25 greatest sci-fi films on Hulu that you can watch right now

Science fiction can run the gamut from far-flung space adventures to journeys to the bottom of the ocean. The genre can introduce us to awe-inspiring robots, horrific extraterrestrials, or harrowing experiments. Whether the sci-fi ranges from the mostly true to the truly outrageous, there’s always fun to be had in this sandbox. But how to pick which to watch?

Hulu’s got a wide selection of films, but how to know the greatest from the rest? We’ve got you covered.

Here’s the greatest sci-fi films now streaming on Hulu.

1. The Creator

Credit: 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Writer/director Gareth Edwards broke onto the sci-fi scene in a big way with the 2010 invasion thriller Monsters. Since then, he’s taken big swings at some of sci-fi’s flashiest franchises, such as 2014’s Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. In this wildly ambitious 2023 offering, he and screenwriter Chris Weitz have carved out a world all their own, one in which humans and AI robots are at war. John David Washington stars as a soldier whose allegiances are challenged when he meets Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), a robot unlike any he’s seen before. She’s a child, and she could well be the path to a future of coexistence — as long as they can survive the attacks of the relentless Colonel Howell (Allison Janney). Full of jaw-dropping visuals, including a terrifying warship, The Creator is a gift to sci-fi fans. But beyond the film’s dazzling futuristic flourishes, the emotional story at its core is what will keep you hooked. — Kristy Puchko, Film Editor

How to watch: The Creator is now streaming on Hulu.

2. Melancholia

In this haunting exploration of hopelessness, Kirsten Dunst plays a reluctant bride facing the end of the Earth. A compelling blend of apocalyptic stakes and deep, precise understanding of grief make Melancholia an all-time great perspective on what it means to confront nothingness. It’s certainly the most cynical title on this (or really any) list, but offers a nihilistic catharsis for audiences who seek that sort of thing. Come for the promise of some truly stunning visuals, stay for the unique atmosphere you can really only get here. — Alison Foreman, Entertainment Reporter

How to watch: Melancholia is now streaming on Hulu.

3. Gone in the Night

Missing Stranger Things? Then you’ll appreciate this trippy thriller starring Winona Ryder as a middle-aged botanist whose romantic getaway with her younger beau (John Gallagher Jr.) goes sideways thanks to some unexpected guests. Out of the film’s 2022 SXSW debut — back when it was called The Cow — we raved about Gone in the Night, cheering its dizzying blend of sci-fi thrills and rom-com charm. “Through all these twists and genre turns, Ryder is our reliable guide. She deftly dances through the demand for a wry joke, a wistful smile, a worried glance,” I wrote in my review. “With savage wit and sophisticated twists, Gone in the Night is a must-see, whether you treasure great thrills or whether you rightly worship at the temple of Winona Ryder.” — K.P.

How to watch: Gone in the Night is now streaming on Hulu.

4. Sea Fever

Craving a mix of science fiction and folk horror? Then you’ll relish this excellent indie from writer/director Neasa Hardiman. Set aboard an Irish trawler, Sea Fever follows Siobhán (Hermione Corfield), a marine biology student assigned to survey any marine life this fishing crew comes across. But when something strange surfaces, the superstitious crew and the academic outsider are at odds over how to react. Whichever side you’re on, you’ll relish the tension as characters scramble to make sense of the ocean’s unknowable possibilities. Though this low-budget affair doesn’t boast the flashy monsters of studio flicks, Hardiman delivers enough glimpses and teases that you’ll definitely be hooked. And the crackling cast, which includes Connie Nielsen, Dougray Scott, Olwen Fouéré, Jack Hickey, and Ardalan Esmaili, shares a chemistry that makes you feel a part of the crew, for better or worse. — K.P.

How to watch: Sea Fever is now streaming on Hulu.

5. Alien

Credit: Robert Penn / 20th Century Fox / Kobal / Shutterstock

Alien isn’t just one of the greatest space films of all time — it’s also one of the greatest films of all time, full stop. Thanks to Ridley Scott’s direction and visual design led by Swiss artist H.R. Giger, this science-fiction horror film is genuinely creepy and claustrophobic, taking our intrinsic fear of dark and narrow corridors and using it to masterful effect.

