Most of the best sci-fi movies on Hulu come from 20th Century Fox’s catalog of films, which include many classics in the genre. And even though Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is now streaming on Hulu, this month’s picks for the three sci-fi movies on Hulu that you need to watch don’t include any options from the Alien, Predator, or Planet of the Apes movies. We just needed a little break from those franchises.
Instead, we’re going with an underrated sci-fi film starring Justin Timberlake, as well as two Disney-produced movies that must have gotten lost on their way to Disney+.
In Time (2011)
Time is the ultimate commodity of In Time, which divides the haves and have nots. Rich people like Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried) and her father, Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser), can essentially live young forever while a worker like Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) and his mother, Rachel (Olivia Wilde), have very little time on their personal clocks.
When Will is gifted an enormous sum of time by a suicidal rich man, Timekeeper Raymond Leon (Oppenheimer‘s Cillian Murphy) is convinced that Will stole the time and murdered his benefactor. Will takes Sylvia hostage to survive, but she turns out to be his best ally in his attempt to bring down the time system and free the underclass from their shackles.
Watch In Time on Hulu.
John Carter (2012)
We’ve already gone on at length about why John Carter should be on your watch list for August. Disney brought in Pixar director Andrew Stanton to adapt Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars, and then the studio couldn’t figure out how to market the story that helped inspire Star Wars and countless other tales.
John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is a former soldier who suddenly finds himself transported to Mars, which is in the middle of a potential war between the alien races there. John also finds himself drawn to Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins), a young woman who may have to marry a vile warlord to keep the peace. However, John’s newfound superhuman abilities on Mars may be enough to expose the forces that are manipulating the entire planet for their own purposes.
Watch John Carter on Hulu.
Tron: Legacy (2010)
Cillian Murphy makes his second appearance on this list in a minor role in Tron: Legacy as Edward Dillinger Jr., the son of David Warner’s villainous character from the first Tron. It seems like that was a missed opportunity to do more with Murphy here. Regardless, the film gets a lot of mileage out of bringing back Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, the man who created the Grid and then spent decades trapped in his own digital world.
In the present, Kevin’s son, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), stumbles across the Grid and comes face-to-face with the new ruler: Clu (a digitally de-aged Bridges). This malevolent double of Kevin Flynn needs Sam in order to begin invading the real world. Olivia Wilde co-stars as Quorra, Kevin Flynn’s apprentice and the only one in the Grid who can help Sam find his way out.
Watch Tron: Legacy on Hulu.