The Wachowskis injected their signature blend of philosophy, action, and social commentary, aspects that mostly work.

The samecan’t be said for Eddie Redmayne, but that’s another story.

Science fiction is, at its best, boundary-pushing, much likeJupiter Ascending.

A pod exits the Discovery One spaceship.

Image via Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Here are some films that dared to do the same.

The screenplay is equally impressive, written by Stanley Kubrick and legendary sci-fi authorArthur C. Clarke.

Stragne energy reading and pulses have been detected, and these pulses threaten all of humanity.

2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) (1)

Image via 20th Century Fox

The film that follows is an intimate examination of human relationships through the lens of a well-made sci-fi film.

Pollution and accumulated trash have left Earth uninhabitable.

Little WALL-E is left to clean up the mess as humanity literally runs away from that problems it created.

Ad Astra (2019)  (1)

Image via 20th Century Fox

One of his more complex offerings isDark City, despite bombing at the box office.

John Murdoch, with no memory, finds himself accused of multiple murders.

What follows is a spiraling search for the truth.

The robot WALL-E solves a rubik’s cube in the film WALL-E  in a forgotten earth full of garbage.

Image Via Pixar Animation Studios

Most of the praise forDark Cityis directed at its visuals, and that’s well deserved.

The themes are bigger.

The sets are bigger.

dark-city-social-featured

Image via New Line Cinema

The visuals are a character unto themselves.

The film from Soviet Russia follows the team at a space station as they descend into an emotional breakdown.

Will Kris, a psychologist tasked with evaluating the crew, succumb to the same fate?

A man wearing a space suit walks into a vast room filled with columns of mysterious pods in ‘Prometheus’

Image via 20th Century Studios

3Akira (1988)

It is hard to understate the importance ofKatsuhiro Otomo’sAkira.

Would we even know that that consciousness had been achieved?

But perhaps its most lasting impact comes from its contributions to cinema and film history.

Battle in Dune with warriors.

READ NEXT:10 Most Iconic Sci-Fi Directors, Ranked

Donatas Banjonis as Kris Kelvin in the middle of a flower field in Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Solaris’ (1972)

Image via Mosfilm

akira

Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Oscar Isaac from Ex-Machina in a promo image for the film

Image via A24

A Trip to the Moon

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