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The 25 best sci-fi movies on Max

Forget creature comforts — the creatures on this list are designed to push viewers to uncomfortable places filled with interesting ideas. The science fiction films that comprise Max's extensive inventory runneth over with daring heroes, treacherous villains, and everyday people plopped into extraordinary circumstances. Lose yourself in '60s epics adapted for the screen, CGI blockbusters, and foreign indie fare, all of which interrogate our ideas about humanity, technology, and who deserves to rule this planet — and planets in galaxies far, far away.

Avatar (2009)

Neytiri and Jake Sully in 2009's 'Avatar.'. Twentieth Century Fox

James Cameron's cinematic brain operates roughly 15 years ahead of where technology is at any given moment. In the '90s, he conceived of the movie Avatar, a live-action film enhanced by special effects and aimed at ushering audiences into an immersive viewing experience. In the early aughts, technology finally caught up with Cameron's imagination, and he was able to execute his vision centered around colonialism, interplanetary resource mining, and a group of indigenous creatures living in harmony with nature on a planet called Pandora. A fantastical love story complete with extraordinary battle scenes, never-before-seen visuals, and thinly veiled warnings about the dangers of exploiting other cultures and their natural resources, EW's critic calls Avatar, "a quintessential movie of its time: dazzling and immersive, a ravishing techno-dream for the senses." —Ilana Gordon

Where to watch Avatar: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver

Related content: The movies of James Cameron, ranked

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) finds a new kind of mount in 'Avatar: The Way of Water'. 20th Century Studios

It took 13 years (and lots of underwater technology), but James Cameron finally released the follow-up to his visual masterpiece, Avatar. The second film in the series picks up 16 years after the first: With Earth's Resources Development Administration expelled, former human and current Na'vi chief Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is living happily with his wife and children — until the RDA returns, intent on colonizing Pandora and seeking vengeance on Sully and his family. Forced to flee to a remote part of the planet occupied by a clan of reef Na'vi, our heroes now must connect with a new culture and prepare to fight for their home and way of life. —I.G.

Where to watch Avatar: the Way of Water: Max

EW grade: A- (read the review)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, Kate Winslet

Related content: How Avatar: The Way of Water ending sets up Avatar 3

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Ana De Armas and Ryan Gosling in 'Blade Runner 2049'. Alcon Entertainment/Warner Bros.

For decades, it seemed a sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 classic Blade Runner would never be able to overcome the many industry hurdles blocking its path to production. But in 2017, Denis Villeneuve released Blade Runner 2049, set 30 years after the events laid out in Scott's original film. In the years since we left the universe, humans have enslaved bioengineered versions of themselves known as replicants. LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling) is a replicant whose work involves hunting down and retiring older models. But when he discovers a powerful secret capable of plunging what's left of humanity into chaos, he goes on a mission that eventually leads him to Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) a former LAPD blade runner who has been off the grid for the last three decades. EW's Leah Greenblatt writes, "Even when its emotions risk running as cool as its palette, 2049 reaches for, and finds, something remarkable: the elevation of mainstream movie making to high art." —I.G.

Where to watch Blade Runner 2049: Max

EW grade: N/A (read the review)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista, Jared Leto

Related content: Blade Runner 2049 director says we won't see that 4-hour cut

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Everett Collection

2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes ended with the newly freed primates seeking independence and a fresh start inside San Francisco's Muir Woods. Fast forward 10 years to the beginning of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, where a pandemic has decimated the world's population and reduced cities to shanty towns while the genetically evolved apes continue to thrive in their new home. With their power reduced — both literally and figuratively — a group of humans is dispatched to the woods to negotiate with the monkeys, but when their bond with the animals is irrevocably shattered, the two species are forced into a war that will determine the fate of the world. Andy Serkis gives his most powerful motion capture performance to date as Caesar, the wise and magnanimous leader of the apes, and the movie perfectly sets the stage for 2017's War for the Planet of the Apes, the final film in the franchise's prequel trilogy. —I.G.

