What about sci-fi movies on Max? More specifically, what will Max do with them? While Max has a strong slate of movies in the sci-fi and fantasy categories, the streamer’s offerings have been stagnant lately. Apart from last month’s Dune: Part Two, Max hasn’t announced any major new releases in this space in recent months. The next big addition could be Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, but who knows when that will be coming to Max?
Table of Contents
Splice
Kate and Leopold
Dune: Part 2
Survival from the Planet of the Apes
Terminator Salvation
In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got, including the sci-fi thriller Splice and the 2009 sci-fi romantic comedy, 2001’s Kate and Leopold. Of course, Max’s selection of the best sci-fi movies also includes some more prominent films, such as two of the modern Planet of the Apes movies and two of the Star Trek movies. You can find all of these movies by reading the rest of this post.
Want more streaming recommendations? We also have guides to Max’s best movies, Max’s best shows, and the latest updates on HBO and Max worth checking out.
When scientists try to play God, they almost always burn their fingers. Splice is no exception, when Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) go against their employers’ wishes to create a human-animal hybrid they call Dren (Delphine Chanéac). Dren certainly has human qualities, but is far from what we would call humanity.
Furthermore, Clive and Elsa’s attempts to isolate Dren fail as he continues to mutate and evolve. Dren quickly learns about men and women, but does not feel a fatherly affection for his creators. If she’s so dangerous now, how deadly will Dren be in her final form?
Kate and Leopold is more romantic comedy than sci-fi, but it is a science fiction story. More specifically, it’s about time travel. Stuart Besser (Liev Schreiber) discovers a repeating portal connecting the present with 1876, where his ancestor Leopold (Hugh Jackman from Deadpool & Wolverine) lives. Leopold notices Stuart’s anomalous properties and is accidentally pulled back to the present with him.
While Leopold is trapped in present-day New York, he meets and befriends Kate McKay (Meg Ryan). She does not believe that Leopold is from the past. However, she believes in their direct connection, even though Leopold’s continued existence in the future could have dire consequences if he does not return to the past to play a role in the story.
While 2024 has seen few box office hits, Dune: Part 2 was successful enough to ensure the future of a third film, Dune: Messiah. Timothée Chalamet reprises his role as Paul Atreides, the last surviving male heir of his house after his family was wiped out by House Harkonnen. Now living among the Fremen with his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), Paul quickly wins the admiration of his new tribe, some of whom believe that Paul is a prophet who will lead them to reclaim their world. One of the few Fremen who is unwilling to bow down to Paul is Chani (Zendaya), a young woman who loves him. Elvis’ Austin Butler plays Feyd-Rauta, an even more ruthless member of the Harkonnen family who stands in the way of Paul’s advancement. Even if Paul were to defeat Feyd-Rauta, his victory could have devastating consequences for the entire universe.
It’s easy to understand why Caesar (Andy Serkis) is so angry at humanity in Survival for the Planet of the Apes. All his attempts to make peace with his people have failed, and now his wife and eldest son are the latest casualties of the war. To get the apes into the sanctuary, Caesar and his aides Maurice (Karin Konoval), Rocket (Terry Notary), and Luca (Michael Adamthwaite) try to lure out the human militia.
But the Colonel (Woody Harrelson) won’t rest until the apes are subdued once and for all. Caesar, disillusioned with humanity, reluctantly develops a friendship with a mute girl named Nova (Amiah Miller) who may hold the key to winning the world’s war.
No one other than James Cameron could have crafted the perfect Terminator sequel, but Salvation is far better than any of the sequels since. That’s because the movie doesn’t rehash the plots of the first two films. Instead, it transports the audience to a future world that previous movies only ever gave us glimpses of. Christian Bale plays John Connor, a soldier struggling to fulfill a prediction that he will be the savior of humanity in the war against the machines. John is also concerned that an AI known as Skynet is targeting his father, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), as if the machines know of the intimate connection between his fate and John’s.
Meanwhile, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington from Avatar 3) turns out to be the wild card in the war between man and machine. Though Marcus doesn’t realize this at first, he has been transformed into a half-Terminator hybrid, and his decisions will determine which side wins in a battle crucial to the future.
A rattlesnake isn’t as bad as a rattlesnake, but at least it’s better than not escaping at all. In this alternate future, Los Angeles has become an island where President Adam (Cliff Robertson) sends all of the nation’s dissidents and criminals. This backfires for Adam, as his daughter Utopia (A.J. Langer) steals the keys to America’s ultimate satellite weapons system and flees to Los Angeles.
Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is blackmailed into driving to Los Angeles to retrieve the device at all costs. Once there, Plissken meets at least one old friend, a few potential allies, and a host of new enemies. In other words, it’s just another week for Plissken.
To tell you what the source code of The Source Code is would spoil the film’s big surprise. Instead, let’s just say that Captain Colter Stevens (Road House star Jake Gyllenhaal) is extremely confused. The last thing he knew was that he was on combat duty in Afghanistan. Now he’s on a Chicago commuter train and the face of another man stares back at him in the mirror.
Colter also meets his girlfriend, Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan), on the train before the train explodes multiple times. Colter can only break out of this time loop if he finds who planted the bomb on the train, and each time, he only has minutes before the cycle ends.