Best science fiction films

Alien wins 58% of its duels and tops the Sci-fi movies ranking ahead of The Matrix.

Alien holds the top spot with 1312 ELO points, but The Matrix trails by just 18 points at 1294. The sharpest gap appears between ranks 2 and 3, where 26 ELO points separate The Matrix from Back to the Future. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope sits at rank 4 with 1261 points despite winning 65% of its duels, the highest win rate in the top 5. Blade Runner completes the podium's surrounding tier at rank 5 with 1243 points after 489 duels, the most contested film in the upper bracket. At the bottom, District 9 closes the ranking at 1034 ELO, 278 points behind Alien, while RoboCop occupies rank 14 at 1072 points. Starship Troopers sits just above at rank 13 with 1155 points. The spread suggests voters recognize distinct tiers among these classics, with the middle pack tightly contested and the top three films separated by narrow margins that reflect genuine debate over their merits.

3930 duels from 91 players have shaped this ranking of 15 contenders as of 11 October 2026. The community has weighed Ridley Scott's horror-infused vision against the Wachowskis' cyberpunk rebellion, time travel comedy against space opera, dystopian satire against android noir. Cast your vote and shift the order.

Updated on October 11, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →