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Sci-fi is one of the best and most popular movie genres, but that doesn’t mean that every sci-fi movie is a winner. As is the case with any film genre, there are some movies that aren’t successful, some that aren’t very good, and some that end up being appreciated long after they were first released. But there is also another kind of movie, the movie that is so bad it somehow actually ends up being good. These are the films that make no sense or have terrible acting, awful effects, or some combination of all three but for some reason are weirdly enjoyable to watch and, in some cases, end up pretty endearing over time. They’re the guilty pleasures of movies and sci-fi has plenty.
While there is truly no shortage of so bad they’re good sci-fi movies (we have the 1950s and early 1960s to thank for some truly terrible/good B-movies) there are some that just jump to the top of mind when thinking about those almost embarrassingly awful films that you just can’t help but actually enjoy. Here are seven of them and honestly, some really are way better than we gave them credit for in the first place.
7) Starship Troopers
When it comes to sci-fi films that fall into so bad they’re good territory, there are generally two that immediately come to mind. Both are on this list but we’ll start first with Starship Troopers. Directed by Paul Verhoeven, the director behind the all-time classic sci-fi RoboCop, Starship Troopers was released in 1997 and is based on Robert A. Heinlein’s novel of the same name. It’s supposed to be a satirical anti-war movie, following the story of teenager Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) who serves in the world government’s United Citizen Federation army along with his friends, fighting an interstellar war against aliens called the Arachnids. When it was released, it not only bombed at the box office but it was ravaged by critics for being an endorsement of fascism, not to mention bad performances and a lot of violence.
However, looking back on Starship Troopers now one gets a much different read on the film. Make no mistake: Starship Troopers is still a mess. The performances leave a lot to be desired and there is a lot of violence. But in terms of its message opinions on that have shifted with it now coming more into focus that the film was a sharp satire of fascism and much better story-wise than originally given credit for. Interestingly enough, despite its poor performance when released, Starship Troopers actually launched a franchise which includes four sequels, an animated television series, comics, and video games.
6) Jupiter Ascending
The Wachowskis may have been the minds behind The Matrix, but their 2015 project, Jupiter Ascending was a far cry from that masterpiece. The story follows Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a seemingly normal cleaning woman who is informed by Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), an interplanetary warrior, that she has a destiny beyond Earth after she’s attacked by would-be assassins. It turns out that Jupiter is somehow genetically identical to a long-dead alien matriarch and the rightful owner of Earth. And that’s the simple version of the story.
Jupiter Ascending has an unnecessarily convoluted and complex story and honestly, it’s one that would be vastly better suited for a television series as it is. The world the story is set in is actually really interesting and the movie is very much a visual treat as well. It’s also a movie where, if you don’t question some of the details too much, you actually can get really invested in things. It’s a little campy, but the action is good and it’s a surprisingly solid watch.
5) The Core
Disaster movies are a particularly entertaining subgenre of sci-fi. There is something about natural disasters (or rather, unnatural ones) that just make for really interesting premises that often have completely bonkers solutions — think Armageddon here for a moment. They’re movies that are almost always destined to be somewhere on the so bad they’re good scale, but the greatest of them all has to be 2003’s The Core because, if you somehow can ignore that the science here is absolute trash and just not question it, the movie is actually good.
The premise of the film is simple: the Earth’s core has stopped rotating, which creates a problem because if it doesn’t restart, the planet’s magnetic field will eventually fail and the planet will be exposed to solar radiation The plan to fix things? That’s where things get wild as the movie’s government comes up with a genius idea to drill to the center of the Earth and set of a series of nuclear explosions to get things going again. It’s a very stupid plan, but despite the absolute insanity of the “science” here, the acting is oddly good. The film stars Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, D.J. Qualls, Richard Jenkins, Tcheky Karyo, Bruce Greenwood, and Alfre Woodard so it’s got some real talent here. It’s just got very bad science.
4) Battlefield Earth
The second film on this list that comes to mind almost immediately when you think of sci-fi movies so bad they’re good, Battlefield Earth is practically legendary, both for how bad the movie is and for the long road to the movie even being made. Released in 2000 and directed by Roger Christian, Battlefield Earth is based on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s 1982 novel of the same name. Starring John Travolta, the film is set in the year 3000 and follows a human rebellion against the tyrannical aliens (the Psychlos) who have ruled Earth for a thousand years.
