1990 - Total Recall

7.3 / 6.6 57 7.5 X1 7.46

Total Recall debuted at No.1 at the box office. The film grossed $261,299,840 worldwide, a box office success. Critical reaction to Total Recall has been mostly positive. Roger Ebert awarded the film three and a half stars (out of four), calling it "one of the most complex and visually interesting science fiction movies in a long time." Entertainment Weekly praised the film, giving it a score of "B+" and said that it "starts out as mind-bending futuristic satire and then turns relentless [and] becomes a violent, post-punk version of an Indiana Jones cliff-hanger."

Film scholar William Buckland considers it one of the more "sublime" Philip K. Dick adaptations, contrasting it with films like Impostor and Paycheck, which he considered "ridiculous." The San Francisco Chronicle said the film is not a classic, "but it's still solid and entertaining." James Berardinelli gave the film two and a half stars (out of four), saying that "neither Schwarzenegger nor Verhoeven have stretched their talents here," but added, "with a script that's occasionally as smart as it is energetic, Total Recall offers a little more than wholesale carnage."

Total Recall received numerous nominations along with three award wins. The film won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects along with Oscar nominations for Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing. The Saturn Awards honored it with Best Science Fiction Film and Best Costume Awards along with Saturn nominations for Best Special Effects, Best Writing, Best Make-up, Best Music, Best Direction, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. It was also nominated Outstanding Foreign Language Film by the Japan Academy, BAFTA nominated for Best Special Visual Effects, and Hugo nominated for Best Dramatic Presentation. The film ranked #79 on Rotten Tomatoes Journey Through Sci-Fi (100 Best-Reviewed Sci-Fi Movies). In 2008, Total Recall was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Science Fiction Films list.

1991 - Terminator 2: Judgment Day

8.4 / 7.4 68 8.6 X4 8.94

Terminator 2: Judgment Day has a long list of award wins and nominations, winning four Oscars including Best Make Up, Best Sound, Best Sound Editing, and Best Visual Effects, along with Oscar nominations for Best Cinematography and Film Editing. For the BAFTA Awards, the film won Best Special Visual Effects and Best Sound, along with a BAFTA nomination for Best Production Design. At the Saturn Awards, it won Best Science Fiction Film, Best Special Effects, Best Direction, Best Actress, and Best Performance by a Younger Actor, along with Saturn nominations for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Scenarist.

The film was nominated Best Cinematography by the A.S.C. Awards and won the People's Choice Favorite Motion Picture Award. The MTV Movie Awards honored the film with six awards including Best Action Sequence, Best Breakthrough Performance, Best Female Performance, Best Male Performance, Best Movie, and Most Desirable Female, along with MTV nominations for Best Song and Best Villain. Other recognitions includes a win for Best Dramatic Presentation by the Hugo Awards, Eddie Award nominated for Best Editing, and nominated for Outstanding Foreign Language Film by the Japanese Academy Awards.

The American Film Institute ranked the film at number 77 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills and ranked number 48 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains. Schwarzenegger's famous quote "Hasta la vista, baby" was ranked at number 76 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes best film quotes list. The film placed number 33 on Total Film's 2006 list of The Top 100 Films of All Time. In 2008, the film was voted the eighth best science fiction film ever on AFI's 10 Top 10. Empire ranked the film number 35 on its list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.

1992 - Batman Returns

6.6 / 6.6 7.0 X1 7.03

Batman Returns was generally well received by both reviewers and audiences. Rotten Tomatoes consenus: "Director Tim Burton's dark, brooding atmosphere, Michael Keaton's work as the tormented hero, and the flawless casting of Danny DeVito as The Penguin and Christopher Walken as, well, Christopher Walken, make the sequel better than the first." The New York Times thought that "Mr. Burton creates a wicked world of misfits, all of them rendered with the mixture of horror, sympathy and playfulness that has become this director's hallmark."

The Washington Post wrote: "Director Burton not only re-creates his one-of-a-kind atmosphere, he one-ups it, even two-ups it. He's best at evoking the psycho-murky worlds in which his characters reside." Variety wrote that "the real accomplishment of the film lies in the amazing physical realization of an imaginative universe." Entertainment Weekly wrote "No wonder some people felt burned by Batman Returns: Tim Burton just may have created the first blockbuster art film."

While receiving numerous nominations, the film won only two awards. The BMI Film Music Award and the Saturn Best Make-Up Award. It did receive two Oscar nominations, Best Visual Effects and Best Make-Up. Besides multiple nominations from Saturn, MTV Awards nominated it for Best Villain, Best Kiss, and Most Desirable Female. The film was Hugo nominated for Best Dramatic Presentation and BAFTA nominated for Best Special Effects. The American Film Institute nominated it for their 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains list.

