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The sci-fi selection on HBO Max includes classics from throughout movie history, as well as recent blockbusters and some hidden gems. Here are 10 of the best sci-fi movies to stream on HBO Max.
blade runner 2049
It’s quite an impossible task to make a long-awaited sequel to one of the most influential sci-fi movies of all time, but director Denis Villeneuve pulls it off with Blade Runner 2049. If anything, Blade Runner 2049 is more expansive and ambitious than its predecessor, traveling further into the future world where humans exist alongside Android replicants.
Harrison Ford reprises his role as the replicant hunter Deckard, but Ryan Gosling is the real star as a replicant hunting his own kind, seeking social acceptance he’ll never really get.
The girl with all the gifts
A zombie movie that’s more about coexisting with zombies than defeating them, The Girl With All the Gifts subverts the genre while still telling a story of horror and suspense. The main character is a young zombie who retains human intelligence and empathy along with his hunger for flesh.
Accompanied by her teacher (Gemma Arterton), she travels across England with a group of scientists in search of a cure for the fungal zombie pandemic. But the ultimate answer to moving humanity forward proves to be something unexpected and powerful.
Godzilla
Godzilla, the giant lizard trampling the city, became something of a pop culture punchline over the years, but the original 1954 Japanese Godzilla is a serious and effective disaster movie. The film takes up the still fresh legacy of the atomic bomb, presenting Godzilla as a literal manifestation of the dangers of uncontrolled nuclear proliferation. There’s a real sense of menace as the monster rampages through Tokyo, and while Godzilla himself may seem a bit goofy, the movie is anything but.
Independence Day
Roland Emmerich’s alien invasion movie Independence Day is pure blockbuster cheese, but it’s some of the best cheese out there. The plot is simple: aliens attack Earth, humans fight back.
Emmerich focuses on a handful of resourceful characters who take on aliens, including a standout pilot played by Will Smith, a perceptive engineer played by Jeff Goldblum, and an unusually forceful American president played by Bill Pullman. There are dogfights and huge city-destroying explosions, and the rousing tone and impressive special effects help viewers forgive the silly plot.
Prometheus
More than thirty years after directing Alien, Ridley Scott returns to the sci-fi franchise with the prequel Prometheus. Unlike the one-stop horror of Alien or the action-oriented approach of later installments, Prometheus is primarily a meditative sci-fi film with elements of horror and action.
It doesn’t feature any of the recognizable aliens from previous films, instead exploring the origins of that species and humanity’s journeys through the universe. It’s a thoughtful and beautifully acted journey into a harsh alien world.
Solaris
Russian film maestro Andrei Tarkovsky offers a stark meditation on human existence with Solaris. Based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem, Solaris takes place on a space station on a mysterious planet. A psychologist is sent to investigate the strange behavior of the station’s inhabitants, only to discover that they have encountered apparitions of their dead loved ones.
Solaris features haunting visuals and performances as the characters struggle to understand the planet’s effects on them, as well as discern what is real, and if that matters.
Beginning
Christopher Nolan’s The Beginning is a deliberately confusing espionage story about time travel, or rather, about characters sailing through time backwards and forwards. The dense plot can be hard to wrap your head around, but Nolan delivers on the incredible action set pieces, especially in scenes that appear early in the film and then return, only moving in the opposite direction.
There are enough narrative threads to follow that the potentially doomsday stakes are clear, and Nolan retains an air of mystery that makes the film more intriguing than frustrating.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Beyond James Cameron’s original two films, the Terminator sequels are inconsistent at best. But director Jonathan Mostow delivers a thrilling sci-fi action flick with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which sees the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a reformed murderous cyborg from the future.
Schwarzenegger’s T-800 is up against a deadlier new cyborg (Kristanna Loken) sent back in time to kill future resistance leader John Connor (Nick Stahl). Terminator 3 features some fantastic action set pieces along with an admirably somber ending that follows the franchise’s themes of inevitable fate.
2001: a space odyssey
Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey is a riveting mix of intellectual challenge and mind-blowing hallucination. The film begins at the dawn of man with primates discovering tools, before zooming into the future to show a self-aware computer slowly turning against its human masters.
Kubrick asks questions about the nature of existence and also goes on a psychedelic journey into the cosmos. The HAL 9000 killer computer is chilling, but the film is most unsettling in its abstract and inexplicable ending.
V for Vendetta
Based on a graphic novel written by comics legend Alan Moore and adapted by the Wachowskis, V for Vendetta is a powerful vision of the future with a powerful political message. Hugo Weaving stars as the masked freedom fighter V, who takes on the totalitarian rule of a dystopian future society. Natalie Portman plays a journalist who is held captive and protected by V, ultimately taking up the revolutionary mantle from him.
The film offers powerful social commentary along with indelible imagery (particularly V’s mask, which has inspired real-life political movements).
