12 Best 1990s Sci-Fi Movies

11. Starship Troopers

FIfth Element
TriStar Pictures

A constant fixture of 'Most Underrated Movies' lists everywhere, nobody really knew what to make of Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers when it first hit theaters in 1997, but in the two decades since the sci-fi blockbuster has been reappraised and now endures as a cult classic.

Starship Troopers initially bombed at the box office, and was savaged by many critics for being shallow and derivative and designed to appeal to a bloodthirsty young audience looking for their next fix of big-budget mayhem, and it certainly took a while for people to catch on to the fact that it might just have been the most subversive entry on Verhoeven's filmography yet.

Sure, the acting is at times terrible and the bare bones of the plot have been seen a thousand times before, but some of the action is incredibly well-staged, and the majority of the CGI effects still hold up today. Not only that, but the fact that Verhoeven took $105m of the studio's money and crafted a satire about American foreign policy, fascism, propaganda and the entire military industrial complex without anybody even noticing deserves to be applauded.

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