Now in its 15th year, the Marvel Cinematic Universe that officially began with 2008's Iron Man still seems to be going strong. 2023 marks the beginning of Phase 5 as well, which officially commences with the third Ant-Man movie, titled Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. While Ant-Man as a character is usually relied on for providing comic relief, Quantumania looks to shake things up by properly introducing Kang the Conquerer, a variant of whom was seen in Loki, and who will be an important overarching villain in the MCU going forward.

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The popularity of the Ant-Man movies may be largely thanks to the novelty of seeing characters change size and interact with the world from a new perspective. It's a premise that's been explored in numerous movies released before this latest Ant-Man movie, as the following titles will demonstrate. For anyone who can't get enough science-fiction about people becoming a whole lot smaller than usual, the following films are all easy to recommend.

1 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' (1957)

The Incredible Shrinking Man - 1957
Image via Universal Pictures

The grandfather of shrinking people movies, the premise of someone getting shrunk down dramatically doesn't get executed much better than in 1957's The Incredible Shrinking Man. It's a classic of 1950s sci-fi, with plenty of special effects that hold up pretty well considering the film's age, with a good amount of excitement mined from its premise about a man gradually shrinking down to the size of an insect and having to survive his suddenly terrifying, giant, and even alien basement.

For anyone who trusts the tastes of iconic horror/sci-fi director David Cronenberg, The Incredible Shrinking Man is a movie he's praised before. He's certainly a filmmaker who knows how to make a story about transformation exciting and tense, given his mastery of the body horror genre, perhaps best demonstrated by 1986's The Fly.

2 'Fantastic Voyage' (1966)

A Still from Fantastic Voyage (1966)

Fantastic Voyage has a simple but clever sci-fi plot. It tackles Cold War paranoia with its story about a critically wounded scientist needing life-saving medical treatment that can only be done by shrinking a team down to microscopic levels, enabling them to enter the scientist's body and operate on him from the inside.

It takes the idea of exploring an unknown world and does it within something that's technically familiar, but looks foreign and unique from the new perspective the characters see it from. Like numerous old sci-fi movies, there are certain special effects shots and pacing issues that have to be excused or hand-waved, with Fantastic Voyage being a decently entertaining time once that's done.

3 'Ant-Man' (2015)

Ant-Man riding Ant-Thony in Ant-Man (2015)
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Even if Ant-Man is a decent superhero movie, it's hard not to feel a little upset about what it could've been. Infamously, British filmmaker Edgar Wright was attached to the film early on, but left due to creative differences. He likely had a different idea of what the movie would be, and that idea didn't line up with the overall direction of the MCU post-Ant-Man.

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But still, the Wright-less film audiences got instead wasn't bad. It gets decent mileage out of its unique spin on a heist film, some of the action scenes get pretty creative, and Paul Rudd is charming as the titular hero. It's not one of the MCU's very best movies, but certainly makes for a solid enough watch.

4 'The Incredible Shrinking Woman' (1981)

The Incredible Shrinking Woman - 1981
Image via Universal Pictures

To (hopefully) no one's surprise, The Incredible Shrinking Woman has a similar premise to 1957's The Incredible Shrinking Man. What might be surprising is that this is more of a parody of that film than any sort of official sequel, as it takes on a decidedly more comedic tone.

For as silly-sounding as the premise of The Incredible Shrinking Man might sound, it could get pretty tense in places, and ended on a surprisingly downbeat and even philosophical note. Its gender-swapped 1981 parody is overall sillier and more light-hearted, starring Lily Tomlin as a housewife who finds herself mysteriously shrinking after being exposed to a variety of strange chemicals found in cosmetic products.

5 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids' (1989)

Rick Moranis and Amy O'Neill in Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989)
Image via Disney

A rare starring role for Rick Moranis, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is one of those movies that explains the premise directly from the title alone. It's about a brilliant but careless scientist who works from home who develops a shrink ray that accidentally ends up reducing the size of his children drastically, as they become the size of insects.

It takes the idea of shrinking people down - and putting them in what's suddenly a scarier and more hostile world - and makes it family-friendly. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids therefore ends up being a good sci-fi movie for families, with its iconic title and overall solid filmmaking ensuring its status as a minor 1980s comedy classic.

6 'Innerspace' (1987)

innerspace
Image via Warner Bros.

An underrated 1980s sci-fi cult classic, Innerspace presents a more comedic take on the core story found in Fantastic Voyage. Like that 1966 film, Innerspace involves a tiny vehicle that can navigate the inside of a human body, though here, it's a one-man crew, and he ends up inside a supermarket clerk by accident.

This gets the clerk wrapped up in an adventure/complex conspiracy that he wasn't ready for, but needs to fight his way out of regardless. Innerspace is a little too broad, one-note, and goofy for a movie that runs for two hours, but a good deal of it works well, and it's at least easy to see why it has the moderately-sized yet passionate fanbase it does.

7 'Ant-Man and the Wasp' (2018)

Ant-Man riding a flying ant with Wasp flying beside them

The second Ant-Man film, titled Ant-Man and the Wasp, was an improvement from its predecessor. It introduced a little more to the world of Ant-Man while keeping things relatively comedic and light-hearted, especially in contrast to Avengers: Infinity War, which was the MCU film that had come out most recently at the time of Ant-Man and the Wasp's release.

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It also ended up being important to setting up 2019's Avengers: Endgame, given how instrumental Ant-Man was in saving the world after Thanos' actions in Infinity War. Ant-Man and the Wasp may have had a forgettable villain and committed the cinematic crime of wasting the great Walton Goggins, but it provided some more harmless entertainment and was quite watchable in the process.

8 'Dollman' (1991)

Dollman - 1991
Image via Full Moon Entertainment

Dollman provides an example of a shrinking people movie done on a very low budget. Its plot involves humanoids from outer space finding themselves on Earth, and shrunken down drastically... though not to the same extent as most movies about shrinking people, as while they're noticeably smaller, they're certainly not microscopic.

This means there are plenty of opportunities for interacting with people of a more normal size, which is where most of the film's entertainment value lies. It might be best watched by viewers who are fans of low-budget sci-fi, as otherwise, it might prove disappointing, though the premise is creative and there's an undeniable scrappy charm to the movie as a whole.

9 'The Ant Bully' (2006)

Lucas and Zoc in The Ant Bully

While it's not a great kid's movie, The Ant Bully makes good on its premise involving a young boy getting shrunken down to the size of an ant. He's shrunken down by a wizard ant voiced by Nicolas Cage after he attacks an ant colony in anger, and finds himself having to befriend the insects if he's going to survive in a new world.

On the topic of Nicolas Cage providing voice work to The Ant Bully, the movie itself has a surprisingly large and noteworthy cast, with it also including Julia Roberts, Bruce Campbell, Meryl Streep, and Paul Giamatti. The famous people in The Ant Bully don't exactly make up for the humor or somewhat unsettling animation, but it's something at least.

10 'Downsizing' (2017)

Kristen Wiig and Matt Damon as Audrey and Paul smiling while looking down at two miniature people waving Downsizing
Image via Paramount Pictures

In Downsizing, an alternative to many of the world's problems is proposed through the shrinking of people down to five inches tall. They take up less space, can buy "more" for their money (given their relative size), and overall contribute less to environmental problems as well.

Of course, it's not all changing for the better, and other things become more complicated when you're no longer normal size. It makes Downsizing a decent watch, and also one that features numerous talented actors, including Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, Hong Chau, and the always-watchable Christoph Waltz.

NEXT: 'Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania': Paul Rudd, Jonathan Majors & Cast Talk Phase 5 and Kang the Conqueror