The article studies the current situation in Russian popular science cinema, as well as its essence as a separate type of cinema with its own genre system, different from documentary film, television and television journalism genres. The authors consider such famous researchers points of view on the genre problem as G. Pospelov, G. Abramovich, L. Timofeev, V. Kozhinov, G. Gachev, V. Poznin, G. Prozhiko, N. Zorkaya, and offer their opinion concerning the differentiation of the concepts “types” and “genres” in relation to popular science cinema. The problem of its future existence is characterized considering the modern viewer being attracted by entertainment, mysticism and pseudoscience, as well as limited funding and the disappearance of popular science or educational film studios in Russia. Solutions to the problem are mentioned among which are, in particular, activities of the “Scientific Film Laboratory 2.0” are described, within which films are created that present scientific agenda to the viewer with the help of clear use of genre. During the study, methods of participant observation, analysis and synthesis were used.