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

With a cast list boasting Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Daniel Craig, Kris Kristofferson, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, you may be wondering how you’ve never seen John Maybury’s The Jacket. Well, despite its star power, it didn’t go far either at the box office or with critics, and has been lost down the back of the couch ever since. But no more!

We join Jack Starks, a Gulf War veteran who returns to the States in 1992 after surviving a bullet wound to the head and suffering from bouts of amnesia for his troubles. But he gets into a spot of bother while hitchhiking, waking up to find himself next to a dead cop with no memory of what happened. Thus, Jack is tried and thrown in the clink - or, a locked psychiatric institution - where he’s injected with drugs, bound in a straitjacket, and locked in a morgue drawer as a form of experimental treatment. While in the jacket, though, he travels 15 years into the future and finds the woman he loves, using their bond to investigate what really happened.

Like Twelve Monkeys but on a far smaller and more personal scale, The Jacket expertly navigates the tropes of the psychological thriller while finding time for a genuinely affecting romance. Yes, the sci-fi element is a vehicle for the film’s other interests - but isn’t this what good genre is all about?