In a lot of ways, Scott’s sci-fi behemoth set a template for future space films. The sense of isolation, the rapidly diminishing crew, the fear of AI, the body horror — all of these are tropes we’ve seen cropping up again and again over the years, including in some of the other films on this list. And while many of these descendants deploy those ideas well, few have managed to make the same gory splash that Alien did. (As a side note, Aliens — the second movie in the franchise — is also very much worth a watch).* — Sam Haysom, Deputy UK Editor

How to watch: Alien is now streaming on Hulu.

7. Something in the Dirt

Co-directors/co-stars Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead play Los Angeles neighbors who are drawn together by a glimpse of the supernatural in this Sundance favorite. Something in the Dirt uses a cerebral sci-fi premise to explore the complicated bond between its heroes. Here, a frustrated loner and a happy-go-lucky drifter find unexpected community and purpose by happenstance. Naturally, they decide to make a documentary about their findings. Thus, this movie is revealed to be a mockumentary, where the crew keeps quitting, the re-enactments become increasingly (and purposefully) sketchy, and the answers to its big questions aren’t guaranteed. The result is a film that is trippy, unsettling, and sometimes sharply funny.* — K.P.

How to watch: Something in the Dirt is now streaming on Hulu.

8. Crimes of the Future

Credit: NEON

Now into his sixth decade of making films, director David Cronenberg proved with 2022’s Crimes of the Future that he’s still got that wow-slash-ick factor that turned his last name into an adjective. In an unspecified near-future, the government’s struggle to control its populace through our bodies has reached a new level of weirdness thanks to people like Saul Tenser (Cronenberg muse Viggo Mortensen), a performance artist who has the ability to sprout new organs willy-nilly thanks to “accelerated evolution syndrome.” 

Aside from Saul, who is in constant discomfort because of his syndrome, most humans don’t feel pain or get sick, possibly due to some kind of genetic mutation. Thus, Saul’s performance art with his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux) consists of eroticized surgery; she removes his errant organs on stage for a rapt live audience. Cut and repeat.

Plot-wise, the twosome find themselves drawn into a bizarre murder mystery involving a young boy who’d somehow developed the ability to consume and fully digest plastic, and a burgeoning underground movement of people eager to make a similar leap up the evolutionary chain themselves. Politics, sex, surgery, the fellating of open wounds, furniture that looks like it would give H.R. Giger a headache — this is as classic Cronenberg as it gets. And did I mention it’s all played to be deadpan hilarious? If you’re unsure, just watch the comedic tour de force that Kristen Stewart is giving as a whacked-out government employee, and she’ll clue you in. — Jason Adams, Entertainment Reporter 

How to watch: Crimes of the Future is now streaming on Hulu.

9. Planet of the Apes (1968)

Three astronauts, including the ever-blustering George Taylor (Charlton Heston), wake up from deep hibernation when their spacecraft crash-lands on an unknown planet hundreds of light years away from Earth. They quickly realize just how bizarre this new world is, where humanoids are ruled by a race of talking gorillas on horseback. Taylor, revealing he can speak the apes’ language, quickly finds himself the pet project of chimp scientist Zira (Kim Hunter) and her fiance Dr. Cornelius (Roddy McDowall). But nobody puts Charlton Heston in a corner, baby, and soon enough he’s sparked a man-versus-ape revolution.

The story is probably familiar to you, given they’ve been making and remaking these films for decades. But the original is still the greatest as far as I’m concerned. Yes, the monkey suits are primitive compared to the latest films’ cutting-edge CGI. But you just can’t beat the original shock ending, even if the past six decades of pop culture have gone out of its way to spoil and dilute it. Not even Heston and his “damn dirty apes” blather can ruin the film’s fun; indeed, a big part of the enjoyment comes from laughing at his straight-man-as-camp performance, which manages to make those rubbery monkey masks truly seem more lifelike. — J.A.

How to watch: Planet of the Apes (1968) is now streaming on Hulu.

10. The Host

The greatest thing that Parasite director Bong Joon-ho does in his 2006 giant monster movie The Host is toss the rules of Giant Monster Films out the window right at the start. After a brief prologue that hilariously blames everything horrible that’s about to happen on the United States government, this South Korean rollercoaster ride kicks into high gear with its giant amphibian-like monster leaping out of a river and terrorizing an enormous crowd of people in the brightest of broad daylight. There’s no waiting an hour for a quick glimpse of a monster’s elbow in this one!