Where to watch Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Max

EW grade: B+ (read the review)

Director: Matt Reeves

Cast: Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Related content: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes at Comic-Con: Andy Serkis chats

Dune (2021)

Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures

Frank Herbert's Dune novels are dense treatises on colonialism, climate change, and the nature of power. The spice-addled mish-mash of spiritualism and Sun Tzu was considered nigh unfilmable, especially after David Lynch's unfortunate 1984 attempt. But that was before director Denis Villeneuve wowed audiences by cutting the first book in half and plopping Hollywood's hardest-working waif (Timothée Chalamet) into an unforgiving landscape riddled with monstrous, holy worms. The resulting film throws the viewer into the confusing tumult of young Paul Atreides' life, using the foreboding nature of the source material to ramp up the story's internal tension and confusion. A score of war drums and whispers never lets the viewer find their feet on the ever-shifting sands of Arrakis, which EW's critic calls "the kind of lush, lofty filmmaking wide screens were made for." —A.G.

Where to watch Dune: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem

Related content: Dune: Part Two teases Austin Butler's villain: 'Olympic sword master mixed with a psychotic serial killer'

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow. Warner Bros Pictures

The characters in Groundhog Day and Palm Springs might have thought they were stuck in the worst time loops possible, but those characters were never forced to die in the same battle over and over again. In Edge of Tomorrow, Tom Cruise stars as Major Cage, a public affairs officer who is more accustomed to running his mouth than discharging his weapons. After Cage is dispatched to the front lines to fight aliens known as Mimics who have overtaken Earth, he finds himself repeatedly dying in the same battle — and the only person who believes him is war hero Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), who once enjoyed a similar gift. Doubted by the Army, including General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), it's up to Vrataski and Cage to devise a plan to use Cage's looping abilities to destroy the Mimics and save humanity. —I.G.

Where to watch Edge of Tomorrow: Max

EW grade: B+ (read the review)

Director: Doug Liman

Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Paxton

Related content: Tom Cruise rewatch: Edge of Tomorrow is practically designed to be revisited several times

Ex Machina (2014)

Everett Collection

In a world quickly burning thanks to the worst excesses of our billionaire class, this moody horror story about a tech entrepreneur who doesn't care who he hurts might hit too close to home, though it is excellent cinema. This exploration of the mundane evil of innovation for its own sake is worth putting the outside world aside, however briefly. Oscar Isaac stars as reclusive techno-hermit Nathan Bateman, who tricks an employee (Domhnall Gleeson) into his glass-and-steel labyrinth of a home in order to test out his latest creation: a nearly human android named Ava (Alicia Vikander). The creeping dread of the opening act becomes an incessant pounding in the ears as Bateman's true motives become clear and Gleeson's Caleb realizes he's as much a test subject as a stress tester. —A.G.

Where to watch Ex Machina: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Alex Garland

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander

Related content: Alex Garland explains why his new horror film Men is more 'gut-level' than Ex Machina

Fast Color (2019)

Jacob Yakob/Codeblack Films

An indie sci-fi film that explores the powers of feminine love, strength, and destruction, Fast Color is a superhero movie designed with more minimalism and nuance than Marvel typically offers. Set in an unspecified future version of the midwest where it hasn't rained in eight years, Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is a young woman trying to conceal her supernatural abilities and evade the authorities who seek to capture and study her. After years on the run, Ruth returns home to hide out, and ends up reconnecting with her mother and daughter, both of whom have powers of their own. But even as she struggles to understand her own abilities, Ruth must learn to harness them if she is to do battle with those who seek to do her and her family harm. EW's critic describes the film as a "dreamy apocalyptic indie," which is elevated by Mbatha-Raw, who "brings a fierce, quiet containment to the lead role." —I.G.

