10 Best Sci-Fi Movies Of The 21st Century

10. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Global warming drastically erodes Earth's population and wipes several coastal cities clean off the map. To combat this loss of human life, we get Mecha; humanoid robots who are capable of complex emotions like love. David is one such child.

A. I. thrives on human paranoia over the seemingly inevitable takeover of technology. David is created as a solution to a problem, but when he's brought home to his new family all he does is inspire jealousy in his human brother. A. I. simply asks us to consider how we can continue to co-exist alongside technology that's going to get more and more dynamic; how can David's family abandon him, and why can't the humans in the story co-exist with something that just wants to feel the same sense of community with them?

An amalgation of the work of two of Hollywood's greatest directors (Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick), A. I. is a film that deals with the optimism and the bleak nature of the future. It's not always perfect, but there is a certain profundity to David's arc as he grapples with being not-quite-human and what his place within our society is that would warm even the coldest of hearts.