Some of the best sci-fi movies are layered and complex, while others are confusing beyond belief and demand several rewatches to unravel it all.

Science fiction movies are often meant to be somewhat complicated, and the fanbase is typically made of people who want something challenging they can appreciate. While the movies need to be visually entertaining and raise viewers' emotions, they also need to play to the tropes of the genre to succeed and have long-lasting success.

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However, some science fiction movies have fans scratching their heads in confusion and many of these movies require a second viewing to figure things out. The best science fiction movies award this second viewing with clues placed throughout the film to make it a satisfying experience.

In 2010, Christopher Nolan created one of his top critically acclaimed movies with the mind-bender,Inception. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a thief who steals information using technology that allows him to enter a person's subconscious to gain access to memories that help the companies hire him.

He is offered a chance to erase his criminal past if he implants another person's memories into someone else's head. Despite its complicated premise, it was a huge success and won four Oscars.

Duncan Jones is the son of the late rock-star, David Bowie, but he set out to make his name as a filmmaker without riding the coattails of his father's more famous name.

While he is known for his bigger movies, includingSource Code and Warcraft, he made his debut with what might be his best film,Moon. The movie was shot with a small budget, with Jones doing all the effects. The movie stars Sam Rockwell, a man on a moon mission alone who starts to see visions right before he is set to return home.

Christopher Nolan was back in 2014 with another confusing movie, this one a sci-fi film called Interstellar. When it comes toobscure and complexplot points,Inceptionis child'splay compared to Interstellar's messages and themes.

The movie stars Matthew McConaughey as a man who lives on a future Earth where people struggle to survive. He then joins a group of astronauts who travel to a wormhole by Saturn and end up finding a lot more than they ever dreamed of.

In 2001, Donnie Darkowas the movie that made Richard Kelly the next big thing. The sci-fi movie was so great that Kelly could never live up to its promise afterward. Part of the reason for this was that Kelly tried to re-up the confusing storylines from this first film with the ultra-confusing Southland Tales.

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Jake Gyllenhaal starred in Donnie Darko as a teen who starts to have doomsday visions. By the end, viewers realize nothing in the movie is as it seemed and a rewatch shows how Donnieunderstood his fate.

Primer is widely considered one of the smartest sci-fi movies ever made. It is also extremely confusing and requires a rewatch to catch everything the filmmakers are trying to convey.

Directed by Shane Carruth, Primer is a movie with a complex and nonlinear plot that uses complex technical dialogue and philosophical science fiction theories. The film is about the accidental discovery of time travel, and it deals with alternate timelines in a very complicated manner.

Released in 2007, the Spanish-language science fiction film Timecrimes confused and enthused fans everywhere.

In this movie, a man named Hector finds himself trapped in a non-stop time loop, and as time goes on, more and more of his selves pop up in the world from the future, and he does what he can to stop these anomalies from appearing. This is yet another time-travel movie that takes multiple watches to piece everything together.

Darren Aronofsky is a director that has made several complicated and intellectual indie-style movies. His first two critically acclaimed movies, Pi and Requiem for a Dream, both tackled complicated subject matter in a way that was very polarizing for some viewers. The Fountain took it to another level.

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Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz star in this movie about love and loss of love across three different timelines. It has a touch of fantasy and spirituality, and its hardcore sci-fi storylinemeans there is no way to understandit without watching it two or more times.

Solaris is based on a science fiction novel written in 1961 by Stanislaw Lem about scientists at a research station trying to understand extraterrestrial intelligence on an alien planet.

There were two iterations of this film, the first coming in 1972 by Andrei Tarkovsky and the second in 2002 by Steven Soderbergh. Both are complex films that deal with the scientists' emotional crisis as they try to understand the unknown.

Stanley Kubrick directed one of the seminal sci-fi movies in history with 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film is about a group of people aboard a spacecraft on a trip to Jupiter, alongside a sentient computer named HAL to investigate the possibility of alien life.

When everyone dies except for one person, Dr. David Bowman, he continues the journey with HAL, but soon realizes that HAL might have nefarious plans of its own. By the end, Bowman is having visions and is transforms into a fetus - needless to say, the film requires another watch or two to understand what just happened.

In 2001, Cameron Crowe directed the remake of the 1997 Spanish-language film Open Your Eyes. RenamedVanilla Sky, the movie stars Tom Cruise as a man involved in an accident who wakes up to find his face disfigured.

Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz co-star as two women involved in his life, but as he tells his story to a psychologist (Kurt Russell), it appears something has happened to him that he doesn't remember. It all goes off the rails when a company specializing in "life extension" comes into the picture.

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Shawn S. Lealos is a freelance writer who received his Bachelor's degree in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma with a minor in Film Studies. He has worked as a journalist for over 20 years, first in the world of print journalism before moving to online media as the world changed. Shawn is a former member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle before relocating to Texas and has work published in the Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma Gazette, Vox Magazine and Loud Magazine and on websites like The Huffington Post, CBS, Time Warner Cable, Yahoo, The Movie Network, Chud, Renegade Cinema, 411mania and Sporting News. Shawn is also a published author, with a non-fiction book about the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers and has begun work on a new fiction series as well. Visit Shawn Lealos' website to learn more about his novel writing and follow him on Twitter @sslealos.

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10 Sci-Fi Movies That Only Make Sense On A Rewatch | ScreenRant - Screen Rant

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