A Glean movie guide
Sci-Fi’s Best Kept Secrets
Beyond the blockbusters.
Mind-bending concepts and atmospheric masterpieces that flew under the radar.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Coherence
A masterclass in low-budget tension where a dinner party spirals into a reality-bending nightmare.
Four couples gather for dinner the night a mysterious and powerful comet passes overhead.
- 02
Primer
An uncompromisingly realistic look at time travel that demands your full attention and multiple viewings.
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.
- 03
Dark City
A visually stunning neo-noir that explores the nature of memory and reality in a city of eternal night.
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.
- 04
Moon
A haunting, character-driven story of isolation that relies on a powerhouse performance rather than spectacle.
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.
- 05
Timecrimes
A tight, ingenious Spanish thriller that navigates the paradoxes of time travel 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.
- 06
Upgrade
A lean, inventive cyberpunk actioner that uses practical effects to deliver a high-concept revenge story.
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.
- 07
The Vast of Night
A stylish, dialogue-heavy homage to classic mystery that builds immense tension through sound and shadow.
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.
- 08
Sunshine
A visually breathtaking journey toward the sun that blends hard science with psychological survival horror.
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.
- 09
Gattaca
A sophisticated, mid-century modern vision of a future where your DNA is 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.
- 10
Strange Days
A gritty, prophetic cyberpunk noir that captures the frantic energy of a society addicted to digital 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.
- 11
Aniara
A bleak and beautiful Swedish epic that examines the slow decay of human society aboard a drifting spacecraft.
A ship carrying settlers to a new home on Mars after Earth is rendered uninhabitable is knocked off-course, causing the passengers to consider their place in the universe.
- 12
Predestination
A brain-twisting temporal puzzle that rewards viewers who can keep up with its complex narrative loops.
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.