The movie is so bad that this one really is something of a guilty pleasure but it’s also something that has to be taken as not just the movie itself, but the whole journey of it being made. Hubbard started trying to get the movie made before his death in 1986 and, in 1994 following the success of Pulp Fiction, Travolta got involved in trying to make this thing a reality. By 1998, an independent production company, Franchise Pictures, picked it up and Travolta put millions of his own money into the film, which started production in 1999. However, the film — which actually only adapts the first half of Hubbard’s novel and Travolta envisioned the film as the first in a duology — was so bad with poor writing and acting and not to mention bad effects that Travolta just backed away from the film after its opening weekend. It’s a film that really is just more bad than good, but you almost have to appreciate it for just how bad it really is.
3) Mac and Me
Mac and Me holds a special place in the hearts of many a 1980s kid. Very much an obvious wannabe E.T. the Extraterrestrial ripoff, Mac and Me is the story of a “Mysterious Alien Creature” (MAC) who escapes from government agents, befriends a human boy named Eric, and the two go looking for Mac’s alien family. It’s a charming enough premise, but what makes this movie “bad” is that it is supposed to be serious and is instead very funny. The acting is so bad you can’t help but laugh, the actual script and story is pretty boring but made entertaining by the bad acting. The effects are cheap and terrible which makes them humorous as all get out and the whole thing is this wild series of product placement advertising, specifically for Coke and McDonald’s.
Cementing Mac and Me as “so bad it’s good” however might just be one of the scenes towards the end involving Eric, a shootout, and his wheelchair and how it all somehow leads to Mac and his family getting American citizenship. No, I am not kidding. If you haven’t seen this absolutely awful gem, correct that immediately.
2) Robo Vampire
This is one that there is a solid chance you may never have heard of, but that’s kind of what this list is for in a sense: to introduce you to so bad they’re good sci-fi movies that you really should give a chance and this time, it’s Robo Vampire. If you read that title and thought this is some sort of RoboCop ripoff, you’re absolutely correct. The prequel to 1987’s Devil’s Dynamite, thus technically making it the second film in the overall Robovamp trilogy (yes, this is a franchise), Robo Vampire is a 1988 Hong Kong sci-fi film that sees narcotics agent Tom Wilde shot and killed but get a second chance when a futuristic experiment brings him back, to life as an Android Robot. As an Android Robot, he’s sent out on dangerous and violent missions, specifically one to rescue an undercover agent who had been captured by a drug lord who has an inhuman creation of his own: Vampire Beast.
If you’re thinking this sounds like “what if RoboCop was a vampire hunter” you’re not entirely wrong. It’s insane, but the movie is also actually strangely good. The vampire designs are very good, and what’s really cool about this film is that it incorporates some Chinese folklore in terms of how the vampires operate because, after all, every culture has their own specific take on these supernatural creatures. It’s a weird combination of things, really, but Robo Vampire is actually a very entertaining movie, despite being a weird RoboCop wannabe.
1) Anaconda (1997)
Maybe someday the 2025 Anaconda reboot will land on this list, but for now we’re sticking to the original 1997 movie that kicked off the entire franchise because yes, this is another bad sci-fi movie that got a full franchise and has also become a cult classic. Anaconda follows a documentary crew in the Amazon rainforest searching for a long-lost indigenous tribe with their expedition and end up being led by someone who, unbeknownst to them, is a snake hunter searching for the legendary green anaconda. As you might guess, be careful what you’re looking for because you just might find it.
The truth is, Anaconda isn’t a bad movie. It’s just incredibly cheesy, which looking back on it now is a huge part of its charm. The film is very quintessentially a 1990s action movie, complete with bad effects (especially when it comes to that snake) and some pretty mediocre performances from some pretty big names like Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, and Danny Trejo. The whole thing has an almost vintage creature feature vibe to it and if you take it for the campy good fun, it actually is, it’s a slightly scary delight of a movie that everyone should enjoy at least once.
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