The 10 best sci-fi ice planets, ranked

If you find yourself on an ice planet, either something has gone wrong, or it’s gone horribly wrong. Science fiction stories are littered with frost-covered globes, and they usually break down into two categories:

You’re on some far-flung location where intrepid space explorers struggle to survive
You’re still on Earth, but in a post-apocalyptic future brought on by some catastrophe, ranging from drastic climate change to a problem with the sun

So to commemorate the winter season — and remind ourselves that even as the temperature outside plummets below freezing, it could always be worse — Polygon has rounded up the best icy planets from our favorite video games, movies, television, and books. Then we ranked them with an extremely subjective “cool factor” metric. Check out the full list below.

10

Mann — Interstellar

Image: Melinda Sue Gordon/Paramount/Everett Collection

When you think of the most memorable planets in Interstellar, you probably think of Miller’s Planet, the world completely covered in shallow water and one giant, never-ending tidal wave. But the planet Mann is equally important to the plot of Christopher Nolan’s science fiction epic, if less visually memorable.

Named after its discoverer, Dr. Hugh Mann (Matt Damon), this icy planet is the setting of a betrayal at the heart of Interstellar. Hugh knows the planet is inhospitable, but after getting marooned there, he sends a message saying the opposite so he can trick the heroes into rescuing him. Hugh’s plan fails, but he does manage to seriously derail their mission in the process, putting the entire future of humanity in peril. —Jake Kleinman

Cool ranking: 1

9

Ice Age — Magic: The Gathering

What if you jammed the word “Snow” in front of popular terms in Magic: The Gathering? That’s the concept behind 1995’s Ice Age expansion, and it was a huge success.

Ice Age explores the aftermath of the iconic Brothers’ War, in which a brotherly rivalry between two powerful artificers consumes Magic’s homeworld of Dominaria in conflict. As a result, dramatic climate change plunges the planet into an ice age, wiping out most of civilization and setting the stage for a new power struggle.

The set’s story focuses on surviving nations of soldiers, barbarians, and elves, who must unite against an evil necromancer, Lim-Dûl. However, Ice Age set is best known for introducing “Snow Lands,” a variation of the game’s foundational basic lands: Snow Lands interact with special Snow creatures, enchantments, and artifacts. They haven’t been relevant in Magic for a while now, but some players like using them in their decks because they look cool. —JK

Cool ranking: 2

8

Earth — Snowpiercer

Writer-director Bong Joon Ho aims the science fiction fable Snowpiercer at his usual targets, particularly awful people in power and the out-of-touch, privileged rich. He most noticeably launches the story with a classic Bong Joon Ho twist about the horrific impact humanity is having on the planet: When human-incited global warming becomes unmanageable, 79 countries commit to spraying “the artificial cooling substance CW7” into the atmosphere to “bring down the average global temperatures to the finest levels.”

The substance turns Earth into a frigid ball of ice, and the only surviving remnants of humanity are the people aboard a constantly traveling train that serves as a mobile metaphor for income inequality and toxic classism. It’s like humanity learned nothing from introducing rabbits to Australia or dumping Asian carp into U.S. water-treatment plants. Consciously trying to rewrite our environment always seems to turn into some kind of cautionary tale, in real life or fiction. —Tasha Robinson

Cool ranking: 3

7

Niflheim — Mickey 17

Bong Joon Ho’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning Parasite defies simple classification. It’s a dystopian sci-fi action comedy with a murky political message. The fact that Mickey 17 takes place on a far-flung ice planet full of giant bug-like creatures joined in a hivemind only complicates things further, while providing an intriguing backdrop to a movie packed full of eye-catching ideas.

Niflheim is an inhospitable, wintry orb chosen for colonization even though no rational human would ever want to live there. It’s perhaps one of the most realistic ice planets on this list. It’s also arguably the least fun to imagine visiting, and that’s really saying something. This contrasts with the film’s action-adventure vibes while also reinforcing its political edge. Like everything else in Mickey 17, Niflheim is a delightful mess. —JK

Cool ranking: 3

6

Kijimi — Star Wars: Outlaws/Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

When it comes to ice planets in Star Wars, few people would think of the snowy, mountainous planet Kijimi before the better-known ones like Hoth and Ilum. Kijimi’s first appearance on screen was in 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, where we only got to see the shadowy, narrow streets of Kijimi City before The First Order blew it up. Hardly memorable, right?