Where to watch Fast Color: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Julia Hart

Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Toussaint, Saniyya Sidney, Christopher Denham, David Strathairn

Related content: Gugu Mbatha-Raw becomes a superwoman in Fast Color

How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2018)

Dean Rogers/A24

Punks square off — and fall in love with — aliens in the sci-fi romantic comedy, How to Talk to Girls at Parties. Based on a Neil Gaiman short story and set at the height of London's punk revolution in the 1970s, the film follows a group of British punk kids who stumble upon a party attended by alien teenagers. There, worlds and feelings collide, conformity battles individualism, and shy teenager Enn falls in love with the rebellious alien, Zan (Elle Fanning). A genre defying romp that is heavy on the charm and camp, How to Talk to Girls at Parties benefits from its terrific cast, which includes Nicole Kidman, who EW's critic describes as "a sort of sneering den mother of the underground who looks like David Bowie playing Andy Warhol, or Cruella De Vil on the skids." —I.G.

Where to watch How to Talk to Girls at Parties: Max

EW grade: B- (read the review)

Director: John Cameron Mitchell

Cast: Elle Fanning, Alex Sharp, Nicole Kidman, Ruth Wilson, Matt Lucas

Related content: John Cameron Mitchell on the accidental Brexit metaphor in How to Talk to Girls at Parties

Limitless (2011)

Everett Collection

In 2009's comedy The Hangover, Bradley Cooper's character uses 0 percent of his brain. Two years later, Cooper appeared in the sci-fi thriller Limitless, where his character Eddie uses all 100 percent. Eddie is a struggling author (as evidenced by his unkempt hair) living in New York City whose life takes a 180-degree turn after a friend introduces him to a new drug called NZT. An untested pill that allows users to tap into their entire brain's potential — as opposed to the usual 20 percent humans are supposedly able to access — NZT opens up Eddie's world. With the help of his supply, Eddie finishes his book, kills it on the stock market, and in his relationship with Lindy (Abbie Cornish) — but his success doesn't go unnoticed, and soon everyone from finance tycoon Carl von Loon (Robert De Niro) to the Russian mob wants a piece of him. —I.G.

Where to watch Limitless: Max

EW grade: B+ (read the review)

Director: Neil Burger

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro, Andrew Howard, Anna Friel

Related content: Limitless canceled? CBS breaks silence

Lucy (2014)

Jessica Forde/Universal/Everett

After watching Lucy, you would be correct in thinking the most dangerous drug of all is self-awareness. In this sci-fi action hybrid, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and savage circumstances collide to give Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), an American student living in Taiwan, access to 28 percent of her brain — and counting. Featuring the signature, stylized violence of French director Luc Besson, the action is presented at high speeds and alongside imagery designed to make you question your sobriety.

There's no debating that the film remains firmly in the shallow end of the character development pool, but Lucy makes up for it with stunt work, pacing, and aesthetic. A non-Marvel or DC superhero story for the technology and self-actualization era, Lucy starts as a cautionary tale and ends in the realm of the trippily cerebral, while still summoning what one EW contributor describes as "genuine bizarro excitement." — I.G.

Where to watch Lucy: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Luc Besson

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Choi Min-sik, Amr Waked

Related content: Scarlett Johansson teases her Bette Davis-esque character in Wes Anderson's Asteroid City

Predator (1987)

Sunset Boulevard/Corbis/Getty

Sometimes you just want to see the strongest, sweatiest men get their asses handed to them by an alien. John McTiernan's beloved brawler stars a never-better Arnold Schwarzenegger as the leader of a paramilitary rescue team sent to save hostages in a guerrilla-held territory of a Central American rainforest. There, flitting between the trees, is a humanoid creature with a plasma cannon and an invisibility cloak that proves more formidable than any guerilla grunt. Yeah, it's funny — "Stick around" and "Get to da choppa!" are all-time Arnold one-liners — but McTiernan gets his hands dirty, too, immersing us in the jungle's exotic terrors while building to a killer climax that strips away the technological frippery in favor of old-fashioned fisticuffs. It's grisly, relentless, and dripping with machismo. —A.G.

