Film

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Name: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Genre: Adventure, Science Fiction, Action
Released: 2017
Cast: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke

Luc Besson's 2017 space opera is a kaleidoscopic visual feast: a dizzying parade of alien designs, impossible architecture, and colour that feels almost aggressive in its ambition. It's earnest, overstuffed, and genuinely trying to show you something you've never seen before. For patient viewers who prize spectacle and world-building over narrative tightness, it's a two-hour acid trip. Others will find it exhausting.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love sci-fi built on sheer visual invention, where a crowded alien city, with its odd creatures and gorgeous set-pieces, matters more than the plot, much like Luc Besson's own Fifth Element.

Skip it if you want tight, character-driven storytelling; the leads are thin, the romance is flat, and the plot wanders from one dazzling set-piece to the next without much emotional pull.

What it asks of you: It runs over two hours and rarely pauses, so you need to be willing to surrender to a busy, colourful barrage and let the spectacle carry you through the lulls.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Fifth Element1997

The spiritual ancestor: Besson doing sci-fi spectacle with the same maximalist colour palette, practical ingenuity, and affection for weirdness. If Valerian's chaos appeals to you, this is where it learned its language.

But It's nearly thirty years old now, and the effects show it. Also, it's significantly more focused and coherent, which means less of the beautiful mess you might be seeking.

Dune2021

Epic space opera with intricate world-building and genuine stakes. Denis Villeneuve proves you can be visually ambitious and narratively clear simultaneously—the opposite of Valerian's approach, but the same emotional ambition.

But It's deliberately slow and meditative. If you're drawn to Valerian's twitchy energy, Dune's patient, almost ceremonial pacing will test you.

Flash Gordon1980

A film that chose unhinged fun over believability and has never apologized. Visually outrageous, tonally confident in its own ridiculousness, with practical sets that still astonish. Pure joy.

But It's campy by design and forty-plus years of cultural distance means some of its references will sail past you. The effect is more kitsch than state-of-the-art now.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Redline2009

Both films believe the universe should be visually incomprehensible in scope and that showing you something you've never seen is more important than explaining it clearly.

A hand-drawn anime about an illegal space race that took nine years to complete. Every frame is a visual invention—colour and motion designed to overwhelm your senses. The same commitment to making you see something impossible, but achieved through obsessive 2D animation instead of CGI.

But It has almost no plot. The story is a skeleton to hang spectacle on. If narrative matters to you at all, this is a hard watch.

Guardians of the Galaxy2014

Space adventure that juggles chaotic visuals with character warmth and genuine humour. Proves you can have a busy, colourful universe and also make people care about the people in it.

But It's comparatively grounded and its humour lands harder than Valerian's sincere awkwardness. If you want pure visual strangeness without the charm offensive, this plays it safer.

Blade Runner 20492017

Released the same year as Valerian with the opposite approach: sparse, meditative, gorgeously composed. Another world-building masterpiece that proves ambition takes many forms in sci-fi.

But It's deliberately austere and slow. At two hours forty-four minutes, it demands patience in a way Valerian's hyperactivity actively works against.

TRON: Legacy2010

Digital worlds constructed with obsessive detail and visual logic. The neon, the design philosophy, the sense of stepping into something completely alien—Besson was watching this too.

But The plot is genuinely thin, and it relies on you caring about a relationship between a father and son you barely know. Also, the techno soundtrack will either enrapture or exhaust you.

The Ninth Configuration1980

William Peter Blatty's mad, ambitious sci-fi chamber piece: ambitious genre filmmaking that takes genuine risks and doesn't care if it alienates you. Uncompromised vision.

But It's intellectually challenging and philosophically dense. It asks more of you than Valerian does, and its rewards are internal rather than visual.

Spaceman2024

A recent space film that swings for strange and personal emotional territory. Genuine oddness in service of something real, with some of the same 'just trust me' energy Valerian has.

But It's deliberately small and introspective, about loneliness and disconnection. If you want sprawling spectacle, this will feel thin.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen1988

Both films commit to the idea that a universe should feel maximalist and slightly unstable, where what you're seeing matters more than following the thread.

Terry Gilliam's production-design masterpiece: a film about impossible worlds constructed from salvaged materials, practical magic, and sheer refusal to accept reality's limitations. Like Valerian, it's a love letter to imagination itself.

But It's visually dense to the point of incomprehensibility in places. Some scenes are more interested in beauty than clarity, and the narrative is deliberately picaresque and fragmented.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen poster

Annihilation2018

Both prioritise showing you a fully realized impossible world over conventional storytelling, but Annihilation uses that world to create unease rather than wonder—the same visual language, opposite emotional destination.

A sci-fi film about exploring the genuinely alien, with practical and visual effects that make strangeness feel both beautiful and wrong. It has Valerian's commitment to making you see things you've never seen, but with dread underneath.

But It's slow, meditative, and genuinely unsettling. The tone is anxious where Valerian is excited. If you want optimistic space adventure, this will unsettle rather than delight you.