But that was before Ubisoft’s Star Wars: Outlaws. As protagonist Kay Vess, players can explore Kijimi City during the era of Rebellion. Players see firsthand how a lack of a central government allowed crime and anarchy to run amok under the control of various criminal syndicates, such as the Ashiga Clan and Crimson Dawn. Yet beneath the petty gang wars, the architecture of Kijimi City, from a time even before the High Republic, stands strong and remains as fascinating to explore as ever. —Aimee Hart

Cool ranking: 3

5

Earth — “A Pail of Air”

Fritz Leiber’s classic 1951 short story is set in a future version of Earth that’s been wrenched away from the sun, causing the atmosphere to freeze. The small family at the center of the story lives in a blanket-heaped shelter called The Nest, and emerges only to scoop up frozen oxygen from the layers of frozen gasses outside. As the 10-year-old protagonist explains, when the world froze, the water in the atmosphere froze first, then the carbon dioxide and nitrogen, then the oxygen, which lies on a frozen layer on top of the rest of the snow. So whenever oxygen levels get low in The Nest, he goes out to scoop up a pail of air.

“A Pail of Air” is a fairly simple story, mostly built around the interesting theory of exactly how a frozen atmosphere and sunless world would rewrite human life, but it’s also a pretty charming short-form essay about humanity’s survivalist spirit. “Life’s always been a business of working hard and fighting the cold,” the narrator’s father says at one point, defending his decision to not just lie down and die with the rest of the world. —TR

Cool ranking: 4

4

Hoth — Star Wars

The Empire Strikes Back opens in a surprising location. After kicking off Star Wars on the later exasperatingly overused desert planet Tatooine, George Lucas launched the sequel on the icy world of Hoth, home to an Abominable Snowman-esque creature that almost takes out Luke Skywalker in the film’s opening minutes.

The Rebel Alliance is still celebrating the destruction of the Death Star as they regroup on Hoth, but the Empire quickly, well… strikes back, sending an armada of stormtroopers in AT-ATs to wipe out our heroes. This leads to one of the most iconic moments in the entire franchise: the scene where Luke uses his Snowspeeder’s cable tow to trip an AT-AT and send it crashing down face-first into the snow. Classic. —JK

Cool ranking: 4

3

Europa — Destiny 2

During the Golden Age of humanity, hundreds of years before the start of Bungie’s game Destiny, the enigmatic giant orb called The Traveler partially terraformed one of Jupiter’s moons. Europa became one of the most important research colonies in the Solar System, but after the Collapse, howling blizzards buried just about everything — including a Pyramid ship from The Witness’ fleet. Many Destiny environments are basically just post-apocalyptic settings with different color palettes, but the constant snowstorms and desolate landscape on Europa feel uniquely atmospheric.

When players finally ventured to Europa as part of the Destiny 2: Beyond Light campaign, it also marked a hugely important turning point for the franchise as a whole. Up until then, the player Guardians only ever wielded the Traveler’s Light. Suddenly, new powers rooted in Darkness emerged, completely reshaping the lore and nature of the ongoing battle between Light and Darkness. What better setting could there be to explore than one with these aesthetics? —Corey Plante

Cool ranking: 4

2

The Ood Sphere — Doctor Who: “Planet of the Ood”

While this particular episode of Doctor Who is titled “Planet of the Ood,” the Ood Sphere is actually a moon located in the Horsehead Nebula. Home to the Ood — an alien species that has tentacles where human mouths are, and speaks through a glowing orb — the snowy planet was a key setting in the episode, which reveals that the Ood spent 100 years establishing their civilization on the ice-covered moon before they were enslaved by a human corporation, Ood Operations. (The company even established a facility on the planet for Ood breeding purposes.) Thanks to the Doctor, the Ood are able to topple their oppressors and once again claim the Ood Sphere as their home. —Chris Hayner

Cool ranking: 4

1

Ilum — Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Every Star Wars fan knows Hoth, but the true believers go to Ilum. The ice planet has appeared across Star Wars canon, most notably in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Hero Cal Kestis heads to the planet (a holy place for Jedi) to find a kyber crystal that’ll fix his busted lightsaber. Ilum is one of the shorter areas in Fallen Order, but showcases Respawn Entertainment’s level design bona fides in a tightly paced segment that features more puzzles than fights. In Star Wars, you go to Hoth for battle, but you go to Ilum to meditate.

Ilum is the brooding, stylish, lesser-known cousin of Hoth. It’s the lavender oat-milk latte of Star Wars ice planets. It’s the Star Wars ice-planet version of The National’s Boxer, but around, like, April 2008, right before every bartender at every brewery in the country agreed to play “Fake Empire” on eternal repeat. You know, when you could still say you heard that song last year. Ilum, in other words, is Hipster Hoth. And depending on your perspective, that makes it either the coolest or the least-cool ice planet in Star Wars. —Ari Notis

Cool ranking: 5 (or maybe 1)