The Best Sci-Fi Movies About Cloning

Cloning has fascinated storytellers for decades. Sci-fi scribes in particular have taken the idea to its most intriguing ends — especially when it comes to the movies. What might be possible, were we able to copy ourselves on a massive scale? Disaster? Enlightenment? Global networks of organ harvesting? Really confusing family photos? All this and more, according to sci-fi cinema. You might end up with a hyper-advanced society of brilliant supermodels — but you might also end up with a park full of resurrected dinosaurs, uninterested in being humanity's newest playthings. 

As Dolly the sheep recedes in the world's rearview mirror and cloning becomes a more common part of our lives, we turn to art to make sense of it all. We're here to recommend the best sci-fi movies about cloning and its many ramifications. Some are all for the process, some are deeply skeptical, and some are simply weirded out. All of them are thoughtful, entertaining, and even educational. These films deserve a deep dive, so reader beware: Spoilers will be plentiful.

2009's Moon is an underrated sci-fi gem. Starring Sam Rockwell as a miner, Sam Bell, stationed on the moon to mine helium-3, it's a movie as introspective as it is genuinely exciting. Sam thinks he's alone, aside from his robot companion, GERTY — but it's not long until he discovers there's someone else on the moon with him. Who is this mysterious interloper? It's his clone. And so is the first Sam. They're both clones of an original Sam we never meet.

Moon is a superb thriller, carried almost entirely by Rockwell's brilliant performance. The entire movie boils down to him interacting with himself, yet it never feels boring or repetitive, only increasingly intense. Not only is this movie engrossing, it actually features accurate and well-researched science. Don't believe us? Take it from NASA: Moon was screened as part of a lecture series at NASA's Space Center Houston. Cognitive scientists are also big fans of Moon, to the point that the movie was highlighted in a 2013 issue of Trends in Cognitive Science, one of the field's peer-reviewed journals.

Paradise Hills is more than just a scary tale of cloning gone awry — it's a terrifying look at sexism run rampant. The film follows Uma, a young woman who has been sent to Paradise, a center designed to "fix" disobedient women. As Uma learns more about her new home, she soon discovers the purpose of the center isn't to make its denizens better behaved, but to replace them entirely. Through extensive surgery and behavioral conditioning, Paradise remakes impoverished young women into perfect copies of their troublesome patients. The original girls meet a grisly fate within the center, and the made-over girls are sent back out into the world, for everyone to marvel at. This is a uniquely brutal take on cloning: The clone in question begins as a unique person who is steadily erased until they are a perfect copy.

Paradise Hills isn't just thought-provoking in premise — it boasts a killer sense of style, as well as performances from Emma Roberts, Awkwafina, and Milla Jovovich. It's also a movie interested in subverting expectations at every turn. There is a knight in shining armor, though he isn't exactly what he appears to be, and the girls' solution to their predicament isn't what you might expect. Paradise Hills is twisty, strange, and gorgeous — all in all, a splendid sci-fi fantasia with a socially-conscious twist.

The Boys From Brazil is one of the most outrageous films on this list — which is saying something, as this list includes dinosaur theme parks and magical Pokemon tears. The Boys From Brazil follows Ezra Lieberman, played by Laurence Olivier, an aging Nazi hunter who learns that Third Reich war criminals are alive and holding meetings in Paraguay. The story takes various twists and turns until Ezra learns that these Nazis have successfully cloned Hitler 94 times, and sent the babies to be adopted by different families all around the globe.

The clones weren't adopted by just anyone, however: The Nazis delivered the children to parents much like Hitler's own. Painstaking care was taken to approximate the terrible leader's upbringing, to the point that the adoptive fathers were all murdered at the same age Hitler's own father died. It's a cloning movie that brings up a different kind of ethical conundrum: If you could go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby, would you do it? You may not agree with the final decision in the film, but it will have you and your fellow filmogers debating it long after it's over.

When you think of movies involving cloning, you likely think of films in the sci-fi and horror genres. Multiplicity, in contrast, takes the concept of cloning makes a full-blown comedy out of it. Michael Keaton plays Doug Kinney, a scientist who has discovered a successful way of cloning himself. He proceeds to make numerous duplicates, each of which has a different personality. As you would expect, various shenanigans ensue, such as the real Doug not understanding any conversations his wife unwittingly had with one of his clones.

The film was directed by Harold Ramis, who also directed Groundhog Day. Similar to that film, Multiplicity mixes tenderness with laughs. This movie isn't interested in dealing with the actual science of cloning — instead, it focuses on the very human nature of relationships, and how romances degrade if you don't spend enough time with your partner. It's the rare kind of film that makes you laugh one minute and question your own humanity the next. Plus, wacky clone hijinks. What else could you want?

Set in the near future, The 6th Day takes place in a society where animal-based clones are part of everyday life. Cloning another human being, however, is strictly outlawed. One day, a helicopter pilot played by Arnold Schwarzenegger stumbles upon someone who's been violating laws involving human clones. After he avoids a fiery crash, he returns home ... to find a clone of himself already there. 

Your enjoyment of this film depends on how much classic Schwarzenegger-style action you can take. The fight scenes recall his glory days — which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your personal attitudes. Regardless, this is one action film that's a lot more thoughtful than many others. The construction of this fictional world and its many arcane laws is genuinely fascinating — this is a proper sci-fi movie, not an action flick with sci-fi set dressing. Plus, seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger play off himself is a hoot. 

If you were a kid in the '90s, then Pokemon: The First Movie was an integral part of your childhood. If you were an adult who had to watch Pokemon: The First Movie in theaters, then you were likely confused the entire time, and that's okay, too. The film follows the adventures of Ash, Misty, and Brock as they receive a mysterious letter inviting them to an island. There, they discover Mewtwo, a cloned Pokemon of tremendous power, has created an army of clones to prove his superiority to the world.

You may not expect a movie about Pokemon to be all that profound, but believe it or not, it deals with some pretty heavy stuff. "I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant," Mewtwo notes towards the film's end, "It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are." That's a solid line, no matter what movie it's coming from. Ash may be the protagonist, but Mewtwo is the real star of the show, and his journey to compassion is solid. Sure, its take on cloning is simple, but that's kind of the point — no matter who someone is or how they came to be, they deserve kindness and respect. Now that's a lesson worth taking into one's adulthood.