Looking for a sci-fi love story? These movies are perfect for Valentine’s Day
Looking for a sci-fi love story? These movies are perfect for Valentine’s Day
From time loops to the afterlife, these romances use sci-fi to hit you right in the feelings.
Valentine’s Day is basically here, and Tara and I already know what we’re watching. The movie I’m most excited about right now is “Eternity.” I missed it in theaters, which still bugs me, but it’s finally hitting Apple TV on Friday, Feb. 13, and I’ve had it circled for weeks. The setup alone gets me: in the afterlife, souls get one week to choose where they’ll spend eternity, and a woman named Joan has to decide between the man she built her life with and her first love, who died young and waited decades just to see her again. I’ll report back once I watch it, but in the meantime, I put together the best sci-fi romance movies on streaming. Happy watching!
Top 7 sci-fi romance movies on streaming right now
No. 7: ‘A Big Bold Beautiful Journey’ (2025) | Netflix
This movie goes big right away, and I respect the swing. “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” follows David (Colin Farrell) and Sarah (Margot Robbie), strangers who meet at a wedding and end up sharing a rental car with a magical GPS. Voiced by Jodie Turner-Smith, the GPS sends them through doors that drop them into different moments from their lives, from a Canadian lighthouse to old memories they’d rather avoid. Each stop forces them to deal with regret, loss, and who they used to be, while quietly pushing them together.
You can feel the influences right away. Kogonada has cited “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and that blend makes sense. It’s soft, dreamy, and a little melancholy, with Joe Hisaishi’s score doing a lot of emotional heavy lifting. It didn’t land for everyone, and I get that, but if you’re willing to go with it, there’s something genuinely sweet under the surface.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
Sarah and David are single strangers who meet at a mutual friend’s wedding and soon, through a surprising twist of fate, find themselves on a funny, fantastical, sweeping adventure together where they get to re-live important moments from their respective pasts, illuminating how they got to where they are in the present… and possibly getting a chance to alter their futures.
No. 6: ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ (2004) | Hulu
This one almost goes without saying, but it still belongs here. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” follows Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet), exes who decide to erase each other from their memories. As Joel relives their relationship in reverse, he realizes he doesn’t actually want to forget her and starts fighting the process from inside his own mind. It’s sci-fi used to dig straight into how stubborn love can be.
What really stands out is how tender it is underneath the weirdness. Yes, there’s a machine mapping your brain and a doctor casually wrecking your memories, but that’s not the point. The emotions are. The supporting cast is stacked, with Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, and Elijah Wood popping in as Joel’s inner world collapses. It’s intimate, not flashy, and it somehow gets better every time you revisit it. If you’ve never seen it, you should. If you’ve seen it a dozen times, one more won’t hurt.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realizes that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.
This is one of Jim Carrey’s best films. He pulls back his manic energy to reveal a fragile soul, broken by an ill-fated love. Kate Winslet is fantastic as a free spirit who simultaneously excites and torments her boyfriend. If you’ve ever had a broken heart, this movie will speak to you on several different levels.
The supporting cast is also great, with Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, David Cross, Kirsten Dunst, and Tom Wilkinson.
The movie comes from Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman, the team behind other mind-bending classics like “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation.”
No. 5: ‘The Lobster’ (2015) | HBO Max
“The Lobster” is set in a near future where being single gets you 45 days to find a partner or be turned into an animal. Colin Farrell plays David, who checks into a hotel designed to force people into relationships. If he fails, he’ll become a lobster, which he chooses because they live a long time and like the ocean. The rules are absurd, and everyone treats them as normal.
Keep in mind that this is not an easy watch, and it’s not trying to be. The tone is flat and uncomfortable on purpose, and I know plenty of people who bounced off it. But if you settle into it, the movie will get you. It’s about how obsessed society is with being in a relationship and how isolating that can be. There’s also a quiet love story when David meets a short-sighted woman played by Rachel Weisz. It’s not traditionally romantic, but it lingers.
The Lobster
In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into animals and sent off into The Woods.
No. 4: ‘Passengers’ (2016) | MGM+
“Passengers” looks like a glossy space romance on the surface. A massive ship malfunctions and wakes Jim (Chris Pratt) decades too early, leaving him completely alone. Eventually, he makes the choice to wake Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence), condemning her to the same fate. They fall in love, and then everything unravels when she learns the truth. At the same time, the ship starts failing, putting everyone else onboard at risk.
What keeps this one interesting is the moral mess at the center of it. People argued endlessly about Jim’s choice when it came out, and that tension is the movie. The film doesn’t give easy answers. Pratt and Lawrence have real chemistry, and the whole thing looks fantastic, basically a luxury cruise ship in space. If you’re willing to sit with the discomfort, the final stretch delivers real stakes and a surprisingly tender ending.
Passengers
A spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early.
No. 3: ‘Her’ (2013) | Rent with Prime Video
“Her” sounds like a joke until it quietly wrecks you. Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore, a lonely letter writer who falls in love with an operating system named Samantha, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. It’s set in a near-future Los Angeles, and the sci-fi hook is simple, but it opens the door to something much deeper.
What makes it work is how emotionally grounded it feels. The world is just futuristic enough, but everything Theodore feels is painfully familiar. Samantha grows beyond what he can keep up with, and the movie starts asking what love actually needs to survive. Bodies? Time? Shared experience? Or maybe just understanding. It’ll move you and make you think.
Her
In the not so distant future, Theodore, a lonely writer, purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user’s every need. To Theodore’s surprise, a romantic relationship develops between him and his operating system. This unconventional love story blends science fiction and romance in a sweet tale that explores the nature of love and the ways that technology isolates and connects us all.
No. 2: ‘About Time’ (2013) | Peacock
“About Time” starts with a simple wish. Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) learns that the men in his family can travel back within their own lives, and he immediately uses it to improve his love life. He keeps rewinding awkward moments until he finally wins over Mary, played by Rachel McAdams. Over time, he learns that changing the past has limits and real consequences.
This movie sneaks up on you emotionally. It looks light, but it’s really about appreciating ordinary days while you still have them. Bill Nighy is perfect as Tim’s dad, quietly passing along wisdom without turning it into a lecture. Even the time travel rules feel casual and human. It’s warm, gentle, and really moving.
About Time
The night after another unsatisfactory New Year’s party, Tim’s father reveals to him that the men in their family have the ability to travel through time. They can’t change history, but they can change what happens and has happened in their own lives. Thus begins the start of a lesson in learning to appreciate life itself as it is, as it comes, and most importantly, the people living alongside us.
No. 1: ‘Palm Springs’ (2020) | Hulu
“Palm Springs” is my favorite sci-fi rom-com ever. Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti play two people stuck in a time loop at a wedding in Palm Springs, reliving the same day over and over. Samberg’s Nyles has fully given up, while Milioti’s Sarah is new to the loop and desperate to escape.
What makes this one special is how it balances chaos with real emotional growth. The repeated failures and ridiculous experiments slowly strip both characters down to who they really are. Their relationship grows out of honesty, not grand gestures. It’s funny, heartfelt, and super weird and awesome. And yes, it has dinosaurs. If you missed this movie, watch it ASAP.
Palm Springs
When carefree Nyles and reluctant maid of honor Sarah have a chance encounter at a Palm Springs wedding, things get complicated when they find themselves unable to escape the venue, themselves, or each other.