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The Best Sci-Fi Movies on Peacock in May 2024: Jurassic Park, Mad Max, Nope & More
Peacock has a collection of new and old titles, including some of our science fiction faves!
Stories are the way we talk about the things we’re not good at talking about: love, death, fear, hope... We build proxies for ourselves that are better-looking, braver, or cleverer than we are, and we put them in the situations we can only imagine in order to explore the world as it is or as we wish it could be. Science fiction, more than perhaps any other genre, extends this unique form of cultural meditation to our own possible future.
Through science fiction, we see the ways the world might one day be, and we can make mistakes on page or screen in the hope that we don’t make them when they really come knocking. Because we can only build what we can first imagine, we’d serve ourselves well by sampling the many different potential futures available in our fictions.
If you’re looking for inspiration, Peacock’s collection of science fiction movies and television series might be the perfect place to start. To be sure, not all sci-fi flicks present an ideal future, and they might serve you better as a warning than a blueprint, but either way you’re sure to have a blast along the way. There are scores of movies and hundreds of episodes of science fiction to choose from, these are but some of our favorites.
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JURASSIC PARK COLLECTION
Jurassic Park is perhaps the most rewatchable movie ever made. Based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name, the original film takes viewers to the titular park alongside a small group of scientists and one unfortunate lawyer.
The park is a monument to humanity’s capacity for both wonder and hubris. Things start out beautifully. The look in the eyes of doctors Sattler (Laura Dern) and Grant (Sam Neill) when they first gaze upon the genetically created beasts is transcendent to the point that you’ll almost believe dinosaurs walk the Earth once again. But it wouldn’t be a Crichton story if things didn’t go horribly wrong. Things went so wrong, in fact, that dinosaurs continued to plague us through two sequels and the Jurassic World sequel trilogy.
MAD MAX
George Miller’s 1979 future dystopia Mad Max follows Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), an Australian police officer watching the world fall down around him. In the near future, oil shortages and ecological collapse lead to the rapid downfall of human civilization, and enterprising criminals seize their opportunity to come into the light.
With his black Pursuit Special, Max tries to stave off the end of things one bad guy at a time. He’s not very successful (no one is) and he wants to pack it in; that is until his wife and child are killed by murderous street gangs and Max loses his cool. All at once, Max embraces the end and his violent but righteous role within it.
Mad Max earned $100 million on a $400,000 budget upon its release and spawned a trio of sequels and the upcoming prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
RIDDICK COLLECTION
Pitch Black features Vin Diesel in space fighting killer aliens with magic eyes during a month-long solar eclipse. It sounds like the ramblings of a madman as the last bursts of electricity flicker across his dying brain, but it is very real and very cool.
Diesel plays Richard B. Riddick, a man with a shine in his eyes and the ability to see in the dark. That comes in handy when you’re surrounded by bloodthirsty extraterrestrials who only come out at night. It’s Vin Diesel at his highest octane and, through some cinematic miracle, the character returned again in Riddick and The Chronicles of Riddick, where he fought the Neuromancer for his literal and figurative soul.
DONNIE DARKO
Donnie Darko, Richard Kelly’s 2001 cult classic, continues to demand rewatches and command late-night barguments two decades after release. Set in 1988, the titular Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) is awoken by a mysterious voice. Following it, he encounters a creepy, humanoid rabbit named Frank who tells Donnie the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds.
Strange as that encounter was, it saved Donnie from certain death when an airplane engine crashed into his bedroom. From there, a bizarre series of events unfolds involving tangent universes, multiverse artifacts, time traveling ghosts, and the entangled fates of one boy and the entire universe.
APOLLO 18
NASA’s Apollo program came to a close in 1972 with the successful return of Apollo 17. The program ended early, scrapping three planned crewed missions, Apollos 18 through 20. The history books will tell you that’s where things ended, but director Gonzalo López-Gallego imagined an alternate history in the 2011 found footage film Apollo 18.
In the film, after Apollo officially ended, the 18th mission was reactivated as a top secret Department of Defense mission to deliver a classified payload to the Moon’s South Pole. The deadly events that follow go a long way to explaining why the footage was buried and the mission never spoken of. If you know the Moon landings happened but still want a little conspiracy, as a treat, this is the movie for you.
THE ONE
The 2001 sci-fi action flick The One features some familiar science fiction tropes coupled with the martial arts chops of action star Jet Li. Back before the multiverse was the favorite narrative device of filmmakers everywhere, The One imagined a world in which criminals evade capture by jumping from one reality to the next.
Li plays multiple characters. More accurately, he plays multiple multiverse variants of the same character. One of those variants is Gabriel Yula, an ex-agent of The MultiVerse Authority, an organization tasked with keeping the spacetime chaos to a minimum. Yula goes rogue and starts hunting down his alternates throughout the multiverse, soaking up their power, Highlander style. If he kills them all, Yula will become a godlike being of infinite power known as The One, and he only has one more variant left.
MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN
This 2014 animated family film from Rob Minkoff (The Lion King, Stuart Little) became an instant classic and got that one Bastille song stuck in our heads all at the same time. It stars Ty Burrell and Max Charles as the titular characters, who first appeared in supporting segments of Rocky & Bullwinkle, called Peabody’s Improbable History. Fun Fact: It isn’t the first film adaptation of one of Rocky and Bullwinkle’s friends, that honor goes to Dudley Do-Right, starring the always beloved Brendan Fraser.
