Geekery: Stuck Inside Streaming Recommendations – Sci-Fi Movie Edition

Self-isolating? Social distancing? Stuck at your house or apartment? Need something to fill the silence while you work from home? Here are some sci-fi adventures and think pieces available on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon right now to keep you entertained. Feel free to add your recommendations and where folks can find them in the comments!

• Action Movie List
• Horror Movie List

Netflix

• Snowpiercer – A train to economic disparity.
• Minority Report – Still holds up at nearly 20 years old.
• Blade Runner: Final Cut – Ridley Scott’s dystopian classic.
• Russian Doll – What is mortality?
• Ex Machina – Amazing movie about AI and how badly we treat each other.

• Inception – Beautiful timey-wimey action from Christopher Nolan.
• Moon – More proof that Sam Rockwell is amazing.
• Event Horizon – If you haven’t watched it this year, now is the time.
• Self/Less – Has some fun action and Ryan Reynolds.
• Equilibrium – Gun kata!
• Under the Skin – Eating humans… in a weird way.

Hulu

• Star Trek – Lots of it.
• Sorry to Bother You – Call center hell: the satire.
• Akira (dub / sub) – Nuclear weapons are bad.
• Devs – A meditation on detrminism (8 part miniseries).
• Collosal – Emotional monsters.
• Midnight Special – A cult, the FBI, and forces from beyond.
• Fast Color – The superpower of family.
• Tetsuo: The Bullet Man – The third of the Tetsuo trilogy from Shin’ya Tsukamoto

• Prospect – This moon isn’t safe.
• Judgment Day – Everyone needs a little schlock in their movie diet.
• Melancholia – The apocalypse, Lars von Trier style.
• The Host – Everyman fights giant monster; directed by Bong Joon-ho.
• Demolition Man – Snipes vs Stallone
• Europa Report – Looking for life on one of Jupiter’s moons.
• High-Rise – J.G. Ballard’s post-apocalyptic breakdown break down of societal norms.

Amazon Prime

As with horror, Amazon has a big collection of vintage sci-fi starting in the 1950s and running till the late 1970s that’s worth checking out. Lots of Martian invaders, robots, galactic battles, and monsters from outer space – movies that inspired movies that we hold up as classics now.

• Star Trek – and lots of it.
• Annihilation – a quarantine zone holds a mind-bending secret.
• The Medusa Touch  – Richard Burton leads this story about mind control
• Plan 9 From Outer Space – To be paired with alcohol, if you’re of age.
• Evolution – Comedy vs an every changing monster.
• Universal Soldier – Lundgren vs Van Damme
• Coherence – A dinner party splinters into multiple universes.

• High Life – Slowly traveling into a black hole.
• The Door – Mads Mikkelsen learns the dangers of changing the past.
• Escape from New York – Snake Plissken vs the world.
• Super 8 – A kids on bikes adventure.
• The Last Man on Earth – Vincent Price.
• Exit Strategy – Time loops and loops.
• The Man Who Fell to Earth – Davie Bowie as an alien as David Bowie (restored in 4k).

Author: Mars Garrett

Pop culture writer and news editor that has been on the BoLS team since 2010. Contributor on the One of Us podcast. Marvel, Vertigo, Batman, and dystopian sci-fi fan. Enjoys bad movies, amazing stunt performances, and the internet. Hates rom-coms. (she/they)