Science fiction fans are an incredibly passionate bunch and just like everyone else, we love to celebrate Valentine's Day with starry-eyed appreciation and gratitude towards our friends and loved ones with flowers, chocolates, and over-priced greeting cards to mark the amorous occasion.
To help celebrate Cupid's favorite holiday, we've compiled a sweet collection of some of the most love-struck sci-fi movies ever concocted by the dream makers in Hollywood. From alien seductions and monstrous road trips to time-hopping interludes and existential odysseys, we're sure you’ll discover something to ignite imaginations and inflame your Valentine's Day desires.
So settle in and let's unwrap these 7 sci-fi romances perfect for this day devoted to love, whether pairing up for date night with your sweetheart or snuggling with a warm furry friend!
"The Fountain"
Blanketed by a wondrous score courtesy of ace composer Clint Mansell, the maestro who manifested the music for "Pi," "Requiem for a Dream" and "Moon," "The Fountain" is perhaps the most hauntingly romantic entry on this list. In his dreamy sci-fi love story from 2006, director Darren Aronofsky weaves a mesmerizing tale through three timelines to show how true love can transcend time, space, and death.
Hugh Jackman portrays three different iterations of a man driven by the forces of existence: a modern-day scientist searching for a cure for his dying wife played by Rachel Weisz, a noble 16th-century Conquistador embarking on a quest to find the Fountain of Youth for Spain’s Queen Isabella (also played by Weisz), and a 26th-century interstellar traveler trying to save the legendary Tree of Life. It's superb from beginning to end!
"The Fountain" is available to buy or rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
"Starman"
Horror master John Carpenter dials back the blood and the frights in this 1984 gem to deliver a heartfelt romantic fable about a marooned alien (Jeff Bridges) on Earth who takes on the form of a lonely woman’s (Karen Allen) deceased husband. All the while government agents are trying to track the extraterrestrial visitor down.
Bridges and Allen make for an (eventually) adorable couple as they go on the run together after he kidnaps her to reach his Arizona rescue rendezvous point. Via their time together, each of them comes to learn about the intricacies of love through a mutual bonding, both emotional and physical.
Bridges’ Academy Award-nominated role as the benevolent alien inhabiting a foreign body is one of his best performances (especially his reaction to tasting Dutch Apple Pie for the first time), and Jack Nitzsche’s lush synthesizer soundtrack is a superb accompaniment.
"Starman" is available to buy or rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
"The Time Traveler’s Wife"
Love never goes exactly as planned and so it is with this emotionally-charged 2009 adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger's 2003 novel, "The Time Traveler's Wife." Eric Bana stars as a Chicago librarian with a genetic affliction that allows him to unexpectedly flip back and forth in the time stream.
When he encounters his true love played by Rachel McAdams of "The Notebook" fame, it begins a decades-hopping love story that dissects the elements of attraction, destiny, and longing. Its complex romantic themes, made even more intriguing with the shifting timelines, are confidently delivered by director Robert Schwentke. A true tear-jerker infinitely worthy of a weepy Valentine's Day viewing.
"The Time Traveler's Wife" is available to stream on Max, and you can also buy or rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
"Passengers"
Humans are prone to find love in the most unlikely of places, even a massive colony spaceship that’s accidentally awoken one of its passengers in suspended animation for the long galactic voyage.
In this 2016 outer space love story starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, the slumbering astronauts aboard the Avalon are traveling on a 120-year trip to a habitable planet named Homestead II along with thousands of other colonists.
When Pratt’s character Jim and Lawrence’s Aurora (get it? Sleeping Beauty?) arise from their hypersleep pods 90 years before their end destination, they forge a loving bond realizing they’ll die before reaching the planet. Director Morten Tyldum gives the movie a glossy flair and injects his sci-fi romance with startling scenes like the zero-G swimming pool sequence. The plot goes places you might not expect, but to say any more would be a spoiler, so just go watch it.
"Passengers" is available to buy or rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
"Monsters"
Before director Gareth Edwards took on George Lucas's "Star Wars" empire with "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," he helmed this super low-budget sci-fi road trip flick from 2010 called "Monsters."
After a space probe crash lands carrying alien spores, it causes an entire portion of Central America and Mexico to be infested with strange life forms including giant squid-like creatures. Magazine photojournalist Andrew Kaulde (Scoot McNairy) must retrieve his boss’s daughter Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able) from the quarantine zone and bring her back across the American border's containment wall.
While traveling over land and water they become romantically entangled through the grueling survival ordeal. And hey, who can blame them; watching the erotic mating rituals of these leggy bioluminescent aliens is enough to put anyone in the mood for love... or just give you a lifetime aversion to steamed seafood.
"Monsters" is available to stream on Peacock, and you can also buy or rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
"Her"
Here’s a perfect date movie revolving around the mysteries of attraction and relationships. "Her" is set in a near future where people can have an intimate partnership with their very own artificial intelligence OS, complete with silly arguments, misunderstandings, and nurturing.
Imagine a digital assistant like Alexa but 10,000 times more advanced. Written and directed by iconoclastic filmmaker Spike Jonze ("Adaptation"), this timely 2013 movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore and Scarlett Johansson as the voice of the intelligent operating system named Samantha.
Viewers become enveloped in their evolving love affair that experiences some heartbreaking twists and turns yet remains a poignant affirmation of life and love. Jonze also won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the movie's depiction of the technology's "socially acceptable insanity."
"Her" is available to buy or rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
"Oblivion"
It's one of Tom Cruise’s most visually arresting and underrated projects, released in 2013, and directed by "Tron: Legacy’s" Joseph Kosinski, the talented filmmaker who teamed back up with Cruise in 2022 for "Top Gun: Maverick." In this post-apocalyptic romance, Cruise plays security repairman Jack Harper who's been left on Earth in 2077 as a custodian following a catastrophic alien invasion.
After Harper rescues an attractive woman from her crashed spaceship he starts questioning his mission. This happens to be the same woman appearing in his nightly dreams, which leads to some shocking revelations about Harper’s real identity that we won’t give away even if you torture us with a humongous heart-shaped box of chocolates. Well, maybe just a hint about clones, lies, and the planet’s drained resources. Now hand over the candy!
"Oblivion" is available to stream on Netflix, and you can also buy or rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
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