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When it comes to space and science fiction flicks, our fascination with the genre stems from the action that occurs beyond our own planet. Sometimes, the best stories in space occur on other singular, alien surfaces, falling under the umbrella of planetary romances. And no, that doesn’t mean it’s primarily a love story, but romance plays a key role in the story.
The subgenre usually takes place on a singular exotic alien planet as the story focuses on the geography, cultures, monsters, and political conflicts. They tend to include personal heroics rather than high-tech space battles. The term “romance” leans more toward adventurous, faraway quests, and daring exploits. We are here to celebrate ten of the greatest planetary romances in movie history. From epic entries in long-running franchises to iconic pop culture staples, these films represent a brilliant cross-section of the genre and its history.
‘The Space Between Us’ (2017)
Directed by Peter Chelsom, The Space Between Us tells the tale of Gardner Elliot (Asa Butterfield), the first human born on Mars. Raised in secret by a team of scientists, he forms a close online friendship and romance with a smart, cynical Colorado high school foster kid named Tulsa (Britt Robertson). Desperate to meet and learn of his anonymous father, Gardner travels to Earth, embarking on a cross-country road trip.
With love at the center of the tale, The Space Between Us subverts the surface for a fish-out-of-water wonder. The film does a wondrous job of showcasing our home planet beautifully, shown through the wide-eyed wonder of Gardner and his exploration. The cross-planetary connection between Gardner and Tulsa provides a classic young adult romance of two outsiders searching for common ground to be together, but the journey to get there is no easy feat. The Space Between Us is a deeply personal human story, as the cross-world quest for belonging is a universal theme that resonates with all viewers.
‘John Carter’ (2012)
In 2012, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ brilliant work was brought to the big screen in John Carter. Directed by Andrew Stanton, the story centers on weary ex-Confederate veteran John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) who is mysteriously transported to Mars, known locally as Barsoom. As an Earth-born individual, he has superhuman abilities that become crucial in an epic planetary conflict. Reluctant to fight in another way, Carter must make the choice to help Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) and save Barsoom from total collapse at the hands of warlord Sab Than (Dominic West) and Matai Shang (Mark Strong), the leader of the Therns, a powerful and ancient immortal race.
John Carter offers immersive worldbuilding, spectacular visuals, and a brilliant blueprint to pull from. The movie takes the strange cultures of the exotic planet seriously, allowing it to explore why the dying red planet is war-torn. John Carter is a massive movie. Stanton employs big arena set pieces, sweeping desert wars, and giant motion-captured alien characters to give the film an epic essence and make it the ultimate sword-and-planet adventure of the era.
‘Aelita’ (1924)
One of the very first influential planetary romance movies in cinema history is Aelita. The daring silent film directed by Yakov Protazanov follows Soviet engineer Los (Nikolai Tsereteli) who dreams of building a rocket to Mars, where he imagines leading an uprising with Queen Aelita (Yuliya Solntseva). Though the epic adventure and rebellion turn out to be an elaborate dream, Los uses his imagination as a tool to save his own planet.
A truly historic film, Aelita inspired generations of planetary romances through its bold storytelling, groundbreaking avant-garde art design, and its ability to process such profound themes and ideas of the time. Lifted from Alexei Tolstoy’s novel, Aelita blends science fiction, melodrama, and sweeping adventure on a single alien world. Driven by romantic passion, jealousy, and obsession, the space thriller is rooted in forbidden love that examines our adoration for Earth. Aelita captures the hopes, utopian dreams, and anxieties of 1920s society, specifically Soviet Russia.
‘Upside Down’ (2012)
A truly delightful, under-appreciated planetary romance is Juan Diego Solanas’ 2012 film, Upside Down. The sci-fi romance follows two star-crossed lovers living on twin, adjacent planets with opposing gravitational pulls, where the rich live on the upper world and the poor on the lower. The laws of the class divide find intercourse between the worlds is strictly forbidden. Any foreign object brought over will spontaneously burn up after a few hours unless counteracted by “inverse matter.” After a secret romance, Adam (Jim Sturgess), from Down Below, and Eden (Kirsten Dunst), from Up Top, fight to find each other as the gravitational pull rips them apart.
Through breathtaking cinematography, vibrant worldbuilding, and a whimsical spectacle like no other story, Upside Down is a new twist on a classic narrative. With its unique premise of two worlds pulled apart, Solanas creates a visual vocabulary through a stunning mirror-image effect between the impoverished lower world and the wealthy upper world. The core obstacle isn’t just distance, but an unusual dual-gravity planetary condition where the worlds pull in opposite directions. By going beyond their means to cross boundaries and defy natural laws, it proves that love knows no limits.
‘Barbarella’ (1968)
There are very few iconic pop culture films quite like Barbarella. Directed by Roger Vadim, based on the French comic series by Jean-Claude Forest, the 1968 sci-fi cult classic sends space adventurer Barbarella (Jane Fonda) into the Tau Ceti system to find a rogue scientist, Durand Durand (Milo O’Shea), who has invented the positronic ray, a weapon capable of destroying humanity. Barbarella crash-lands on the frozen, surreal planet Lythion where she faces off against killer robotic dolls, meets a blind angel named Pygar (John Phillip Law), and discovers “old-fashioned” physical love.
