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.
Peter Parker and his friends go on a summer trip to Europe. However, they will hardly be able to rest - Peter will have to agree to help Nick Fury uncover the mystery of creatures that cause natural disasters and destruction throughout the continent.
A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.
Sewashi and Doraemon find themselves way back in time and meet Nobita. It is up to Doraemon to take care of Nobita or else he will not return to the present.
Tara Markov is a girl who has power over earth and stone; she is also more than she seems. Is the newest Teen Titan an ally or a threat? And what are the mercenary Deathstroke's plans for the Titans?
King T'Challa returns home to the reclusive, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to serve as his country's new leader. However, T'Challa soon finds that he is challenged for the throne by factions within his own country as well as without. Using powers reserved to Wakandan kings, T'Challa assumes the Black Panther mantle to join with ex-girlfriend Nakia, the queen-mother, his princess-kid sister, members of the Dora Milaje (the Wakandan 'special forces') and an American secret agent, to prevent Wakanda from being dragged into a world war.
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.
A highly intelligent chimpanzee named Caesar has been living a peaceful suburban life ever since he was born. But when he gets taken to a cruel primate facility, Caesar decides to revolt against those who have harmed him.
A group of scientists in San Francisco struggle to stay alive in the aftermath of a plague that is wiping out humanity, while Caesar tries to maintain dominance over his community of intelligent apes.
A young girl named Mija risks everything to prevent a powerful, multi-national company from kidnapping her best friend - a massive animal named Okja.
Following the events of Captain America: Civil War, Peter Parker, with the help of his mentor Tony Stark, tries to balance his life as an ordinary high school student in Queens, New York City, with fighting crime as his superhero alter ego Spider-Man as a new threat, the Vulture, emerges.
When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.
The films that stay with you aren't always the ones that answer every question. Sometimes it's the ones that leave you with better questions.
Great science fiction stays with you because the questions it raises don't have answers. These films plant something and leave it to grow.