1993 - Jurassic Park

8.2 / 7.2 68 8.0 X3 8.79

Jurassic Park won all three Academy Awards it was nominated for: Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing. The film won honors outside of the U.S. including the 1994 BAFTA for Best Special Effects, as well as the Award for the Public's Favorite Film. It won the 1994 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and the 1993 Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction, Best Writing, and Best Special Effects. The film won the 1993 People's Choice Awards for Favorite All-Around Motion Picture. Young Artist Awards were given to Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello, with the film winning an Outstanding Action/Adventure Family Motion Picture award.

The American Film Institute named Jurassic Park the 35th most thrilling film of all time on June 13, 2001. The Chicago Film Critics Association also ranked Jurassic Park as the 55th scariest movie of all time and, in 2005, Bravo chose the scene in which Lex and Tim are stalked by two raptors in the kitchen as the 95th scariest movie moment ever. On Empire magazine's fifteenth anniversary in 2004, it judged Jurassic Park the sixth most influential film of the magazine's lifetime.

Empire called the first encounter with a Brachiosaurus the 28th most magical moment in cinema. In 2008, an Empire poll of readers, filmmakers, and critics also rated it one of the 500 greatest films of all time. On Film Review's fifty-fifth anniversary in 2005, it declared the film to be one of the five most important in the magazine's lifetime. In 2006, IGN ranked Jurassic Park as the 19th greatest film franchise ever. In a 2010 poll, the readers of Entertainment Weekly rated it the greatest summer movie of the previous 20 years.

1994 - Stargate

5.3 / 6.6 6.9 X1 6.86

Stargate has garnered mostly mixed reviews. Out of Emmerich's 22 works, Stargate is currently his 3rd highest rated film. The positive reviews stated that it was an "instant camp classic", and praised the film for its special effects and entertainment value, with Chris Hicks of the Deseret News calling it "Star Wars meets Ben Hur".

The film received a warmer reception from the public, grossing $71.5 million at the US box office and $125 million in the rest of the world. At the time, the film set a record for the highest-grossing opening weekend for a film released in the month of October. In its first run, Stargate made more money than film industry insiders predicted, especially given its lukewarm reviews.

Some regard it as Emmerich's breakthrough film. Stargate grossed over $16,651,000 in the United States during its opening week in October 1994. It was the 35th highest-grossing film opening in the US in October. The film peaked at number one on the Billboard chart Top Video Rentals on April 29, 1995.

Stargate won a Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, and Saturn nominated for Best Costumes & Best Special Effects. It also won Sci-Fi Universe Magazine's Best Science Fiction Film, Best Special Effects, and Best Supporting Actress Awards. The film was nominated for the Hugo Best Dramatic Presentation Award and the Fantasporto Best Film Award. The soundtrack won BMI's Film Music Award.

1995 - 12 Monkeys

7.4 / 7.4 74 8.1 X3 8.19

12 Monkeys received a positive response from critics. Rotten Tomatoes consensus: "The plot's a bit of a jumble, but excellent performances and mind-blowing plot twists make 12 Monkeys a kooky, effective experience." Roger Ebert observed 12 Monkeys' depiction of the future, finding similarities with Blade Runner and Brazil. "The film is a celebration of madness and doom, with a hero who tries to prevail against the chaos of his condition, and is inadequate", Ebert wrote.

The Washington Post praised the art direction and set design. "Willis and Pitts's performances, Gilliam's atmospherics and an exhilarating momentum easily outweigh such trifling flaws in the script", Thomson reasoned. Rolling Stone magazine cited the film's success on Gilliam's direction and Willis' performance. Internet reviewer James Berardinelli believed the filmmakers took an intelligent and creative motive for the time travel subplot. Rather than being sent to change the past, James Cole is instead observing it to make a better future.

Brad Pitt was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Julie Weiss was Oscar nominated for Best Costumes. Pitt won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actora and Terry Gilliam won Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival. 12 Monkeys was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films awarded the film the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film. Pitt and Weiss also won Saturn awards. Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Gilliam and writers David and Janet Peoples received nominations.

1996 - Star Trek: First Contact

7.4 / 7.0 52 7.5 X3 7.73

First Contact garnered positive reviews on release. The Independent considered the film wise to dispense with the cast of The Original Series; "For the first time, a Star Trek movie actually looks like something more ambitious than an extended TV show." First Contact was more in the spirit of the 1960s television series than any previous installment.

The Globe and Mail said that First Contact succeeded in improving on the "stilted" previous entry in the series, and that it featured a renewed interest in storytelling. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "First Contact does everything you'd want a Star Trek film to do, and it does it with cheerfulness and style." The Age noted that the film was geared towards pleasing fans.

