MOVIEPIQ · SCI-FI · FOR MENTAL EXHAUSTION

Sci-Fi Movies For Mental Exhaustion From The 80S And 90S

Sci-Fi movies for mental exhaustion from the 80s and 90s. Includes Dragon Ball Z: Cooler's Revenge, The Dead Zone, Strange Days and more, curated by Moviepiq.

Thinking is off the table tonight. These films are fine with that.

Dragon Ball Z: Cooler's Revenge movie poster
1
1991 · ★★★½☆ 7.0/10

After defeating Frieza, Goku returns to Earth and goes on a camping trip with Gohan and Krillin. Everything is normal until Cooler - Frieza's brother - sends three henchmen after Goku. A long fight ensues between our heroes and Cooler, in which he transforms into the fourth stage of his evolution and has the edge in the fight... until Goku transforms into a Super Saiyan.

Low cognitive demand, high reward. The rare film that works when you have nothing left.

The Dead Zone movie poster
2
1983 · ★★★½☆ 7.0/10

Johnny Smith is a schoolteacher with his whole life ahead of him but, after leaving his fiancee's home one night, is involved in a car crash which leaves him in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes, he discovers he has an ability to see into the past, present and future life of anyone with whom he comes into physical contact.

Low cognitive demand, high reward. The rare film that works when you have nothing left.

Strange Days movie poster
3
1995 · ★★★½☆ 7.0/10

In the last days of 1999, ex-cop turned street hustler Lenny Nero receives a disc which contains the memories of the murder of a prostitute. With the help of bodyguard Mace, he starts to investigate and is pulled deeper and deeper in a whirl of murder, blackmail and intrigue.

Low cognitive demand, high reward. The rare film that works when you have nothing left.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man movie poster
4
1989 · ★★★½☆ 7.0/10

A "metal fetishist", driven mad by the maggots wriggling in the wound he's made to embed metal into his flesh, runs out into the night and is accidentally run down by a Japanese businessman and his girlfriend. The pair dispose of the corpse in hopes of quietly moving on with their lives. However, the businessman soon finds that he is now plagued by a vicious curse that transforms his flesh into iron.

Low cognitive demand, high reward. The rare film that works when you have nothing left.

Enemy Mine movie poster
5
1985 · ★★★½☆ 7.0/10

A soldier from Earth crashlands on an alien world after sustaining battle damage. Eventually he encounters another survivor, but from the enemy species he was fighting; they band together to survive on this hostile world. In the end the human finds himself caring for his enemy in a completely unexpected way.

Low cognitive demand, high reward. The rare film that works when you have nothing left.

Not every film needs to be a challenge. Some nights, being pulled along is exactly right.

Better appreciated when rested, but still rewarding with a tired brain.

Flight of the Navigator movie poster
6
1986 · ★★★½☆ 7.0/10

12-year-old David is accidentally knocked out in the forest near his home, but when he awakens eight years have passed. His family is overjoyed to have him back, but is just as perplexed as he is that he hasn't aged. When a NASA scientist discovers a UFO nearby, David gets the chance to unravel the mystery and recover the life he lost.

Low cognitive demand, high reward. The rare film that works when you have nothing left.

Tremors movie poster
7
1990 · ★★★½☆ 6.9/10

Val McKee and Earl Bassett are in a fight for their lives when they discover that their desolate town has been infested with gigantic, man-eating creatures that live below the ground.

Asks almost nothing of your processing power. You can be fully present or half asleep and still get it.

Dragon Ball Z: Super Android 13! movie poster
8
1992 · ★★★½☆ 6.9/10

Dr. Gero's Androids #13, #14, and #15 are awakened by the laboratory computers and immediately head to the mall where Goku is shopping. After Goku, Trunks, and Vegeta defeat #14 and #15, #13 absorbs their inner computers and becomes a super being greater than the original three separately were. Now it is up to Goku to stop him.

Low cognitive demand, high reward. The rare film that works when you have nothing left.

Starman movie poster
9
1984 · ★★★½☆ 6.9/10

When an alien takes the form of a young widow's husband and asks her to drive him from Wisconsin to Arizona, the government tries to stop them.

Asks almost nothing of your processing power. You can be fully present or half asleep and still get it.

The X-Files movie poster
10
1998 · ★★★½☆ 6.9/10

Mulder and Scully, now taken off the FBI's X Files cases, must find a way to fight the shadowy elements of the government to find out the truth about a conspiracy that might mean the alien colonization of Earth.

Asks almost nothing of your processing power. You can be fully present or half asleep and still get it.

These films work because they match where you actually are, not where you think you should be.

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