20 of the best movies to light up your imagination, right from the comfort of your couch.
Science fiction can cover A LOT of ground, from family-friendly fare to out-and-out horror.
It can often represent the best and brightest – as well as the darkest and scariest – corners of cinema.
So if you’re looking for a great sci-fi movie to watch at home, look no further!
All titles and platforms correct at the time of writing.
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
After discovering a mysterious artefact buried beneath the Lunar surface, mankind sets off on a quest to find its origins with help from intelligent supercomputer H.A.L. 9000.
Available to watch on Apple TV, Google Play, Sky Store, Rakuten TV and Microsoft.
AD ASTRA
Astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father (Tommy Lee Jones) and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens the universe.
Available to watch on NOW TV.
Clip via Fox
ALIEN
After a space merchant vessel receives an unknown transmission as a distress call, one of the crew is attacked by a mysterious life form and they soon realise that its life cycle has merely begun.
Available to watch on NOW TV.
ANNIHILATION
A biologist (Natalie Portman) signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition into a mysterious zone where the laws of nature don’t apply.
Available to watch on Netflix.
ARRIVAL
A linguist (Amy Adams) works with the military to communicate with alien lifeforms after 12 mysterious spacecraft appear around the world.
Available to watch on Rakuten TV, Microsoft, Apple TV, Google Play and Sky Store.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-travelling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the eccentric scientist Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd).
Available to watch on NOW TV.
BLADE RUNNER
A blade runner (Harrison Ford) must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space, and have returned to Earth to find their creator.
Available to watch NOW TV.
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
A growing nation of genetically evolved apes led by Caesar (Andy Serkis) is threatened by a band of human survivors of the devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier.
Available to watch on Disney+.
DISTRICT 9
Violence ensues after an extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth finds a kindred spirit in a government agent (Sharlto Copley) exposed to their biotechnology.
Available to watch on NOW TV.
EDGE OF TOMORROW
A soldier (Tom Cruise) fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies.
Available to watch on Google Play, Sky Store, Rakuten TV and Microsoft.
EX MACHINA
A young programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a highly advanced humanoid A.I. (Alicia Vikander).
Available to watch on Prime Video.
Clip via A24
HER
In a near future, a lonely writer (Joaquin Phoenix) develops an unlikely relationship with an operating system (Scarlett Johansson) designed to meet his every need.
Available to watch on Rakuten TV and Apple TV.
INCEPTION
A thief (Leonardo DiCaprio) who steals corporate secrets through the use of dream-sharing technology is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of a C.E.O. (Cillian Murphy).
Available to watch on Netflix.
JURASSIC PARK
A pragmatic paleontologist (Sam Neill) visiting an almost complete theme park is tasked with protecting a couple of kids after a power failure causes the park’s cloned dinosaurs to run loose.
Available to watch on Prime Video.
THE MATRIX
When a beautiful stranger (Carrie-Anne Moss) leads computer hacker Neo (Keanu Reeves) to a forbidding underworld, he discovers the shocking truth – the life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber-intelligence.
Available to watch on Prime Video.
MINORITY REPORT
In a future where a special police unit is able to arrest murderers before they commit their crimes, an officer (Tom Cruise) from that unit is himself accused of a future murder.
Available to watch on NOW TV.
MOON
Astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) has a quintessentially personal encounter toward the end of his three-year stint on the Moon, where he, working alongside his computer, GERTY (Kevin Spacey), sends back to Earth parcels of a resource that has helped diminish our planet’s power problems.
Available to watch on NOW TV.
Clip via Sony
PREDATOR
A team of commandos on a mission in a Central American jungle find themselves hunted by an extraterrestrial warrior.
Available to watch on NOW TV.
STAR WARS: EPISODE V – THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
After the Rebels are brutally overpowered by the Empire on the ice planet Hoth, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) begins Jedi training with Yoda, while his friends are pursued by Darth Vader and a bounty hunter named Boba Fett all over the galaxy.
Available on Disney+.
THE TERMINATOR
A human soldier (Michael Biehn) is sent from 2029 to 1984 to stop an almost indestructible cyborg killing machine (Arnold Schwarzenegger), sent from the same year, which has been programmed to execute a young woman (Linda Hamilton) whose unborn son is the key to humanity’s future salvation.
Available to watch on Prime Video.
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