These Awesome YA Sci-Fi Flicks Are A Teenage Dream

Are you the type of person who writes off teen movies and YA science fiction as junk? Well, to that we say: Get the heck out of here! Because great teen sci-fi movies have been gracing our screens for many years now. And it’s time to recognize their power.

So do you feel like getting in touch with your angsty adolescent? Then these are the best teen sci-fi movies to scratch your itch.

Back To The Future Series

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads. But we do need the adolescent hijinks of Marty McFly and, thanks to a customized, time-traveling DeLorean, his teenaged parents.

The beauty of these films lies in their duality: they’re high-octane sci-fi adventures, sure, but they’re also emotionally effective coming-of-age stories.

Clockstoppers

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Ah, the good old days of Nickelodeon Movies. While this live-action effort may not match Good Burger in anarchic surrealism, it boasts a neat high concept of its own.

Zak, a typical early aughts teen, discovers the technology to speed himself up so quickly it seems as if the world is completely still. What begins as simple teen shenanigans quickly turns into a suitably spooky conspiracy plot.

The Maze Runner Series

What if you woke up in a dangerous maze, with a group of other teenagers, with no idea how you got there? That’s the delicious concept behind The Maze Runner series, based on the smash YA novels.

Equal parts Saw, Cube, and Battle Royale, the films become more labyrinthian in plot and, uh, labyrinths the characters must traverse through.

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle

If you only watched the trailers for the delayed Jumanji sequel, you’d think it’s just an action-adventure comedy with The Rock, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan trying to outmug each other.

But if you watch the film, you’ll be presently surprised at its sci-fi hook and emotional poignancy, as a group of teenagers are sucked into a video game and learn a little bit about themselves through their avatars.