The 5 best sci-fi movies to watch on Netflix and other streaming services this May

Happy May, Polygon Readers!

We’re getting closer and closer to the full summer movie calendar, with exciting new releases every weekend. But until then, there are plenty of great movies to watch at home to help us out.

Each month, we pick five sci-fi movies to watch at home, on Netflix, and other streaming platforms. This month we’ve got movies from directors with new movies out (or actors with new movies out), and the usual array of guaranteed hits no matter the time of year.

Let’s get into it.

Alita: Battle Angel

Year: 2019
Duration: 2 hours 2 minutes
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Form: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly

Ben Affleck’s new psychological thriller Hypnotic isn’t really good, but it is a new Robert Rodriguez movie, which is always an opportunity to celebrate. A skilled director drawn to fun projects, Rodriguez is one of the more consistent names working in genre cinema, and one of his best films is the unfairly maligned adaptation of a legendary manga.

Alita: Battle Angel follows the trodden ground of sci-fi universes with “haves” living above the “have-nots” in a highly segmented society. The story follows a cyborg (Rosa Salazar, in stunning motion capture) who wakes up with no memories and tries to find her place in a chaotic world. Salazar is really fantastic at it, and the film is a feast for the senses, with exciting fight and rollerball sequences.

The long awaited sequel could happen thanks to the financial and technological success of Avatar: the way of the water, so it’s a good time to catch up with the first one. —Piet Volk

Alita: Battle Angel is available to stream on Hulu, Fubo, DirecTV and FX Now. It is also available for digital rental and purchase Amazon, AppleTV, Google PlayAnd Vudu.

Blade runner 2049

Image: Warner Bros.

Year: 2017
Duration: 2h 44m
Director: Dennis Villeneuve
Form: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas

Denis Villeneuve’s 2017 sequel to Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking ‘future noir’ film may not (yet) have proven to be a cultural juggernaut like its predecessor, but it still stands as one of the best sci-fi films of the 2010s.

30 years after the events of the first film, Blade Runner 2049 focuses on the story of KD6-3.7 (Ryan Gosling), a next-generation replicant who works as an LAPD officer tasked with “retiring” other replicants who try to evade the control of their human creators. When Agent K inadvertently discovers a secret that threatens to throw the remains of civilization into chaos, he must solve a mystery whose answers lie in the whereabouts of one of his predecessors: former LAPD leafsman Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford).

Blade Runner 2049 is a sequel in the true sense of the word, a film that represents the natural continuation and inevitable consequences of the hubris and terrors first met in the original blade runner. The fiery chimneys have been extinguished, the tides have risen and landfills have overflowed to reclaim the cities themselves. The future is bleak to say the least. Yet Villeneuve’s film strikes the same chord as Ridley Scott’s by challenging its audience to question what it means to be human at all, and if there is any hope for humanity to build a better future , both for herself and for her artificial offspring. And with a new TV series on the horizon, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to brush up on the franchise’s latest cinematic installment. —Toussaint Egan

Blade Runner 2049 is available to stream on Hulu. It is also available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon, AppleTV, Google PlayAnd Vudu.

Ex Machine

Image: A24

Year: 2014
Duration: 1h 48m
Director: Alex Garland
Form: Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander

Artificial intelligence is currently the discourse du jour on everyone’s lips, so what better time than to read Alex Garland’s (officially) directorial debut on the rise of machine intelligence? Ex Machine follows Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer working for the world’s largest internet search engine who gets the chance to spend the week with his boss: reclusive tech tycoon Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Upon learning that Nathan is working to create an artificially intelligent android, Caleb agrees to become the human component of a Turing test to determine if Nathan’s creation Ava (Alicia Vikander) is truly sentient. Things move quickly from there, as Caleb finds himself torn between his brooding feelings for Ava and his growing distrust of Nathan’s erratic behavior. As exquisitely streamlined as it is chillingly memorable, Ex Machine is the kind of sci-fi that gets rewarded when you watch it over and over again. -AT

Ex Machine is available to stream on HBO max. It is also available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon, AppleTV, Google PlayAnd Vudu.

Pitch-black

Image: Gramercy Pictures/Universal Pictures

Year: 2000
Duration: 1h 49m
Director: David Twohy
Form: Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser

Fast X, the latest adventure starring Dom Toretto and his hard-fought family/heist crew of racers, is now in theaters. Now you could use that as an excuse to revisit the first nine entries in the saga (and we wouldn’t blame you). Or visit the start of another personal project for Diesel, one of Hollywood’s most nerdy movie stars.

That is pretty well known at this point The last witch hunter was inspired by a Dungeons & Dragons character played by Diesel. And Pitch-black spawned a passion project sci-fi trilogy that we haven’t seen since.

for my money, Pitch-black is the only all-the-way-good of the bunch. The combination of veteran sci-fi director David Twohy with veteran horror writers Ken and Jim Wheat is a great way to deliver a thrilling sci-fi horror adventure, talking a little bit about John Carpenter’s Spirit of Marswhich would be released the following year.

In Pitch-black, we are introduced to Diesel’s Richard B. Riddick, who is currently a dangerous criminal who is being transported to prison. When the transport ship crashes, Riddick and his fellow survivors must work together to survive the planet’s hostile environment and escape. —PV

Pitch-black is available to stream on Netflix. It is also available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon, AppleTV, google plaj, and Vudu.

Starship Troopers

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Year: 1997
Duration: 2 hours 9 minutes
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Form: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards

The 2024 presidential race is starting to heat up, so check out one of the best movies from one of the most perceptive (and misunderstood) commentators on the bizarre world of modern American politics: Paul Verhoeven! Verhoeven’s scathing satire on US foreign policy and the military-industrial complex turned Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 novel of the same name into a schlocky sci-fi war movie that somehow blew audiences (and critics) over the heads when it was released for the first time. .

Set in the 23rd century, Verhoeven’s film follows a group of high school classmates, raised in a fascist military government, who are pushed to the front lines in an existential war against a race of highly evolved arachnid creatures. Using clues from Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous Nazi propaganda films, Starship Troopers plays out like an in-universe recruiting film set in a world where democracy is dead and “service guarantees citizenship.” It’s a subversively ingenious movie well worth reappraising and one of the best (and most eerily prescient) sci-fi films of its time. Do you want to know more?? -AT

Starship Troopers is available to stream on Netflix. It is also available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon, AppleTV, Google PlayAnd Vudu.