Science fiction is still popular in Hollywood, with a new Star Wars movie dominating the box office and Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day just around the corner.
The genre is also popular on Hulu, which just added a slew of new films that deal with aliens, robots and groundbreaking inventor Nikola Tesla.
The streamer just added Descendent, one of those under-the-radar flicks you discover on streaming and wonder why no one else has seen it.
Watch With Us also recommends you stream the early Christopher Nolan hit The Prestige, which features Tesla and a gaggle of feuding magicians, and the Will Smith action picture, I, Robot.
‘Descendent’ (2025)
Like a lot of soon-to-be first-time fathers, Sean (Ross Marquand) is nervous. His wife, Andrea (Sarah Bolger), is depending on him to be a good dad, and he’s already feeling the pressure before the baby is even born. After he has a strange encounter with what could be a UFO, Sean’s behavior begins to change for the worse. He becomes increasingly paranoid, leading him to hallucinate strange visions of a spaceship and a dog he gave up as a child two decades ago. Was Sean touched by an angel alien? Or have his ambivalent feelings about becoming a parent caused him to go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?
Descendent is a lo-fi thriller with a high-concept premise — what if aliens were real, and they’re here to tell you you’re going to suck as a dad? To its credit, the movie never fully reveals what’s going on with Sean; the director, Peter Ciella, leaves it up to you to decide. The film gives you enough clues to support a variety of theories, from the sensible (Sean’s just insecure) to the out-there (aliens are invading and Sean is patient zero). If you’re a sci-fi fan looking for an alternative to big, noisy blockbusters like Independence Day, Descendant is a good film that will inspire some robust debate with the people you’re watching it with.
‘The Prestige’ (2006)
Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) are Victorian-era magicians who used to be friends but are now bitter rivals. Both men are obsessed with outdoing one another and frequently sabotage each other’s magical acts. When Borden pulls off the seemingly impossible task of teleporting himself across a stage, Angier becomes determined to discover the secret behind his trick. But the more he discovers about Borden, the worse his life becomes until he’s driven to commit an act that no magic trick can erase.
That’s just the tip of the convoluted iceberg that is The Prestige, a thriller that is as engrossing as it is confusing. It should come as no surprise that it’s directed by Christopher Nolan, who loves a good pretzel-shaped narrative. In this film, he blends magic, science, cloning and Nikola Tesla in a perplexing plot I’m still trying to figure out. Miraculously, that only enhances the film’s entertainment value.
It’s fun watching Jackman and Bale one-up each other, and the supporting cast, which includes Scarlett Johansson as a love-struck magician’s assistant and David Bowie as Tesla, constantly surprises you. After The Prestige, Nolan graduated to bigger, more mainstream films like The Dark Knight and this summer’s epic The Odyssey, but you’d wish he’d return to making schlocky period thrillers like this one.
‘I, Robot’ (2004)
It’s 2035, and humanoid robots help humanity with all the menial tasks they are no longer willing to do. Things are going great until the unthinkable happens — a world-famous scientist is found dead, and it looks like one of the robots he created, Sonny (Alan Tudyk), did it. But as Detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) interrogates Sonny, he begins to realize Sonny might be innocent — and the pawn in a larger conspiracy that could spell doom for humankind.
Liberally adapted from Isaac Asimov’s classic short-story collection of the same name, I, Robot is an odd blend of “hard science fiction” and mindless action. The movie works because both are expected so well, with Sonny’s artificial humanity brought to fascinating life by Tudyk’s nuanced vocal performance and still-impressive special effects, and Spooner’s frequent battles with all kinds of rogue technology. I, Robot is good enough to warrant a watch, but its flaws make you wish someone would remake it as Asimov intended.
