7 Classic Sci-Fi Movies You Can Watch for Free in February 2024
From Schwarzenegger to Stepford, all at your fingertips.
Subscriptions getting out of control? Don't worry – if you're willing to sit through a couple of ads, there are a number of streaming services out there that will bring you the content you want absolutely free.
Here are 7 classic sci-fi movies that you can watch without dusting off your credit card.
Total Recall (1990)
Where to Watch: Tubi
Forget the 2012 remake — you gotta go back to the Arnie classic.
It's 2084, and construction worker Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is bored with his life. He dreams of traveling to Mars, and visits a company called 'Rekall' that will transplant false memories into his brain (handily giving him the memories of Mars without the expense of a trip).
When there is a glitch in the procedure, Quaid realizes that his entire life has been a false, transplanted memory – and his real memories are too dangerous for him to be allowed to live.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Where to Watch: Plex, Tubi
A cult classic that never quite worked itself out of the popular imagination, Donnie Darko is as strange and fascinating now as it was when it was first released.
During a presidential election, teenager Donnie Darko sleepwalks out of his house and has a vision of a huge rabbit, who warns him that the world is about to end. When he gets back home, a jet plane has crash landed through his bedroom window. What's real? What's an illusion? Is Donnie suffering a mental illness, or has he slipped into a parallel world?
Colossal (2016)
Where to Watch: CBC Gem
We're calling it now – Colossal may have flown completely under the radar when it was first released, but this bizarre, funny, dark, singular movie is due for a cult resurgence.
Partygirl Gloria (Anne Hathaway ) returns to her hometown, licking her wounds after being kicked out by her boyfriend and leaving New York. Once home, she reunites with her old friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis ). After drinking too much and blacking out, Gloria awakens to news reports that a Godzilla- like monster terrorized Seoul in the night.
Soon Gloria realizes that she can remotely control the actions of the monster, and it only gets weirder and more delightful from there.
The Body Stealers (1969)
Where to Watch: Tubi
Let's go all the way back to the hyper-cheesy sci-fi of the 1960s! In this classic, two British paratroopers disappear without a trace in mid-air. When one of their bodies reappears, his biochemistry appears to be altered… and then his form is assumed by another life force, one not of this world.
A look at the poster should tell you all you need to know about whether you'd enjoy the movie or not – the image is absolutely corny and hilarious, just like the film.
The Fifth Element (1997)
Where to Watch: Plex, Tubi
Gary Oldman, Chris Tucker, Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich… this sci-fi/action adventure is worth a rewatch for the cast alone.
It's the 23rd century, and cab driver Korben Dallas finds the fate of the world in his hands when the mystical but innocent Leeloo tumbles into his cab. She is the 'fifth element', and the only one who can stop the end of the world. Not a frame of this movie is ever bleak or monochrome – it's full of bright colours and kooky characters.
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (2009)
Where to Watch: CBC Gem
Sticklers will point out that Imaginarium is fantasy rather than sci-fi (the Devil is in the details, literally). But it's now 15 years after the movie's release and virtual reality, AI, and the horrors of the internet have made much of the storyline depressingly prescient.
Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) runs a traveling show where visitors can slip into a fantastical world that offers them anything they can imagine. Will they choose self-indulgence and ignorance, or to better themselves? The answer is usually the former – but speaking from the digital wasteland of 2024, we probably could have told them that.
The Stepford Wives (1975)
Where to Watch: Tubi
Before Nicole Kidman's silly, comedic version in 2004, Ira Levin's sci-fi/horror classic was given a much more serious treatment.
Joanna Eberhart, a successful photographer, moves to the idyllic town of Stepford with her supportive husband and two children. She finds the hyper-submissive housewives of Stepford to be extremely disturbing – especially when she realizes that they all used to be highly intelligent and accomplished professionals.