From there, we insinuate ourselves with a food vendor named Park Gang-du (legend Song Kang-ho) and his family, including his teen daughter Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung) and his kick-ass archery expert sister Nam-joo (Bae Doona). During its attack, the monster snatches Hyun-seo and takes her down to its sewer-based lair, and the rest of them must come together to figure out how to rescue her. The film is action-filled, yes, but also contemplative with regards to modern Korean society, filled with the sort of off-kilter tension that we’ve now come to expect from the Oscar–winning director. — J.A.

How to watch: The Host is now streaming on Hulu.

11. Dual

An existentially deadpan sci-fi allegory about the emptiness of modern living, Dual stars deadpan queen Karen Gillan as an unhappy young woman who soon finds even more reason to be unhappy – namely, that she’s dying. In order to spare the feelings of her boyfriend Peter (Beulah Koale) and mother (Maija Paunio), she takes the advice of her doctor and agrees to be cloned; once she dies, her clone can step in and take her place, and her loved ones won’t have to mourn at all. Sarah just has to spend some of her final remaining months teaching said clone how to be her, is all.

Unfortunately, Sarah’s “loved ones” are kind of fed up with Sarah’s bullshit and quickly come to like her less-moody clone much better. When Sarah finds out her doctor was wrong and she’s going to live after all, her clone and Sarah’s family team up to force Sarah into the titular duel, wherein the original person and their redundant clone have to fight each other to the death. After all, you can’t have two of the same person walking around. That’d be nuts!

As Sarah trains for the battle with a combat expert (Aaron Paul), the act of suddenly having to care about her own survival awakens something in her. And writer/director Riley Stearns (The Art of Self-Defense) mines the mundane malleability of human existence for all its worth in this flatly affected, funny-between-the-lines satire. What separates us from not-us turns out to be not much at all in Stearns’ hands — just some spit and sadness. But mostly spit. — J.A.

How to watch: Dual is now streaming on Hulu.

12. The Abyss 

James Cameron’s 1989 underwater epic The Abyss sees a ragtag group of oil drillers (led by Ed Harris as Bud) team up with a feisty scientist named Lindsey (played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) — who just happens to be Bud’s ex-wife, cue drama — and a group of SEALs to find out what the heck happened to a submarine that suddenly sunk beside a deep ocean trough. Quickly, they discover there is a totally different and mysterious presence in the area, some sort of glowing life form that can bend and shape water to its will.

Unfortunately, this bonding between lifeforms is interrupted as all hell breaks loose, as it’s wont to do in action films. SEAL team leader Coffey (Michael Biehn) begins to feel the effects of high-pressure nervous syndrome, which is making him increasingly paranoid and dangerous. From there, the movie becomes a race against time with our good guys trying to stop the crazed-out Coffey from full-on nuking the friendly sea creatures.

There are famously two cuts of the film; the cut that you’ll find streaming on Hulu is the shorter one and not the special edition, but don’t worry — this is James Cameron we’re talking about, so “shorter” still means a full two hours and 20 minutes of awe-inspiring action filmmaking with thrilling visuals. Ones that still to this day hold (dare I say) water.  — J.A.

How to watch: The Abyss is now streaming on Hulu.

13. Dune

Credit: Warner Bros / Filmstore / Shutterstock

A twisted space opera on a scale basically heretofore unseen, Denis Villeneuve’s first Dune movie lays the Arrakis-set groundwork solid as a rock. Balancing the epic against the intimate with fine-tuned precision, Villeneuve nails the overripe tale of the Atreides clan (daddy Oscar Isaac, mother slash space witch Rebecca Ferguson, and baby boy Timmy Chalamet) clashing with the diabolically pasty Harkonnens, all over the trippy worm poop called “Spice” that fuels that galaxy. 

And now that we’ve seen Part Two, the impossible has been realized: The massive 2021 film suddenly feels kind of small in comparison? Because Dune and Dune: Part Two are basically two halves of one really long whole, it’s difficult to just watch one without the other. But thankfully both films are now streaming, with the second one over on Max. So, go ahead and make a (literal) day of it. Zendaya will thank you. (Because she’s barely in the first one.) — J.A.

How to watch: Dune is now streaming on Hulu.

14. Idiocracy

The most prophetic science-fiction film ever made! Unfortunately. King of the Hill creator Mike Judge’s 2006 comedy Idiocracy imagines an America 500 years in the future, where the non-stop consumption of sports drinks and an innate distrust of education has turned the populace into a rabble of drooling morons who vote for an egotistical reality TV star to be their president. Cringing yet?