Where to watch Predator: Max

Director: John McTiernan

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers

Related content: Your new Predator also wants to be your new Jason Voorhees

Scanners (1981)

Everett Collection

David Cronenberg's visceral blend of body horror and sci-fi first came to American audiences thanks to this Canadian cult classic. Before he was turning the ravishing good looks of Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis on their heads via a not-so-sterile experimental machine, Cronenberg confronted audiences with the goop inside our heads with Scanners. In this bombastic dystopia, the heightened paranoia of the Cold War and the rise of a revitalized right wing tears the psyches of former hippies turned yuppies inside out, a phenomenon that Cronenberg realizes in vivid shades of red. These "scanners" harbor psychic and telekinetic powers, making waves in underground rings, national security, and in the unsuspecting heads of those around them. The subsequent story is nothing short of mind-bending (and blowing, considering the famous head explosion stunt). —A.G.

Where to watch Scanners: Max

Director: David Cronenberg

Cast: Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Patrick McGoohan, Lawrence Dane, Michael Ironside

Related content: The 10 essential David Cronenberg films

Signs (2002)

Everett Collection

When faith deserts you, all you can do is look for signs for where to turn next. And in the case of former priest Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), some of those signs are located right in your backyard. After recently losing his wife to a traffic accident, Graham and his younger brother (Joaquin Phoenix) attempt to care for the couple's two young children on a rural farm in Pennsylvania. But when crop circles suddenly appear in the field behind their home — and in various locations around the world — it becomes apparent that extraterrestrials have arrived on Earth and are prepared to attack its inhabitants. A sci-fi film by M. Night Shyamalan, Signs is a doomsday story of alien invasions, grief, and misplaced faith, told in Shyamalan's signature style. Boasting carefully composed shots, a slow moving plot, and tons of trepidatious energy, this is your sign to give Signs a try. —I.G.

Where to watch Signs: Max

EW grade: B- (read the review)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, Cherry Jones, M. Night Shyamalan

Related content: Are the crop circles in Signs for real?

Solaris (1972)

Everett Collection

Consider Andrei Tarkovsky's moody and meditative space story a graduate-level response to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just as grand in ambition, though less likely to be a hit if you throw it on at a party, this 1972 film dares to ask what the rules are in an endless cosmos and while intentionally avoiding spoon-feeding us easy answers. Tarkovsky eschews the flash of his non-Soviet contemporaries, opting to use sci-fi in the manner of the era's novelists as a way to examine the as yet undiscovered contours of the human mind. The resulting film is short on special effects and long on philosophy, luxuriating in its nearly three-hour runtime to ponder human nature, unchanged even in the far-off era of long-distance space travel. —A.G.

Where to watch Solaris: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky

Cast: Donatas Banionis, Natalya Bondarchuk, Jüri Järvet, Vladislav Dvorzhetsky, Nikolai Grinko, Anatoly Solonitsyn

Related content: Sundance 2019: Alien documentary director names his top 5 sci-fi films

Stalker (1979)

Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/Everett

Another film by Andrei Tarkovsky, Stalker shares Solaris' preoccupation with the human mind and soul. The film's title refers to the main character, a guide known as the Stalker who works as an escort, ushering interested parties through an ominous and hazardous wasteland to a site called the Zone. Inside the Zone is a room that is said to be capable of granting visitors their innermost desires — though often at a heavy cost. With a plot propelled by philosophical questions and musings, Stalker sees a writer and a professor journey into the Zone, and along the way, they meditate on the nature of human desire, selfishness, and what it means to truly know oneself. Considered one of the greatest films of all time — sci-fi or otherwise — Stalker is a movie that asks many questions but provides few conclusive answers. —I.G.

