Best sci-fi movies on HBO Max (November 2022)

Science fiction is full of innovative ideas. There are many genres that offer more creativity and freedom than science fiction.

HBO Max is a wealth of resources when it comes to streaming sci-fi movies. From canonical classics to contemporary favorites, the streamer’s library of titles is honestly staggering. We’ve combed through the Best to bring you what we feel are the bestThe best of what HBO Max has to provide in sci-fi.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Warner Bros. Pictures

Year: 1968
Run time: 2h 19m
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Keir dullea. Gary Lockwood. Douglas Rain

Sci-fi films have existed before. 2001: A Space OdysseyThere are also sci-fi movies after. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick’s magnum opus stands outs in the grand history of science fiction and cinema much like a black rectangular monolith would in a prehistoric desert. After uncovering a mysterious artifact on the surface of the moon, a team of scientists – among them Dr. David Bowman – embark aboard the Discovery One spacecraft to Jupiter in search of its origins.

When the ship’s A.I. Bowman, along with his crew, must deactivate Hal 9000’s A.I. you cross into an alien frontier that transcends time and space. Arthur C. Clarke, a renowned sci-fi author, wrote the book with special effects by Douglas Trumbull. 2001: A Space Odyssey isn’t just one of the greatest sci-fi films of all-time; it’s one of the greatest films ever produced, period. —Toussaint Egan

Dune

Photo by Chiabella for Vanity Fair

Year: 2021
Run time: 2h 35m
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac

Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi epic was supposed to be unfilmable. Adapting the novel proved too colossal an undertaking for even David Lynch’s inimitable talents, resulting in a 1984 box office flop starring Kyle MacLachlan that, although beloved by a devoted few, failed to set the world on fire. It seemed like we would never get a faithful and commercially successful adaptation of Herbert’s saga about a young man’s rise to power amid an interplanetary feud over the most precious resource in the known galaxy. There was Denis Villeneuve.

The director’s 2021 film, the first in a two-part adaptation of the original DuneThe book is an epic story about betrayal. Rebellion and destiny. The leading trio of performances by Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, and Oscar Isaac is excellent in itself, to say nothing of the supporting performances by Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, and more. If you haven’t yet made time to watch DuneYou absolutely should at one point or another. Part IINext November, the movie will be in theatres. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did. —TE

Ex Machina

Image: A24

Year: 2014
Run time: 1h 47m
Director: Alex Garland
Cast: Domhnall Greeneson and Oscar Isaac. Alicia Vikander

There’s a scene in Alex Garland’s 2014 sci-fi debut that stands out as the most pure and distinct encapsulation of the film itself. Caleb, a programmer (Domhnall Gaeson), is sitting down with Nathan (Oscar Isaac), to enjoy sushi in the afternoon. Caleb, who has been working with his host for several days on the artificially intelligent android Ava (Alicia Vikander), asks him why he decided to make his creation sexual. The two men trade points and debate, eventually devolving into a spat of frat boy bickering that ultimately reveals that Ava’s sexuality and gender are not for her own sake, but rather for Nathan’s amusement.

All of this, mind you, transpires while Nathan’s assistant Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), who cannot speak English, stands nearby slicing cuts of sushi. It’s no different than two men arguing about whether or not a woman should have equal rights or autonomy all the while their maids dutifully clean up after their messes, and the film Learn more this. Ex MachinaThis is not only one of the most outstanding sci-fi films of 2010, but also because of its exceptional performances and production design. But, it’s best for its ideas and unsettling truths that it manages exhumed and displayed to its audiences in the most innocent-seeming moments. —TE

The Matrix Series

Warner Bros. Pictures

Run time: 2h 16m (The Matrix); 2h 18m (Reloaded The Matrix); 2h 10m (The Matrix Revolutions); 2h 28m (Resurrections of the Matrix)
Director:Lana and Lilly WachowskiThe Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, The Matrix); Lana Wachowski (Resurrections of the Matrix)
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss

