Hulu dropped a lot of its classic sci-fi movies at the end of December, so it will probably be a few months before the missing Planet of the Apes or Alien films return to their natural streaming home. In the meantime, Hulu has a handful of films on loan from other studios that should scratch that itch for genre lovers.
This month’s picks for the three sci-fi movies on Hulu that you need to watch in January include two action films that don’t require a lot of thinking, and you may enjoy them more if you don’t try to make sense of them. Our final choice is a movie that tells a unique time travel story despite its low budget.
Need more recommendations? Then check out the best new movies to stream this week, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
Pacific Rim (2013)
If you love sci-fi, you may be drift compatible with Guillermo del Toro’s ode to giant freakin’ monsters. Pacific Rim barely makes any sense after the words “To fight monsters, we created monsters of our own,” are uttered early in the film. Trust us, you won’t care, because it’s gloriously fun to watch the mechs — or Jaegers, as they’re called in the movie — beat up the big alien kaiju.
Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) was once one of the top Jaeger pilots, and he even managed to fly one solo following the death of his brother. However, the experience leaves Becket broken and unwilling to fight until Marshal Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) recruits him for one last push against the invading kaiju. But if Becket can’t find another pilot to bond with, he’ll be stuck on the sidelines when the final battle arrives.
Watch Pacific Rim on Hulu.
65 (2023)
You may need to check your brain at the door for 65 as well. The first thing that the movie does is reveal that it takes place 65 million years ago on a planet that we’re all too familiar with. It never explains why humans were already living in space at that time or why Mills (Adam Driver) essentially has to hire himself out as a space Uber driver to support his family.
After a crash landing on prehistoric Earth, Mills and a young girl named Koa (Ariana Greenblatt) are the only survivors… don’t speak the same language. If they don’t get on the same page, then neither of them will be leaving… and there’s a good chance they’ll be dinosaur chow as well.
Watch 65 on Hulu.
Aporia (2023)
Aporia is a rare time travel story where no one actually travels through time. The technology just isn’t there. What time travel technology can do is give Sophie Rice (Judy Greer) a chance to reunite with her late husband, Malcolm (Edi Gathegi). Malcolm and his science partner, Jabir Karim (Payman Maadi), were attempting to create a real-time machine. What they got instead was a machine that could send a subatomic particle back in time to kill anyone they wished, even the drunk driver who killed Malcolm.
What Sophie and Jabir fail to realize in time is that changing the past is never as cut and dried as it seems, nor is only one thing changed. By taking fate into their own hands, the world and timeline they live in starts to become unrecognizable… and they may lose the very things that they wanted to hold on to.
Watch Aporia on Hulu.
