Rotten Tomatoes have published their 2021 Golden Tomato Awards - which are awarded based on critic review scores - and sci-fi fared moderately well at the winner level but less so in ranked listings of runners up, except for Best New Series and Best Animated series.

Interestingly Rotten Tomatoes also give the public the opportunity to vote for their favourites which will be announced on January 31.

Winners

Looking first at winners, Spider-Man: No Way Home won Best Movie and Best Wide-Release Movie.

Wandavision won Best TV Series and Best Limited Series.

That's four out of eight categories.

Drilling down into genre categories, Rotten Tomatoes treat superhero as a separate genre and unsurprisingly Spider-Man won best Comic Book Movie.

A Quiet Place Part II won Best Horror Movie.

The Green Knight (fantasy) won Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy movie. Loved by critics but not audiences, scoring 89% and 50% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes. It's IMDb rating is 6.6.

Two out of thirteen categories total for sci-fi.

Moving onto television, Invincible won Best Animated Series.

Hellbound - which we're not yet convinced is sci-fi - won Best Horror Series.

Sweet Tooth won Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Series.

Wandavision won Best Superhero Series.

That's four out of seven wins for sci-fi in TV series.

Best Movie Runners Up

In the Best Movie category, following Spider-Man there was a cluster of A Quiet Place Part II in 9th position, The Mitchells vs. the Machines in 10th, Suicide Squad in 11th, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (which might be more fantasy than sci-fi) in 12th and nothing else in their top 30. No Dune.

In the Best Wide Release category, A Quiet Place Part II, Suicide Squad and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings came up to 6th, 7th and 8th positions and Dune came in at 10th. Black Window just made it into their top 20 in 18th position.

In the Best Limited Release category, nothing for us.

In the Best Streaming Movie category, The Mitchells vs. the Machines came up to 3rd position but there was no other sci-fi in the top 20.

Best TV Series Runners Up

In the Best TV Series category, keeping winner Wandavision company is fellow Marvel title Loki in 4th position, animated Invincible in 7th, Sweet Tooth in 12th and The Expanse (season 5) in 24th out of their top 30. If you're inclined to regard vampires as sci-fi then What We Do in the Shadows (season 3) came in at 18th.

In the Best New Series category, Invincible nabbed 3rd position, Sweet Tooth 6th, Squid Game 15th, animated Star Wars: Visions 16th, Hellbound 18th, Made for Love (which appears to be a little bit sci-fi) 19th and animated Masters of the Universe: Revelation, 20th out of their top 20.

In the Best Returning Series category, What We do in the Shadows took 4th position, The Expanse 9th and For All Mankind 14th out of their top 20.

In the Best Limited Series category, Loki crept up to 3rd position and was joined by Marvel's Hawkeye in 7th, What If ...? in 9th and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in 11th out of their top 20.

Best Movie by Genre Runners Up

In the Best Action and Adventure Movie category, Free Guy came in 5th and Army of the Dead 7th out of the top 10.

In the Best Animated Movie category, The Mitchells vs. the Machines came 2nd and Ron's Gone Wrong 8th out of the top 10.

In the Best Comedy Movie category - nada. Free Guy is comedy but their top 10 all scored higher than Free Guy's mere 80%.

In the Best Comic Movie Book Movie category, there are only 5 contenders - winner Spider-Man: No Way Home followed by The Suicide Squad, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Black Widow and Zack Snyder's Justice League.

In the Best Documentary category - unsurprisingly nothing.

In the Best Drama Movie category, nothing in their top 10.

In the Best Foreign Language Movie category, nothing in their top 10.

In the Best Horror Movie category, nothing in their top 10 apart from winner A Quiet Place Part II.

In the Best Kids and Family Movie category, nothing in their top 5.

In the Best Musical and Music Videos, nothing in their top 10.

In the Best Romance Movie category, there's just I'm Your Man in 2nd position out of their top 10. I'm Your Man is German and scored very well with critics (96%) but the top 10 films in the Foreign Language Movie category scored better.

In the Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Movie category, Dune took 2nd position, Lapsis, 3rd, Never Gonna Snow Again 4th, Oxygen 7th, Godzilla vs. Kong 8th, Night Raiders 9th and Fried Barry 10th.

In the Best Thriller Movie category, nothing in their top 10.

Best TV Series by Genre Runners up

In the Best Animated Series category, Star Wars: Visions came in 3rd, What If...? 4th and Masters of the Universe Revelation 5th out of 5. Including winner Invincible that's 4 out of 5 for sci-fi.

In the Best Comedy Series category, What We Do in the Shadows came in 8th out of a top 10.

In the Best Docuseries category, unsurprisingly nothing.

In the Best Drama Series category, nothing in their top 10.

In the Best Horror Series category, there's just maybe The Stand in 9th position, albeit certified rotten with a 55% critic rating and 24% audience on Rotten Tomatoes. Though it's more supernatural / religious horror with just a few scientific elements, like the disease and atomic bomb.

In the Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Series category, The Expanse came in 2nd, Resident Alien 4th, Y: The Last Man 8th, Foundation 9th and The Nevers 10th. The Nevers is certified rotten with a 48% critic score and 83% audience.

In the Best Superhero Series category there are only 5 contenders - winner Wandavision followed by Loki, Hawkeye, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Superman & Lois (season 1).

Seeing only 5 contenders for Best Superhero Series and knowing that other superhero series released in 2021, we looked up season 3 of DC's Titans, which scored well on Rotten Tomatoes - 100% critics and 70% audience. It meets all of the criteria for inclusion except minimum 5 reviews by "Top Critics". It only has 1 of those.

[ Main Image: Golden Tomato Awards 2021 Credit: Rotten Tomatoes. ]

References

IMDB.com. The Green Knight. (viewed January 20, 2022)

Rotten Tomatoes (January 12, 2021). Best of 2021 Golden Tomato Awards.

Rotten Tomatoes. Free Guy. (viewed January 20, 2022)

Rotten Tomatoes. I'm Your Man. (viewed January 20, 2022)

Rotten Tomatoes. The Green Knight. (viewed January 20, 2022)

Rotten Tomatoes. The Nevers: Season 1. (viewed January 20, 2022)

Rotten Tomatoes. Titans: Season 3. (viewed January 20, 2022)

Rotten Tomatoes [@RottenTomatoes] (January 13, 2021). Read on for the 2021 #GoldenTomato Award recipients and winner reactions! Twitter.