Top 10 Coolest Guns in Sci-Fi

Science Fiction is a useful genre to express where an artist sees humanity is headed, to explore how the humanity will react to new existential concepts and to show off bad ass guns. These are my top 10 coolest, most badass and generally best projectile weapons in the history of sci-fi, keep in mind that I'm only including one gun per movie, or movie series.

10.
 Looper
Blunderbuss

"It's impossible to hit anything farther than 15 yards. Impossible to miss anything closer. It's a gun for fuck-up turkeys."

The blunderbuss is not a gun for the skilled or those who like to plan attacks ahead, it's the epitome of a 'close encounters' type gun. Maybe I'm only including it because it looks really cool but that's because it looks really cool.

The Gun's Best Moment:

Joe shows he knows what his gun's good for.

9. 
Minority Report
Sonic Gun

Much like the movie's puke creating sick stick this is a 'non-lethal' weapon used by the police department in the future. The Sonic Gun uses a sonic pulse to launch whatever's in front of you onto its ass, plus you do a cool spin to reload it. Despite likely being very easy to kill somebody with this it's meant merely to knock back and incapacitate. 

The Gun's Best Moment:

Tom Cruise decides to use his perusers weapon on themselves.

8. 
Elysium
Modified AKM

Sometimes it's not the gun but the ammunition. This gun is really just a modern day AKM gun with special sights that allow you detect targets' locations but what it does with that info is what makes this gun kick ass. In the film the gun is loaded with airburst ammunition that explodes right before hitting the target, making this essentially the world's most accurate grenade launcher, even if it does tend to jam.

The Gun's Best Moment:

Matt Damon manages to kick ass with the gun despite having no idea what he's doing.

7.
Men in Black

K's gun

I know, most people expect the Noisy Cricket, as it's the most memorable and the iconic gun from the movie, but it's far too impracticable, the gun has a massive kickback and it's size makes it too difficult to hold, it could have easily been bigger. K's gun at the end of the first Men in Black is really big and really cool but the real factor that made this gun earn it's place on the list is that Tommy Lee Jones' K thought the gun was so cool it was worth getting eaten to get back.

The Gun's Best Moment:

K wants to be eaten to get his gun back.

 6.
District 9
ARC Gun

Another one from a Neil Blomkamp movie, this gun that can be only used by prawns (or part prawn people) and is essentially deadly wherever you hit the target. The ARC Gun utilizes an electric current that causes the target to explode weather you get them in the head, chest or pinky toe.

The Gun's Best Moment:

Wikus is forced to use the gun on a helpless prawn.

5. 
Akira
ARASAKA HLR-12X

The ARASAKA HLR-12X is a particle acceleration gun that fires a clean laser line that can cut through damn near anything. Kaneda picks this gun up to take on his old buddy Tetsuo and he holds up pretty decently against him, despite the fact that Tetsuo can blow people up with his mind. So I'd call it a pretty good gun (Along with good plot armour).

The Gun's Best Moment:

Kaneda! Tetsuo!

4.
 Robocop
Cobra Assault Cannon

Again, some might say "Right movie, wrong gun" suggesting that the Auto 9 is the star weapon of the film but as cool as Robocop's gun is I feel his opponents are carrying the superior force. This is somehow both a sniper rifle and a rocket launcher at the same time, showing the accuracy and long distance capabilities of a sniper rifle and the kaboom of a rocket launcher. Even Robocop himself finds this gun useful for taking out a guarding ED-209.

The Gun's Best Moment:

This guy likes it.

3. 
The Fifth Element 
The Zorg ZF-1

A true Swiss Army Knife of a gun, the Zorg ZF-1 always offers a bit of disappointment when it's never actually used in combat but even then it's hard to ignore how cool this death machine is. Although I can't sell it as well as Gary Oldman when he states:

"It's light; handle's adjustable for easy carrying; good for righties and lefties; breaks down into four parts; undetectable by X-ray; ideal for quick discreet interventions. A word on firepower. Titanium recharger; 3000-round clip with bursts of 3 to 300. With the replay button, another Zorg invention, it's even easier. One shot and replay sends every following shot to the same location.  And to finish the job, all the Zorg oldies-but-goldies. Rocket launcher, arrow launcher, with exploding or poisonous gas heads, very practical, our famous net launcher, the always-efficient flamethrower, my favorite, and for the grand finale, the all-new Ice-cube System."

The Gun's Best Moment:

The aforementioned sales pitch.

 

2.
 Dredd 
Lawgiver

The Judges' Lawgivers in Dredd (and the 1995 Judge Dredd, but the Dredd one is cooler) is essentially a better, and easier to carry, version of the ZF-1. In the movie we see the gun use rapid fire, armour piercing rounds, incendiary rounds, silencer mode, stun, high explosives and a burning fireball, called 'hot shot'. The one thing that gives the lawgiver a leg ahead of the ZF-1 is a security feature that'd make hipster Q green with envy, if you happen to come across a lawgiver that isn't yours and try to fire it you'll end up with one less arm than you had to begin with.

The Gun's Best Moment:

The Lawgiver shows its loyalty.

1.
 Aliens 
M41A Pulse Rifle With M240 Flamethrower Taped To It

The Pulse Rifle might have already have topped my list with its machine gun, grenade launcher, side ammo counter and general badassness but when Ellen Ripley decides it'd be much better with a flamethrower on the side and a Newt tracker on top she creates the coolest projectile weapon in cinema history. Sure it has less features than other guns but I couldn't help myself, it's a damn cool weapon, and, yes, I consider it one gun, duck tape included

The Gun's Best Moment:

After taking an entire movie to kill one, Ripley wipes out dozens of xenomorphs, burns a whole slew of their eggs and fends of their queen and walks away unscratched with Newt clinging to her shoulder.

(Starts at 3:37)