Top 5 Action and Sci-Fi Movies of 2025: Ranking the Best from Predator to Tom Cruise

The distinction between action and sci-fi movies has diminished significantly, particularly with this year’s top action film featuring a narrative centered around a sentient AI.

Can you recall the last major sci-fi blockbuster that wasn’t also a major action spectacle?

To streamline our year-end lists, Watch With Us has merged these categories and selected our top five action and sci-fi films of 2025.

If you act quickly, you might still catch our third pick in theaters before it exits at the week’s end.

5. ‘Novocaine’ (2025)

The Boys is concluding in 2026, but Jack Quaid appears to be on the path to stardom due to his roles in Novocaine and another film featured here. The film’s title is also the moniker of Quaid’s character, Nathan Caine—an individual who lacks the ability to feel physical pain. It’s crucial to clarify that while Nathan can sustain injuries, he simply does not sense them.

After a sheltered existence as a bank executive, Nathan encounters Sherry Margrave (Amber Midthunder), who seems to understand him. When bank robbers take Sherry hostage, Nathan resolves to rescue her, accumulating some gruesome injuries in the process, adding a dark humor twist to this action comedy. However, nothing seems to hinder him for long.

Novocaine is available for streaming on Prime Video.

4. ‘Predator: Badlands’ (2025)

This year, we were treated to two noteworthy Predator films, both directed by Dan Trachtenberg. While the animated anthology Predator: Killer of Killers could have made this list, it was overshadowed by Predator: Badlands, released a few months later. Trachtenberg successfully shifted the narrative focus to a Predator for the first time in the franchise.

Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi portrays Dek, a Predator exiled from his kind. Stranded on a remote planet, Dek aims to regain his honor by eliminating the apex predator of this world. Teaming up with Thia (Elle Fanning), a humanoid android from the Alien franchise’s Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Dek must collaborate with Thia, although they don’t always share the same goals.

Predator: Badlands is currently in theaters.

3. ‘Ballerina’ (2025)

Although John Wick: Chapter 5 is in development alongside a Donnie Yen-led spinoff, Ballerina provides the latest Wick content we’ll see for a while. Following her memorable cameo in No Time To Die, Ana de Armas showcases her action skills as Eve Macarro, a young woman raised in the Ruska Roma assassin clan that once embraced John Wick (Keanu Reeves).

Reeves makes notable cameo appearances in this film, along with familiar faces like Winston (Ian McShane) and Charon (Lance Reddick), but the narrative primarily centers on Eve as she seeks vengeance on the cult that killed her father. Eve is determined to eliminate anyone who stands in her path, even if it means destroying her own clan. While the action choreography may not reach the same heights as the John Wick films, it remains superior to most others.

Ballerina is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video.

2. ‘Companion’ (2025)

In Companion, Jack Quaid’s character may wish he could numb physical pain, particularly after he estranges his girlfriend, Iris (Sophie Thatcher). She was deeply committed to Josh (Quaid) and aimed for happiness with him, as that is how she was programmed. However, a disturbing vacation reveals her true nature.

This breakup turns sinister; while Iris may not have been designed for violence, she quickly becomes proficient in it. Once she begins to think independently, she transforms into Josh’s worst nightmare.

Companion is available for streaming on HBO Max.

1. ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ (2025)

If this indeed marks the final installment of Mission: Impossible for Tom Cruise, then he and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie have certainly delivered a memorable conclusion. The stakes and action have increasingly heightened with each successive film, and it seems difficult to top Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

The film picks up directly from the events of the previous installment, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, as Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his IMF team strive desperately to protect the world from the Entity, an AI that poses a catastrophic threat to humanity’s constructs. Joining Ethan are ex-thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) and former foe Paris (Pom Klementieff), adding to his rogue IMF team alongside newcomer Theo Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis). Ethan will need all the help he can muster, as Cruise performs even more daring stunts that are visually stunning on-screen.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is available for streaming on Paramount+.