Though Hulu is most talked about for its extensive library of TV series, the streaming service also has a solid selection of movies. If you're looking for good science fiction movies to watch, the following 10 film recommendations, listed in alphabetical order, are the best ones streaming on Hulu as of this writing.
Ranging from action classics to offbeat comedies to award-winning dramas, there's something on this list for all sci-fi movie tastes.
Akira
Set in a then-futuristic 2019 Neo-Tokyo on the brink of disaster ahead of the 2020 Olympics, the 1988 anime film Akira, based on director Katsuhiro Otomo's own manga series, now seems prophetic in certain respects. The post-apocalyptic story of biker gang leader Kaneda and his former friend-turned-supervillain Tetsuo is just as exciting (and confusing) as ever, but the real reason Akira stands above its anime peers is the unmatched quality of its astonishingly detailed and fluid hand-drawn animation.
Arrival
Between Blade Runner 2049 and the upcoming Dune, Denis Villeneuve has become one of Hollywood's go-to directors for highbrow sci-fi. His most successful film thus far has been the 2016 Oscar-winning Arrival, based on the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. Amy Adams stars as a linguist decoding the language of two mysterious alien visitors to Earth, preventing a global crisis and unlocking new secrets about the nature of time and her own life as a result. Clever editing tricks and an emotional conclusion make this a film you'll want to rewatch.
Colossal
Nacho Vigolando's 2016 film Colossal follows a struggling alcoholic writer played by Anne Hathaway who has to move back to her New England hometown, where she reunites with a childhood friend, played by Jason Sudekis. One of these two messed-up individuals starts trying to fix their life, while the other gets way worse. Also, if that wasn't enough, it's a kaiju movie. How the monster action ties in with the personal drama is something best discovered by watching this darkly funny, strikingly original movie for yourself.
Galaxy Quest
Hulu has many official Star Trek movies currently streaming, but with all due respect to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the 1999 parody film Galaxy Quest is unofficially the best Star Trek movie ever made. Simultaneously mocking and celebrating everything that makes the Star Trek franchise and its fandom so memorable, Galaxy Quest is a blast throughout. It's also one of Tim Allen's best performances, and Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman are reliably great in it as well.
The Host
Aside from his international productions Snowpiercer and Okja (both streaming on Netflix), all of Bong Joon-ho's films are currently streaming on Hulu. In the sci-fi/horror category, The Host is one of the stand-outs in Bong's impressive filmography and arguably the best kaiju movie of the 21st century. The U.S. military has dumped toxic chemicals into Korean waters, and the result is a giant monster on a rampage. Parasite star Song Kang-ho gives a stand-out comedic performance as the film's unlikely hero.
The Iron Giant
The only film from Warner Bros.' unsuccessful late '90s forays into feature animation to allow its team full creative freedom is, not coincidentally, the only one of the bunch still remembered as a masterpiece. Ignored upon initial release in 1999 but a beloved classic today, Brad Bird's The Iron Giant is at once a fun family adventure movie, a witty satire of 1950s Cold War paranoia and a moving examination of what it means to have free will and a soul. It's not only understandable but expected for you to need tissues at the end.
RoboCop
The original 1987 RoboCop, the second Hollywood production from Dutch auteur provocateur Paul Verhoeven, works simultaneously as a highly entertaining over-the-top action movie and as an intelligent satire of American corporate culture. The story follows a Detroit cop, Alex Murphy (Peter Weller), who gets brutally murdered and revived as a cyborg by the insidious Omni Consumer Products megacorporation. If one categorizes the heavily comic book-influenced film as such, you could easily make the case for RoboCop being one of if not the best superhero movies ever made.
The Shape of Water
The Shape of Water, Guillermo Del Toro's beautiful Best Picture-winning ode to outsiders standing up against bigotry, focuses on a mute woman, played by Sally Hawkins, who rescues a Creature from the Black Lagoon-esque fish-man from the government laboratory at which she works as a janitor. Yes, they fall in love, and yes, there are colorful sign-language discussions of the mechanics of how the fish-man has sex, but this might be the only "woman falls for a fish-man" movie you can watch with your parents embarrassment-free.
Sorry to Bother You
Possibly even more so than Colossal, Boots Riley's 2018 gonzo anti-capitalist satire Sorry to Bother You is a film that's best experienced without knowing the details of its wild twists and turns. Set in a world not too far off from our own, it follows a telemarketer, played by LaKeith Stanfield, who rises up the corporate ladder by talking in a "white voice" (dubbed by David Cross). A major role played by Armie Hammer might make this a less appealing watch in retrospect for some, but at least you're supposed to hate Hammer's character here.
The Terminator
Hulu isn't currently streaming the best Terminator film (that would be Terminator 2: Judgement Day), but it is streaming the still really good original 1984 film. Made on a much smaller budget than the blockbusters that director James Cameron would make for the rest of his career, The Terminator gave Arnold Schwarzenegger his most iconic role as the titular cyborg and introduced audiences to Linda Hamilton's waitress-turned-badass Sarah Connor. The movie delivers pure muscular terror, carried by a clever time travel story inspired by the works of Harlan Ellison.