she loves unravel and lose his humanity piece by piece

[08:15] Seth? Up here. Got a pretty good hang, hasn't it? Yeah, it's almost second nature.

[08:28] Stop fighting my name. The sadness peaks in the film's horrifying climax when the creature Brundle has become can no longer speak and begs her to end his suffering with a shotgun. It's a gut-wrenching allegory for terminal illness and decay

[08:40] that elevates a monster movie into a devastatingly poignant romantic tragedy. I'd like to become the first insect politician.

[08:52] You see, I'd like to, but I'm afraid, John, I don't know what you're trying to say. Number four, Children of Men.

[09:04] The plot of Alfonso Cuadron's film Children of Men may have been borrowed from other sources, such as the 1983 Italian flick, the 2019 after the fall of New York. One fertile woman's not enough to recreate the entire human race.

[09:17] That's where you're wrong. But this 2006 effort remains thoroughly engaging. Global society has collapsed after two decades of human infertility, and humanity has entirely lost its sense of hope. The emotional weight of the film relies on the sudden, miraculous discovery of a young woman who has somehow become pregnant.

[09:33] She's pregnant. I know what to say. She's pregnant. I know.

[09:45] It's a miracle, isn't it? The movie features one of the most soul-stirring sequences in sci-fi history. A brutal, chaotic firefight in a refugee camp suddenly grinds to a complete halt as soldiers and civilians alike hear the crying of the newborn baby.

[10:12] Number 3. Arrival So far, there are 12 unidentified objects spread across the globe. There is no obvious logic to their location, and no evidence that the ships are even occupying.

[10:24] It will entertain the idea that if it is a kind of vessel, it may be unmanned. Denis Villeneuve's arrival presents a grounded, brilliant take on first-context sci-fi that ultimately reveals itself in a devastating puzzle of personal grief.

[10:39] Amy Adams plays Louise Banks, a linguist is recruited by the military to communicate with mysterious alien visitors. As she slowly decodes their non-linear language, she begins experiencing vivid, heart-breaking flashbacks of a daughter she lost to a rare illness.

[10:52] The Earth is a planet. What does he mean by that? He means scary, okay? Yeah, little nose. We have to make up our own TV shows.

[11:05] If you have one. However, the film's brilliant twist reveals that these aren't flashbacks at all. They are flash-forwards. Learning the alien language has unlocked the ability to perceive time all at once.

[11:17] Knowing exactly how much pain and loss awaits her, Louise still chooses to walk down that path, embracing the beautiful moments of her future daughter's life, despite the guaranteed heartbreak that will inevitably follow. What is going to happen?

[11:33] It has to do with a really rare disease. I didn't tell him to call. Number two, The Road. Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy,

[11:47] The Road is possibly the most unrelentingly bleak post-apocalyptic film ever put to celluloid. What?

[12:05] Hmm Huh Thank you Following an unnamed cataclysm that has killed all plant and animal life a dying father and his young son walk through a gray ash wasteland toward the coast

[12:21] The world is populated by desperate cannibals and scavengers, and there's no grand quest to save humanity. There's only survival. What the hell are you doing? I need to! I just don't!

[12:34] Viggo Mortensen in particular delivers a shattering performance as a father whose entire existence is fueled by the desperate, exhausting need to protect his son's innocence in a world that has lost its soul.

[12:47] Eli? What's wrong with Eli? Go home and die. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

[13:00] Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Some heartbreaks are worth remembering. It's all falling apart. I'm erasing you and I'm happy. You get it to me first. E.T. the Extraterrestrial.

[13:13] That cheerful goodbye between a boy and his alien friend always gets us. Wall-E. Pixar broke our hearts using a rusty little cleaning robot.

[13:47] Blade Runner 2049. Kay's quiet, snowy acceptance of his mortality is beautifully tragic. Go meet your daughter.

[14:02] You're okay. Gattaca. Jerome's choice to step into the incinerator brings an emotional sting. For someone who has never mentioned this world,

[14:14] I must confess, I'm suddenly having a hard time leaving. Before we continue, be sure to check out WatchMojo's 24-hour livestream. All of your favorite videos in one place, 24-7.

[14:26] Always on, always live. Are you ready to sing? Number one, Never Let Me Go. I remember you both. Kathy, a bright girl, and so creative.

[14:39] And Tommy, a big heart, and terrible rages. You have to understand, Hailsham was the last place to consider the ethics of donation.

[14:53] Never Let Me Go is based on the novel by Kazuro Ishiguro and takes place in an alternate version of the late 20th century. We follow three friends who grow up at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. However, they soon learn the horrific truth.

[15:06] They are clones created for the sole purpose of having their vital organs harvested once they reach adulthood. You didn't have the gallery in order to look into your souls. You had the gallery to see if you had souls at all.

[15:18] What makes this film so uniquely crushing is the utter lack of a rebellion. The characters completely accept their fate, searching only for a brief deferral of their donations so they can spend a little more time with the people they love. When they learn that no such extensions exist, the absolute despair and quiet resignation that follows is heartbreaking.

[15:36] breaking.

[15:56] Which sci-fi movie devastated you? Let us know in the comments.