11 best Spielbergian sci-fi movies not directed by Steven Spielberg

Disclosure Day is out now and the movie is top-tier Steven Spielberg science fiction. After watching this riveting story of a cybersecurity expert determined to expose a government conspiracy about extraterrestrial life on Earth, I found myself going down a serious Spielberg sci-fi rabbit hole with movies like War of the Worlds and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. For good measure, I even revisited some movies produced by Spielberg that feature that same vibe, like Deep Impact and the especially obscure *batteries not included.

But there are only so many Spielberg sci-fi movies. I mean, there are a lot of them, but the number is still finite, and as I’m nearly at the end of the list, I’ve decided to venture into movies that feel like Spielberg but have nothing to do with him as either a director or producer. While there’s no replacement for Steven, I did manage to come up with 11 that give off serious Spielbergian vibes, be it that same sense of childlike wonder in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial or that grand sense of adventure in Jurassic Park.

Here’s the list in case you find yourself venturing down that same rabbit hole I’m already very deep into.

11

Short Circuit

Directed by John Badham, Short Circuit is a story about a military robot that springs to life after getting struck by lightning. The baby-like No. 5 robot then goes on a heartwarming journey to find out what it means to be alive. When it was released in 1986, the movie drew a number of comparisons to E.T. and it does give off a similar feeling of warmth and wonder.

Also, like several Spielberg movies, Short Circuit has a vastly inferior sequel that still manages to be quite fun, as Short Circuit 2 is where No. 5 is renamed “Johnny 5” and briefly becomes a mohawk-wearing street punk.

10

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

Like Short Circuit, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids gives off that feeling of early 1980s Spielberg, with child protagonists and wonderful practical effects that were fairly shocking when the movie was released in 1989. Directed by Joe Johnston, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is about a dad who’s an eccentric inventor that accidentally shrinks his children to near-microscopic size. It’s also a top-tier Rick Moranis movie, which is reason enough to watch.

9

Kong: Skull Island

Image: Warner Bros/Everett

About a group of soldiers visiting Skull Island and tangling with all sorts of bizarre creatures — especially, of course, King Kong — 2017’s Kong: Skull Island (directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts) is the rare modern movie that gives off some classic Spielberg energy, particularly from the two Jurassic Park films he directed.

8

The Abyss

Image: 20th Century Fox

Also with that “journey into the unknown” vibe is James Cameron’s The Abyss, which offers some Close Encounters-like feelings, too. The 1989 movie is about a rescue team sent to recover a sunken submarine, but they end up encountering some unexpected intelligent life dwelling in the deep sea.

7

The Iron Giant

While Spielberg has produced a lot of animated films, he’s only ever directed one of them, The Adventures of Tintin. That was an adventure film, but if he ever directed a sci-fi animated movie, I think it would feel a lot like Brad Bird’s epic The Iron Giant. The 1999 film is about a giant robot from outer space that crashlands on Earth and befriends a small boy. It’s basically like E.T. if E.T. were 50 feet tall and made of metal.

6

Time Bandits

While Time Bandits is mostly a fantasy movie, the time travel elements in the story make it fit somewhat within the sci-fi genre too. The film follows a pack of time-travelling, treasure-hunting dwarfs who take a boy on a grand adventure. While it’s directed by Terry Gilliam and has his sense of whimsy, the broader-appeal, crowd-pleasing elements of the movie feel quite a bit like Spielberg’s Hook.

5

Arrival

Image: Paramount Pictures

Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 alien movie Arrival carries with it the same optimistic view of extraterrestrial life that Spielberg made his trademark with Close Encounters and E.T. It’s about a series of alien crafts that arrive on Earth to help mankind end its self-destructive ways, though in classic human fashion, many people end up misinterpreting their messages as being hostile.

4

The Martian

Image: 20th Century Fox

Ridley Scott’s 2015 film The Martian is about a NASA astronaut (Matt Damon) stranded on Mars. While it’s not an alien movie, it has a similar sense of Spielbergian, life-affirming optimism with a subject matter that’s well within his wheelhouse.

3

Independence Day

Image: 20th Century Fox

Throughout his career, Spielberg generally didn’t make aliens the bad guys in his stories, though he made an exception for H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds in 2005. Had he made another alien disaster movie though, I think Independence Day would fit just fine within his filmography. While Roland Emmerich’s 1996 movie about aliens invading Earth has very Roland Emmerich-like large-scale destruction, there’s still a sense of hope about it which is embodied in Bill Pullman’s President Whitmore. It’s a rousing, crowd-pleasing balance that Spielberg has excelled at.

2

Fire in the Sky

Photo: Paramount/Everett Collection

Fire in the Sky is not optimistic. Instead, Robert Lieberman’s 1993 movie feels like the dark mirror of Close Encounters. Based upon a supposedly true story of an alien abduction that took place in 1975, it shares all the gruesome details of the tests the abductee was subjected to. While Spielberg never made anything quite this dark in the sci-fi realm — A.I. is probably the closest — Fire in the Sky feels like an alternate timeline Spielberg that didn’t shy away from gore.