The 22 best sci-fi movies on Max

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Stanley Kubrick's claustrophobic, space-faring epic confronted audiences with a hard truth: No matter how far forward technology leaps, humans will still launch themselves into ultimately doomed quests toward somewhere else in service of whatever deities the universe provides. In spite of that ultimately bleak idea, the 1968 masterpiece is a gorgeous marvel of filmmaking, so grand in scope and design that it was originally screened on specially made curved screens to better envelop the audience in Kubrick's mad vision. We promise the "Also sprach Zarathustra" opening still lands on your television screen with the weight of an otherworldly monolith. —Alex Galbraith

Where to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey: Max

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood

Aliens (1986)

James Cameron's follow up to Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien, the sequel Aliens — released after years of delays and development apathy — picks up where its predecessor left off. After more than half a century in stasis, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is rescued and agrees to accompany her employers to an exomoon so they can exterminate the creatures that destroyed her former ship and murdered its crew. But when their mission goes similarly awry, it's up to Ripley to help evade the aliens and find a path back to Earth.

The film earned Weaver an Oscar nod for Best Actress, and her performance as an action star was credited with elevating the film beyond typical B movie fare. The movie also helped establish Cameron's Hollywood reputation as a craftsman with a talent for pacing action films and a nose for employing cutting-edge visual effects. —Ilana Gordon

Where to watch Aliens: Max

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton

The Blob (1958)

Where later sci-fi features would have to come up with ever more arcane reasons for their alien assailant's destruction, 1958's The Blob had the luxury of needing no explanation. An otherworldly goop from the far-off reaches of space has crash landed in a small town — and it's hungry. Beyond its ability to make food coloring and jelly frightening, the B-movie schlockfest is notable for being Steve McQueen's first leading role.

As the monster grows in size and color on its tyrannical tirade on Norman Rockwell's small-town America, McQueen gamely carries this slow-burn movie to its electrifying ending, with the angry red Blob meeting its match while consuming the local diner whole. The straightforward creature feature made a seismic impact on the sci-fi film genre, influencing countless future directors and inspiring a restored release through the Criterion Collection. —A.G.

Where to watch The Blob: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Irvin Yeaworth

Cast: Steven McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe, Olin Howland

Daybreak (1993)

More than 100,000 people died in the United States from AIDS in the ‘80s, and the movie Daybreak — released in 1993 — offers an even more dystopian look at how the epidemic could have unfolded. Set in the near future, Daybreak, a sci-fi thriller, tells the story of an America under siege from an unidentified, AIDS-esque crisis. People who test positive for the disease are quarantined in camps, and killed if they try to leave. 

Cuba Gooding Jr stars as Torch, an activist who meets Blue (Moira Kelly) and begins to educate her about and radicalize her against the system. The film is based on an 1987 Off-Broadway play called Beirut, and features a cast of some of the most interesting actors working in the ‘90s. An ambitious movie for its time, Daybreak hits differently amid Covid. —I.G.

Where to watch Daybreak: Max

Director: Stephen Tolkin

Cast: Cuba Gooding Jr., Moira Kelly, Omar Epps, Martha Plimpton

Dune (2021)

Frank Herbert's Dune novels are dense treatises on colonialism, climate change, and the nature of power. The spice-addled mish-mash of spiritualism and Sun Tzu was considered nigh unfilmable, especially after David Lynch's unfortunate 1984 attempt. But that was before director Denis Villeneuve wowed audiences by cutting the first book in half and plopping Hollywood's hardest-working waif (Timothée Chalamet) into an unforgiving landscape riddled with monstrous, holy worms.

The resulting film throws the viewer into the confusing tumult of young Paul Atreides' life, using the foreboding nature of the source material to ramp up the story's internal tension and confusion. A score of war drums and whispers never lets the viewer find their feet on the ever-shifting sands of Arrakis, which EW's critic calls "the kind of lush, lofty filmmaking wide screens were made for." —A.G.

Where to watch Dune: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem

Dune: Part Two (2024)

Dune fans who felt let down by the amount of screentime enjoyed by Zendaya’s character, Chani, are in for a treat during the second half of Denis Villeneuve’s two-part adaptation. Now a fully fleshed-out person with far more autonomy and substance than the character enjoyed in the original book, Zendaya’s Chani invites Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) into her community and teaches him the ways of the Fremen.

But Chani’s feelings for Paul — the would-be colonizer of her people’s home — are complicated, and Villeneuve does a great job of allowing Zendaya and Chalamet to explore this nuanced relationship, centering their love as a grounding force amidst the rest of the film’s bonkers plot. —I.G.

