Hulu is all about the Huludays in December, with enough Christmas movies to see you through to the new year. Fortunately, sci-fi movies are also in abundance on Hulu in December, with some newly arrived films from other studios that are almost like an early Christmas gift.
It was pretty easy to narrow our choices down to the three sci-fi movies on Hulu that you need to watch in December. District 9 is one of the few sci-fi movies that have ever been nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, while The Matrix Reloaded is the best of the Matrix sequels. But before we dive into those films, let’s take a look at Aporia, a sci-fi movie that made its streaming debut on Hulu this month.
Aporia (2023)
Judy Greer headlines Aporia, a newly arrived sci-fi film on Hulu. This is a very low-key time travel story, so if you’re expecting flying DeLoreans or action spectacles, then you’re going to be disappointed. Instead, this is largely a subdued drama about Sophie (Greer), a widowed mother struggling to cope with the death of her husband, Mal (Edi Gathegi), who died after being hit by a drunk driver.
Mal’s friend, Jabir (Payman Maadi), provides some hope for an end to Sophie’s paralyzing grief with an experimental time machine. And while the machine won’t send someone back in time, it can kill a specific target in the past and alter the course of Sophie and Mal’s fates. The problem is that there is no perfect outcome, and any changes made to the past will have unforeseen consequences in the present.
Watch Aporia on Hulu.
District 9 (2009)
The premise of director and screenwriter Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 is unabashedly an allegory for South Africa’s apartheid era, with aliens substituted in for the native South Africans who suffered under colonial rule. It’s also by far the best movie Blomkamp has ever made.
In the backstory of the film, the insect-like aliens nicknamed Prawns arrived on Earth as refugees and were forced to live in slum-like conditions in South Africa’s District 9. Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is a bureaucrat who is part of a team that is attempting to force the aliens into yet another slum. But when Wikus is exposed to the Prawns’ fuel, he starts transforming into an alien himself. This leads Wikus to experience discrimination firsthand as he stumbles on a Prawn plot to escape Earth. And Wikus’ only hope to save his humanity is to make sure that the plan succeeds.
Watch District 9 on Hulu.
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
All of The Matrix films are on Hulu this month, and the first film remains the best one. But since we talk about The Matrix so often, it’s time to throw the spotlight on the second movie, The Matrix Reloaded. The Wachowskis never topped the original, and there’s been a sharp decline in the subsequent films. However, The Matrix Reloaded left fans with some hope that the Wachowskis could pull off their grand saga.
Twenty years later, we know it didn’t work out that way. But the action in The Matrix Reloaded is immaculate, even if the plot and script are not. Neo (Keanu Reeves) really seems like Superman in this film, and there are some truly stunning sequences where he pushes his powers to their limits. The film’s climatic sequence is set in motion by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) with the promise that it may end humanity’s war against the machines. Yet, the cost of that victory could be the life of Neo’s lover, Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss).
Watch The Matrix Reloaded on Hulu.
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