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Silent Running poster

Movies that feel likeSilent Running (1972)

After the entire flora goes extinct, ecologist Lowell maintains a greenhouse aboard a space station for the future with his android companions. However, he rebels after being ordered to destroy the greenhouse in favor of carrying cargo, a decision that puts him at odds with everyone but his mechanical companions.

If you loved Silent Running, the closest films we have are Aniara (2019), Planet of the Apes (1968) and THX 1138 (1971). All three share Silent Running's cerebral and contemplative feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Ikarie XB 1 (1963).

🍅 71% Rotten Tomatoes★ 6.6 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Douglas Trumbullcerebralepiccontemplativebleakawe
6 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Amazon Prime Video · Hulu

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If Silent Running hit the spot, these will too

Aniara poster
Aniara
2019 · dir. Pella Kågerman
🍅 70%★ 6.3science fiction · drama

The same two preoccupations: dystopia, and space travel

The difference: Takes it somewhere less epic than Silent Running does

A ship carrying settlers to a new home on Mars after Earth is rendered uninhabitable is knocked off-course, causing the passengers to consider their place in the universe.

Planet of the Apes poster
Planet of the Apes
1968 · dir. Franklin J. Schaffner
🍅 86%★ 8science fiction · adventure · drama

Both are built on the same subject: dystopia

The difference: Leans harder into action than Silent Running does

Astronaut Taylor crash lands on a distant planet ruled by apes who use a primitive race of humans for experimentation and sport. Soon Taylor finds himself among the hunted, his life in the hands of a benevolent chimpanzee scientist.

THX 1138 poster
THX 1138
1971 · dir. George Lucas
🍅 72%★ 6.6science fiction · drama

The same mix in both: ideas, then stillness

People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.

Slaughterhouse-Five poster
Slaughterhouse-Five
1972 · dir. George Roy Hill
🍅 82%★ 6.8drama · science fiction · warPrime Video

Bleak science fiction in both cases

Billy Pilgrim, a veteran of the Second World War, finds himself mysteriously detached from time, so that he is able to travel, without being able to help it, from the days of his childhood to those of his peculiar life on a distant planet called Tralfamadore, passing through his bitter experience as a prisoner of war in the German city of Dresden, over which looms the inevitable shadow of an unspeakable tragedy.

The Creator poster
The Creator
2023 · dir. Gareth Edwards
🍅 67%★ 6.7science fiction · action · adventureHulu

Both are working the same pair: robot, space station

The difference: 51 years apart, and the 2020s show

Amid a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war—and mankind itself.

Total Recall poster
Total Recall
1990 · dir. Paul Verhoeven
🍅 80%★ 7.5action · adventure · science fictionParamount+

Both keep coming back to the same thing: space travel

Construction worker Douglas Quaid's obsession with the planet Mars leads him to visit Rekall, a virtual vacation company that manufactures memories. When something goes wrong during Quaid's memory implant procedure, his life turns upside down, leading him to question what is reality and what isn't.

Rollerball poster
Rollerball
1975 · dir. Norman Jewison
🍅 55%★ 6.5science fiction · drama

Drama with a pulse of ideas, in both cases

In a corporate-controlled future, an ultra-violent sport known as Rollerball represents the world, and one of its powerful athletes is out to defy those who want him out of the game.

The Wandering Earth II poster
The Wandering Earth II
2023 · dir. Frant Gwo
🍅 83%★ 6.7science fiction · action · adventure

One thread runs through both: space station

Humans built huge engines on the surface of the earth to find a new home. But the road to the universe is perilous. In order to save earth, young people once again have to step forward to start a race against time for life and death.

Fahrenheit 451 poster
Fahrenheit 451
1966 · dir. François Truffaut
🍅 82%★ 7.2drama · science fiction

Adventure built on stillness, twice over

In the future, the government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers, known as “firemen,” to perform the necessary book burnings. Fireman Montag begins to question the morality of his vocation…

Ikarie XB 1 poster
Ikarie XB 1
1963 · dir. Jindřich Polák
🍅 100%★ 6.9science fiction

The same preoccupation in both: robot

The difference: Reviewed even better

The year is 2163. Starship Ikaria XB-1 embarks on a mission deep into space in search of alien life. During their perilous journey the crew confront the effects of a malignant dark star, the destructive legacy of the 20th century and, ultimately, the limits of their own sanity.

Kin-dza-dza! poster
Kin-dza-dza!
1986 · dir. Georgiy Daneliya
★ 7.8comedy · science fiction · adventure

Epic and awestruck in the same breath

Two Soviet humans previously unknown to each other are transported to the planet Pluke in the Kin-dza-dza galaxy due to a chance encounter with an alien teleportation device. They must come to grips with a language barrier and Plukian social norms (not to mention the laws of space and time) if they ever hope to return to Earth.

Fantastic Planet poster
Fantastic Planet
1973 · dir. René Laloux
🍅 91%★ 7.6animation · science fictionMax

Both lean on bleakness more than on science fiction

On the planet Ygam, the Draags, extremely technologically and spiritually advanced blue humanoids, consider the tiny Oms, human beings descendants of Terra's inhabitants, as ignorant animals. Those who live in slavery are treated as simple pets and used to entertain Draag children; those who live hidden in the hostile wilderness of the planet are periodically hunted and ruthlessly slaughtered as if they were vermin.

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The best-reviewed films that share Silent Running’s defining feeling.