Chosen by the modern-day military because of their unimposing averageness, librarian Joe (Luke Wilson) and sex worker Rita (Maya Rudolph) are guinea pigs in an experimental suspended-animation test. But right after they’re frozen, the military base is closed. Joe and Rita are forgotten about as society decays around them; they’re accidentally woken up 500 years later and immediately confronted by the stupidest future imaginable. 

Idiocracy has proved with time to be the satire we deeply needed — in fact, earned — once the optimistic futurism of the past gave way to the infuriating realities of our anti-intellectual present. At least Judge made it funny, which is more than we can say for the real world! — J.A.

How to watch: Idiocracy is now streaming on Hulu.

15. Underwater

Speaking from personal experience, everybody who loves Underwater feels like a disciple spreading its gospel, since the movie came out in January 2020 only to quickly and undeservedly sink like a stone under the storm called Covid. Starring Kristen Stewart as an engineer on a science station drilling into the depths of the Mariana Trench when an earthquake pops off, Underwater could greatest be described as “Alien set underwater.” Except there have been loads of films that could be described as “Alien set underwater” before, and none of them were anywhere near this much fun.

Because of course that earthquake isn’t quite just an earthquake. And before you know it, KStew and her bad-ass bleached-out buzzcut is tussling with all sorts of deep-sea monsters. Her fellow crew members — including Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr., and Mamoudou Athie — make for a pretty lovable bunch too, so it’s pretty scary as people start getting snatched into the inky darkness by who-knows-what. All hail Underwater, king of the underwater Alien ripoffs!  — J.A.

How to watch: Underwater is now streaming on Hulu.

16. Total Recall

An adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” this futuristic trash classic from director Paul Verhoeven stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Douglas Quaid, a bored construction worker with big arms and bigger dreams. His dreams are about the planet Mars specifically, which is in the process of being colonized. So Quaid decides to spice up his life, implanting memories of an exciting vacation to Mars that he doesn’t in reality have the time or money to actually afford. 

Unfortunately, in the middle of the procedure Quaid’s brain goes haywire, and he finds himself sucked into an over-the-top, planet-hopping lifestyle of muscle and mayhem. Is this secret agent alter ego the real him, or are the false imprinted memories tricking him into thinking so? Verhoeven leaves it all tantalizingly elliptical while riffing on real-world politics with copious sleaze in that juicy way only he (and perhaps David Cronenberg) have ever really successfully managed. Total Recall feels like everything great and everything awful about the 1980s stuffed into a single 1990 film. — J.A. 

How to watch: Total Recall is now streaming on Hulu.

17. Poor Things

Credit: Searchlight Pictures

Emma Stone deservedly won a second Oscar for her outrageous performance as Bella Baxter, a full-grown woman with a baby’s brain implanted in her skull by a mad (but sweet) scientist (Willem Dafoe) in Poor Things, director Yorgos Lanthimos’ typically outré and feminist riff on Frankenstein. As Dr. Godwin Baxter watches Bella develop with scientific curiosity, she goes from a food-spitting toddler to a sex-obsessed young woman at seeming lightspeed. Spurred on mainly through her encounters with a series of clueless and daffy men (played by Ramy Youssef, Mark Ruffalo, Jerrod Carmichael, and Christopher Abbott) Bella traverses the globe — as imagined through Lanthimos’ hallucinogenic and wholly unrealistic visuals — in her horny quest for self-actualization. And like Dorothy Gale before her, she finds her way home again, a wiser woman of the world, with only a few corpses left in her wake. — J.A. 

How to watch: Poor Things is now streaming on Hulu.

18. The Faculty

Robert Rodriguez’s alien-invasion cult classic The Faculty is basically The Thing meets The Breakfast Club as written by Scream‘s Kevin Williamson. A group of disparate high schoolers get tossed together as they confront some slimy little body-snatchers from mean green outer space. There’s the nerd (Elijah Wood), the bad boy drug dealer (Josh Hartnett), the basket case (Clea DuVall), the princess (Jordana Brewster), the jock (Shawn Hatosy) — all your stereotypical bases are covered.

The aliens start out by taking over the brains of the teachers first, played by an absolutely wild collection of actors — Famke Janssen, Salma Hayek, Robert Patrick, Bebe Neuwirth, Jon Stewart, and Piper Laurie, just for starters. This cast is stacked! From there, it’s a showdown between the folks in charge and the rebellious kids getting closed in on from every side. Honestly, the anti-establishment vibes feel very innocent — late ’90s in the most nostalgic of ways. That’s why I think this movie’s aged so well; its invasion is sweetly endearing! — J.A.

