Plot: On July 2, a giant alien mothership enters orbit around Earth and deploys several dozen saucer-shaped destroyer spacecraft that quickly lay waste to major cities around the planet. On July 3, the United States conducts a coordinated counterattack that fails. On July 4, a plan is devised to gain access to the interior of the alien mothership in space, in order to plant a nuclear missile.

KBZ’s Take: Roland Emmerich’s big budget Alien Invasion flick is by far the most popular film of the Alien Invasion subgenre and it’s also one of the best of the Sci-Fi Military subgenre. It still has all the elements of a great subgenre film with the alien motherships suddenly attacking cities with mass destruction, dogfights between alien and human aircraft and the eventual reveal of the aliens themselves.

Where the film bogs down a bit is with the “Area 51” and “Internet Virus” subplots which don’t make a lot of sense the more you think about them. But those are small nitpicks as this is a film where you turn your mind off and enjoy the ride.

Additional Lists: Best Alien Invasion Films #4

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Plot: A video game expert is transported to another planet to defend an alien world from attack.

KBZ’s Take:  Like Blue Thunder, this is another film that was popular in the 80’s and has been lost to time. It’s another one of our personal favorite films and we’re listing it this high so younger generations don’t miss out.

If you’ve been raising your youngsters on Star Wars, this is another great film in the same vein to show them. The special effects are somewhat dated but the storyline and “ordinary teenager rising to hero” message is universal. There’s rumors that the remake of the film might actually happen, but until then, you’ll always have the original classic to watch.

Additional Lists: Top Sci-Fi Military Films You Haven’t Seen #1

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Plot: Major Bill Cage is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously demoted and dropped into combat. Cage is killed within minutes, managing to take an alpha alien down with him. He awakens back at the beginning of the same day and is forced to fight and die again… and again – as physical contact with the alien has thrown him into a time loop.

KBZ’s Take: A very underrated film, Edge of Tomorrow has all the best elements of Alien Invasion films and Sci-Fi Military films with a Time Loop twist. First, the aliens have great designs and their merciless onslaught is not initially explained which makes them that much scarier. Second, there’s great action scenes with Mech-suit enabled military battling the aliens. And Third, the Time Loop aspect isn’t used as a gimmick but as a device for the narrative to slowly explain the alien invaders’ motive and weaknesses.

Tom Cruise has dabbled in the Alien Invasion subgenre before with War of the Worlds (2005) and Oblivion (2013), but Edge of Tomorrow is criminally underrated and one of his best films. It’s also our pick for best Time Loop film as it expands on some familiar Time Loop film tropes and has a unique narrative for how and why the Time Loop is occurring.

Additional Lists: Best Time Loop Films #1, Best Alien Invasion Films #7

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Plot: In a violent, near-apocalyptic Detroit, evil corporation Omni Consumer Products wins a contract from the city government to privatize the police force. To test their crime-eradicating cyborgs, the company leads street cop Alex Murphy into an armed confrontation with crime lord Boddicker so they can use his body to support their untested RoboCop prototype. But when RoboCop learns of the company’s nefarious plans, he turns on his masters.

KBZ’s Take: This film is where we’re making an exception for law enforcement on this list. While the film focuses on ‘cops’ and the cyborg RoboCop, the theme of the film is militarized law enforcement to combat out of control crime. There’s also the ED-209 enforcement droid which is an example of one of the best Sci-Fi Military machines.

While RoboCop (1987) and RoboCop 2 (1990) are classic films of multiple Sci-Fi subgenres, the third film Robocop 3 (1993) and remake Robocop (2014) fall short of the bar the first two films created. However, Robocop is one of the best franchises of the Sci-Fi genre and all the films have unique elements of the Sci-Fi Military films subgenre.

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Plot: A ragtag band of humans band together in the year 2025 to fight legions of monstrous creatures rising from the sea. Using massive piloted robots to combat the alien threat, earth’s survivors take the fight to the invading alien force lurking in the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless enemy, the forces of mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes — a washed up former pilot and an untested trainee — who now stand as earth’s final hope against the mounting apocalypse.

KBZ’s Take: This is another film we feel is very underrated – especially within the Alien Invasion films and Sci-Fi Military films subgenres. Underlying the amazing special effects and Jaeger on Kaiju battle action is one of the more unique alien invasion mechanisms via The Breach. While most subgenre films deal with Aliens invading via space, Pacific Rim shows the alien threat coming from our own seas (via a multi-dimensional portal).

From a Sci-Fi Military perspective, the film utilizes and expands on classic military film tropes from recruitment of Jaegar ‘pilots’, their training and eventual battle within customized Jaegar machines. Sure, the film is predictable, but Guillermo del Toro helps lift the film to a classic of the subgenre with some of the best action scenes from any Sci-Fi Military film.

Additional Lists: Best Alien Invasion Films #5

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Plot: Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence – a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential – only those who can conquer their fear will survive.

KBZ’s Take: While the original Dune (1984) has become a cult classic, Denis Villeneuve has created the definitive version of Frank Herbert’s classic Sci-Fi Military novel of the same name. With interplanetary politics serving as the catalyst for the eventual war between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, Dune slowly reveals its unique world building based on an incredible amount of Sci-Fi Military and Soft Sci-Fi elements.

Dune has so many unique futuristic military elements that it’s difficult to list them all here. There are the Sci-Fi Military machines including the Ornithopters and Crushers, Sci-Fi Military troops including the Fremen and Sardaukar and Military Sci-Fi weapons including sonic devices and energy shields. You can read more about everything about Dune and its military units on the Dune wiki.

