Best Sci-Fi Films on KLM (August 2026): Critic-Ranked

KLM's August 2026 sci-fi lineup runs deep: Ridley Scott's Alien and Blade Runner anchor the classic end, Project Hail Mary and the complete Avatar trilogy carry the recent blockbuster end, and Christopher Nolan's Tenet lands as the month's headline new arrival. Rankings below combine Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic into a single percentage, sourced directly from KLM's live IFE catalog.

→ Browse the full KLM sci-fi catalog with critic scores — inflight.guide

CGI render © Airbus/Fixion, produced for Air France-KLM Group.

Why Sci-Fi Works at 35,000 Feet

There's something fitting about watching stories of space travel and isolation while sitting in a pressurised metal tube at 900 km/h. Project Hail Mary's lone-astronaut premise hits differently 11,000 metres over the Atlantic than it does on the sofa. Blade Runner's slow, vast compositions fill even a small seatback screen with genuine scale. The genre rewards the kind of sustained, dark-cabin attention a long-haul flight practically forces on you — one mild caveat being that the noisier action entries (Edge of Tomorrow, the Godzilla and Kong films) do benefit from noise-cancelling headphones more than the quieter, dialogue-driven titles do.

The Best Sci-Fi Films on KLM in August 2026

1. Alien (1979) — 91%

Runtime: 1 hr 57 min | RT Score: 93% | Metacritic: 89/100

Ridley Scott's original remains the finest science fiction horror film made. Sigourney Weaver's Ripley investigates a distress signal on a remote planet and finds something far worse waiting in the Nostromo's cargo hold. John Hurt and Ian Holm round out a cast operating at total command of the material. At 91% combined, it's the highest-rated sci-fi film in KLM's August catalog. Watch it with the cabin dark, then follow with Alien: Romulus (72%) if the flight's long enough.

2. Blade Runner (1982) — 87%

Runtime: 1 hr 57 min | RT Score: 89% | Metacritic: 84/100

Scott again, this time in rain-soaked 2019 Los Angeles. Harrison Ford's Deckard hunts genetically engineered replicants who are, in most ways that matter, indistinguishable from human. Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty gives the film its most quoted scene. Nearly 45 years on, its questions about memory and consciousness haven't dated because they were never really about the specific year on screen.

3. Project Hail Mary (2026) — 86%

Runtime: 2 hr 36 min | RT Score: 94% | Metacritic: 77/100

Phil Lord directs Ryan Gosling as a science teacher who wakes up alone on a spacecraft light-years from home with no memory of how he got there — the Andy Weir adaptation that's been the sci-fi catalog's headline new-era title since it landed. Sandra Hüller co-stars. A 94% Rotten Tomatoes score for a film built on solving an interstellar puzzle one clue at a time is a real achievement. Still the essential new sci-fi watch on KLM.

4. Dune: Part Two (2024) — 86%

Runtime: 2 hr 46 min | RT Score: 92% | Metacritic: 79/100

Denis Villeneuve's sequel — Timothée Chalamet's Paul Atreides uniting with Zendaya's Chani and the Fremen on Arrakis, Rebecca Ferguson as his increasingly unsettling mother — is a considerably stronger critical performer than the 2021 original (which sits much lower on this list at 39%). Watch Part Two even if the first film left you cold; Villeneuve's world-building pays off in full here.

5. Blade Runner 2049 (2017) — 85%

Runtime: 2 hr 44 min | RT Score: 88% | Metacritic: 81/100

Villeneuve again, this time continuing Scott's original — Ryan Gosling as a new-model blade runner named K, whose discovery threatens to unravel what's left of society, with Harrison Ford's Deckard resurfacing after thirty years missing. At 2 hr 44 min it's the longest single film on this list. Watch it the flight after Blade Runner if your itinerary allows consecutive long-hauls; the payoff compounds.

6. Avatar (2009) — 82%

Runtime: 2 hr 42 min | RT Score: 81% | Metacritic: 83/100

James Cameron's original Pandora adventure — Sam Worthington's paraplegic marine embedded with the Na'vi through an avatar body, Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri — still holds up as a visual-effects landmark nearly two decades on. It's also the entry point for the trilogy spotlighted below, all three films now available on KLM simultaneously.

7. Ad Astra (2019) — 82%

Runtime: 2 hr 3 min | RT Score: 83% | Metacritic: 80/100

James Gray's near-future space drama sends Brad Pitt's astronaut across the solar system chasing the truth about his father, Tommy Lee Jones, and a doomed expedition three decades in the past. It's a deliberately quiet, interior film — more 2001: A Space Odyssey than Interstellar in its pacing. Some viewers find it slow; in a darkened cabin, it becomes genuinely meditative.

8. Edge of Tomorrow (2014) — 81%

Runtime: 1 hr 54 min | RT Score: 91% | Metacritic: 71/100

Tom Cruise in a time-loop alien-invasion film opposite Emily Blunt — he dies, he resets, he dies again, incrementally better each time. The screenplay is sharper than the marketing ever let on, and the film's reputation has only grown since release. At 81%, it's arguably the most underrated title on this list.

9. Mickey 17 (2025) — 75%

Runtime: 2 hr 17 min | RT Score: 78% | Metacritic: 72/100

Bong Joon Ho directs Robert Pattinson as Mickey Barnes, an "expendable" whose job is to die repeatedly for a living, printed anew each time. Naomi Ackie co-stars. It's a stranger, funnier film than the premise suggests, and a solid pick for anyone who wants their sci-fi with a satirical edge.

