These days, science fiction is basically our reality. Generative AI, touch screens, video conferencing, algorithms, and authoritarian regimes—we wake up every day as though we’re living in the first 200 pages of an Aldous Huxley novel. But filmmakers always find a way to crank up the dial and show us that life could still be better, or so much worse.

The year 2025 has proved to be a sleeper year for science-fiction cinema, with a few mighty releases like Mickey 17, Companion, and The Gorge demanding attention. Superhero tentpoles have also leaned into sci-fi harder than the genre has before, with the likes of Superman from DC Studios and The Fantastic Four: First Steps from Marvel Studios. Later in the year, we’ll return to the Grid with Tron: Ares and witness the next chapter of James Cameron’s Avatar saga with Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Until then, these are the best science fiction movies of 2025 so far.

MARSHMALLOW:

Daniel DelPurgatorio’s indie thriller Marshmallow scratches the itch for anyone who wants their sci-fi to feel a little scary. In Marshmallow, an adolescent boy haunted by nightmares is sent away to summer camp, where only he can see the encroaching terror of the camp’s resident boogeyman, “the Doctor.” A modernized amalgamation of ’80s-era horror like Friday the 13th and The Thing, Marshmallow will make you feel like you’re back around the campfire.