How to watch: The Faculty is now streaming on Hulu.

19. The Fly

Jeff Goldblum has made a career out of playing sexy smarty-pants whose overconfidence does them in; think Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, Jack in Invasion of the Body Snatchers… Really, it’s very nearly every character he’s played! But none have been more poignant than Dr. Seth Brundle, a character whose itty-bitty wings fly him too close to the sun in David Cronenberg’s masterful 1986 remake of The Fly. Because before you know it, the hot doc is barfing up acid on his romantic rival’s extremities and everything’s gone to heck.

Inventing a container that transports matter from one location to another with the flip of a simple switch, Brundle’s fatal oversight is just not making sure any bewinged insects can swoop inside as the pod’s door closes. Suddenly finding his DNA combined with that of a housefly, Seth’s human matter starts mutating at a rapid rate, which really puts a quick kibosh on his blossoming romance with the whip-smart, kind reporter (Geena Davis) who’s got an exclusive on his story. It turns out that The Fly is in actuality a doomed romance with real heart… and even realer disgusting puddles of goop. — J.A. 

How to watch: The Fly is now streaming on Hulu.

20. Palm Springs

Credit: Jessica Perez / Hulu

This is a tremendously charming time-loop rom-com that one-ups Groundhog Day by allowing both members of its romance to loop through time together. Palm Springs stars Andy Samberg as Nyles and Cristin Milioti as Sarah, two strangers who meet at a desert wedding, hook up that night, and then find themselves sucked into a vortex of the same day playing out over and over again on repeat. Directed by first-timer Max Barbakow, the movie lets the twosome go through the ups and downs of this wild and wacky adventure together — bonding, fighting, blowing shit up — as they try to figure out whether it’s greatest to stay stuck, or if they should maybe see what tomorrow offers. 

As solid a metaphor for relationship-building as they come, Palm Springs uses its lo-fi sci-fi gimmickry to ease out lovely little truths about what we should want from one another as we pass through the cosmos. Samberg and Milioti make for a super-charged, charming pair, proving this genre is hardly dead; it just needs some sparks of imagination and chemistry to rejuvenate it. — J.A.  

How to watch: Palm Springs is now streaming on Hulu.

21. Donnie Darko

A coming-of-age tale knee-deep in metaphysics, Richard Kelly’s 2001 classic remains memorable today for a ton of reasons. First and foremost, it made for a note-perfect introduction to the wonders of Jake Gyllenhaal (unless you were a really big Bubble Boy fan). The future Road House star plays Donnie, a moody high-schooler who’s been sleepwalking and having doom-laden visions of a gigantic bunny rabbit (played by Gregg Araki regular James Duval). His parents (Holmes Osborn and Mary McDonnell) and his therapist (Katharine Ross) don’t seem to understand, and talking through his issues only seems to exacerbate them.

Other unhelpful adults include an unfriendly teacher (Beth Grant, who utters the immortal line, “Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!”) and her self-help guru sidekick (Patrick Swayze, the original Road House flavor). The only person who gets Donnie is the new girl in town (Jena Malone), but her arrival seems already too late. Donnie’s fate has been decided before this story has even begun. But Kelly’s ingeniously twisty script, feeling etched out of our collective teen-movie subconscious, has a ton of goth-tinged fun skipping and swerving toward that dark ending anyway. — J.A.

How to watch: Donnie Darko is now streaming on Hulu.

22. No One Will Save You

Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) is a seamstress who lives alone in a small town. She mainly keeps to herself, locked up inside her childhood home; from the little we see of her going out in public, it seems as if the townspeople want nothing to do with her. Then one fateful night someone does come knocking, but unfortunately it’s not a kindly neighbor with pie — nope, it’s a great big bug-eyed space invader instead. Brynn manages to fight the alien off, but it’s just the first of many, as she finds herself (and eventually everywhere within running distance) overtaken by the intergalactic buggers. Why can’t the films ever let introverts just be?

Nearly wordless from start to finish, this second film from writer/director Brian Duffield (who also wrote Underwater, see above) is definitely stronger in its first two-thirds as we watch the ever-stellar Dever fight off the invaders while dealing with her myriad sadnesses. The trumped-up Twilight Zone silliness of its last act is maybe a bit much, but there’s still more than enough to love here, including Dever’s performance, its deeply creepy monsters, and a tremendous score from Joseph Trapanese that manages much of the otherwise silent film’s heavy lifting. — J.A.  