Where to watch Dune: Part Two: Max

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem

Gattaca (1997)

A dystopian sci-fi thriller with themes of eugenics, cloning, and DNA discrimination, Gattaca is a film for anyone who has ever borrowed genetic material to follow a dream. Okay, so the script is not Andrew Niccol’s (The Truman Show) most relatable work, but the combination of Ethan Hawke as a naturally-made child whose genetic realities prohibit him from advancing in the world, and Jude Law as an embittered former athlete conceived through genetic selection, is a powerful one. 

EW’s critic writes that Gattaca's “mournful pace puts it squarely in the tradition of Big Think sci-fi, especially films like George Lucas’ THX 1138, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville.” A thriller that will make you conscious of all the stray DNA you leave lying around, Gattaca is one of the ‘90s many takes on Big Brother. —I.G.

Where to watch Gattaca: Max

EW grade: B– (read the review)

Director: Andrew Niccol

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, Jude Law, Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine

Her (2013)

In the last few decades, humans have become overly dependent on our cell phones, but in Spike Jonze’s sci-fi film Her, that dependence transforms into romantic love. A movie about a lonely writer (Joaquin Phoenix) who falls for his A.I. virtual assistant, Her arrived in theaters six years after the iPhone made its debut, and Jonze’s film finds clever ways to portray technology’s steadily tightening grip on humanity.

As EW’s critic writes, Jonze “clearly has a lot on his mind about how seductive technology is and how much easier life would be if we could insulate ourselves from messy human emotions.” But since humans are doomed to feel, you should feel good about turning on Her, a movie that is guaranteed to make you feel better about your relationship with your phone. —I.G.

Where to watch Her: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Spike Jonze

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Scarlett Johansson

High Life (2019)

For-profit prison systems be damned: in Claire Denis’ sci-fi thriller, High Life, criminals are sent straight to space. The prisoners, all serving death sentences, are dispatched into the solar system with a mission, and are required to participate in some ethically dubious fertility experiments conducted by the scientist onboard the spaceship.

EW’s critic says, “The movie looks like any number of slightly ominous sci-fi films, but its themes are more mysterious and elliptical.” Lovers of Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris will dig the movie’s ‘70s arthouse sci-fi aesthetic, and Robert Pattinson fans will once again be reminded of the actor’s versatility and penchant for the weird. —I.G.   

Where to watch High Life: Max

EW grade: B– (read the review)

Director: Claire Denis

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, Mia Goth

Independence Day (1996)

Two days before the Fourth of July, an alien mothership enters Earth’s atmosphere and dispatches envoys in the form of flying saucers across major cities worldwide. When the aliens attack, killing millions, it’s up to satellite engineer David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), Marine pilot Capt. Steven Hiller (Will Smith), and the President of the United States (Bill Pullman), to lead the world in fighting the alien forces in defense of our freedom — on Independence Day.

The cinematic mid-'90s version of wearing an Old Navy American flag T-shirt, Independence Day is, as an EW critic writes, “particularly of-the-moment American fun…as much an emblem of American cinematic sensibility in the late 1990s as the Airport series was in the 1970s.” Full of technical jargon, inspirational speeches, and explosions to spare, Independence Day is worth watching, if only to hear the phrase “welcome to Earth,” uttered not as a cynical aside, but as a rallying cry. —I.G.

Where to watch Independence Day: Max

EW grade: B+ (read the review)

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Margaret Colin, Randy Quaid, Vivica A. Fox, Robert Loggia, James Rebhorn, Harvey Fierstein

Jurassic World (2015)

Nothing can top Jurassic Park, but Jurassic World — released two decades after the original film — was the first of the franchise’s six movies to come close. Set in a dinosaur theme park where lagging attendance has necessitated that geneticists come up with even more inventive and dangerous creatures, Jurassic World finds itself under attack when a transgenic dinosaur escapes and starts going after the guests.

Viewers looking for hearty emotional fare should look elsewhere: This is a film that prioritizes CGI dinosaur battles above all else. But EW’s critic promises “when it comes to serving up a smorgasbord of bloody dino mayhem, it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do beautifully.” —I.G.  

Where to watch Jurassic World: Max

EW grade: B+ (read the review)

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

It took 30 years for George Miller to make a follow up to his original Mad Max trilogy, the last of which — Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome — premiered in 1985. But the three decades in between iterations of the franchise were not wasted, and Mad Max: Fury Road hits the gas immediately, sprinting off into a dystopian desert wasteland for a high-speed pursuit that wastes no time on exposition.

