A Glean movie guide
Hidden Gems: Sci-Fi Beyond the Mainstream
Smart sci-fi for the curious.
Discover mind-bending narratives and cult classics that flew under the radar.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Coherence
A masterclass in low-budget tension where a simple dinner party spirals into a reality-bending nightmare.
Four couples gather for dinner the night a mysterious and powerful comet passes overhead.
- 02
Moon
A haunting, character-driven story that explores identity and isolation through a brilliant solo performance.
With only three weeks left in his three-year contract, Sam Bell is eager to return to Earth. Stationed alone at a Moon-based facility with his computer assistant GERTY, an unexpected accident sets off a series of unsettling events that shake his isolation.
- 03
Primer
The ultimate time-travel puzzle, famous for its uncompromisingly realistic and complex technical dialogue.
A group of fledgling inventors discover a complex method to manipulate reality. At first, they successfully game the stock market with it, but the consequences of the invention start to catch up with them.
- 04
Gattaca
A visually stunning and philosophical look at a future where genetic perfection determines your destiny.
Vincent is an all-too-human man who dares to defy a system obsessed with genetic perfection. He is an "In-Valid" who assumes the identity of a member of the genetic elite to pursue his goal of traveling into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation.
- 05
Dark City
A visually arresting neo-noir that masterfully blends reality-warping mystery with intricate world-building.
A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.
- 06
Timecrimes
A lean, Spanish-language thriller that executes a complex time-loop narrative with surgical precision.
A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.
- 07
Sunshine
A high-stakes mission to the sun that evolves from hard science fiction into a gripping psychological thriller.
Fifty years into the future, the sun is dying, and Earth is threatened by arctic temperatures. A team of astronauts is sent to revive the Sun — but the mission fails. Seven years later, a new team is sent to finish the mission as mankind’s last hope.
- 08
The Vast of Night
An atmospheric, dialogue-driven mystery that captures the eerie wonder of 1950s extraterrestrial lore.
At the dawn of the space-race, two radio-obsessed teens discover a strange frequency over the airwaves in what becomes the most important night of their lives and in the history of their small town.
- 09
Upgrade
A sleek, high-concept action film that pairs brutal choreography with a dark, cynical sense of humor.
A brutal mugging leaves Grey Trace paralyzed in the hospital and his beloved wife dead. A billionaire inventor soon offers Trace a cure — an artificial intelligence implant called STEM that will enhance his body. Now able to walk, Grey finds that he also has superhuman strength and agility — skills he uses to seek revenge against the thugs who destroyed his life.
- 10
Predestination
A mind-twisting journey through time that rewards attentive viewers with its intricate, paradoxical plotting.
Predestination chronicles the life of a Temporal Agent sent on an intricate series of time-travel journeys designed to prevent future killers from committing their crimes. Now, on his final assignment, the Agent must stop the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time and prevent a devastating attack in which thousands of lives will be lost.
- 11
Strange Days
A gritty cyberpunk vision of the future that explores the dangerous allure of recorded human memories.
In the last days of 1999, ex-cop turned street hustler Lenny Nero receives a disc which contains the memories of the murder of a prostitute. With the help of bodyguard Mace, he starts to investigate and is pulled deeper and deeper in a whirl of murder, blackmail and intrigue.
- 12
A Scanner Darkly
A unique, rotoscoped adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s work that captures the paranoia of surveillance culture.
An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.