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The 16 Best Sci-Fi Movies on Peacock in January 2025: Men in Black, Alien, Attack the Block & 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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What are the best sci-fi movies now streaming on Peacock?
Men in Black collection
If you didn’t know any better, Men in Black begins like so many other police dramas from the late ‘90s. NYPD officer James Edwards (Will Smith) encounters a criminal with an uncanny ability for escape... but then he turns out to be an extraterrestrial. Edwards is given a brief glimpse into the world as it really is, and he’s given a choice: to stay and see how strange things really are or forget it all and return to his ordinary life. It’s no real choice at all. James is swept into the secret world of the Men in Black, a covert organization tasked with protecting humanity from the universe’s many alien entities, many of whom are living among us.
After erasing his identity and all of his name except for the first letter, J learns that the Earth has been established as a neutral zone for alien refugees and there’s a sort of tenuous peace between us and the rest of the cosmos. That is until a bug-like alien body-snatches a backwoods farmer named Edgar (Vincent D’Onofrio) in an attempt to locate a hidden galaxy and spark interstellar war. To prevent the galaxy from falling into the bugs’ pedipalps, the Arquillians — an advanced alien race — are willing to destroy the Earth. Only J and his partner K (Tommy Lee Jones) can save us.
Once you’re finished saving the world for the first time, you can follow the continued adventures of the MIB in Men in Black II and Men in Black 3.
Pitch Black
It’s 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.
In Pitch Black, 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 vintage Diesel, so much so that the character returned again in The Chronicles of Riddick, where he fights the Neuromancer for his literal and figurative soul.
Alien
Written by Dan O’Bannon and directed by Ridley Scott, 1979’s Alien is a contender for the best science fiction film ever made. It tells the story of the crew of the Nostromo – a blue-collar spacecraft in a greasy, spacefaring future – and their encounter with a vicious alien organism.
The crew is in stasis, on their way back to Earth, when the ship’s computer picks up a possible distress call and wakes them up. The crew shuffles from their too-brief rest and settles down on the surface of a nearby planetoid, where they trace the signal to a downed alien spacecraft. What they thought was a distress signal, turned out to be a final shout into the void, warning anyone else to stay away.
The movie was so successful (largely on the strength of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley) that an entire franchise burst from its chest, birthing sequels, prequels, and two Predator crossovers.
Limitless
Bradley Cooper stars as Edward Morra in Limitless, the 2011 science fiction thriller based on Alan Glynn’s novel The Dark Fields. Eddie has plenty of potential and promise, but his life is falling down around him. His girlfriend leaves him, citing a lack of ambition, and his book contract is threatened by the fact that Eddie can’t seem to put a single word on the page.
Then he runs into his ex-brother-in-law who offers him a new designer drug called NZT-48, which promises to fix all of his problems. Eddie takes the pill and finds a clarity he had been lacking. Over the course of a few days, he cleans himself up, writes an entire novel, and makes a fat stack of cash on the stock market. Things are looking up for Eddie until the dark side of NZT-48 comes calling.
Predator
Dutch Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his team of paramilitary mercenaries are sent to the Central American rainforest to rescue a politician whose helicopter was shot down. At least, that’s what they’ve been told. In reality, they’re looking for trapped CIA operatives and they were only called in after previous rescue efforts failed.
While looking for the hostages, the team encounters a technologically advanced extraterrestrial trophy hunter, searching the cosmos for the most dangerous game. Schaefer and company work to survive in a fight against a predator equipped with a cloaking device, thermal vision, and an arsenal of alien weapons.
Source Code
United States Army Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) was flying a mission over Afghanistan, when he suddenly woke up on a train. Eight minutes later, the train explodes, and Stevens finds himself locked inside a small pod, with only a small screen for communication. He learns that the train was attacked, and all the passengers killed.
His mission is to relive the eight minutes prior to the explosion, seeing the world through the eyes of one of the dead passengers. Stevens is tasked with identifying the bomber and preventing a subsequent attack. The pod gives him access to the source code and creates a simulation based on the victims’ final memories. As Stevens relives the attack over and over, he learns about the bomber, about himself, and the bizarre virtual world he’s living inside of.
Attack the Block
The 2011 alien invasion film Attack the Block begins on the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes Night, when an extraterrestrial plot is brewing. A group of local teenagers are out making mischief when a meteorite smashes into a car.
