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It helps that many excellent actors appear in it, such as Timotheé Chalamet in the leading role, Zendaya, or Jason Momoa. However, if the audience enjoyed the movie and wants to find other high-quality sci-fi films worth watching, they have a lot of options to choose from. Some of the movies are more like Dune, some less, but all of them have a lot to offer.
9 The Star Wars Series
The Star Wars franchise is one of the biggest and most popular - and it’s most likely been influenced by the book Dune as well. There are multiple movies in the series, but the best place to start is with the original trilogy, episodes IV to VI from 1977 to 1983.
Alternatively, the audience can take it chronologically but if they do, they’re going to spoil themselves some major surprises. It’s difficult to say which of the Star Wars movies is most similar to Dune since they all share the same sense of adventure and wonder and focus on a larger number of heroes.
8 Ready Player One (2018)
While focused on a completely different story, what the two films have in common is the vastness of the world they occupy. In Dune, multiple nations and planets with intelligent life exist.
Ready Player One, on the other hand, offers a virtual reality so large it’s easy to get lost in it and spend there most of the day (month, year). Both films will also remind of the 1980s to the audience. The first Dune was filmed in 1984 and Ready Player One makes a lot of clever references to this era.
7 Doctor Who TV Films
It’s true that Doctor Who is a TV show but it also has multiple TV movies under its belt. Both the book Dune and the original Doctor Who series come from the same time period, the 1960s. It’s not rare to come across a strange alien in them and what connects the characters is they do a lot of running and fighting for their lives.
However, both fandoms build complex worlds and have the power to make the audience think about the stories they’re presenting. It’s hard to choose the best Doctor Who TV movie considering their overall high quality, but thought-wise, Waters of Mars would be right on top since it’s the story where the Doctor finally almost snaps, which is a danger that many Dune characters are familiar with.
6 Marvel’s Space Run
The MCU is rich and complex, yet it mostly stays on Earth. The exception is its space movies which are also most similar to Dune thanks to the richness of the worlds they present.
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With the newest Eternals movie, the audience can learn even more about cosmic Marvel. However, they have multiple movies to choose from, most notably the Guardians of the Galaxy (both volumes), Captain Marvel (2019), and, of course, Thor: Ragnarok (2017) that barely even mentions Earth.
5 The Star Trek Series
Unsurprisingly, when there’s Star Wars, there also has to be Star Trek. Once again, both Dune and the Star Trek franchise are the children of the 1960s. What’s different is the way they look at the world. Star Trek, for the most part, remains optimistic about the future despite all the challenges the heroes face.
Dune, on the other hand, can be much darker. What they have in common is the variety they offer when it comes both to the characters presented and the worlds they live on. Star Trek has many movies to choose from but if the audience wants to watch the ones most similar to Dune, they should focus on movies that happen primarily in space, such as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) or the rebooted J.J. Abrams movies.
4 Stargate (1994)
Stargate is best known in the form of TV series but this Roland Emmerich movie came before then. It stars Kurt Russell and James Spader and will leave all space explorers satisfied, just like Dune. It’s a good introduction to the shows as well which then offer an even larger and more complicated world.
Stargate is a highly popular fandom and its size might seem intimidating, just like Dune can intimidate new sci-fi fans, but both this movie and the new book adaptation of Dune are a good way how to get to know the world and find out if the story is interesting for the audience or not.
3 The Planet Of The Apes Series
Almost everybody knows the iconic shot of the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand. However, this franchise is much more than just a single image as it includes multiple movies. Some of them were rated better, some worse, but if the audience wants a similarly intense story like Dune is, they can’t go wrong with the Planet of the Apes.
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The series caught a second breath in 2011 when a new movie came out, two sequels followed, and there’s, of course, the original legendary movie from 1968 as well or Tim Burton’s version from 2001.
2 A Trip To The Moon (1902)
Any genuine sci-fi fan who enjoys Dune should also watch the first sci-fi movie in history. Unlike Dune, this movie only lasts about 15 minutes but it contains the same sense of wonder that will fill the audience when watching it.
It tells a simple story about a group of astronauts who go to the Moon and discover an alien species living there. Considering this movie premiered 67 years before the Moon landing, it’s even more impressive, and it inspired countless movies that came after it.
1 Dune (1984)
Fans of the new Dune should also check out the original movie directed by David Lynch. According to the ratings, it’s not the best movie Lynch has ever directed but it’s still a remarkable piece of work that must have taken a lot of effort to make.
It’s interesting to compare it to the new version as well as the book and decide which approach is the closest to the viewer. Of course, the movie wasn’t successful in its time but that doesn’t reflect its quality as much as it reflects the fact that the Dune is almost impossible to film and the expectations were extremely high considering the book series’ popularity.
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