With a fascinating mix of psychedelic 1960s pop-art style, campy satire, and a unique, lighthearted celebration of peace and pleasure, Barbarella became bigger than just a film. It blends space travel with pulp adventure, chivalric romance, and fantasy, focusing on survival and pure camp decadence. The production design replaces sterile metallic spaceships with psychedelic 1960s nightclub visuals, and spaceships with wall-to-wall shag carpeting and fur-lined interiors. Barbarella walks a fine line between poking fun at its own utopian dreams and indulging in them completely.
‘Flash Gordon’ (1980)
For this entry, we are going to discuss the 1980 film adaptation of Flash Gordon. While the influential 1936 serial film is brilliant and influential, the Mike Hodges version is a pop culture masterpiece. The story centers on American football star Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) as he travels to the alien planet Mongo to stop an evil dictator from destroying Earth. Joined by travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) and eccentric scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov (Topol), they must stop Emperor Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow), the ruler of the planet Mongo.
A joyful high-camp film with dazzling aesthetics, Flash Gordon is a memorable movie that celebrates stylized action and the tropes common to the genre with panache. It’s an ordinary Earthling against a ruthless villain that is rooted in high-stakes action. Flash Gordon relies on non-stop danger, dangerous monsters, epic arena battles, and daring escapes, using bright primary colors to build a comic book aesthetic in its unique world. Production designer Danilo Donati used vibrant, theatrical sets to create Planet Mongo and extravagant costumes that evoked the 1930s comic strip.
‘Avatar’ (2009)
James Cameron has proven his willingness to take massive risks on screen, like Avatar. In the franchise-launching 2009 science fiction film, it follows paralyzed ex-Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) who joins an alien colonization program on the lush moon of Pandora. Via his avatar, he meets and falls in love with Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), defies his original orders, and leads the indigenous tribe known as the Na’vi in a battle for survival.
Avatar delivered a groundbreaking, immersive visual spectacle and an emotional, universally accessible story about nature and connection in blockbuster fashion. Though the primary storyline is reminiscent of other narratives, the move to drop the action on the fascinating locale of Pandora established a newfound approach to how we view conservation on our own planet. The immersive worldbuilding dropped you directly onto the planet and into the action, and the way the world was built felt extraordinarily tangible. The romance between Jake and Neytiri serves as the emotional core of the film, evolving into something profound in the subsequent films.
‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ (2017)
Representing the trilogy as a whole comes a film about underdogs of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. In the second film directed by James Gunn, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and his ragtag misfit team as they rock the cosmos, trying to keep their newfound family together as Peter discovers the truth about his biological father, Ego (Kurt Russell).
A brilliant story about love, friendship, and sacrifice, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 prioritizes deep emotional character arcs through the guise of found family while maintaining a high-voltage, action-packed adventure. A standout, top-tier MCU entry, it captures the classic sci-fi subgenre by making a living, god-like planet the central canvas to explore. Through retro-futuristic and imaginative planetary design, the literal living planet is richly realized. The slow-burning “unspoken thing” between Quill and Gamorra provides an emotional core as they embark on their mission. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 proves that staying put on a single planet is equally brilliant as navigating the cosmos.
‘Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980)
The original Star Wars is excellent, but The Empire Strikes Back is exquisite. It may be thanks to the inclusion of the celebrated “Queen of Space Opera” Leigh Brackett, one of the film’s screenwriters. The Empire Strikes Back centers on the Rebel Alliance running from the evil Galactic Empire after their base is destroyed. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) goes to a swamp planet called Dagobah to train with Jedi Master Yoda (Frank Oz) to learn to use the Force to take on Darth Vader (James Earl Jones).
With one of the greatest twists in cinema history, The Empire Strikes Back explores exotic alien planets as it pairs futuristic blasters and starships with mystical knightly orders, ancient philosophies, and feudal-style galactic conflicts. It rejects the typical Hollywood ending for a reminder that villains can be victorious too. The heroes fail, get hurt, and face real hardships instead of winning easily. This vulnerability makes the characters relatable and the romance more powerful. With the physical action moving to Luke, it opened up the narrative for Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia’s (Carrie Fisher) love story, which masterfully grows through quiet moments of tension.
‘Dune: Part Two’ (2024)
The premiere iteration of Frank Herbert’s epic novel Dune is most certainly Denis Villeneuve’s masterpiece. To represent the franchise for this list, we will focus on Dune: Part Two. The film follows Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) as he unites with Chani (Zendaya) and the Fremen on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. As he experiences terrifying premonitions of a massive holy war in his name, Paul learns desert survival and rides a giant sandworm before confronting the Emperor (Christopher Walken) and the Harkonnens on Arrakis.
Dune: Part Two subverts the hero myth while establishing the epic conclusion. It pairs a vast, desert-world adventure with a grounded, tragic love story that buckles under the weight of destiny. The entire narrative, action, and cultural conflict are anchored to the harsh, singular alien ecosystem of the planet Arrakis. The desert environment, water scarcity, giant sandworms, and the extraction of the spice mélange dictate every single choice the characters make. It highlights tribal warfare, personal combat, and an arena battle like no other.
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https://collider.com/best-planetary-romance-movies-all-time-ranked/
Michael Block
Almontather Rassoul
