Looking for the best sci-fi movie to watch on Netflix or other streaming services this April? Watch Alita: Battle Angel or Blade Runner 2049 right now at home.
Happy May, Polygon readers!
We’re getting closer and closer to the loaded summer movie calendar, with exciting new releases coming out each weekend. But until then, there are plenty of great movies to watch at home to tide us over.
Each month, we pick five science fiction movies for you to watch at home, on Netflix and other streaming platforms. This month, we have movies from directors with new movies out (or actors with new movies out), and the usual slate of guaranteed hits no matter the time of year.
Let’s get into it.Alita: Battle Angel
Year: 2019
Run time: 2h 2m
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Cast: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly
The new Ben Affleck psychological thriller Hypnotic isn’t exactly good, but it is a new Robert Rodriguez movie, which is always an opportunity to celebrate. A skilled director drawn to fun projects, Rodriguez is one of the more consistent names working in genre cinema, and one of his best movies is the unfairly maligned adaptation of a legendary manga.
Alita: Battle Angel follows the well-tread ground of sci-fi universes with “haves” living above the “have nots” in a very segmented society. The story follows a cyborg (Rosa Salazar, in stunning motion-capture) who wakes up without any memories and looks to find her place in a chaotic world. Salazar is genuinely fantastic in it, and the movie is a feast for the senses, with exciting fight and rollerball sequences.
The long-awaited sequel might actually be happening thanks to the financial and technological success of Avatar: The Way of Water, so it’s a great time to catch up with the first one. —Pete Volk
Alita: Battle Angel is available to stream on Hulu, Fubo, DirecTV, and FX Now. It is also available for digital rental and purchase on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, and Vudu.Blade Runner 2049
Year: 2017
Run time: 2h 44m
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas
Denis Villeneuve’s 2017 sequel to Ridley Scott’s landmark “future noir” film may not have proven (yet) to be a cultural juggernaut like its predecessor, it still nonetheless stands as one of the best sci-fi films of the 2010s.
Set 30 years after the events of the first film, Blade Runner 2049 centers on the story of KD6-3.7 (Ryan Gosling), a next-generation replicant working as an LAPD officer tasked with “retiring” other replicants who attempt to elude the control of their human creators.