It is a spectacular series called Matrix. The Wachowskis’ 1999 film blew a hole not only in the box office, but in Hollywood’s perception of what kind of sci-fi stories were possible at the time. The Wachowskis’ 1999 film was followed by every subsequent movie in the series. The Matrix RevolutionsAnd Resurrections of the Matrix, don’t argue with me) has continued to push the boundaries of audience expectations in service of a story that feels entirely its own. Matrix combines action and philosophy with romance, mystery with magic, innovative special effects animations with jaw-dropping wirefu acrobatics. It is. The Sci-fi Action Series that Arrived at preciselyIt is the perfect time to welcome in the new millennium, and with it, set a new standard for action filmmaking. —TE

Moon

Image: Stage 6 Films/Sony Pictures Classics

Year: 2009
Run time: 1h 37m
Director: Duncan Jones
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott

One of the all-time greats in the “Watch this movie without reading anything about it first” category, Moon It reads as a blueprint for the many small-scale and character-intense sci-fi movies that came after it. Ex Machina To Vesper. Sam Rockwell plays the role of a contractor who oversees resource-harvesting equipment at the moon. Kevin Spacey voices the robot that’s his only companion. All other events that occur from there are left up to the audience, so they can explore it at their own pace. It’s a tense, emotional, but ruthlessly low-key movie for smart, alert science fiction fans who can handle slow-burn drama. The production design is a great way to take your mind off the slow pace. Moon It has a tactile, grubby quality that can feel as sterile and worn-in as 2001: A Space OdysseyIt was as real and lived in as Star Wars movies at the same. —Tasha Robinson

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

GKIDS/Studio Ghibli

Year: 1984
Run time: 1h 58m
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Cast: Sumi Shimamoto, Gorō Naya, Yōji Matsuda

Hayao Miyazaki started this post-apocalyptic adventure as a manga series, reportedly under the condition that it would never be adapted as a movie — but then he wound up making the movie himself. It’s a particularly vivid part of his development as a filmmaker. Made before Miyazaki and his co-founders formally launched Studio Ghibli, the film feels more formal and solemn than most of the Miyazaki movies that followed, but it’s still clearly a proto version of the likes of Get Spirited Away Oder Princess Mononoke — an adventure centering on a precocious, idealistic girl in a fantastically detailed world, polluted by greed and violence, but slowly healing itself nonetheless. Heavily textured and full of big, swoony emotions, it’s a fairy tale as much for adults as for kids, in spite of the child protagonist and the lessons about how youthful idealism triumphs over adult corruption. —TR

Stalker

Janus Films

Year: 1979
Run time: 2h 42m
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast: Alexander Kaidanovsky, Anatoly Solonitsyn, Alisa Freindlich

There is very little in the way of plot in Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 masterpiece Stalker. Based on the novel of 1972Roadside Picnic, the film follows a writer, a professor, and their titular guide into the Zone, a forbidden area in the Russian wilderness where the normal laws of physics, and even logic, don’t apply. This film is not a collection of sequences. Stalker is instead about the interior lives of each traveler, and how they’re reflected in the swampy, forested, alien landscape. The movie is largely shot in single shots. It documents the three-way journey to the Room. This place, which was said to be the heart of the Zone, allows for the most painfully slow moments. It’s a moody, often silent trek through eerie landscapes, and like much of Tarkovsky’s work, it demands that you meet it on its own terms. —Mike Mahardy

Below the Skin

Photo: A24

Year: 2013
Run time: 1h 48m
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Pearson, Jeremy McWilliams

For Jonathan Glazer’s eerie, unsettling sci-fi/horror film Below the SkinScarlett Johansson took a van unmarked around Glasgow and talked to random citizens in improv scenes. Her character was an alien disguised as a man to attract men.

It’s a quiet, personal, sometimes lurid film about sex and death, disguises and reality, and the longing for the unattainable, whether that’s a new body, or free access to someone else’s. Glazer and Johanssen make it haunting, though Mica Levi’s unsettling ambient score contributes just as much to the tone. Another slow-burn wonder. Moon More about plot is important Below the Skin is about mood and feeling — particularly the feeling of watching people step into a spider’s lair, unaware that they’re about to get eaten. —TR