12 Most Anxiety-Inducing Sci-Fi Movies EVER

From real life space catastrophe to body invading aliens to f***ed up futures...

By Cathal Gunning /

At its most wholesome, sci fi can be a pretty beautiful genre. Just look at WhatCulture's recent rundown of the genre's most visually stunning films for proof of how sumptuous and imaginative the landscapes and invented worlds of science fiction are able to be onscreen, freed from the bonds of recognisable reality which limits most film endeavours.

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The genre can be as beautiful as the thoughtful Solaris, as hopeful as the optimistic Tomorrowland, or as straight up feel good and fun as the original Star Wars films.

Then there are movies like the ones on this list.

The anxiety inducing side of sci fi is home to the movies which portray the terrifying reality of space travel with way too much realism for our poor hearts to bear, the ones which feature aliens who don't so much come in peace as come to tear us into pieces, and the ones which imagine a future even bleaker and harsher than, well, reality right now.

And those are the sci fi films highlighted on this rundown, the most adrenaline-injected cinematic nightmares science fiction has to offer.

12. Apollo 13

Okay, so if the criteria were crazy strict for this list it would be worth noting that yes, technically Apollo 13 is a science fact movie rather than a science fiction one.

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But it’s hard to beat 1993’s tense space exploration docudrama for a heart racing depiction of real life space travel gone awry and the almost deadly consequences thereof.

Following Tom Hanks as the distressed captain of the titular doomed vessel, Castaway helmer Ron Howard’s intense film sees his tight knit crew of Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton attempt to bring the disastrous flight back to Earth without any casualties—save for the viewer’s nerves, that is.

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