We pick up with Mad Max (Tom Hardy, assuming the mantle of his predecessor, Mel Gibson), who has been taken prisoner by an evil warlord. Unbeknownst to the warlord, his lieutenant — Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) — is about to break his wives out of the Citadel. The results play out in violent fashion, capturing, as EW’s critic writes, “the same Molotov-cocktail craziness of Miller’s masterpiece, 1981’s The Road Warrior.” —I.G. 

Where to watch Mad Max: Fury Road: Max

EW grade: B (read the review) 

Director: George Miller 

Cast: Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoë Kravitz, Courtney Eaton, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee

The Martian (2015)

Based on author Andy Weir’s best-selling novel and fronted by a tour de force performance from Matt Damon, Ridley Scott’s The Martian was nominated for Oscars in multiple categories — including Best Picture — but the real winner here is science. Scott and his team worked closely with NASA experts to nail the specifics, and the movie both educates and entertains.

The Martian begins on Mars in the year 2035 where astronaut Mark Watney (Damon) and his fellow NASA crew members — led by Cmdr. Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) — find their mission interrupted by severe weather. After Watney is knocked out by the storm and presumed dead, the crew departs without him, leaving the astronaut stranded on the Red Planet. Unwilling to give up, Watney, whose area of expertise is botany, must figure out how to connect with comms and survive for four years on Mars. —I.G.

Where to watch The Martian: Max

EW grade: A– (read the review)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Mackenzie Davis, Benedict Wong, Donald Glover, Chen Shu, Eddy Ko, Chiwetel Ejiofor

The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

Children were born and grew into legal adults in the years since the last Matrix movie was released. But that 18 year gap was well spent; The Matrix Resurrections — directed solely by Lana Wachowski — finds a compelling way to yank the film out of the internet's infancy and into the modern technological era. The stunts are impressive, but it's the romance between Neo and Trinity (Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss) that not only revives the franchise, but elevates it to heights that Reloaded and Revolutions could only ever dream of.

Neo — who now goes by the name Thomas Anderson — has developed several successful video games based on his distant memories of the Matrix, but his inability to distinguish between dreams and reality has him running to his therapist for help. Well worth a watch, The Matrix Resurrections reminds us why we loved getting red-pilled the first time, or, as our reviewer puts it, "All that's old is Neo again." —I.G.

Where to watch The Matrix: Resurrections: Max

EW grade: B+ (read the review)

Director: Lana Wachowski

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Neil Patrick Harris, Jonathan Groff

Melancholia (2011)

Considered one of the best movies ever made about mental health and depression, EW’s review describes Lars von Trier’s 2011 science fiction drama, Melancholia, as a “giant achievement.” Kirsten Dunst took home the Best Actress trophy at the Cannes Film Festival that year for her portrayal of Justine, a bride whose descent into a mental health crisis coincides with the arrival of a rogue planet called Melancholia, which threatens to collide with Earth.

The movie was a hit among the critical community when it was released, with most noting how Melancholia departed from some of von Trier’s earlier, more provocative work. EW’s critic writes that he creates, “striking visual tableaux that, in their majestic simplicity, convey a profound emotional depth that transcends word.” —I.G.

Where to watch Melancholia: Max

EW grade: A (read the review)

Director: Lars von Trier

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgård, Brady Corbet, Cameron Spurr, Charlotte Rampling, Jesper Christensen, John Hurt, Stellan Skarsgård, Udo Kier, Kiefer Sutherland

RoboCop (1987)

Set in a crime-ridden Detroit is RoboCop, Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi action/social satire classic. After police officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is killed in the line of duty, his body is reconfigured by the mega corporation Omni Consumer Products and transformed into that of a cyborg law enforcement agent. The former Officer Murphy — now referred to as RoboCop — has no memories of his family or previous existence, but is armed with directives to serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law.

Thus, RoboCop is dispatched into the city where he works to eliminate the local criminal population, but finds himself distracted by flashes of his former self and memories of his former life. In a world populated by crime lords and executives fueled by ruthless ambition, it’s refreshing to watch Peter Weller as RoboCop explore the vulnerability and humanity buried deep below his layers of steel and computer programming. —I.G. 

Where to watch RoboCop: Max

EW grade: A (read the review)

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Cast: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Daniel O'Herlihy, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer

Scanners (1981)

David Cronenberg's visceral blend of body horror and sci-fi first came to American audiences thanks to this Canadian cult classic. Before he was turning the ravishing good looks of Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis on their heads via a not-so-sterile experimental machine in The Fly, Cronenberg confronted audiences with the goop inside our heads with Scanners.