How to watch: No One Will Save You is now streaming on Hulu.

22. Prey

Credit: David Bukach / 20th Century Studios

The greatest Predator movie since John McTiernan’s 1987 original, this 2022 prequel shoots us back in time to the pre-colonized plains of 18th-century America, where a tribe of Comanche warriors now have the honor and distinction of facing down the extraterrestrial hunter with the really weird mouth. And Arnold Schwarzenegger wishes he could kick this much alien butt. 

Amber Midthunder plays Naru, a young woman who’s being trained to be a healer but in the time-tested mold of all the Mulans before her, really just wants to kick ass like her brothers get to. She definitely gets her chance too, once the Predator drops down into the woods surrounding their colony and starts annihilating everything with a pulse. From there, it’s the explosive and bloody showdown that you expect, but it’s also a hella lively one. Prey might not reinvent the wheel, but it sure did reinvigorate a dead franchise. — J.A.

How to watch: Prey is now streaming on Hulu.

23. Infinity Pool

James (Alexander Skarsgard) is a rich author who heads off to an exclusive resort on an otherwise poverty-stricken island with his partner Em (Cleopatra Coleman). While they’re chillaxing by the pool, they meet another gorgeous and wealthy couple named Gabi (scream queen Mia Goth of the X trilogy) and Alban (Jalil Lespert), and soon enough the foursome go wild in the way of the privileged. By which I mean, exploiting the locals, obviously — until the locals bite back. Let’s just say that cloning, murder, and orgies are all involved, and a whole lot of all three of those things at that.     

The third film from Brandon Cronenberg (yes, son of David) proves once again that his genetically enhanced apple didn’t fall far from the body-horror tree, as the same obsessions that have dominated his father’s work — namely, the intermingling of sex, science, and violence, oh my — are in plentiful display all over Infinity Pool. A true mind-fuck in all the sexiest and most disturbing ways you can imagine, and about a dozen more ways that you can’t. — J.A.

How to watch: Infinity Pool is now streaming on Hulu.

24. RoboCop

Director Paul Verhoeven spent his boom years in Hollywood making fun of the vulgar stupidity of American culture, and oh! How we ate it right up! RoboCop, his wicked 1987 satire about our love affair with state-sanctioned violence and gun culture, is definitely the meanest of them all. Peter Weller plays a cop named Murphy who works the squalid, militarized streets of futuristic Detroit, where not even an extremely violent death will let him set down his gun and badge. 

Unfortunately for him, a nefarious (is there any other kind?) corporation has bought up and privatized the police departments. So when Murphy inevitably gets blown to bits, they just slap his leftover body parts and remaining consciousness into a robotic exoskeleton and send him right back on his merry way to shoot up more gangbangers. Bleak, violent, and extremely entertaining, RoboCop — like so much of Verhoeven’s prophetic work — keeps steering way too terrifying close to reality over the decades since its release. But don’t let that stop you from hooting and hollering when that guy gets doused in acid and explodes into goo! — J.A.  

How to watch: RoboCop is now streaming on Hulu.

25. Super 8

In 2011, director J.J. Abrams poured all of his Spielbergian, Gen-X obsessions into this sci-fi romp centering that perennial fave: the gang of kids who ride their bikes around town to solve a mystery and save the day. In this case, it’s an alien attack set off by a train derailment, which is also truly one of the greatest action sequences in the past 20 years. Anyway, this crack-up accidentally frees a top-secret space monster that the government had been experimenting on, all of which our trusty kids unfortunately happen to catch on film since they were making a movie right near the tracks when it all goes down.

From there, the gang — played by Joel Courtney, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee, Gabriel Basso, Zach Mills, and token girl Elle Fanning — finds themselves tangled up with sinister government types on top of all of those alien shenanigans. Plus, Alice (Fanning) gets kidnapped by the monster, and they must rescue her, all while sorting out their adolescent feelings. We’re pretty used to this formula after several seasons of Stranger Things. But would Stranger Things have happened without Super 8 first? Would there be a Super 8 without The Goonies and Stand By Me and E.T. before that? Honestly, I could keep going until I got to the silent cowboy serials that inspired Spielberg’s inspirations. Point being, this is some quality sci-fi fun with a strong lineage. — J.A. 

How to watch: Super 8 is now streaming on Hulu.

UPDATE: Oct. 31, 2024, 2:24 p.m. EDT This article was updated to reflect the latest streaming options.