3 Best Sci-Fi Movies to Stream on Prime in February 2024

1. After Yang (2021)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Jake (Colin Farrell ) and Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith) have an adopted Chinese daughter named Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja). To help Mika connect with her heritage, her parents bought her an android 'brother' named Yang, who shares cultural facts and memories with Mika.

Years after he joins the family, Yang starts to break down. But the android is no longer under warranty, and as Jake tries to get Yang functioning again he makes some unexpected discoveries about the history, memories, and secret yearnings of his 'son'.

Soon the family will have to decide whether to fight to keep Yang with them, or to experience the grief of letting him go.

After Yang slipped under the radar during the pandemic, but it's an achingly beautiful examination of what it means to be a human being. In the age of artificial intelligence, it's also a timely look at where this technology is going and its possible consequences.

Top Quote: 'We always assume that other beings would want to be human. What's so great about being human?'

Critics Say: 'A mature, melancholic meditation on the odd transitional phase that humanity faces today — not quite fully digital, not nearly human enough.' – Times (UK)

2. Predestination (2014)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

Ethan Hawke plays a time-traveling agent who is nearing retirement. The case that haunts him most is that of the 'Fizzle Bomber', whom he failed to capture on a trip through time, causing the deaths of thousands of people. The agent is now on his final mission: to go back in time to 1970, and get close to a young man who is the key to the temporal agency's future.

Over the course of the movie the twists and turns come fast and thick – it's hard to say much else about the plot without giving it away. Enjoy the mobius-strip plotting and Sarah Snook's breakout role before she was cast in Succession.

Top Quote: 'If you shoot me, you'll become me. You get it? That's how it happens. If you want to break the chain, you have to not kill me, but try to love me again.'

Critics Say: 'A funny, affecting, twisted tale, which demands you pay close attention to every throwaway detail.' – Empire Magazine

3. The Terminator

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

We'll finish it off with an absolute banger of a classic – if you haven't seen The Terminator yet, do! If you have seen it already, there's always time for a rewatch.

Everyday waitress Sarah Connor suddenly finds herself on the run with Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a man who claims he's from the future and can save her from a killer android programmed to kill her. Sure enough 'The Terminator' (Arnold ​​Schwarzenegger) is on Sarah's tail, and he won't stop until she's dead.

You see, one day in the future the robot uprising will happen, and it's going to be Sarah's son John Connor who leads the resistance and saves humanity. In the final moments of the war, the robots send a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah and thwart the savior of humanity before he's even born.

If you're looking for sci-fi that's pulse pounding, high stakes, and not too heady, you can't go wrong with The Terminator. And hey – watch The Terminator 2 while you're at it. It's also pretty great.

Just don't get into the rest of the sequels. That way madness lies.

Top Quote: 'Oh, come on. Do I look like the mother of the future? I mean am I tough, organized? I can't even balance my checkbook! Look Reese, I didn't ask for this honor and I don't WANT IT, ANY OF IT!'

Critics Say: 'An efficient, cold-blooded sci-fi splatter movie that never makes the mistake of forgetting that on some level it is deeply ridiculous.' – The Globe & Mail