50 Essential Sci-Fi Films of the 21st Century (So Far)

Steven Spielberg’s second-best sci-fi of the 21st century takes Tom Cruise before he was an adrenaline junkie, and uses his star power and acting chops in equal measure to deliver a tense and action-packed version of Philip K. Dick's 1956 novella The Minority Report.

Set in a future where serious crime is predicted by psychic humans (precogs) and stopped by the elite Precrime police program before it can ever happen, Minority Report focuses on Chief John Anderton (Cruise), the commanding officer of Precrime, who runs afoul of the system. When the precogs predict the chief will kill a man he has never met, Anderton goes on the run from DoJ agent Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell) and his team, while attempting to clear his name.

Rather than a run-of-the-mill action hero, Minority Report deftly offers a flawed lead, one besieged by the tragedy of his lost son, the departure of his wife, and his addiction to drugs. With elements of noir, cyberpunk, mystery, thriller, and other genre elements, the story is sprawling and layered, and in the hands of a less seasoned director could have been an absolute mess. As things stand, Spielberg manages the material with grace, elegance, and the dramatic visual storytelling we expect from him - and the relative brevity of Dick’s novella allowed him and writers Scott Frank and Jon Cohen to flesh the film out into something gripping but with that signature feel-good Spielberg ending.