As more meteorites strike the area, alien creatures emerge and the gang arm themselves to defend their block, and the Earth. What follows is a story about finding community in unexpected places and coming together when it really counts, starring John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, and Nick Frost.
Children of Men
Based on the 1992 P.D. James novel of the same name, Children of Men takes place in 2027, nearly two decades after the onset of widespread human infertility. Without the hope of a new generation, human civilization is in a rapid state of collapse. The few remaining world governments have fallen into totalitarian police states.
With supporting performances by Julianne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Michael Caine, Clive Own stars as Theo Faron, a man trying to help a young refugee woman who also happens to be the first pregnant person in 18 years.
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken flips the mythological script by making heroes of tentacled monsters. Young Ruby Gillman seems like an ordinary teenager, but she and the rest of her family are secretly krakens living among us in human form. When Ruby or any of the women in her family are in the ocean, they transform into their true legendary form.
Wanting to learn the truth about her family’s past and her future, Ruby sneaks into the ocean to meet with her grandmother, the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas. Just in case being a teenager wasn’t hard enough already, Ruby now has to balance growing up with protecting her family and the world from malicious mermaids.
Push
Chris Evans’ most famous superhero role is undoubtedly that of Steve Rogers and Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s far from his only one. Evans also played Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, in a duo of Fantastic Four films in 2005 and 2007.
Between those two roles, Evans portrayed a down-on-his-luck super in the 2009 film Push. For decades, humans have been emerging with seemingly superhuman psychic abilities. There are Movers, those who can move objects with their minds, and Watchers who can see the future before it occurs, as well as people who can use energy either as a weapon or to heal. Government entities identify and track these individuals, forcing them to undergo often fatal experiments to boost their abilities.
It’s a world in which those with special abilities are used, abused, and ultimately killed. And it’s up to Nick (Evans) and Cassie (Dakota Fanning) to set things right.
Knowing
If you throw a dart at Nicolas Cage’s filmography there’s no way of knowing if you’re going to get a heartwarming and serious film or one of the weirdest movie experiences of your life. One thing you can be sure of, though, is that you’re going to have a good time. Knowing falls somewhere in the middle of the Cage Camp Continuum and sees him playing a mathematician who discovers a sequence of numbers which accurately predicts major disasters.
After banging his head against this apocalyptic sudoku puzzle he realizes the numbers identify the date, planetary coordinates, and body count of every major disaster going back centuries. There are only a few dates left before the end of the sequence, and with it, the end of the world.
Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kind of Left Out
Teenagers Calvin (Jacob Buster) and Itsy (Emma Tremblay) are unlikely friends growing up in a small town. Itsy is new, having just moved with her family from the big city, while Calvin has lived there all his life and become something of a town pariah.
Ten years earlier, Calvin’s folks disappeared during the once-a-decade appearance of the fictional comet Jesper. Calvin becomes convinced that his mom and dad were snatched up by alien visitors and that he’ll be able to join them when the comet returns. His entire life becomes a preparation for the imminent reappearance of the comet.
What follows is a heartfelt sci-fi coming of age story from screenwriter Austin Osanai Everett and director Jake Van Wagoner that is both out of this world and totally grounded right here on Earth.
Donnie Darko
Richard Kelly’s 2001 cult classic, Donnie Darko, 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 - 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.
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.
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.
Upside Down
Juan Diego Solanas’ 2012 film Upside Down, blurs the lines between science fiction and fantasy to tell a cosmic love story only possible in our imaginations. We enter the worlds of Upside Down through the eyes of Adam (Jim Sturgess). He’s an ordinary guy in extraordinary circumstances, a citizen of a binary planet system with an impossible gravitational relationship.
The two worlds, known only as Up and Down, share a gravitational field, allowing them to orbit in incredibly close proximity to one another. But that doesn’t mean that residents of the two worlds travel freely between them. On these worlds, matter adheres to a few seemingly inalienable rules. First and most important, all matter is only attracted to the gravity of its home world. Second, matter can be counterbalanced by “inverse” matter from the opposing world. Finally, contact with inverse matter is temporary and results in spontaneous combustion after a few hours.
Adam might have been satisfied to live out his life on one world, but when he meets Eden, a woman from Up, they set about rewriting both the laws of their society and the laws of physics.
Stream these great sci-fi movies and many more on Peacock!
