The 1990s was a great time for science fiction adventure movies. This was the decade of Jurassic Park, Men In Black, and The Matrix. A time when sci-fi went mainstream and the multiplex experience was all the richer for it.
Even so, some of the era’s best and most inventive sci-fi adventure movies went under-appreciated – save for a few video store rentals and occasional late-night TV broadcast. Thankfully, the dawn of the internet and rise of streaming services means it has never been easier to seek some of these forgotten screen gems out – starting with these ten.
10 Abraxas: Guardian Of The Universe
After standout supporting turns in Predator and The Running Man, the ‘90s saw wrestler-turned-actor Jesse Ventura finally get top billing in Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. Ventura plays the titular Abraxas, an intergalactic cop hot on the tail of renegade ex-partner Secundus, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s stuntman Sven-Ole Thorsen.
Matters are complicated further when Secundus heads to Earth where he wastes no time in impregnating a woman with a potentially deadly mutant embryo (simply by touching her belly) in the hopes of gaining planet-conquering powers. Featuring a cameo from Jim Belushi, this is big, brash action sci-fi adventure fun.
9 I Come In Peace
Two years before Jurassic Park, screenwriter David Koepp got his first taste of sci-fi with this buddy cop B-movie effort starring everyone’s favorite Rocky villain, Dolph Lundgren.
I Come in Peace centers on Lundgren’s brilliantly named renegade lawman, Jack Caine, and his investigations into a string of drug-related slayings. Things to take an unusual turn when Caine learns an alien is behind the homicides, as part of an elaborate plan involving him shooting people full of heroin in order to extract the endorphins created to sell as a drug called Barsi on his home planet.
8 Timescape
Released on video as Grand Tour: Disaster in Time, Timescape paired a Jeff Daniels with Jurassic Park child star Ariana Richards for a time travel caper that belies its modest budget.
They play a widower and his daughter who, after moving back to their small-town guest house, encounter a strange group of travelers with an unusual interest in historical disasters. That sets in motion an engrossing sci-fi tale offering fresh twists on the familiar time travel tropes. Adapted from a novella by Henry Kuttner and CL Moore, and directed by Pitch Black’s David Twohy, Timescape is well worth seeking out.
7 Fortress
Whisper it quietly among Highlander fans, but Fortress might actually be Christopher Lambert’s best movie. The premise is certainly a lot easier to follow. Lambert plays John Henry Brennick, an inmate at a private underground prison known only as the Fortress, overseen by a sadistic warden and an evil corporation intent on perfecting mind control.
Incarcerated alongside his wife, Brennick is forced to hatch a plan to get them both out of the hi-tech hellhole after learning his other half is illegally pregnant. With a stellar supporting cast including Kurtwood Smith and Jeffrey Combs, Fortress offers high concept hijinks.
6 No Escape
Ray Liotta channels his inner Mad Max for this inspired mix of Waterworld and Lord of the Flies. Liotta plays John Robbins, a former Marine serving out a life sentence on a remote island inhabited by a collective of cannibalistic prisoners known as “The Outsiders”.
Thankfully for Robbins, the island is also home to “The Insiders” a group of convicts, led by Lance Henriksen’s The Father, who are intent on forming some semblance of a society. Soon enough, Robbins is leading the Insiders in an all-out war against their island rivals, all while trying to engineer an escape home.
5 Guyver: Dark Hero
Not to be confused with The Guyver, this 1994 sequel serves a more faithful adaptation of the cult manga and anime series it was based on. It centers on the exploits of Sean Barker, played by David Hayter, who after discovering an alien artefact known as “The Unit” is transformed into an alien-hybrid super soldier called “The Guyver”.
Significantly darker, more serious than the original, this follow-up was released direct-to-video in the US but, thanks to its R-rating, boasts an impressive amount of gory action that helps give proceedings the feel of a very violent episode of The Power Rangers.
4 Strange Days
Kathyrn Bigelow’s criminally underrated cyberpunk thriller centers on Ralph Fiennes’s Lenny Nero, a former vice cop now trading in illegal “squid” recordings made directly via the cerebral cortex which allow viewers to essentially “live” someone else’s experience as if they were there.
Lenny’s life is turned upside down when he ends up in the possession of a “Squid” recording of someone doing some very bad things. Soon he's drawn into a murky conspiracy that threatens to unravel everyone and everything he knows. Visually stunning and brimming with creativity, Strange Days was - and still is - ahead of its time.
3 eXistenZ
eXistenZ suffered the misfortune of being released in the same year as The Matrix, but it makes for a fascinating companion piece. David Cronenberg’s film pairs Jennifer Jason Leigh with Jude Law for an inventive sci-fi thriller boasting some of the gooiest, most grotesque technology ever committed to film.
Leigh plays an enigmatic game designer who, after a run-in with an assassin, jumps into her latest virtual reality creation to determine whether her work has been damaged. Joined by Law’s marketing trainee, she soon encounters conflict in the virtual world where a bounty has been placed on her head.
2 The City of Lost Children
Jean-Pierre Jeunet is best known for films like Delicatessen and Amelie, but The City of Lost Children is arguably his most striking and ambitious. Set in a dystopian alternate reality, a young(ish) Ron Perlmann stars as One, a fairground strongman who sets out to find his brother, Denree, following his kidnapping by a mad scientist intent on capturing children and harvesting their dreams in the hope it will slow the aging process.
A dark and vividly realized tale, Jeunet injects the bleak premise with enough humor and eye-catching visuals to make it a mesmerizing must-see for fans of the genre.
1 Dark City
Alex Proyas follow-up The Crow with another cult classic in Dark City, which remains among the most underrated sci-fi adventure movies to emerge from The Matrix’s shadow. It stars Rufus Sewell as John Murdoch, a man who awakes in a strange hotel with no memory and an arrest warrant out on his head for a series of gruesome murders.
On the run from William Hurt’s Inspector Frank Bumstead, Murdoch’s situation turns increasingly bizarre when he stumbles upon a fiendish underworld being controlled by a mysterious group known only as The Strangers. That’s only the beginning of it. A must watch.
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