7 Must-Watch Sci-Fi Movies on Amazon Prime Video Right Now (April 2025)

For Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal), the end of the world is just 28 days away. The title character of this sci-fi thriller survives an unexplainable accident simply by not being home. Donnie also begins displaying symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, including waking hallucinations of Frank the Rabbit (James Duval).

Frank is the one who’s been whispering secrets about the impending end in Donnie’s ear, even as the latter strikes up a romance with the new girl in town, Gretchen Ross (Jena Malone). Donnie may be a little crazy, but Frank isn’t just the product of his unhinged mind. There really is something coming to town that might doom everyone, and Donnie needs to understand and find it before time runs out.

Donnie Darko is streaming on Prime Video.

If Super 8 feels like an extended homage to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and other Steven Spielberg films, it’s not a coincidence. Spielberg produced Super 8 alongside writer and director J.J. Abrams, and it takes a scarier approach to the material than E.T. did. In the late ’70s, teenagers Joe Francis Lamb (Joel Courtney) and Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning) form a friendship despite a tragedy that alienated their fathers from each other.

While making a sci-fi Super 8 film with their mutual friend, Charles Kaznyk (Riley Griffiths), Joe and Alice witness an incident at the train tracks that was no accident. The kids have stumbled upon an alien’s escape from the government, and this creature doesn’t just want to phone home. It’s willing to kill to protect itself, and Air Force officer Colonel Nelec (Noah Emmerich) will silence anyone who stands between him and the alien.

Super 8 is streaming on Prime Video.

Passengers places Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) on a 120-year journey to a new world alongside nearly 5,000 other colonists. But he wasn’t supposed to be awake for the trip! After a malfunction brings Jim out of stasis, his intense loneliness and depression lead him to wake up a woman named Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) so he can have someone real to talk to.

Although Aurora bonds with Jim, he’s haunted by guilt and afraid she’ll hate him if she discovers the truth about her awakening. That may be the least of their problems, because the ship desperately needs repairs. If Jim and Aurora can’t fix it, then none of the colonists will make it to their new home.

Passengers is streaming on Prime Video.

10 Cloverfield Lane is a sci-fi film, but it’s a thriller first and foremost. The story revolves around Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a young woman who awakens in a bunker with Howard Stambler (John Goodman) and Emmett DeWitt (John Gallagher Jr.). Howard claims that there was an attack on the outside that poisoned the atmosphere and Emmett backs up his account.

Michelle doesn’t easily accept this, but there is clearly something terrifying happening outside the bunker’s walls. Soon, she’ll discover a very good reason to fear for her life inside the bunker as well.

10 Cloverfield Lane is streaming on Prime Video.

Decades before he wrote Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton‘s novel The Andromeda Strain skillfully used his medical background to make the story’s science fiction elements feel plausible. In the film adaptation, a U.S. satellite falls from orbit and brings something alien back down to Earth. Whatever it is proves to be fatal for almost anyone who comes into contact with it.

Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill), Charles Dutton (David Wayne), Mark Hall (James Olson) and Ruth Leavitt (Kate Reid) are among the scientists tasked by the military to study the apparent alien organism and prevent it from spreading. Because if it gets loose, the so-called Andromeda strain could wipe out humanity.

The Andromeda Strain is streaming on Prime Video.

Three years before playing RoboCop, Peter Weller introduced the world to Dr. Buckaroo Banzai, a man who was somewhat improbably a genius inventor, a surgeon, a test pilot and even a rock star on the side. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is played for laughs, but it’s been embraced as a cult film that was underappreciated upon its release.

Early in the film, Buckaroo really does break through to the eighth dimension, and he accidentally brings back something alien. Buckaroo also finds himself the target of an evil scientist who wants to steal his work and an alien invasion from the eighth dimension. It’s a good thing that Buckaroo has a rock band backing him, because otherwise humanity would be doomed.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is streaming on Prime Video.

Spaceballs is a spoof from the word go, and its inclusion on this list may be surprising to some. Mel Brooks‘ Star Wars parody may not be a serious movie, but it’s light-years ahead of the other films that Prime Video put in this category. If the plot of this movie was good enough for The Marvels to steal, then it’s good enough for this list.

Brooks co-wrote and directed the film in addition to taking on the dual roles of Yogurt and President Skroob, the leader of the Spaceballs. Skroob and his dorky right-hand man, Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis), plan to suck all of the air out of Planet Druidia if they can capture Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) and hold her for ransom. A blue-collar space merc named Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his faithful companion, Barf (John Candy), may be the only ones who can stand in the way of the Spaceballs and save the princess.

Spaceballs is streaming on Prime Video.