Streaming tips

Recent sci-fi movies you may have missed...

Prospect

Burned through The Last of Us and need more Pedro Pascal? Consider this strikingly similar lo-fi movie in which he plays a prospector on a remote moon who becomes an enigmatic father figure to a girl played by Sophie Thatcher. Hulu

Love and Monsters

Not even a monster apocalypse can stop true love in this charming 2020 genrecrosser. Dylan O’Brien

(Teen Wolf) stars as a young survivor who leaves the safety of his communal bunker when he learns his girlfriend survived and is living 80 miles away. Pluto TV

I Am Mother

In this stark 2019 drama, a girl raised in a high-tech shelter by an android she knows as Mother is shocked when an actual woman, played by Hilary Swank, gains entry and offers details of an unexpected counterreality. Netflix

Strawberry Mansion

In this low-budget, superbly surreal 2022 release, a dream auditor working for a surveillance state in 2035 visits an old woman who hasn’t cooperated. When he travels into her reveries, he begins falling in love with her younger self. $3 on Vudu

Next Exit

A young man and woman meet while each is making a cross-country road trip to volunteer for a program that promises a bridge to the afterlife for anyone willing to commit assisted suicide. This indie is less about the sci-fi than the journey. Hulu

Belle

An anime riff on Beauty and the Beast, Mamoru Hosoda’s excellent 2022 film follows a teenager into a virtual world where she becomes a global pop superstar. She also begins obsessing over a beast she meets there. $5 on Amazon Prime