The best films for a group don't flatten the experience - they create one. You want something that generates opinions, debates, a reason to stay up later than planned.
In retrospect, the 2010s were a decade of quiet excellence - films doing serious work without demanding credit for it.
Great sci-fi uses the impossible to illuminate the real. Distance from the present is what allows these films to say things that otherwise couldn't be said.
An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, and most everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life. Within this world exist two rebels on the run who just might be able to restore order.
Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.
The Guardians must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mysteries of Peter Quill's true parentage.
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
When the creator of a popular video game system dies, a virtual contest is created to compete for his fortune.
These films use the grammar of science fiction â the technology, the strangeness, the distance â to say things that couldn't be said any other way.
Thor is imprisoned on the other side of the universe and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok, the destruction of his home-world and the end of Asgardian civilization, at the hands of a powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela.
Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
A molecular biologist's study of the human eye has far-reaching implications about humanity's scientific and spiritual beliefs.
The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods as they join forces with their younger selves in an epic battle that must change the past - to save our future.
The comedic modern-day quintet takes on their 2003 counterparts when villains from each of their worlds join forces to pit the two Titan teams against each other. They'll need to set aside their differences and work together to combat Trigon, Hexagon, Santa Claus (that's right, Santa!) and time itself in order to save the multiverse.
Overlooked films are overlooked for the wrong reasons. Not because they failed - because they didn't fit. These didn't fit. They're excellent.
Great science fiction stays with you because the questions it raises don't have answers. These films plant something and leave it to grow.