One interesting aspect of Dune is the lack of Robots or AI you typically see in Military Sci-Fi films but there’s a reason for this – AI and robots were made illegal after advanced ‘machines in the likeness of a human mind’ enslaved mankind. And that’s just one additional aspect of Dune that makes it unique within the subgenre.

On a final note, if you’ve read the novel (or even seen the 1984 film), you likely know what’s in store for the upcoming Dune: Part Two (2023) which will have even more Sci-Fi Military conflicts and elements than the first film.

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Plot: Dutch and his group of commandos are hired by the CIA to rescue downed airmen from guerillas in a Central American jungle. The mission goes well but as they return they find that something is hunting them. Nearly invisible, it blends in with the forest, taking trophies from the bodies of its victims as it goes along. Occasionally seeing through its eyes, the audience sees it is an intelligent alien hunter, hunting them for sport, killing them off one at a time.

KBZ’s Take: Predator has made some of our other lists including our list of Best Alien Invasion Films. However, the film didn’t rank that high as it wasn’t a true Alien Invasion Film. However, as a Military Sci-Fi film it’s one of the best of the subgenre.

The entire theme of Predator revolves around modern human military weaponry and tactics against the far superior and technologically advanced alien Predators. Even the Predators have a military structure and training that’s based on human military elements.

The initial film is a classic of the subgenre which spawned 4 sequels – Predator 2 (1990), Predators (2010), The Predator (2018) and Prey (2022) – and 2 crossover series films with Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007). While the first film is still the best of the series, Predators (2010) and Prey (2022) are the next best sequels.

Additional Lists: Best Alien Invasion Films #9

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Plot: Set in the future, the story follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry. Rico’s military career progresses from recruit to non-commissioned officer and finally to officer against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an arachnoid species known as ‘The Bugs’.

KBZ’s Take: A cult classic of both the Alien Invasion film and Sci-Fi Military film subgenres that excels in three specific areas. First, the special effects and action are top notch (for the time period) and feature numerous battles between the human military and ‘the bugs’. This is essentially a sci-fi war film showing military recruitment to actual in theater war.

Second, it shows two elements of an alien invasion that are unique to the subgenre. There’s the method by which the aliens attack earth and the eventual revenge by the humans on the alien home world.

Third, the film satirizes multiple areas including Fascism, media propaganda and the military’s role in society. Paul Verhoeven used similar satire in Robocop (1987) but here he turns the satire level to 11 as an underlying element within the film’s excessive violence and gore.

The film received generally negative reviews upon release, but over time has become a cult classic and one of the best Sci-Fi Military films.

Additional Lists: Best Alien Invasion Films #4

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Plot: When Ripley’s lifepod is found by a salvage crew over 50 years later, she finds that terra-formers are on the very planet they found the alien species. When the company sends a family of colonists out to investigate her story, all contact is lost with the planet and colonists. They enlist Ripley and the marines to return and search for answers.

KBZ’s Take: While various films in the Alien universe have varying degrees of Sci-Fi Military elements, there’s no doubt Aliens is a complete military film from start to finish. In fact if not for the #1 film franchise on our list, it would be an easy pick for the top subgenre film.

Aliens set the bar for how a futuristic military would confront an alien species. There’s everything from the initial military command structure to the eventual tactics used by the marines when confronting the Aliens’ attack. Like other James Cameron films The Terminator (1984) and Avatar (2009), the Sci-Fi Military machines and weapons are futuristic yet grounded in reality. From the pulse rifles used by the Marines in Aliens to the AMP ‘exoskeleton’ suit used in Avatar, these imaginative military units seem like they could one day be an actual reality (as opposed to something like the Star Wars lightsaber).

The Alien universe has always been first and foremost about the Alien Xenomorph, but Aliens (and to a lesser extent Prometheus (2012)) have integrated Sci-Fi Military themes to up the ante in the battle of humans vs. the iconic Alien species.

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Plot: Princess Leia is captured and held hostage by the evil Imperial forces in their effort to take over the galactic Empire. Venturesome Luke Skywalker and dashing captain Han Solo team together with the loveable robot duo R2-D2 and C-3PO to rescue the beautiful princess and restore peace and justice in the Empire.

KBZ’s Take: There’s little surprise the Star Wars franchise of films would be #1 on our list. The only debate was between Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope and Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) being the featured film on this list. After debating if the superior military battle was the Battle of Hoth with its massive AT-AT Walkers or the climactic Battle of Yavin with Tie-Fighters and X-Wings dogfighting in space, we had to go with the original film which set the tone for how Sci-Fi Military battles would be shown in film for the next 4 decades.

What has made Star Wars successful throughout the last 4 decades is how George Lucas has grounded his futuristic universe based on historical military themes, events and battles. The entire narrative of the first Star Wars film features an insurgency battling against a global empire which has been a common military theme over the last 2,000 years. The dogfighting between X-Wings and Tie Fighters was based on World War II aerial combat and the climatic Battle of Yavin was inspired by a World War II film The Dam Busters (1955). And even the Rebel Alliance’s X-Wing and Y-Wing military tactics were based on historical aerial warfare involving British Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain.

While the core story of Star Wars (and some subsequent sequels) deals with a young man or woman achieving their destiny to fight for good against evil, this story and its variations has always been secondary to the futuristic Sci-Fi Military universe Lucas has built and is unparalleled in the subgenre.

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