The story introduces us to Peabody and Sherman, the genius dog-ordinary kid duo just trying to make it in the modern world, or in whichever era they happen to be in at the moment. See, Mr. Peabody is truly brilliant, having built a time traveling device called the WABAC. Our heroes use the WABAC to travel through time, having fun adventures and learning about history.
Trying to impress a classmate, Sherman takes the WABAC and messes up the past. When Sherman realizes the situation is too much for him to handle, he and his classmate travel to a few minutes before they left to ask for Peabody’s help. But when the two versions of Sherman touch, they merge, sending a shockwave ripping through spacetime.
TURBO KID
Turbo Kid isn’t, strictly speaking, a vision of the future, but we’ll let it slide because it’s INCREDIBLE. It takes place in an alternate reality 1997, in a world struggling for water. The tyrannical overlord Zeus (played perfectly by Michael Ironside) captures people from the Wasteland and crushes them to get their water. It’s a tough world to live in when you’re a kid who just wants to ride his bike and read comic books.
When The Kid meets Apple, a friendship model robot, the two of them embark on a coming of age story like none you’ve ever seen. It’s equal parts Napoleon Dynamite and Mad Max, with a disturbingly hilarious amount of blood splatter. It’s a post-apocalyptic fever dream as imagined by a Power Glove-wearing teenager from the ‘80s. It’s perfect.
EUROPA REPORT
Europa is one of Jupiter’s four largest moons (the so-called Galilean moons) and it’s covered in a global sheet of ice. Beneath that ice, thanks to the tidal forces between Europa, Jupiter, and its dozens of other moons, is a world-spanning ocean of liquid water. Research suggests activity at the surface transports oxygen and salts into the water, and seafloor vents could provide a source of nutrients and heat. With a bit of luck, life could spring up there and thrive in a lightless ocean world.
Europa Report imagines the sort of mission we dream of, sending brave explorers to an alien world to see it for themselves. Sadly, things don’t go to plan. That’s clear from the jump, because the story is narrated not by any of the crewmembers, but by the CEO of Europa Ventures, Dr. Samantha Unger. A crewed mission is sent to the icy moon, looking for life. In space, you should be careful what you wish for.
Upon landing, they drill through the ice and release a probe. One crew member sees a blue light in the distance but is dismissed as being sleep deprived. All doubt evaporates when the underwater probe sees a similar light just moments before being destroyed. There’s life on Europa, alright, and it isn’t happy.
COWBOYS & ALIENS
Jon Favreau’s 2011 sci-fi Western Cowboys & Aliens begins like many of the Westerns which came before it, with one notable exception. When Jake Lonergan stumbles into a dusty town with no memory and a mysterious metal bracelet on his wrist, he sets in motion a sequence of events which will define not only the West, but the entire planet.
An absolutely star-studded cast including Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, and Paul Dano put their 19th Century concerns aside and unite to prevent the eradication of our species and the loss of our planet at the hands of alien invaders. Setting a story of advanced extraterrestrial colonizers on a mission of eradication against the backdrop of westward expansion feels intentional because it was, and it adds a little depth to an otherwise wacky romp in the dirt.
NOPE
While Jordan Peele has emerged as one of the most talented horror filmmakers on the scene, his movies all involve an element of science fiction not too far beneath the surface. Get Out and Us explore the scarifying consequences of mind transfers and cloning to ramp up the horror, but also as a way of getting at societal failings.
In Nope, Peele puts the sci-fi elements center stage with the discovery, exploration, and survival from an extraterrestrial entity flying over Jupiter’s Claim. A science fiction horror western with an unknown and unknowable creature at its center coupled with the tense relationships and troubled pasts of the characters makes for a perfect mixture which might leave you feeling grateful for your comparably quiet life.
DREDD
In 1995, director Danny Cannon lifted the character of Judge Dredd from its namesake comic strip and onto the silver screen; it didn’t do well. In 2012 the character got the onscreen adaptation he deserved from director Pete Travis and screenwriter Alex Garland (Ex Machina) in the simply titled Dredd.
In a near-future dystopia, Judges like Dredd are given full authority over enforcement of the law, including judgment, sentencing, and execution. Dredd (Karl Urban) is sent to a 200-story apartment building ruled by Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), a drug lord controlling the flow of a designer time-distorting drug. Once inside, Ma-Ma locks the place down behind nuclear blast doors, and puts a price on Dredd’s head. Things only get worse from there.
KING KONG
Following the record-breaking success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson returned to a project he’d been kicking around for years: a remake of King Kong. The movie hit theaters in 2005 and follows the story of down-on-his-luck filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black), struggling starlet Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) and famed playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrian Brody).
The trio board a ship along with a dozen or so supporting crew on a trip officially headed for Singapore. Instead, Denham makes way for the legendary Skull Island, where they capture a massive, oversized ape first on camera and then for real. Andy Serkis turns in a stellar performance as the titular Kong, breathing life into what was only a rubber suit in decades past.
Stream these great sci-fi movies and many more on Peacock!