10. Elio (2025) — 75%

Runtime: 1 hr 38 min | RT Score: 83% | Metacritic: 66/100

Pixar's cosmic misadventure — a space-obsessed kid mistaken for Earth's leader and beamed up to an interplanetary organisation — is the family-friendly entry on this list. Yonas Kibreab voices Elio; Zoe Saldaña (also in Avatar, above) co-stars. At 98 minutes, it's the shortest film here and an easy one to queue up for a child on a shorter sector.

Christopher Nolan on KLM: Tenet Joins the Catalog's Puzzle-Box Sci-Fi

Christopher Nolan's Tenet (2020, 70%) is the month's most notable new arrival — John David Washington's unnamed Protagonist working through "inversion," a concept the film insists from the outset is not time travel. Robert Pattinson co-stars. Tenet's arrival gives KLM's August catalog two of modern sci-fi's most formally inventive, high-concept entries: Nolan's structurally reversed thriller now sits alongside Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 as the three sci-fi films on this list built as much around ideas as spectacle. Tenet's 70% is more divisive than Blade Runner's numbers — it's a film people tend to either love on a second viewing or bounce off entirely — but it's a real new-arrival hook for anyone chasing "what's new in sci-fi on KLM."

Spotlight: The Complete Avatar Trilogy on KLM

All three Avatar films remain available simultaneously on KLM in August:

Film Year RT Metacritic Combined
Avatar 2009 81% 83 82%
Avatar: The Way of Water 2022 76% 67 72%
Avatar: Fire and Ash 2025 66% 61 64%

James Cameron's trilogy runs a combined 9 hours 12 minutes across all three films — enough to fill most of a Cape Town or Buenos Aires sector on its own. Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña anchor all three as Jake Sully and Neytiri. Critic scores have trended downward with each sequel, but the original's 82% and the visual scale across all three make this one of the more complete franchise offerings in KLM's August lineup.

Sci-Fi Rankings — August 2026

Rank Title Year Runtime RT Metacritic Combined
1 Alien 1979 1h 57m 93% 89 91%
2 Blade Runner 1982 1h 57m 89% 84 87%
3 Project Hail Mary 2026 2h 36m 94% 77 86%
4 Dune: Part Two 2024 2h 46m 92% 79 86%
5 Blade Runner 2049 2017 2h 44m 88% 81 85%
6 Avatar 2009 2h 42m 81% 83 82%
7 Ad Astra 2019 2h 03m 83% 80 82%
8 Edge of Tomorrow 2014 1h 54m 91% 71 81%
9 Mickey 17 2025 2h 17m 78% 72 75%
10 Elio 2025 1h 38m 83% 66 75%
11 Alien: Romulus 2024 1h 59m 80% 64 72%
12 Avatar: The Way of Water 2022 3h 13m 76% 67 72%
13 Tenet 2020 2h 30m 70% 69 70%
14 Pacific Rim 2013 2h 11m 72% 65 69%
15 Kong: Skull Island 2017 1h 58m 75% 62 69%
16 Godzilla vs. Kong 2021 1h 53m 75% 59 67%
17 The Creator 2023 2h 14m 67% 63 65%
18 Avatar: Fire and Ash 2025 3h 17m 66% 61 64%
19 Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire 2024 1h 55m 54% 47 51%
20 Tron: Ares 2025 1h 59m 52% 48 50%
21 TRON: Legacy 2010 2h 05m 51% 49 50%
22 Dune 2021 2h 36m 36% 41 39%

Scores reflect critical consensus only. Audience scores and KLM availability verified as of 21 July 2026.

→ Filter all KLM sci-fi films by score on inflight.guide

Sci-Fi Viewing Tip

KLM's 787-10 carries the largest seatback screens in the fleet, which matters most for the visually dense titles on this list — Blade Runner 2049 and the Avatar trilogy were both built for scale, and a bigger screen does noticeably more work for them than for a dialogue-driven film like Ad Astra. Check your aircraft type before boarding at klm.com's route finder; AMS–JFK, AMS–LAX, and AMS–NRT all commonly operate 787-10 equipment.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Project Hail Mary on KLM in August 2026? Yes — Project Hail Mary (2026), directed by Phil Lord and starring Ryan Gosling and Sandra Hüller, is available on KLM's August 2026 inflight entertainment with a combined critic score of 86% (RT: 94%, Metacritic: 77).

Is Tenet new to KLM this month? Yes — Christopher Nolan's Tenet (2020) is one of the fresh arrivals to KLM's August 2026 catalog, joining Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 as the sci-fi lineup's most formally ambitious, high-concept entries.

Does KLM have all three Avatar films in August 2026? Yes — Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Avatar: Fire and Ash are all available on KLM's August 2026 IFE catalog simultaneously.

Does KLM have sci-fi movies available on all flights? KLM's full sci-fi catalog is available on long-haul widebody flights (Boeing 787 and 777 routes) with individual seatback screens. Short-haul European flights on the A321neo carry a smaller personal-device library, so availability varies by aircraft.

How often does KLM's sci-fi selection change? Monthly. This article reflects August 2026's selection. New titles join at the start of each month and some leave. Visit inflight.guide for current availability.

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