Warner Bros. Pictures has been making movies for over a century, so it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that its film catalog on HBO and Max includes some of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made.
Max and HBO also have access to a handful of films from outside studios, including The Martian starring Matt Damon and The Terminator, which gave Arnold Schwarzenegger his first real breakthrough role.
To help you find the top films in that category, Watch With Us has put together this list of the seven great sci-fi movies on HBO and Max right now.
However, some of these titles may only be around for a short time, so watch them while you can.
Need more recommendations? Then check out the Best New Movies on Netflix, Max, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and More, the Best Movies on Amazon Prime Video Right Now, the Best Movies on Hulu Right Now and Best Movies on Netflix Right Now.
Christopher Nolan‘s Inception has an ending that’s still being debated 15 years after its release. That wouldn’t happen if the story surrounding the film wasn’t equally compelling. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Dom Cobb, who makes his living stealing insider secrets from corporate victims by going into their dreams and navigating their subconscious.
Cobb’s latest client, Saito (Ken Watanabe), makes an offer he can’t refuse to infiltrate the mind of his business rival, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), and infect him with an idea he believes to be his own. It’s supposedly impossible for Cobb and his team to pull that off, and if anything goes wrong, they may be lost in someone else’s dream.
Inception is streaming on Max.
James Cameron considers The Terminator to be his true directorial debut, and it turned out to be one of the all-time great sci-fi films. A young Arnold Schwarzenegger is absolutely terrifying as the T-800 terminator model who has been sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). But not before killing two other Sarah Connors just to be sure he got the right one.
Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a soldier from the future, follows the terminator back in time to protect Sarah on behalf of her future son, John. He’s the one who gets to explain the stakes to Sarah and what will happen to humanity if John is never born. But the terminator itself is a relentless foe that will never stop coming after them unless they stop it first.
The Terminator is streaming on Max.
The story of Companion‘s lead characters, Iris (Heretic‘s Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid), could have been a charming rom-com… if it were real. Iris feels that she has the perfect soulmate in Josh until she learns that she isn’t really his girlfriend. Instead, Iris is an AI-powered android who was programmed to believe she was in love with Josh.
Iris may not be a person, but she can still feel betrayal and anger. Josh used her, but he made some critical mistakes that left Iris with the ability to manipulate and enhance her own programming. For Iris, these self-improvements aren’t just an evolution of her very being, they’re essential to her survival.
Companion is streaming on Max.
Stanley Kubrick (Eyes Wide Shut) and Arthur C. Clarke‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey still feels ahead of its time nearly six decades after its release. The conflict between the A.I. known as HAL 9000 (Douglas Rain) and two astronauts, David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood), is especially prescient. The astronauts catch HAL in an error, and the AI becomes increasingly unhinged and paranoid about their intentions towards it.
The larger mission that David and Frank have embarked upon has implications for the past and future of humanity. An enigmatic alien monolith is broadcasting a signal to Jupiter. What awaits is one of the most mind-bending sequences ever put to film.
2001: A Space Odyssey is streaming on Max.
Max has both RoboCop and its 2014 remake, but only the former is recognized as a sci-fi classic. That’s because director Paul Verhoeven‘s 1987 original is a superior film that adds some truly hilarious satire to the straightforward story of a cop, Alex Murphy (Peter Weller), whose humanity has been stripped away from him.
Murphy didn’t volunteer to become RoboCop. Instead, he was murdered and resurrected as a cyborg under the control of the OCP corporation. The RoboCop experiment turns out to be very successful, but Murphy is haunted by the memories of the man he used to be. Murphy can’t get his old life back, but he can still bring the men who killed him to justice.
RoboCop is streaming on Max.
Dredd had a considerably smaller budget than its predecessor, the 1995 Judge Dredd movie starring Sylvester Stallone. That’s why the futuristic city of Mega-City One is considerably less advanced in the reboot. What this film lacks in flash and spectacle, it makes up for with action and a script that’s largely true to the British comic characters that inspired the movie.
Karl Urban gives a commanding performance as Dredd in a world where Judges have replaced police, juries and executioners. Olivia Thirlby co-stars as Cassandra Anderson, a psychic Judge on her evaluation mission with Dredd. During a routine investigation, the two Judges are locked in a massive apartment complex controlled by drug lord Madeline “Ma-Ma” Madrigal (Lena Headey). Their only way out is by fighting their way up, no matter what Ma-Ma has waiting for them on each floor.
Dredd is streaming on Max.
There’s a distinct lack of Martians in The Martian, or aliens of any kind. Instead, this Ridley Scott adaptation of Andy Weir‘s novel is a gripping story of survival about Mark Watney (Matt Damon), an astronaut on the Ares III mission to Mars who was accidentally left behind on the red planet and forced to fend for himself.
Although some dramatic liberties are taken, the film and the novel largely use real science to explain how Watney can survive long enough to be rescued. Jessica Chastain costars as Commander Melissa Lewis, the woman in charge of the Ares III mission. Lewis wouldn’t have abandoned Watney if she knew he was still alive. Once Lewis and her crew learn the truth, they have to figure out if they should obey orders and return to Earth or make an attempt to save Watney themselves.
The Martian is streaming on Max.