Where to watch Stalker: Max

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky

Cast: Alexander Kaidanovsky, Anatoly Solonitsyn, Alisa Freindlich, Nikolai Grinko

Related content: The 31 best sci-fi movies of all time

Strange Days (1995)

Everett Collection

A science fiction thriller set in the last 48 hours of the 20th century, Strange Days follows Lenny, a former LAPD officer turned black market purveyor. His product, an illegal technological device called SQUID, records memories and sensations from a user's brain and transfers them onto MiniDiscs for other people to experience. While still mourning his breakup with his ex, Faith, Lenny and his limo driver Mace are sucked into a criminal conspiracy involving Faith, the LAPD, a music executive, and a murdered sex worker. The film bombed at the box office and almost ruined director Kathryn Bigelow's career, but as police brutality has become more of a cultural conversation and the world's addiction to technology has only worsened, the movie proved prescient and time has looked kindly upon Strange Days. In his review of the film, EW's critic writes, "We never know quite where we're going, but, like the people on screen, we know we want to go there." —I.G.

Where to watch Strange Days: Max

EW grade: B- (read the review)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Vincent D'Onofrio, Michael Wincott

Related content: Kathryn Bigelow movies, ranked

The Blob (1958)

Everett Collection

Where later sci-fi features would have to come up with ever more arcane reasons for their alien assailant's destruction, 1958's The Blob had the luxury of needing no explanation. An otherworldly goop from the far-off reaches of space has crash landed in a small town — and it's hungry. Beyond its ability to make food coloring and jelly frightening, the B-movie schlockfest is notable for being Steve McQueen's first leading role. As the monster grows in size and color on its tyrannical tirade on Norman Rockwell's small-town America, McQueen gamely carries this slow-burn movie to its electrifying ending, with the angry red Blob meeting its match while consuming the local diner whole. The straightforward creature feature made a seismic impact on the sci-fi film genre, influencing countless future directors and inspiring a restored release through the Criterion Collection. —A.G.

Where to watch The Blob: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Irvin Yeaworth

Cast: Steven McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe, Olin Howland

Related content: Scream Factory releasing bonkers The Blob remake on Collector's Edition Blu-ray

The Fly (1958)

Everett Collection

Based on a short story published in Playboy in the 1950s, The Fly is a science fiction horror film that follows an investigation into a scientist's suspicious death, and his wife's subsequent obsession with one specific fly. Set in Montreal, scientist André lives with his wife Hélène and son Philippe, and has focused his field of study on the process of matter transfer. But after an accident causes his body and brain to begin to fuse with that of an insect's, it's up to his wife to convince the authorities that she is neither crazy nor responsible for her husband's murder. The first film in The Fly trilogy — which also includes 1959's Return of the Fly and 1965's The Curse of the Fly — the movie was later remade by David Cronenberg in 1986 with a cast that includes Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. A classic cinematic event whose unique but nightmarish premise will continue to buzz around in your brain long after the credits roll, The Fly is a must-see for all sci-fi geeks and horror heads. —I.G.

Where to watch The Fly: Max

Review: B- (read the review)

Director: Kurt Neumann

Cast: Al Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price, Herbert Marshall

The Lobster (2016)

Despina Spyrou

No one sees the world quite like Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite), whose 2016 film The Lobster offers one of the funniest, most deranged, and thoroughly absurd takes on our culture's approach to dating, marriage, and love. A black romantic comedy that pokes fun at society's suspicion around single people, The Lobster exists in a world where singles are allowed 45 days to find a life partner or transformed into the animal of their choice. David (Colin Farrell) has selected the lobster as his preferred animal, and after his wife leaves him, he is taken to a hotel and instructed to find someone compatible. But when an incident involving a potential life partner forces him to flee into the woods to live with the loners, David discovers that it doesn't matter where you are or who you're with — falling in love is a struggle. —I.G.

