The 5 best sci fi movies to watch on Netflix and more in May 2023

Polygon readers, happy May!

We’re getting closer and closer to the loaded summer movie calendar, with exciting new releases coming out each weekend. There are still plenty of good movies we can watch to tide us through.

We select five movies each month for you to stream at home on Netflix or other platforms. The movies this month are from new directors (or actors), as well as the regular slate of sure-fire hits.

Let’s get into it.

Alita: Battle Angel

20th Century Fox

Year: 2019
Run time: 2h 2m
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Cast: Rosa Salazar Christoph Waltz Jennifer Connelly

New Ben Affleck thriller – a psychological thriller Hypnotic It is a good idea to use a bilingual translatorn’t exactly good, but it is A new Robert Rodriguez film is always a reason to celebrate. Rodriguez is a skilled director attracted to projects that are fun. He is also one of the most consistent names in genre films. His best movie is an adaptation of a legend manga.

Alita: Battle Angel follows the well-tread ground of sci-fi universes with “haves” living above the “have nots” in a very segmented society. Rosa Salazar plays a cyborg who is unable to remember anything and tries to figure out her place in the chaotic world. Salazar’s performance is fantastic, the film is full of rollerball and fight sequences and is an exciting feast for the eyes.

Due to the success of The Hunger Games, a sequel may be in the works. Avatar : The Way of Water, so it’s a great time to catch up with the first one. —Pete Volk

Alita: Battle AngelYou can stream the movie on Hulu, FuboIt’s available on DirecTV and FX Now. The digital version is available to rent or buy on Amazon, Apple TV, Google PlayThen,Vudu.

Blade Runner 2049

Warner Bros.

Year: 2017
Run time: 2h 44m
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas

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

The film is set 30 years later than the original. Blade Runner 2049 centers on the story of KD6-3.7 (Ryan Gosling), a next-generation replicant working as an LAPD officer tasked with “retiring” other replicants who attempt to elude the control of their human creators. When Officer K inadvertently unearths a secret that threatens to tip what remains of civilization into chaos, he’s tasked with solving a mystery whose answers lie in the whereabouts of one of his predecessors: former LAPD blade runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford).

Blade Runner 2049This is the sequel to the film in its truest form. It’s a movie that shows the continuation and the consequences of all the hubris, horrors, and savagery first shown in the initial Blade Runner. The smokestacks are gone, the seas are rising, and the landfills spilled out to take back the cities. It’s safe to say that the future looks bleak. Even still, Villeneuve’s film hits the same chord as Ridley Scott’s in challenging its audience to question what it means to be human at all, and whether there’s any hope for humanity to build a better future both itself and its artificial descendants. 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 2049You can stream the movie on Hulu. You can also rent or buy it digitally on Amazon, Apple TV, Google PlayThen, Vudu.

Ex Machina

Image: A24

Year: 2014
Run time: 1h 48m
Director: Alex Garland
Cast: Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander

Artificial intelligence is the discourse du jour on everyone’s lips right now, so what better time than to watch Alex Garland’s (official) directorial debut about the dawn of machine intelligence? Ex Machina follows Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer working for the world’s largest internet search engine who wins the opportunity to spend the week with his boss: the reclusive tech mogul genius Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Upon learning that Nathan is working on creating an artificially intelligent android, Caleb agrees to become the human component of a Turing test to discern whether or not Nathan’s creation Ava (Alicia Vikander) is truly sentient. Things quickly spiral from there, as Caleb finds himself torn by his brewing feelings for Ava and his growing distrust of Nathan’s erratic behavior. The film is both elegantly polished and hauntingly memorable. Ex MachinaThis is the sort of sci fi that you will enjoy watching again and over again. —TE

Ex MachinaYou can stream the movie on HBO Max. You can also rent or buy it digitally on Amazon, Apple TV, Google PlayThen, Vudu.

Pitch Black

Picture: Gramercy Pictures/Universal Pictures

Year: 2000
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: David Twohy
Cast: Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser

Fast XThe latest adventure of Dom Toretto, his family and crew, who have been heisting money for years, has just hit the theaters. Now, you could use that as an excuse to revisit the first nine entries in the saga (and we wouldn’t blame you one bit). Or, you could visit the start of a different personal project for Diesel, one of Hollywood’s nerdiest movie stars.

It’s pretty well known at this point that Last Witch Hunter was inspired by a Dungeons & Dragons character played by Diesel. It was inspired by a character that Diesel played in the Dungeons and Dragons game. Pitch Black spawned a passion-project sci-fi trilogy the likes of which we haven’t seen since.

My money Pitch Black It’s the best of all. Combining 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, one somewhat in conversation with John Carpenter’s Ghost of MarsThe following year, a new version of the film would be released.

The following are some of the ways to get in touch with us Pitch Black, we’re introduced to Diesel’s Richard B. Riddick, who at this point is a dangerous criminal being transported to prison. When the transport ship crashes, Riddick and his fellow survivors must team up to survive the planet’s hostile environment and escape. —PV

Pitch Black You can stream the movie on Netflix. You can also rent or buy it digitally on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Pla“Y, and” Vudu.

Starship Troopers

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Year: 1997
Run time: 2h 9m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards

Paul Verhoeven is one of America’s most insightful (and often misunderstood!) commentators about the bizarre world of American politics today. Verhoeven’s scathing satire of American foreign policy and the military industrial complex took Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 novel of the same name and turned into a schlocky sci-fi war movie that somehow went over the heads its audience (and critics) back when it first released.

Set in the 23rd century, Verhoeven’s film follows a group of high school classmates raised in a fascistic military government who are thrust to the front lines in an existential war against a race of highly evolved arachnid creatures. The film takes inspiration from Leni-Riefenstahl’s infamous Nazi propaganda. Starship Troopers plays out like an in-universe recruitment film set in a world where democracy is dead and “service guarantees citizenship.” It’s a subversively ingenious movie more than worthy of reappraisal and one of the best (and most eerily prescient) sci-fi films of its era. Do you want to learn more about this film? —TE

Starship Troopers You can stream the movie on Netflix. You can also rent or buy it digitally on Amazon, Apple TV, Google PlayThen, Vudu.