When you think of Peacock, especially this month, you think about live sports and the Paris Olympics. You might also think of some of the most exciting original shows like Twisted Metal and Poker Face. But Peacock has lots more to offer, including library titles from the NBC vault and more. This means not only TV shows but also movies.
Sci-fi is one of those genres everyone can appreciate, especially since there are so many types of sci-fi films, from ones that lean more towards cerebral and psychological to others that are horrors or lighter drama. These three sci-fi movies on Peacock you need to watch in July will satiate your appetite for mystery and intrigue.
Loosely based on the Jeff VanderMeer novel of the same name, Annihilation tells the story of a group of scientists who find themselves in a quarantined zone called “Shimmer” that is occupied by mutating plants and animals. Lena (Natalie Portman) is a cellular biology professor and former U.S. Army soldier who leads the team but finds herself being questioned when she is the only one to return. When her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) returns a year late, unable to explain where he was and visibly ill, Lena decides to join another mission to return to the Shimmer.
Portman and Isaac are joined in this sci-fi horror thriller movie by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, and Tessa Thompson. A visual spectacle, Annihilation is also an intelligent commentary on the state of humanity that will leave you thinking about many of its underlying messages. Our reviewer calls Annihilation both “impressively unique” and a “surprisingly satisfying adaptation of a novel that seemed incapable of adaptation.”
Stream Annihilation on Peacock.
In his prime, Bruce Willis starred in this sci-fi action film from Luc Besson about the planet Earth and its struggle for survival in the 23rd Century. Korben Dallas (Willis) is a taxi driver and a former special forces major who reluctantly begins working with Leeloo (Milla Jovovich), a young woman who enters his cab, to procure four mystical stones that will help Earth fight back against an evil entity.
Featuring incredible visual effects and captivating action sequences, The Fifth Element is arguably one of the most stunning movies from the ‘90s. It’s a reminder of just how talented Willis is at tackling downright badass characters with a dose of humor. It’s a “saving the world” story that has been told again and again, but in such spectacular fashion that The Fifth Element is the type of movie you’ll watch again and again.
Stream The Fifth Element on Peacock.
Not only can you watch the first Men in Black movie from 1997 on Peacock, you can also watch the two sequels, Men in Black II and Men in Black 3, from 2002 and 2012, respectively. Enjoy the elements of sci-fi, action, and comedy in this thrilling movie about two government agents, played by Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive) and Will Smith (Bad Boys: Ride or Die), who are tasked with monitoring and policing extraterrestrials.
The unlikely duo make sure peace and order is maintained while wiping memories of anyone who discovers that these aliens exist. The chemistry between Jones and Smith in Men in Black makes the movie (and its sequels) thoroughly entertaining to watch. Their wonderful performances paired with the fun visuals, entertaining action sequences, and that catchy theme song is a winning combination in not just the original but all three movies. Go ahead and fill a quiet night at home with these galaxy defenders and their otherworldly friends.
Stream Men in Black on Peacock.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?