In this bombastic dystopia, the heightened fear of the Cold War and the rise of a revitalized right wing tears the psyches of former hippies turned yuppies inside out, a phenomenon that Cronenberg realizes in vivid shades of red. These "scanners" harbor psychic and telekinetic powers, making waves in underground rings, national security, and in the unsuspecting heads of those around them. The subsequent story is nothing short of mind-bending (and blowing, considering the famous head explosion stunt). —A.G.

Where to watch Scanners: Max

Director: David Cronenberg

Cast: Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Patrick McGoohan, Lawrence Dane, Michael Ironside

Signs (2002)

When faith deserts you, all you can do is look for signs for where to turn next. And in the case of former priest Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), some of those signs are located right in your backyard. After recently losing his wife to a traffic accident, Graham and his younger brother (Joaquin Phoenix) attempt to care for the couple's two young children on a rural farm in Pennsylvania. But when crop circles suddenly appear in the field behind their home — and in various locations around the world — it becomes apparent that extraterrestrials have arrived on Earth and are prepared to attack its inhabitants.

A sci-fi film by M. Night Shyamalan, Signs is a doomsday story of alien invasions, grief, and misplaced faith, told in Shyamalan's signature style. Boasting carefully composed shots, a slow moving plot, and tons of trepidatious energy, this is your sign to give Signs a try. —I.G.

Where to watch Signs: Max

EW grade: B– (read the review)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, Cherry Jones, M. Night Shyamalan

Solaris (1972)

Consider Andrei Tarkovsky's moody and meditative space story a graduate-level response to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just as grand in ambition, though less likely to be a hit if you throw it on at a party, this 1972 film dares to ask what the rules are in an endless cosmos and while intentionally avoiding spoon-feeding us easy answers.

Tarkovsky eschews the flash of his non-Soviet contemporaries, opting to use sci-fi in the manner of the era's novelists as a way to examine the as yet undiscovered contours of the human mind. The resulting film is short on special effects and long on philosophy, luxuriating in its nearly three-hour runtime to ponder human nature, unchanged even in the far-off era of long-distance space travel. —A.G.

Where to watch Solaris: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky

Cast: Donatas Banionis, Natalya Bondarchuk, Jüri Järvet, Vladislav Dvorzhetsky, Nikolai Grinko, Anatoly Solonitsyn

Stalker (1979)

Another film by Andrei Tarkovsky, Stalker shares Solaris' preoccupation with the human mind and soul. The film's title refers to the main character, a guide known as the Stalker who works as an escort, ushering interested parties through an ominous and hazardous wasteland to a site called the Zone. Inside the Zone is a room that is said to be capable of granting visitors their innermost desires — though often at a heavy cost.

With a plot propelled by philosophical questions and musings, Stalker sees a writer and a professor journey into the Zone, and along the way, they meditate on the nature of human desire, selfishness, and what it means to truly know oneself. Considered one of the greatest films of all time — sci-fi or otherwise — Stalker is a movie that asks many questions but provides few conclusive answers. —I.G.

Where to watch Stalker: Max

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky

Cast: Alexander Kaidanovsky, Anatoly Solonitsyn, Alisa Freindlich, Nikolai Grinko

Time Bandits (1981)

For those who like a little anarchy with their popcorn (and who have an appreciation for uh, unconventional endings) this genre-breaking oddity conjures a grotesque and beautiful magic that could only have come from the mind of a Python. Terry Gilliam, the man responsible for The Fisher King, Brazil, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, has, in Time Bandits, created a title suitable for "the whole family" (sort of).

It tells the story of young Kevin, a boy whose parents make the Dursleys look decent, who is kidnapped by ​​time-traveling dwarves and taken on a wild journey chock-full of stop-motion animation effects. Like the best of Roald Dahl, Gilliam (who co-wrote the script) presents adults as idiots, children as heroes, and adventure as a priority, all in a non-sentimental yet moving manner. —Debby Wolfinsohn

Where to watch Time Bandits: Max

Director: Terry Gilliam

Cast: John Cleese, Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin

Unbreakable (2000)

Unbreakable tells the story of David Dunn (Bruce Willis), a security guard who survives a train derailment that kills 131 people and emerges from the wreck without a scratch on his body. A thriller that carves out its own niche through the realistic way it portrays heroics — as well as the fact that the film isn’t based on or adapted from a specific set of IP — Unbreakable is considered one of M. Night Shyamalan’s best works and serves as the first entry in a trilogy that also includes Split (2016) and Glass (2019). Also starring Samuel L. Jackson as a comic book theorist with a devastating illness, Unbreakable is a gritty superhero story without all of Marvel’s bells and whistles. —I.G.

Where to watch Unbreakable: Max

EW grade: B+ (read the review)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard, Eamonn Walker