Sci-fi is more than Star Wars, aliens and killer robots. Science fiction writers and directors may traffic in the fantastic, but the best sci-fi stories have something to say about the present we’re living in.
Fortunately, the streaming era has opened the floodgates for even more sci-fi tales that don’t have to break out on the big screen.
If you’re looking for suggestions, Watch With Us has assembled the three underrated sci-fi movies you should watch in May. One film is a recent box-office bomb that is sure to be a cult classic soon, another is a neglected 2024 movie starring an Oscar winner and the final film is one of the best animated movies made in the last decade.
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‘Mickey 17’ (2025)
Robert Pattinson plays the title character of Mikey 17, but he’s also Mickey 1-16. In writer/director Bong Joon Ho‘s latest film, Mickey Barnes was just a regular guy before he jumped at the chance to go into space as an expendable worker. On his way to an interstellar colony, Mickey gets all of the dangerous jobs and consequently, he dies. A lot. By the time Mickey gets to his new home, he’s already on his 17th clone.
One thing that remains constant between the clones is Mickey’s feelings for Nasha Barridge (Naomi Ackie), a security agent in his group. There are also very strict rules that dictate that only one clone can ever be active at once. Mickey is going to break that rule, largely because his friend, Timo (Steven Yeun), made a bad decision. But if there’s more than one Mickey, which one gets to live?
Mickey 17 is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video. But it’s also likely to appear on Max either in late May or in June.
I.S.S. (2023)
On the International Space Station, the problems of Earth stay on Earth, or at least they did until the events of I.S.S., a 2023 thriller directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. Astronauts Kira Foster (Ariana DeBose) and Christian Campbell (John Gallagher Jr.) thought they were entering a small community built on trust when they joined their American colleague, Gordon Barrett (Chris Messina), on the station. The Russian cosmonauts, Alexey (Pilou Asbæk) and Nicholai Pulov (Costa Ronin), are friendly and Gordon is even romancing Weronika Vetrov (Masha Mashkova).
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All of that flies out the window when a nuclear war breaks out between the U.S. and Russia, and both countries send orders to seize control of the ISS by any means necessary. Suddenly, the two sides aren’t brothers in science anymore, and no one is sure who they can really trust.
I.S.S. is streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime.
‘The Wild Robot’ (2024)
After the dark drama of I.S.S., consider The Wild Robot a palate cleanser. This DreamWorks Animation film is closer in spirit to Pixar’s WALL-E or WB’s The Iron Giant than either of the other two films on this list, and it’s also by far one of the best sci-fi films of the last few years.
Lupita Nyong’o lends her voice to Roz, a robot who finds herself stranded in a forest before she adapts to make it her home. Roz even learns to communicate with the animals, including a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal) and an opossum called Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara). They become her surrogate family, as does Brightbill (Kit Connor), an orphaned goose that Roz adopts. But Roz’s peaceful new life can’t last forever, as her manufacturers have sent another robot, Vontra (Stephanie Hsu), to retrieve her at all costs.
The Wild Robot is streaming on Peacock.
