The 5 best sci fi movies to watch this month

Polygon Readers, Happy September!

A new slate of films awaits us now that summer has ended. Denis Villeneuve’s The Dune Part Deux might’ve been pushed back to next year, but the future is still looking bright, with Gareth Edwards’ The CreatorIt is one of most anticipated films this year. We’ve still got a week or so before that (and more) releases, so why not peruse the best sci-fi movies on streaming that Hulu, Max, and more have to offer?

We select five movies each month for you to enjoy at home. This month, we have a kaiju classic, an excellent blockbuster from George Miller, Jordan Peele’s latest hit, and much more.

Let’s get into it!

Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah – Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Year: 2001
Run time: 1h 45m
Director: Shusuke Caneko
Cast: Chiharu Niiyama, Ryudo Uzaki, Masahiro Kobayashi
What to Watch: Pluto TV

There’s one breathtaking moment in Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah – Giant Monsters All-Out Attack where the camera zooms out from a man in a bathroom to Godzilla crushing the house he’s in with his foot, moving from a full-size set to miniatures without breaking the shot. The movie does this multiple times, transitioning to miniatures with clever masking techniques for maximum impact and jaw-dropping scale, and the joy in the movie’s formal approach energizes it.

GMK is a delightful throwback to the early era of Godzilla movies, especially in its use of miniatures and rejection of a CG Godzilla for the classic “man in a suit” approach. The tone is also very balanced, as in many other great Godzilla movies. It’s funny — in the first 90 seconds, it references both the original movie and Roland Emmerich’s 1998 entry, humorously dismissing the latter’s potential status as canonical — but also very tense in the destruction sequences.

It is hard to find a movie that guarantees a good time like Godzilla. GMK It certainly does. And with a new Toho entry in the franchise on its way later this year, there’s no better time than now to catch up with an underappreciated Godzilla movie. Hulu carries only the dubbed versions, as Toho dubbed the movie for its international release. Although the dub was very good, the actors embraced the serious (and sometimes silly) nature of the film. —Pete Volk

Mad Max Fury Road

Warner Bros.

Year: 2015
Run time: 2h
Director: George Miller
Cast: Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult
What to Watch: Hulu

There are action movies, and then there’s Mad Max Fury Road.

George Miller’s return to the post-apocalyptic world of his 1979 debut is epic in every sense of the word. Eight years since its initial theatrical release, it remains one of the most impressive late-career comebacks ever produced by a major Hollywood studio — an explosive spectacle of blood, sweat, and roaring chrome.

Set in a world marred by ecological and societal collapse, Miller’s film follows Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy), a lone survivor haunted by the memories of his lost loved ones, who is defeated and kidnapped by a roving band of scavengers. When Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), the trusted lieutenant of the warlord Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), rebels against her master and steals away his harem of female prisoners, her quest for freedom inadvertently forces her into a partnership with Max as they race across the desert with Immortan Joe’s army in hot pursuit.

This is an exciting adventure with pyrotechnics that will blow your mind, dangerous stunts, and powerful performances. Prequel to the long-awaited film FuriosaNext year’s premiere of, featuring Anya Taylor Joy as the younger version of Furiosa (the female lead) and Chris Hemsworth, as Immortan Joe, should be a great time to watch it again. Fury Road. —Toussaint Egan

No,

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Year: 2022
Run time: 2h 10m
Director:Jordan Peele
Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun
What to Watch: Prime Video

Some people are hotter than others No..

This is fair considering its bizarre premise and how alienating its metaphor for the corrosive powers of spectacle (pun intended), can be. I think it’s a great movie. NopeOne of the best horror movies in recent history, this film was made by a director who is capable of creating a career with original concepts and strong horror themes that are both respected and successful commercially.

Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and the Haywood children, OJ and Emerald, deliver outstanding performances. They play the two kids who are trying to record footage of the alien creature that is stalking their desert home. That life form, nicknamed “Jean Jacket,” has one of the most spectacular creature designs I’ve seen in the past decade: a pulsating, ivory-colored iris camouflaging itself between masses of clouds before unfolding into a nightmarish swath of floating tendrils that feels both angelic and utterly horrifying to behold. Seeing that in action alone makes Peele’s film worth watching, as is the satisfaction of witnessing a talented director leveraging his commercial clout to craft a big-budget horror film that is at once indebted to Hollywood’s past and yet entirely distinct on its own. —TE

The Skin

Image: A24

Year: 2013
Run time: 1h 48m
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Pearson, Dougie McConnell
What to Watch: Max

Jonathan Glazer is a director’s director. Glazer’s career has been a mix of commercial and music video directing. Since his dazzling 2000 debut, he’s directed only three movies. Sexy BeastWith his most recent work The zone of interestIt is slated to be released in theatres this fall. What better time than now to watch Glazer’s most recent masterpiece, the eerie sci-fi horror drama The Skin?

Scarlett Johansson is a savage extraterrestrial who poses as human. She stalks the streets of Glasgow and its countryside, luring her victims in with equal measures of guile and provocation. Then she suffocates them in a sickly black ichor void. It’s a beautiful slow burn of a movie, as evocative as it is unsettling, packed with images and scenes that are as perplexing to behold as they are devastating when understood. Halloween is right around the corner, so why not slip on Glazer’s moody waking nightmare of a film and see how it feels? C’mon, it’s not gonna bite. —TE

After Yang

Image: A24

Year: 2021
Run time: 1h 36m
Director: Kogonada
Cast: Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min
What to Watch: Criterion Channel

Kogonada’s tender, soft-spoken sci-fi drama about familial loss and grief is a profound story whose impact can only be understood in hindsight. The film is set in an idyllic future. After YangFollows the story of small family who try to repair Yang, their robot companion that is not responding (Justin H. Min). The situation becomes more serious, and each family member is faced with the question of what they think of Yang.

While asking the essential sci-fi question of what it means to be human, Kogonada’s film probes deeper at what happens when artificial beings transcend being mere commodities and instead become sentient individuals, capable of cultivating their own interiority and perspective. Colin Farrell delivers one of his most moving performances as Jake, the proprietor of an artisanal tea shop and Yang’s owner, whose personal journey to understand Yang forces him to reexamine his relationship with his wife, Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), and his adopted daughter, Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja). The film is a combination of beautifully crafted dialogues, stunning visuals and powerful performances, which conceal a wealth of emotional depth. After YangThis unique sci-fi story captures the essence of living and grieving. If you’re looking for a sci-fi film that is unlike anything else on this list, Kogonada’s sophomore directorial effort is the one for you. —TE