Variety wrote that the film did not require intimate knowledge of the series and that fans and non-fans alike would enjoy the film. Roger Ebert called First Contact one of the best Star Trek films, and James Berardinelli found the film the most entertaining Star Trek feature in a decade; "It has single-handedly revived the Star Trek movie series, at least from a creative point-of-view," he wrote.

First Contact earned an Academy Award-nomination for Best Makeup. At the Saturn Awards, the film was nominated in ten categories including Best Science Fiction Film, Best Actor for Patrick Stewart, and Best Director for Jonathan Frakes. It won three, for Best Costumes, Best Supporting Actor (Brent Spiner), and Best Supporting Actress (Alice Krige). Jerry Goldsmith won a BMI Film Music Award for his score, and the film was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

1997 - Gattaca

7.1 / 7.0 64 7.8 7.87

Gattaca has received positive reviews from critics; Roger Ebert stated, "This is one of the smartest and most provocative of science fiction films, a thriller with ideas." James Berardinelli praised it for "energy and tautness" and its "thought-provoking script and thematic richness."

Despite critical acclaim, Gattaca was not a box office success but it is said to have crystallized the debate over tampering with human genetics. The film's dystopian depiction of "genoism" has been cited by many bioethicists and laymen in support of their hesitancy about, or opposition to, liberal eugenics and the societal acceptance of the genetic-determinist ideology that may frame it. In a 1997 review of the film for the journal Nature Genetics, molecular biologist Lee M. Silver stated that "Gattaca is a film that all geneticists should see if for no other reason than to understand the perception of our trade held by so many of the public-at-large".

Gattaca was Oscar nominated for Best Art Direction and Art Directors Guild nominated for Award Excellence in Production Design. The film won the Bogey Award and two G rardmer Film Festival Awards - Special Jury Prize and Fun Trophy. It was Golden Globe nominated for Best Original Score and Hugo nominated for Best Dramatic Presentation. Gattaca won the London Film Critics' Circle Awards for Best Screenwriter and received two awards from the Catalonian International Film Festival for Best Motion Picture and Best Original Soundtrack. The Paris Film Festival nominated the film for the Grand Award and Satellite Awards nominated for Best Art Direction and Production Design. The film was also Saturn nominated for Best Costume and Best Music.

1998 - The Truman Show

8.2 / 6.8 90 8.0 X2 8.24

The Truman Show received critical acclaim. Roger Ebert thought the film had a right balance of comedy and drama. The Los Angeles Times name it the best movie of 1998. In June 2010, Entertainment Weekly named Truman one of the 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years. James Berardinelli liked the film's approach of "not being the casual summer blockbuster with special effects." The Chicago Reader wrote, "Undeniably provocative and reasonably entertaining." The Film Threat said the film was not funny enough but still found "something rewarding in its quirky demeanor."

At the 71st Academy Awards, The Truman Show was nominated for three categories but did not win any awards. It received nominations for Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Original Screenplay. The Truman Show earned nominations at the Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture, Best Director, and Screenplay. Jim Carrey and Ed Harris both won Golden Globes as Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively, as did Burkhard Dallwitz and Philip Glass for Best Original Score.

At the 52nd British Academy Film Awards, the film won awards for Direction, Original Screenplay and Production Design. In addition, the film was nominated for Best Film, Best Visual Effects, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Cinematography. The Truman Show was a success at The Saturn Awards, where it won the Best Fantasy Film and the Best Writing. Also, it was nominated for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Direction at the Saturn Awards. Finally, the film won speculative fiction's Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

1999 - The Matrix

7.4 / 7.2 73 8.7 X4 8.61

The Matrix received positive reviews from most critics, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. Entertainment Weekly called The Matrix "the most influential action movie of the generation". Rotten Tomatoes described it as an "ingenious" blend of Hong Kong action cinema, innovative visual effects and an imaginative vision. Philip Strick commented in Sight & Sound, "if the Wachowskis claim no originality of message, they are startling innovators of method," praising the film's details and its "broadside of astonishing images".

The Matrix received Academy Awards for film editing, sound effects editing, visual effects, and sound. The filmmakers were competing against other films with established franchises, like Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, yet they managed to sweep all four of their nominations. The Matrix also received BAFTA awards for Best Sound and Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects, in addition to nominations in the cinematography, production design and editing categories. In 1999, it won Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film and Best Direction.

In 2001, The Matrix placed 66th in the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Thrills" list. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly called The Matrix the best science-fiction piece of media for the past 25 years. In 2009, the film was ranked 39th on Empire's reader-, actor- and critic-voted list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". The Matrix was voted as the fourth best sci-fi film in the 2011 list Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, based on a poll conducted by ABC and People, and in 2012, the film was added to the National Film Registry for preservation.