Where to watch The Lobster: Max

EW grade: A (read the review)

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Cast: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, Ben Whishaw, John C. Reilly

Related content: The Lobster: Colin Farrell checks in for Blu-ray bonus featurette

The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

MURRAY CLOSE/WARNER BROS

Children were born and grew into legal adults in the years since the last Matrix movie was released. But that 18 year gap was well spent; The Matrix Resurrections — directed solely by Lana Wachowski — finds a compelling way to yank the film out of the Internet's infancy and into the modern technological era. The stunts are impressive, but it's the romance between Neo and Trinity (Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss) that not only revives the franchise, but elevates it to heights that Reloaded and Revolutions could only ever dream of. Neo — who now goes by the name Thomas Anderson — has developed several successful video games based on his distant memories of the Matrix, but his inability to distinguish between dreams and reality has him running to his therapist for help. Well worth a watch, The Matrix Resurrections reminds us why we loved getting red-pilled the first time, or, as our reviewer puts it, "All that's old is neo again." —I.G.

Where to watch The Matrix: Resurrections: Max

EW grade: B+ (read the review)

Director: Lana Wachowski

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Neil Patrick Harris, Jonathan Groff

Related content: Laurence Fishburne says The Matrix Resurrections wasn't as good (or as bad) as he thought it would be

Time Bandits (1981)

Everett Collection

For those who like a little anarchy with their popcorn (and who have an appreciation for uh, unconventional endings) this genre-breaking oddity conjures a grotesque and beautiful magic that could only have come from the mind of a Python. Terry Gilliam, the man responsible for The Fisher King, Brazil, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, has, in Time Bandits, created a title suitable for "the whole family" (sort of). It tells the story of young Kevin, a boy whose parents make the Dursleys look decent, who is kidnapped by ​​time-traveling dwarves and taken on a wild journey chock-full of stop-motion animation effects. Like the best of Roald Dahl, Gilliam (who co-wrote the script) presents adults as idiots, children as heroes, and adventure as a priority, all in a non-sentimental yet moving manner. —Debby Wolfinsohn

Where to watch Time Bandits: Max

Director: Terry Gilliam

Cast: John Cleese, Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin

Related content: Taika Waititi to direct and co-write Time Bandits TV show for Apple

Unbreakable (2000)

Everett Collection

M. Night Shyamalan is famous for his supernatural movies, but in the sci-fi thriller Unbreakable, the director shifts tactics and moves into the realm of the superheroic. Released eight years before Iron Man, Unbreakable tells the story of David Dunn (Bruce Willis), a security guard who survives a train derailment and crash that kills 131 people and emerges from the wreck without a scratch on his body. A film that carves out its own niche through the realistic way it portrays heroics — as well as the fact that it isn't based on or adapted from existing IP — Unbreakable is considered one of Shyamalan's best works and serves as the first entry in a trilogy that also includes Split (2016) and Glass (2019). Also starring Samuel L. Jackson as a comic book theorist with a devastating illness, Unbreakable is a gritty superhero story without all of Marvel's bells and whistles. —I.G.

Where to watch Unbreakable: Max

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard, Eamonn Walker

Related content: An oral history of M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable

Under the Skin (2013)

A24

Superstardom is a realm so far from the average person's experience as to be entirely alien. Scarlett Johansson took a break from her skyrocketing career in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to examine what it would be like to view humanity from the outside. In this art-house split from her endless churn of summer blockbusters, Johansson plays an alien disguised as a human woman. Throughout the film, which is directed by Jonathan Glazer and includes an intoxicating score courtesy of Mica Levi, she lures several people back to her lair to study them, ultimately submerging their bodies in a black abyss. Though she never seems to fully understand the everyday people she brings back to her house of horrors, she does develop a sort-of empathy for her test subjects as the film hurtles toward its brutal conclusion. —A.G.

Where to watch Under the Skin: Max

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Cast: Scarlett Johansson

Related content: Under The Skin: Nominated For...Nothing?

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