Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for movies like Independence Day:
Alien 3
The much maligned Alien 3, directed by David Fincher in his first feature length movie, isn’t the catastrophe many claimed it was when it released in 1992. Alien 3 is a movie with many interesting ideas, but a script that holds it back.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Remember feeling overwhelmed and fulfilled leaving a Marvel movie? Neither did I, until I saw James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – an emotional gut punch and a perfect swan song to this set of weirdos. The first must-see Marvel film in a while.
65
Despite Adam Driver‘s attempt to deliver cinema’s next best science fiction thriller movie, 65 doesn’t successfully convey much that feels new or enticing. Lackluster pacing and storytelling make up a generally bland film stripped of any exciting elements.
Ghosts of Mars
Ghosts of Mars is late-period John Carpenter playing his hits at full volume. The craft is not lazy. The premise is too wild, the red-dusted sets too vivid, and the action too outsized to come from a filmmaker on autopilot. It just happens to be one of those odd Carpenter joints that feels like a mash of better Carpenter movies, then gets stranded in the thin air of its own sci-fi pulp.
Leave the World Behind
Sam Esmail, renowned for his work on Mr. Robot, returns to feature filmmaking with Leave the World Behind, a star-studded drama delivered straight to Netflix that operates as an apocalyptic mystery thriller. Boasting a cast of A-listers like Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, and the promising up-and-comer Myha’la, the film carries the weight of its cast’s reputation but, unfortunately, doesn’t quite live up to expectations.
Guardians of the Galaxy
As if Marvel couldn’t improve on the foundation they’d already built for themselves, they brought James Gunn on to make a surprisingly energetic, original hit with Guardians of the Galaxy that would infuse new juice into everything Marvel did after the fact. Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, and others helped bring in a new order to the MCU.
A Quiet Place: Day One
Michael Sarnoski sits in the director’s chair for A Quiet Place: Day One and delivers a movie that often feels like an A Quiet Place movie and a Michael Sarnoski film – just not at the same time. The softer moments between Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn are great, but often feel out of place in this larger world.
Spaceman
Spaceman continues the long collaboration between Adam Sandler and Netflix. It’s not my favorite of his movies with the studio, but it seems like Sandler is able to find a pocket within mid-range streaming films that I desperately wish a few more actors or directors would find. Paul Dano co-stars by voicing a furry, arachnid-like extraterrestrial.
28 Days Later
28 Days Later isn’t just another zombie movie—it’s a reinvention of the genre’s DNA, stripped down and reengineered for a new century of horror. Directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland, this lo-fi British horror film arrived at a moment when zombie films were treading water, yet it managed to make the undead feel urgent and terrifying again. With its harsh digital video aesthetic, jagged editing, and pulsating soundtrack, 28 Days Later feels like a transmission from a ruined world—one that still resonates more than two decades later.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Safe to say, I enjoyed The Wrath of Khan. It’s more my speed as an enjoyable, wildly adventurous science fiction film than the first, but hard to judge just one to one. They’re vastly different, and Director Nicholas Meyer is more interested in expanding the universe this time around than Robert Wise was in The Motion Picture. For a movie made in 1982, there’s a lot of technical and visual brilliance instilled into The Wrath of Khan that helps push the industry towards a new era of striking moviemaking where practical effects meets computer generated effects.
READ MORE: Independence Day (1996)
