One Of 2025’s Best Sci-fi Movies Is Now Streaming

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A Yautja wearing a helmet crossing laser-lined blades with another in Predator Badlands

Published Feb 12, 2026, 1:01 PM EST

Alex is the Senior Movies Editor, managing the New Movies team, as well as one of ScreenRant's Rotten Tomatoes-approved critics. After graduating from Brown University with a B.A. in English, he spent a locked-down year in Scotland completing a Master's in Film Studies from the University of Edinburgh, which he hears is a nice, lively city. He now lives in and works from Milan, Italy, conveniently a short train ride from the Venice Film Festival, which he first covered for SR in 2024.

2026 is shaping up to be a big year for science fiction. In addition to some creative swings from talented filmmakers, including Project Hail Mary and Flowervale Street, three of the biggest directors in the genre are returning with new sci-fi films this year. Steven Spielberg is first up with Disclosure Day, his anticipated return to the alien subgenre, and Ridley Scott follows with his post-apocalyptic The Dog Stars. Then, to close out the year, Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Three wraps up his acclaimed trilogy of Frank Herbert adaptations. For fans of the genre, 2026 should be a great time at the movies.

But before all that, it's worth taking the time to catch up on any sci-fi gems of 2025 you missed. There weren't that many at the blockbuster scale promised by Spielberg, Scott, and Villeneuve, but one of the few has just made its way to streaming – and it deserved even more love than it got when it originally released.

Predator: Badlands Is Now Streaming On Hulu & Disney+ (And It's Awesome)

Thia smiling while the Predator is screaming in Predator Badlands

Predator: Badlands is now streaming on Hulu in the US and on Disney+ internationally. This third project from director Dan Trachtenberg in the Predator franchise's current revival was the first to release theatrically, after 2022's Prey and last year's animated anthology Predator: Killer of Killers were both Hulu exclusives. Just like those predecessors, it was embraced by critics, sitting at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes as of writing; the audience score is even higher, at 95%. But its box office was a bit of a mixed bag.

For a Predator movie, Badlands did well. It set a new opening weekend record for the franchise and eventually became the highest-grossing entry yet (when unadjusted for inflation) at $184 million, topping Alien vs. Predator's $172 million. However, given the film's budget was reportedly $105 million, Disney was likely hoping for a better performance. Trachtenberg proved the franchise is theatrically viable, but perhaps not at the blockbuster scope of Badlands.

Which is too bad, because that scope is absolutely glorious. The Predator movies are typically contained action films, but Badlands aims for an outer space adventure, complete with all the worldbuilding that implies. Creative design work, great VFX, and the intense score are all in perfect sync. A Yautja language was even created for the film. It all delivers on that immersive sci-fi experience that makes the Star Wars and Dune movies so irresistible.

The tone differs from its franchise predecessors, as well, given this is the first entry with a Predator protagonist and he gets an actual growth arc. But any fears that it skimps on the action are baseless. Much was made over the fact that the movie is rated PG-13, as SR learned was the goal during our Predator: Badlands set visit, but that's more due to a technicality than a lack of violence. The MPA's ratings when it comes to violence are especially sensitive to blood, but because Badlands' characters are either aliens or Weyland-Yutani synthetics, none of them bleed red. That alone was enough to keep the film from drifting into R territory.

Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill famously switches into black-and-white during one especially violent sequence to exploit this same loophole, keeping the movie from being rated NC-17.

For those who haven't yet checked it out, it's well worth a watch. There aren't many sci-fi movies that can deliver the feeling that this one pretty much nails. And as with all of Trachtenberg's movies so far, the storytelling is excellently calibrated; by the end, you might find yourself desperate to see what happens next. Whether we ever get to could depend on how this does on streaming, so when you queue up Predator: Badlands this week, you'll be doing us all a favor.